Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 15. Skinner: Behavioral
Analysis(^454) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
rejects authority—even its own authority. Just because some well-respected person,
such as Einstein, says something, that in itself does not make the statement true. It
must stand the test of empirical observation. Recall from Chapter 1 our discussion
of Aristotle’s belief that bodies of different masses fall at different rates. That was ac-
cepted as fact for roughly 1,000 years simply because Aristotle said it. Galileo, how-
ever, tested that idea scientifically and discovered that it was not true. Second, sci-
ence demands intellectual honesty,and it requires scientists to accept facts even
when these facts are opposed to their wishes and desires. This attitude does not mean
that scientists are inherently more honest than other people. They are not. Scientists
have been known to fabricate data and misrepresent their findings. However, as a dis-
cipline, science puts a high premium on intellectual honesty simply because the right
answer ultimately will be discovered. Scientists have no choice but to report results
that go against their hopes and hypotheses, because if they do not, someone else will,
and the new results will show that the scientists who misrepresented data were
wrong. “Where right and wrong are not so easily or so quickly established, there is
no similar pressure” (Skinner, 1953, p. 13): Finally, science suspends judgmentuntil
clear trends emerge. Nothing is more damaging to a scientist’s reputation than to
rush into print findings that are insufficiently verified and tested. If a scientist’s re-
port of findings does not hold up to replication, then that scientist appears foolish at
best and dishonest at worst. A healthy skepticism and willingness to suspend judg-
ment are therefore essential to being a scientist.
A third characteristic of science is a search for order and lawful relationships.
All science begins with observation of single events and then attempts to infer gen-
eral principles and laws from those events. In short, the scientific method consists of
prediction, control, and description. A scientist makes observations guided by theo-
retical assumptions, develops hypotheses (makes predictions), tests these hypotheses
through controlled experimentation, describes honestly and accurately the results,
and finally modifies the theory to match the actual empirical results. This circular re-
lationship between theory and research was discussed in Chapter 1.
Skinner (1953) believed that prediction, control, and description are possible
in scientific behaviorism because behavior is both determined and lawful. Human
behavior, like that of physical and biological entities, is neither whimsical nor the
outcome of free will. It is determined by certain identifiable variables and follows
definite lawful principles, which potentially can be known. Behavior that appears to
be capricious or individually determined is simply beyond scientists’ present capac-
ity to predict or control. But, hypothetically, the conditions under which it occurs can
be discovered, thus permitting both prediction and control as well as description.
Skinner devoted much of his time to trying to discover these conditions, using a pro-
cedure he called operant conditioning.
Conditioning
Skinner (1953) recognized two kinds of conditioning, classical and operant. With
classical conditioning (which Skinner called respondent conditioning), a response is
drawn out of the organism by a specific, identifiable stimulus. With operant condi-
tioning (also called Skinnerian conditioning), a behavior is made more likely to recur
when it is immediately reinforced.
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