Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 15. Skinner: Behavioral
Analysis© The McGraw−Hill^469
Companies, 2009through punishment. Behavior that has aversive consequences has a tendency to be
ignored or not thought about. A child repeatedly and severely punished for sexual
play may both suppressthe sexual behavior and repressany thoughts or memories
of such activity. Eventually, the child may deny that the sexual activity took place.
Such denialavoids the aversive aspects connected with thoughts of punishment and
is thus a negative reinforcer. In other words, the child is rewarded for not thinking
about certain sexual behaviors.
An example of not thinking about aversive stimuli is a child who behaves in
hateful ways toward her mother. In doing so, she will also exhibit some less antago-
nistic behaviors. If the loathsome behavior is punished, it will become suppressed
and replaced by the more positive behaviors. Eventually the child will be rewarded
for gestures of love, which will then increase in frequency. After a time, her behav-
ior becomes more and more positive, and it may even resemble what Freud
(1926/1959a) called “reactive love.” The child no longer has any thoughts of hatred
toward her mother and behaves in an exceedingly loving and subservient manner.
Dreams
Skinner (1953) saw dreams as covert and symbolic forms of behavior that are sub-
ject to the same contingencies of reinforcement as other behaviors are. He agreed
with Freud that dreams may serve a wish-fulfillment purpose. Dream behavior is re-
inforcing when repressed sexual or aggressive stimuli are allowed expression. To act
out sexual fantasies and to actually inflict damage on an enemy are two behaviors
likely to be associated with punishment. Even to covertly think about these behav-
iors may have punitive effects, but in dreams these behaviors may be expressed sym-
bolically and without any accompanying punishment.
Social Behavior
Groups do not behave; only individuals do. Individuals establish groups because
they have been rewarded for doing so. For example, individuals form clans so that
they might be protected against animals, natural disasters, or enemy tribes. Individ-
uals also form governments, establish churches, or become part of an unruly crowd
because they are reinforced for that behavior.
Membership in a social group is not always reinforcing; yet, for at least three
reasons, some people remain a member of a group. First, people may remain in a
group that abuses them because some group members are reinforcing them; second,
some people, especially children, may not possess the means to leave the group;
and third, reinforcement may occur on an intermittent schedule so that the abuse suf-
fered by an individual is intermingled with occasional reward. If the positive
reinforcement is strong enough, its effects will be more powerful than those of
punishment.
Control of Human Behavior
Ultimately, an individual’s behavior is controlled by environmental contingencies.
Those contingencies may have been erected by society, by another individual, or by
oneself; but the environment, not free will, is responsible for behavior.
Chapter 15 Skinner: Behavioral Analysis 463