Who Is B. F. Skinner? Age, Biography and Wiki
B. F. Skinner, born on March 20, 1904, was a prominent psychologist known for his pioneering work in behaviorism and operant conditioning. He passed away on August 18, 1990, but his theories and methodologies remain influential in psychology and education. Born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, Skinner's work included notable experiments with rats and pigeons that led to breakthroughs in understanding human behavior.
| Occupation | Psychologists |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | March 20, 1904 |
| Age | 86 Years |
| Birth Place | Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Pisces |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 18 August, 1990 |
| Died Place | Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Popularity
B. F. Skinner's Popularity over time
Height, Weight & Measurements
Though B. F. Skinner was not known for his physical attributes, his average height was approximately 5 feet 8 inches (173 cm) and his weight fluctuated around 160 pounds (73 kg) during his lifetime. Today, his legacy can be measured not in physical stats but in the profound impact he had on psychology.
One of Skinner's experiments examined the formation of superstition in one of his favorite experimental animals, the pigeon.
Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that th
ey subsequently continued to perform these same actions.
"One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly.
Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return."Skinner suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals", and that this experiment shed light on human
behavior: "The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition.
The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples.
A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point.
These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing—or, more strictly speaking, did something else."Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded
.
Subsequent research (e.g. Staddon and Simmelhag, 1971), while finding similar behavior, failed to find support for Skinner's "adventitious reinforcement" explanation for it.
By looking at the timing of different behaviors within the interval, Staddon and Simmelhag were able to distinguish two classes of behavior: the terminal response, which occurred in anticipation of food, and interim responses, that occurred earlier in the interfood interval and were rarely contiguous with food.
Terminal responses seem to reflect classical (as opposed to operant) conditioning, rather than adventitious reinforcement, guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and Jenkins in their "autoshaping" procedures.
The causation of interim activities (such as the schedule-induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats) also cannot be traced to adventitious reinforcement and its details are still obscure (Staddon, 1977).
Family, Dating & Relationship Status
B. F. Skinner was married to Yvonne Blue in 1936, and together they had two daughters: Julie and Deborah. His family life is often described as supportive, as his wife collaborated with him on various projects. Though there are no reports of controversies related to his personal relationships, it is important to note that Skinner was dedicated to his family and often integrated aspects of his home life into his professional experiences.
Skinner's closest friend as a young boy was Raphael Miller, whom he called Doc because his father was a doctor. Doc and Skinner became friends due to their parents' religiousness and both had an interest in contraptions and gadgets.
They had set up a telegraph line between their houses to send messages to each other, although they had to call each other on the telephone due to the confusing messages sent back and forth. During one summer, Doc and Skinner started an elderberry business to gather berries and sell them door to door.
They found that when they picked the ripe berries, the unripe ones came off the branches too, so they built a device that was able to separate them. The device was a bent piece of metal to form a trough.
They would pour water down the trough into a bucket, and the ripe berries would sink into the bucket and the unripe ones would be pushed over the edge to be thrown away.
Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death, B. F. Skinner's estimated net worth was around $5 million. His income came primarily from his work as an author, researcher, and professor. Skinner was also known for his lectures and seminars, which contributed significantly to his financial status. Even into 2025, his theories and published works continue to generate income through royalties and adaptations for educational purposes.
Not only useful in teaching explicit skills, machines could also promote the development of a repertoire of behaviors that Skinner called self-management. Effective self-management means attending to stimuli appropriate to a task, avoiding distractions, reducing the opportunity of reward for competing behaviors, and so on.
For example, machines encourage students to pay attention before receiving a reward. Skinner contrasted this with the common classroom practice of initially capturing students' attention (e.g., with a lively video) and delivering a reward (e.g., entertainment) before the students have actually performed any relevant behavior.
This practice fails to reinforce correct behavior and actually counters the development of self-management.
Career, Business and Investments
Skinner's career spanned several decades, during which he published over 20 books and numerous articles. His most influential work, "The Behavior of Organisms," established him as the father of operant conditioning. He created the Skinner Box, a controlled environment for studying behavior, which remains a fundamental tool in psychological research. Posthumously, various educational institutions and businesses have adopted his methodologies for behavior modification and analysis.
Skinner referred to his approach to the study of behavior as radical behaviorism, which originated in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested experimentally.
This philosophy of behavioral science assumes that behavior is a consequence of environmental histories of reinforcement (see applied behavior analysis). In his words: "The position can be stated as follows: what is felt or introspectively observed is not some nonphysical world of consciousness, mind, or mental life but the observer's own body.
This does not mean, as I shall show later, that introspection is a kind of psychological research, nor does it mean (and this is the heart of the argument) that what are felt or introspectively observed are the causes of the behavior. An organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is out of reach of introspection.
At the moment we must content ourselves, as the methodological behaviorist insists, with a person's genetic and environment histories. What are introspectively observed are certain collateral products of those histories.... In this way we repair the major damage wrought by mentalism.
When what a person does [is] attributed to what is going on inside him, investigation is brought to an end. Why explain the explanation? For twenty-five hundred years people have been preoccupied with feelings and mental life, but only recently has any interest been shown in a more precise analysis of the role of the environment.
Ignorance of that role led in the first place to mental fictions, and it has been perpetuated by the explanatory practices to which they gave rise."
Social Network
While B. F. Skinner did not have social media profiles, he was well connected within academic and psychological circles during his time. His influence extended to prominent psychologists and educators of the 20th century. In 2025, discussions of his work are vibrant on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and academic forums, where professionals pay tribute to his lasting impact on behavioral science.
Skinner's answer to the first question was very much like Darwin's answer to the question of the origin of a 'new' bodily structure, namely, variation and selection.
Similarly, the behavior of an individual varies from moment to moment; a variation that is followed by reinforcement is strengthened and becomes prominent in that individual's behavioral repertoire. Shaping was Skinner's term for the gradual modification of behavior by the reinforcement of desired variations.
Skinner believed that 'superstitious' behavior can arise when a response happens to be followed by reinforcement to which it is actually unrelated.
Education
Skinner earned his Bachelor of Arts in English from Hamilton College and later obtained his Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard University in 1931. His education laid the groundwork for his revolutionary theories in psychology and has inspired countless students and professionals in the field.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.
