Skinner's Operant Theory Of Behavior And Application To Human Professionals (Essay Sample)

Skinner’s Operant Theory of Behavior and Application to Human professionals
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Human behaviors vary from individual to another and many psychologists have carried out various studies to determine how human behaviors can be curbed and influenced by the environment (Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson, 2014).  However, most of them concluded that human characters are multifaceted, unpredictable and are influenced mostly by the environmental factors. Therefore, this unpredictability behavior of human being proves that human beings are unique and operate on different philosophies and backgrounds. Additionally, individual’s intelligence is independent and creates thinking diversity among people consequently leading to different decision making. Furthermore, for one to successfully study human behaviors, he/she requires to deeply and thoroughly examine people living in different environments, for instance, Skinner, a renowned psychologist spend all his life examining human personality and behaviors. He finally came up with the operant theory of behavior that greatly assisted him to understand human thinking, behaviors, and actions.
To begin with, human beings have unique behavior in their functions thus making the human study more complex. Logically, according to Skinner what we do is highly influenced by the effects of our behaviors. In addition, as stated by Skinner actions, emotions, and thoughts are the products of our environment. He also dismissed biological role in controlling and regulating the behavior of human being, thus excluding cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. Also, the unique behavior of human being is caused mostly by the effects of the surrounding, therefore if the environment is favorable to the development of positive behavior, there is likely possible for an individual to have good moral behaviors (Olson, 2015). 
Basically, an environment has great impacts on human behaviors. Skinner contended that humans are not different; their minds can be sharpened through training (education). This, however, must be carried out in steps with the response at every stage. As stated by Skinner, individual change in behaviors is purely caused by her/his response to the events happening in the environment. It is however applicable to everything we do, for example, how we describe, perceive, and solve the problems in our lives (Thyer, 2012). Though the theory sounds simple, it describes ostensibly abnormal as well as counterproductive behaviors of humans. For instance, Skinner used the rat to explain the reason why humans might be motivated to constantly pull on a lever. Therefore, from his mice experiment, we can say that human beings can produce a high response to the environment and successively adopt conditioned behavior.
Furthermore, Skinner’ operant theory of behavior is being widely used in our daily life. For example, recurrent behaviors can be affected strongly by their immediate controls. Consequently, this assists humans, especially when learning certain skill including how we associate with hot items. In addition, the principle is significant in explaining the importance of kissing in marriage. Indeed, his operant theory of behavior helps us to describe different behaviors including both detrimental and beneficial behaviors such as living single and smoking. However, from Skinner’s perspectives of human behavioral changes, it is possible to say that all human beings are born equal, but it is the environment that makes them behave differently from each other.
Besides, according to Skinner social and political culture also affects human behaviors. According to Skinner theory, he contended that humanity of a person is influenced by his/her background, but not inherited mannerism aimed to prolong human race. Thus, if a person comes from a family that practices certain culture such as female circumcision, it is very difficult for that person to leave that character. Skinner recommended that the best way to help such person is first to change the environment of that person because environment speaks a lot to individual behaviors.
Moreover, people are sharpened by the world. Actually, human beings though they contribute to the economic, political, and social development of the nations, they do not have to say in shaping the image of the world. According to Skinner, human behavior is strongly influenced by the environment of a particular place. Really, although both behavioral conditioning and learning process are significant, it is now evident that genes play a significant role in human behaviors. The human mind is specialized to perform specific functions including psychologies. But for them to improve their specialization, they need to interact with friendly environment; friends, working mates, teachers, and parents. In addition, human behaviors are affected by our social and political environment. As stated by Skinner, political atmosphere of a certain location influences how people think and react, for instance, children born in a political family will always think of how to become politicians in the futures, and they will not focus on other careers, thus developing some political behaviors.
Relatedly, an operant theory of behavior is currently an important theory in the medical profession (London, 2014). A good example is conversion therapist who works to change sexual orientation of a person. For many years, therapists have tried unsuccessfully to deter homosexuals’ desire, but it is now possible after the introduction of conditioning techniques such as visualization and social skills. Therefore, most therapists are moving away from old traditional Freudian psychoanalytic theories to behavioral analyses, thus proving that Skinner’s theory is useful in the health environment.
Moreover, as stated by Skinner in his operant theory of behavior our differences in experience, particularly in learning are the main contributors to our differences in behaviors. Often, Skinner claimed that personality being an element that develops within human being can cause the human behavior to respond to an event depending on some external factors. Consequently, differences in learning strongly influence our personality hence our emotion, choice, and thoughts are influenced by the environment. In addition, a person needs to develop personal traits if he/she wants to gain positive rewards and those traits should be positive in nature. Some of these traits include empathetic...