Tag Archives: B. F. Skinner

Carl Rogers and B. F. Skinner and Role of Values and Personal Interests in Psychology

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AHP readers may be interested in an article in the November 2017 issue of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.

“Carl Rogers’ and B. F. Skinner’s approaches to personal and societal improvement: A study in the psychological humanities,” by Jack Martin. Abstract:

Carl Rogers and B. F. Skinner were highly successful 20th century American psychologists who founded historically important schools of psychological inquiry and practice. Their theories, research, and professional practices were embedded within but also challenged American sociocultural concerns and conventions. The focus of this article is on how their research, theories, and ideas, especially those related to the freedom and control of persons, were drawn from their own life experiences and interacted with their penchants for personal freedom versus personal control. The deeply personal bases of Rogers’ and Skinner’s contributions to psychology also are instructive with respect to several issues in the theory of psychology, including the role of values and personal interests in psychological science and practice, relationships between basic research and applied research and professional practice, the generalization of results from experimentation and research, questions concerning human agency, and the place of social advocacy and reform in psychological science and professional practice. More generally, the work reported herein demonstrates the utility of biographical inquiry in particular and the psychological humanities more generally for theoretical purposes in psychology.

BBC Mind Changers: New Episodes on Carol Dweck and B.F. Skinner

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BBC Radio 4’s Mind Changers programme has returned with new episodes. Currently available is an episode on psychologist “Carol Dweck and Growth Mindset.” The episode is described as follows:

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she interviews Carol Dweck, who identified that individuals tend towards a fixed or a growth mindset regarding what they can learn and achieve. She also showed that a fixed mindset can be changed, and that once people adopt a growth mindset, they can achieve more.

Claudia visits a UK primary school where growth mindset is part of the curriculum, and sees how children who don’t like maths soon change their attitude at a summer camp in California, once they’re shown that getting the wrong answer actually makes their brains grow more than getting the right answer.

She hears more about Dweck and her work from colleagues Greg Walton and Jo Boaler at Stanford University, and executive head Dame Alison Peacock at the Wroxham Primary School.

Another new episode, on “BF Skinner and Superstition in the Pigeon,” airs today. This episode is described:  Continue reading BBC Mind Changers: New Episodes on Carol Dweck and B.F. Skinner →

Revisiting Yesterday’s Psychology Today

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The Association for Psychological Science‘s (APS) popular periodical, the Observer is publishing an ongoing series of reflections upon interviews with prominent psychologists originally published in Psychology Today decades ago. As described on the Observer‘s website,

Digging into the history of psychological science, the Observer has retrieved classic interviews with prominent psychological scientists for an ongoing series Psychology (Yesterday and) Today. Each interview is introduced by a contemporary psychological scientist, and the full text of the interview is available on the Observer website. We invite you to reflect on the words of these legendary scientists, and decide whether their voices still resonate with the science of today.

As indicated in the above description, each look back at an interview with a given psychologist is accompanied by a downloadable version of the original Psychology Today interview.

The most recent Observer piece looks back at a 1967 interview with Carl Jung. Other recent articles have reflected back on interviews with B. F. Skinner, Carl Rogers, and Harry Harlow. A full list of previous Psychology Today interviews can be found here.

Oral Histories Online

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The University of Oklahoma library has made available on its website the audio of the Bass Business Oral Histories. These oral histories consist of telephone interviews conducted by Professor Arthur G. Bedeian and his class of Ph. D. students. Among those interviewed are: industrial psychologist Frank Gilbreth, behaviorist B. F. Skinner, industrial psychologist Bernard M. Bass, and organizational psychologist Richard E. Boyatzis. Also interviewed are psychologist, and daughter of Kurt Lewin, Miriam Lewin, as well as business professor Alfred A. Bolton, whose work included research on the Hawthorne studies. In all, there are more than 25 oral histories freely available on the website.