Psychology

Burrhus Frederic Skinner(1904  1990)
Burrhus Frederic Skinnerwas an American psychologist born on March 20, 1904 inSusquehanna, Pennsylvania. He finished his Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature at Hamilton College in New York and received his PhD in Harvard University. He taught at theUniversity of Minnesotaat Minneapolis. He served as Chair of the Psychology Department atIndiana University from 1946 to 1947. He then returned to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his career.

B.F. Skinners Contribution to Psychology
Three of the most important perspectives in psychology are the behaviorist, cognitive, and biological perspectives (Rowland, 1981).  The study of learning  as much as any area in psychology  involves all three of these perspectives. However, much of the early works on learning, particularly conditioning, were done from a behaviorist perspective.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner, popularly known as B.F. Skinner, invented the operant conditioning chamber to observe and measure behavior of nonhuman organisms such as rats and pigeons in relation to their environment. Researchers who employed this method wanted to study how these organisms learn an association between stimuli and responses in keeping with the behaviorist dictum that behavior is better understood in terms of external causes than mental ones (Rowland, 1981).

The Behaviorist Approach
Behaviorist approach emphasizes the importance of environmental, or situational, determinants of behavior. This approach presents behavior as the result of a continuous interaction between personal and environmental variables. It also argues that environmental conditions shape behavior through learning. Conversely, a persons behavior shapes the environment. Behaviorist perspective maintains that persons and situations have influence on each other. Also, in order to predict behavior, one needs to learn how the characteristics of the individual interact with a situation (Bandura, 1986 as cited in Clayton, 2008).

One of the key assumptions of the behaviorist approach to learning is that simple associations of the classical or instrumental kind are the building blocks of all learning. Going by this assumption, something as complex as acquiring a language is a matter of learning many associations (Staats, 1968 as cited in Clayton, 2008). Another important key assumption in the behaviorist approach, as pointed out by B.F. Skinner, is that the basic laws of learning operate regardless of who is learning and what is being learned.

Instrumental Conditioning
B.F. Skinner was a pioneer in the study of instrumental or operant conditioning. He was responsible for the changes in how researchers conceptualize and study instrumental conditioning. His method of assessing responses using instrumental conditioning was simpler than E.L. Thorndikes method in which Skinner only examined one response at a time (Schlinger, 2009).

In instrumental conditioning, there are certain responses which are learned because they affect the environment. In addition to classical conditioning in which organisms react to a certain stimuli, instrumental conditioning studies how an organism learns to react or behave in specific manners in order to produce certain changes in its environment (Schlinger, 2009).

In Skinners experiments, typically a rat or pigeon inside a Skinner box or operant chamber learns how to make a response, by pressing a lever for instance, to obtain reinforcement such as food pellet. After learning that pressing the bar produces food pellets, the rat or pigeon would learn that pressing the bar reinforces food. If the food reinforcement is discontinued after the rat or pigeon presses the bar, the rate of bar pressing diminishes. The instrumental response will then undergo extinction (Ribes-Iesta, 2003). Reinforcement refers to the process whereby the delivery of an appetitive stimulus or the removal of an aversive stimulus increases the probability of a behavior (Ribes-Iesta, 2003).

One should note that reinforcement is either positive or negative. Positive reinforcement refers to a behavior that produces an appetitive stimulus (Ribes-Iesta, 2003), such as when a rat or a pigeon learns to press a lever in order to obtain food. Negative reinforcement on the other hand refers to a behavior that prevents an aversive stimulus (Ribes-Iesta, 2003), such as when a rat or a pigeon learns to press a lever in order to stop experiencing electrical shock.

Punishment is the opposite of reinforcement, in contrast to the common misconception that it is a kind of negative reinforcement. Punishment refers to the process by which delivery of an aversive stimulus or removal of an appetitive stimulus decreases the probability of a certain behavior (Ribes-Iesta, 2003). Positive and negative contingency between the behavior and punishment also exist such as pressing a lever terminates electrical shock or pressing a lever stops food delivery.

Bearing in mind these concepts, instrumental conditioning has many applications  ranging from teaching your pets to learn some tricks to child rearing and other day-to-day human applications  focusing on the relationship of response and its reinforcer. 

Verbal Behavior
In 2007, B.F. Skinners book, Verbal Behavior, marked its 50th year. This book, according to Skinner, was his most important work (Schlinger, 2008). Verbal Behavior is an interpretation of the behavior of the speaker, given the contingencies of reinforcement around his or her environment. It uses principles drawn from the experimental analysis of nonverbal behavior (Skinner, 1987 as cited in Schlinger, 2008). The book became controversial following reviews upon its publication, including a review done by Noams Chomsky in which he faulted Skinner for extrapolating principles from the experimental laboratory with nonhumans to human language, a domain that was in his view taboo for a behavioristic analysis (Schlinger, 2008, p. 331).

Other Contributions
B.F. Skinner discovered and developed therate of responseas a dependent variable in psychological research. He is behind the invention of thecumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his work on schedules ofreinforcement (Alexandra, 2007). Skinner, according to Schlinger (2008), was arguably the most eminent scientist in the field of behaviorist perspective (p. 336).

Carl Rogers (1902  2002)
Carl Rogers was born in Oak Park, Illinois, Chicago. His parents, Walter and Julia Rogers, were Protestant Midwesterners. Rogers had few real friends outside the family. He was a sensitive child, easily hurt by the familys teasing. The expression of feelings was not encouraged in the Rogers family, so Carls emotions and imagination were often expressed in creative school papers and childhood games (Kirschenbaum, 2004).

He enrolled in the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he switched majors from agriculture to history. Following an international Christian youth conference in China, he applied to the liberal Union Theological Seminary in New York City (Kirschenbaum, 2004).

Career development
In addition to studying at the Seminary, Rogers also took psychology courses at the Teachers College of Columbia University, where he later on pursued his doctorate degree in clinical psychology. At the Columbia University, he was exposed to the testing and measurement movement of E. L. Thorndike. He also had his clinical fellowship at the Institute for Child Guidance, where he encountered Freudian thought, lectures by Alfred Adler, Rorschach testing, and other psychoanalytic and psychiatric approaches. Seeking to integrate psychological measurement with clinical practice, Rogers came to appreciate the importance of understanding clients inner world while also objectively assessing the outcomes of their treatment (Kirschenbaum, 2004, p. 116).

Rogers (1931a) doctoral dissertation, in which he created a test for measuring personality adjustment in children 9 to 13 years of age, combined both subjective and objective measures, from childrens self-reports of their feelings to assessment by outside observers. On the basis of his dissertation, Rogers (1931b) came up with his Personality Adjustment Inventory, published by the YMCAs press, and sold half a million copies in 50 years.

The Nondirective Approach
Rogers book, Counseling and Psychotherapy Newer Concepts in Practice (1942), challenges the field of psychotherapy to its core (Kirschenbaum, 2004). Although he was not the first author to use the term client for the recipient of therapy, Rogers popularized the term. He emphasized that all people could be helped by counseling and that professionals from many fields could be trained to provide this help with the use of counseling methods. His nondirective method or the client-centered therapy was based on a core hypothesis about human growth and personality change.

His hypothesis is that the client or an individual has an innate capacity to understand those aspects of his or her life and of him- or herself which are causing him or her pains, and the capacity to move toward growth and positive change to bring a greater degree of internal comfort. An organism may seek to fulfill its potential within its biological constraints, but Rogers saw that these biological constraints or needs are inferior or subservient to the organisms motivation to self-actualization. Thus, the therapists function is to facilitate a psychological atmosphere that will allow this innate capacity and strength to become an active agent of change (Rogers , 1950, p. 443).

It can be noted that Rogers method of creating the therapeutic psychological atmosphere is radically different compared to the psychoanalytic and behaviorist therapies. Rogers nondirective approach avoided questions, interpretation, suggestions, advice, or other directive techniques. Rather, the therapists role is to act as a sounding board, carefully listening to the client and accepting the client for who he or she is  no matter how confused or antisocial that might be at the moment. The therapist is also responsible for skillfully reflecting back the clients feelings, determining the problem, and devising a course of remedial action (Kirschenbaum, 2004).

Also, Rogers nondirective method blurs the boundary between counseling and psychotherapy (Kirschenbaum, 2004, p. 123). Before Rogers introduced this method, counseling applied to little problems of adjustment or career guidance, whereas psychotherapy was employed for more tough psychological problems. Rogers suggested that the same nondirective method of helping could be applied to all problems along the adjustment continuum in counseling and psychotherapy.

The Humanistic Approach
During the first half of the 20th century, the psychoanalytic and behaviorist approaches were dominant in psychology. However, a group of psychologists in 1962 founded the Association of Humanistic Psychology as an alternative to the other kinds of approaches. Humanists believed in the dictum Man is the measure of all things (American Psychological Association APA, 1957).

To summarize its mission
The experiencing person is of primary interest.
Human choice, creativity, and self-actualization are the preferred topics of investigation.
Meaningfulness must precede objectivity in the selection of research problem.
Ultimate value is placed on the dignity of the person.

The central concept in Rogers theory is the self, or self-concept. The self, or real self as he often calls it, includes the awareness of who am I and what I can do. This will lead to the perceived self. The perceived self influences both the persons perception of his world and his or her behavior. However, self-concept or perceived self does not always necessarily reflect reality (Rogers, 1950).

Further, Rogers suggested that each one evaluates his or her experience according to his or her perceived self. Thus, people will naturally want their behavior to be consistent with their self concept and ignore experiences and feelings that are threatening to their self concept. In Rogers view, the more experiences a person denies because they are inconsistent to his or her self concept, the more he is predisposed to maladjustment. People whose perceived self is too inconsistent to his real self will experience severe anxiety or other forms of emotional disturbance. In contrast, a well-adjusted person, whose perceived self and real self are consistent with each other, is not rigid and is even open to new experiences and ideas (Rogers, 1950).

Rogers most importantly believe that people are likely to function more effectively if they are brought up with unconditional positive regard. People will function and realize their ultimate potential if given the sense that they are valued by their parents, friends, and others even when their real self are far less than their ideal self (Rowland, 1981).

Lessons
In many ways, every person is just like any other person. In psychology, each and every one of us undergoes the same processes explained by biological or physiological processes. Our development, consciousness, perception, learning, and emotions are basically the same for all of us when faced with certain situations. However, all of us also have our own distinct patterns of development, consciousness, perception, learning, and emotion. This, I would point out, is the essence of psychology by which in trying to understand the basic commonalities in human thinking and behaviors, we come to understand our own uniqueness and in turn, understand others.

Instrumental conditioning is important in trying to answer the question To what degree are our developments, consciousness, perceptions, learning, and emotions free and how are they controlled On the other hand, humanist perspective helps in making a patient not feel that he or she is actually a patient, but instead, an equal partner of a researcher or a therapist, and that actually can become an active agent in his or her own betterment rather than just a sick patient waiting for prescriptions. Humanist approach  though widely criticized because of its methods  in my opinion is one of the best approaches in psychology when in comes to understanding the peculiarities of human beings.