PERSONALITY DISORDERS AND INTERVENTIONS

ASSIGNMENT

TOPIC: SKINNER’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY

BATCH: 2023-2025

Submitted by: -
NAME: - Yuktanjali Singh
ROLL NO.: - 234PBP012
M.Sc. (Hons.) Applied Psychology 2nd year

SUBMITTED TO: - Mrs. Neha Sharma

 SKINNER’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY

Behaviorism, also called behavioural learning theory, is a psychological theoretical perspective

that highlights the importance of learning and observable behaviours in comprehending human
and animal actions.
Behaviorism is a learning theory that suggests behaviours are acquired through conditioned
interactions with the surroundings. Therefore, behaviour is just a reaction to external stimuli.The
behaviourist theory, being only concerned with observable stimulus-response, focuses solely on
behaviours that can be observed and studied in a systematic way.
To behaviourists, personality is merely an accumulation of learned responses to stimuli, sets of
overt behaviours, or habit systems. Personality refers only to what can be objectively observed
and manipulated.

The key figure in the behaviourist approach is John B. Watson, who is also known as the father
of behaviourism. His behaviourist psychology focused on overt behaviour, on the experimental
research participants’ responses to external stimuli. His approach was based on careful
experimental research and the precise quantification of stimulus and response variables hence
became immensely popular in the 1920s and remained a dominant force in psychology for more
than 60 years. Watson believed that whatever process takes place inside an organism from the
moment they receive a stimulus and till the time they perform a behaviour, has no meaning or
any value for science because no experiment can be done on them. Hence we do not find any
mention of needs, drives, motives, defence mechanisms in Watson’s behaviourism, the internal
processes other thinkers have mentioned in their work.
Another key figure in behaviourism is B. F. Skinner, who introduced his concepts from the
groundwork laid by Watson.
He agreed with the assumption of methodological behaviourism that the goal of psychology
should be to predict and control behaviour. His sole concern was with overt behaviour and the
external stimuli that shape it. Skinner attempted to know more about the personality through
experiments on rats and pigeons rather than on clinical patients, however his ideas have proved
to be immensely useful in clinical settings through the application of modern behaviour
techniques.

Let’s get to know more about Skinner and his understanding of personality.
Early life:

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20, 1904, to a lawyer father and intelligent
housewife mother in a small Pennsylvania town of Susquehanna. He had a brother who died at
the age of 16. His parents were hardworking people who instilled in their children clear rules of
proper behaviour. “I was taught to fear God, the police, and what people will think” (Skinner,
1967, p. 407).
His mother was a tough disciplinarian who never wavered. She used the command "tut tut" as a
means of control. Skinner's grandma too pointed to the red-hot embers in the parlour stove to
make sure he knew the consequences of going to Hell. Skinner's father taught his son about the
consequences of being a criminal, which helped to instil moral values in him. He used to take
Skinner to a lecture about life in a notorious state prison in New York to show him around the
county jail. There are instances that made it clear that Skinner's adult behaviours were
determined by the rewards and punishments (the “reinforcements”) he had received as a child.
Thus, his system of psychology and his view of people as “complex system[s] behaving in lawful
ways” reflected his own early life experiences (Skinner, 1971, p. 202).
Skinner majored in English at Hamilton College and after graduation was expected to become a
novelist. Encouraged by favourable comment on his work from the eminent poet Robert Frost,
Skinner built a study in the attic of his parents’ home in Scranton, Pennsylvania and used to
write. However, it didn't work out and Skinner was 22 years old and apparently a failure at the
only thing he wanted to do.
He decided that since writing had failed him (rather than the other way around), he would study
human behaviour by the methods of science rather than the methods of fiction. He read books by
Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson, and chose to become a behaviourist. Thus, his self-image and
identity became secure.
Skinner entered Harvard University in 1928 to study psychology and secured his Ph.D in the
subject.
Skinner remained at Harvard until 1936 on postdoctoral grants. Before coming back to Harvard
in 1947, he had taught at Indiana University and the University of Minnesota. Skinner went
through a depressive episode in his 40s, which he overcame by going back to his abandoned
identity as a writer.
B.F. Skinner was one the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. Skinner pioneered
the science of behaviourism, discovered the power of positive reinforcement in education,
invented the Skinner Box, as well as designed the foremost psychological experiments that gave
predictable and quantitatively repeatable outcomes.
Let's discuss behaviour and personality through Skinner’s lens.

RADICAL BEHAVIOURISM:
B.F. Skinner's theory was called ‘Radical behaviourism’ which endorsed the idea of
methodological behaviourism that psychology's aim should be to forecast and regulate behaviour.
This approach expands upon earlier forms of behaviourism by incorporating internal events such
as thoughts, emotions, and feelings as part of the behavioural process. Unlike the previous
concepts, skinner accepted the occurrence of internal events and that they do affect behaviour of
an individual.
Skinner put forward the concept of Operant conditioning model which suggests that behaviour is
shaped by its consequences, such as rewards or punishments. Skinner argued that personality is a
product of an individual's interactions with their environment and that behaviour is controlled by
external factors, rather than internal traits or dispositions. This means that personality develops
over the whole life span and people’s responses can change as they encounter new situations. The
fundamental idea is that behaviour can be controlled by its consequences i.e by what follows the
behaviour. Skinner believed that an animal or a human could be trained to perform virtually any
act and that the type of reinforcement that followed the behaviour.
Skinner is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning, but his work was based on
Thorndike’s law of effects which stated that any behaviour that is followed by pleasant
consequences is likely to be repeated, and behaviour followed by unpleasant consequences is less
likely to be repeated. Skinner introduced a new term into the Law of Effect – Reinforcement i.e
the nature of the outcome of the behaviour decides the occurrence of the behaviour. Behaviour
that is reinforced tends to be repeated i.e. gets strengthened and behaviour that is not reinforced
tends to die out or be extinguished i.e. gets weakened.
Reinforcement is any event that strengthens or increases the likelihood of a behaviour. There are
two types of reinforcement: positive and negative, i.e adding or removing an unpleasant stimulus
respectively. It mainly aims at increasing the likelihood of occurrence of the behaviour.
The opposite of this was Punishment. Punishment is any event that weakens or decreases the
likelihood of a behaviour. There are two types of punishment: positive and negative i.e adding or
removing an unpleasant stimulus respectively as a response to the behaviour. It mainly aims at
decreasing the likelihood of occurrence of the behaviour.
For example, in younger years, if one tries smoking at school, and the chief consequence in that
case was that they got in with the crowd you always wanted to hang out with, they would have
been positively reinforced (i.e., rewarded) and would be likely to repeat the behaviour. On the
other hand, if the person gets caught and the school decides to involve their parents and suspend
them, they are less likely to exhibit the same behaviour again.
THE SKINNER BOX (1948):
Skinner studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments using animals, which he placed
in a “skinner box” which was similar to Thorndike’s puzzle box.
Skinner box was a device used to objectively record an animal’s behaviour in a compressed time
frame. An animal can be rewarded or punished for engaging in certain behaviours, such as lever
pressing for the rats.
When the rat pushes the button or lever, the box is able to deliver food pellets which work as a
positive reinforcement of the behaviour. In the opposite case, a punishment such as noise, or a
token conditioner such as a light was correlated with either the positive reinforcement or
punishment.
The design of the Skinner box intended to keep an animal from experiencing other stimuli hence
allowing researchers to carefully study behaviour in a very controlled environment.
Three types of responses were identified through this set up which can follow the behaviour
exhibited.
1. Neutral operants: Responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the
probability of a behaviour being repeated.
2. Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a
behaviour being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.
3. Punishers: Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behaviour
being repeated. Punishment weakens behaviour.
EXPERIMENTS WITH PIGEONS:
Skinner conducted several experiments with pigeons too in order to demonstrate the principles of
operant conditioning. One of the most famous of these experiments is often colloquially referred
to as “superstitions of pigeons”. This experiment was conducted to explore the effects of
noncontingent reinforcement on pigeons which led to some fascinating observations that can be
likened to human superstitions. Non contingent reinforcements are the ones that are given at set
times or intervals, regardless of what the individual is doing. In the experiment, pigeons were
bought in a state of hunger and then were placed in a cage with a food hopper that could be
presented for five seconds at a time. Here, instead of the food being given as a result of any
specific action by the pigeon, it was presented at regular intervals, regardless of the pigeon’s
behaviour.
Over time, it was observed that the pigeons began to associate whatever random action they were
doing when food was delivered with the delivery of the food itself. And this led the pigeons to
repeat these actions, believing that their behaviour was causing the food to appear. These
behaviours did not appear until the food hopper was introduced and presented periodically.
This experiment demonstrates that behaviours can be conditioned even without a direct
cause-and-effect relationship. Just like humans, pigeons can develop “superstitious” behaviours
based on coincidental occurrences.

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENTS:

Behaviourists discovered that different patterns or schedules of reinforcement had different

effects on the speed of learning and extinction.
Extinction refers to when a previously reinforced behaviour is no longer reinforced (with a
favourable outcome) and thus decreases in frequency.
For example, if a vending machine that used to give snacks suddenly stops dispensing them,
people will eventually stop using it. Or how long would someone continue to work for an
employer if they stopped paying them.
Ferster and Skinner (1957) devised different ways of delivering reinforcement and found that this
had effects on The Response Rate i.e the rate at which the rat pressed the lever (i.e., how hard the
rat worked) and The Extinction Rate i.e the rate at which lever pressing dies out (i.e., how soon
the rat gave up).

Skinner identified different patterns or schedules for delivering reinforcement, which affect how
often behaviours are reinforced:

1. Fixed-Ratio Schedule: Reinforcement is given after a fixed number of responses (e.g., a

worker receives a bonus after every ten sales).
2. Variable-Ratio Schedule: Reinforcement is given after a variable number of responses,
which makes behaviour more resistant to extinction (e.g., gambling, where rewards are
unpredictable).
3. Fixed-Interval Schedule: Reinforcement is provided after a fixed period of time (e.g., a
weekly paycheck).
4. Variable-Interval Schedule: Reinforcement is given after varying intervals of time (e.g.,
checking your email and occasionally receiving a message).
APPLICATIONS OF THE THEORY:

1. BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION THERAPY

There are many therapeutic techniques based on operant conditioning. The main principle
comprises changing environmental events that are related to a person’s behaviour. For
example, the reinforcement of desired behaviours and ignoring or punishing undesired
ones.
Positive reinforcements are given to the individual to increase the occurrence of a desired
behaviour.
Token economy is a system in which targeted behaviours are reinforced with tokens
(secondary reinforcers) and later exchanged for rewards (primary reinforcers).
EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS
Operant conditioning applies largely to issues of class and student management, rather
than to learning content. It is very relevant to shaping skill performance. A simple way to
shape behaviour is to provide feedback on learner performance, e.g., compliments,
approval, encouragement, and affirmation.
LEARNING PROCESS i.e learning the behaviour by consequence

CASE STUDY:
Sarah experienced intrusive, distressing thoughts about contamination. To manage these
thoughts, she engaged in compulsive hand washing rituals, washing her hands up to 30 times a
day. Her compulsions were time-consuming and significantly interfered with her daily
functioning and quality of life.
In order to reduce and eventually eliminate Sarah's obsessive thoughts and compulsive
behaviours, behaviour modification techniques, specifically Exposure and Response
Prevention (ERP) was implemented.
Goals were established to gradually reduce the frequency and intensity of her compulsions and
the distress associated with her obsessions.The therapist and Sarah created a hierarchy of
feared situations related to contamination. This hierarchy ranged from less anxiety-provoking
situations to more distressing ones.
Sarah was encouraged to confront these feared situations without engaging in her usual hand
washing rituals. The goal was to break the cycle of compulsive behaviour and help Sarah learn
that her feared outcomes (e.g., contamination) were less likely or less severe than she had
anticipated.
As Sarah’s symptoms improved, the therapy included booster sessions to reinforce her gains
and address any remaining or new challenges.
Strategies were developed to help Sarah manage potential relapses. This included identifying
triggers for obsessive thoughts and planning responses to prevent the return of compulsive
behaviours
This case study demonstrates the effectiveness of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) in
treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By systematically confronting feared situations
without performing compulsive behaviours, Sarah was able to reduce her symptoms and
improve her overall functioning. ERP, a form of behaviour modification therapy, provided
Sarah with practical strategies to manage and overcome her OCD.
REFERENCES:
1.Feist, J., & Feist, G. (2008). Theories of personality. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social
Sciences/Languages.
2. Woollard, J. (2010). Psychology for the Classroom: Behaviourism. Routledge.
3. Simply Psychology. (2024, February 2). Operant Conditioning in Psychology: B.F. Skinner
Theory. https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
4. Famous Scientists. (2018, August 15). B. F. Skinner - Biography, facts and pictures.