Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 15. Skinner: Behavioral
Analysis© The McGraw−Hill^473
Companies, 2009cause the person avoids the aversive stimulation associated with thoughts of inade-
quacy.
Another inappropriate behavior pattern is self-punishment, exemplified either
by people directly punishing themselves or by arranging environmental variables so
that they are punished by others.
Psychotherapy
Skinner (1987b) believed that psychotherapy is one of the chief obstacles blocking
psychology’s attempt to become scientific. Nevertheless, his ideas on shaping be-
havior not only have had a significant impact on behavior therapy but also extend to
a description of how all therapy works.
Regardless of theoretical orientation, a therapist is a controlling agent. Not all
controlling agents, however, are harmful, and a patient must learn to discriminate be-
tween punitive authority figures (both past and present) and a permissive therapist.
Whereas a patient’s parents may have been cold and rejecting, the therapist is warm
and accepting; whereas the patient’s parents were critical and judgmental, the thera-
pist is supportive and empathic.
The shaping of any behavior takes time, and therapeutic behavior is no excep-
tion. A therapist molds desirable behavior by reinforcing slightly improved changes
in behavior. The nonbehavioral therapist may affect behavior accidentally or un-
knowingly, whereas the behavioral therapist attends specifically to this technique
(Skinner, 1953).
Traditional therapists generally explain behaviors by resorting to a variety of
fictional constructs such as defense mechanisms, striving for superiority, collective
unconscious, and self-actualization needs. Skinner, however, believed that these and
other fictional constructs are behaviors that can be accounted for by learning princi-
ples. No therapeutic purpose is served by postulating explanatory fictions and inter-
nal causes. Skinner reasoned that if behavior is shaped by inner causes, then some
force must be responsible for the inner cause. Traditional theories must ultimately
account for this cause, but behavior therapy merely skips it and deals directly with
the history of the organism; and it is this history that, in the final analysis, is re-
sponsible for any hypothetical internal cause.
Behavior therapists have developed a variety of techniques over the years,
most based on operant conditioning (Skinner, 1988), although some are built around
the principles of classical (respondent) conditioning. In general, these therapists play
an active role in the treatment process, pointing out the positive consequences of cer-
tain behaviors and the aversive effects of others and also suggesting behaviors that,
over the long haul, will result in positive reinforcement.
Related Research
In its early history, operant conditioning was used mostly in studies with animals,
then it was applied to simple human responses; but more recently, Skinner’s ideas
have been used in a multitude of studies dealing with complex human behaviors.
Chapter 15 Skinner: Behavioral Analysis 467