Skinner arrived at his theories of operant conditioning from observations made on animals in various devices he invented himself. These devices, which came to be known as “Skinner Boxes,” were similar to Thorndike’s’ “puzzle boxes” but were often far more sophisticated. Each Skinner box was a small room containing a lever or button that could be pressed by an experimental subject. The animal was allowed into the box and given access to observe what happened if it pressed the button. In some cases, pressing the button would lead to a reward – such as a food pellet or a mild electrical shock. Other times, the floor was electrically charged and the subject needed to press a switch to avoid getting shocked. Skinner concluded that positive and negative reinforcement act similarly in increasing the probability of an animal repeating an action. Preventing a negative outcome also acts like positive reinforcement.
Mind and brain
In many cultures around this world, there is the view that humans have a soul that exists independently of the physical body. For Greek philosophers, the soul was also viewed as the seat of our reasoning abilities - what we would call our minds today. While Aristotle...
