B. F. Skinner

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Why was Skinner’s work considered radical?

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B. F. Skinner's work was considered radical because it shifted focus from abstract psychological concepts like thoughts and feelings to observable behavior and the influence of the environment. Unlike contemporaries such as Freud and Jung, who emphasized the subconscious and archetypes, Skinner emphasized measurable factors, proposing that behavior is shaped by environmental stimuli. This approach, called radical behaviorism, underscored the importance of the physical environment in determining behavior, making his theories a significant departure from previous psychological models.

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B. F. Skinner’s work was considered so radical because his ideas departed from the theories of previous psychologists.

In the first half of the 1900s, influential psychologists centered their work on a person’s feelings and thoughts. The Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud focused on dreams and the subconscious. At around the same time, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was looking into the collective unconscious and reoccurring archetypes.

At about the halfway point of the twentieth century, Skinner put forward ideas that moved away from the abstract considerations of the mind. Intent on making psychology quantifiable, Skinner sought to show how a person’s tangible environment shapes their psychological state. One of his experiments involved rats. If a rat pushed a green button, they could get food. If the same rat pushed a red button, they might get shocked. Thus, the rat’s environment teaches them to use the green button.

Skinner took the results of his experiments and applied them to humans. For Skinner, feelings and emotions were beside the point. What’s important is a person's environment. The stress on a person’s physical surroundings makes it possible to label Skinner’s work radical. In fact, his theory became known as radical behaviorism.

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