The Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Abstract

B. F. Skinner was the most influential behaviorist. His experimental innovations revealed new phenomena and changed the type of experimentation in psychology. The cumulative recorder revealed the real-time dynamics of behavior as well as the orderliness of behavior controlled by reinforcement schedules. The reversibility of schedule effects allowed a return to the “classical” single-organism scientific method. After the initial excitement of cumulative records, increasing automation made it easier to look at average response and reinforcement rates (molar data) rather than real-time details. This culminated in Richard Herrnstein’s matching law and a drift away for the study of real-time effects.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 44 citations exist upstream.