Skinner, Burrhus Frederic - Historical Context
Historical Context
Skinner's theory of operant conditioning did not spring from his mind alone. Several theorists were profoundly influential in laying a foundation for the work Skinner was to build on.
All behavioral theories owe some debt of gratitude to Ivan Pavlov for developing the principles of classical conditioning. Pavlov, who won the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work on digestion, was best known for his experiments on basic learning processes. While studying the secretion of stomach acids and salivation in dogs in response to eating various amounts of food, he discovered that even the mere sight of a person who normally fed the dogs could elicit an anticipation of food by the canines. In other words, the dogs were not only responding to the biological need to eat but also demonstrated that there was learning going on in the process of feeding. A neutral stimulus such as the...
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