A Review of B.F. Skinner: A Fresh Appraisal

Reviewed by Jay Birnbrauer

B. F Skinner: A Fresh Appraisal.
Davidson Films (1999) [668 Marsh Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
(805) 594-0422 www.davidsonfilms.com]; 41 minutes; $250

The stage is perfectly set. It grabbed the attention of the six groups of psychologists and friends who watched the video with me. It was evident from watching them that their attention was sustained. In their words, the video was “absorbing throughout,” “I didn't know that he had done that ...(designed teaching machines for example...)” “I wish I had been shown this when we were trying to learn this stuff.” “An amazing man!”

In many respects, perhaps in every respect, the video is old-fashioned. It starts in the beginning with Skinner as a youth in a small town and ends with Skinner's APA Award presentation just a few days before his death in 1990. It's serious about presenting its subject matter. The script is very carefully crafted and read by Murray Sidman so as to achieve clarity with some difficult concepts. Aside from occasional inobtrusive piano background music, there are no sound effects, no special effects. For some, these aspects may be a drawback but to me they are all in keeping with presenting the work of a man who wanted to be remembered by his accomplishments. I think Fred Skinner would have very much appreciated hearing and seeing his work presented clearly and correctly. The purpose of the film is to set the record straight and that it does.

The video begins with snippets of Skinner's youth and then places his ideas in the context of the work of Darwin, Freud and Pavlov. Darwinian natural selection of species characteristics was, of course, extended by Skinner to selection of behavior by consequences in our life time. The similarities between Freud's and Skinner's belief in the causation of human behavior and the important role of early experience are pointed out. Usually, we hear only the differences between the concepts and contributions of these two men. Pavlov's more familiar work with conditioning salivation to the sound of a metronome provides the base to explain the important distinction between Pavlovian S-R conditioning and operant or R-S conditioning. This section is very nicely done with memorable footage of shaping a pigeon to ring a bell. The concept of discriminative stimulus is described to finish off the three-term contingency. Skinner's opposition to the use of punishment is stated unequivocally.

The concepts are punctuated by interesting applied and laboratory illustrations with people and other animals. The final portion by way of a summary shows more applications with particular emphasis on language education. As good as these examples are, all of the people examples are with children. This decision is understandable insofar as the video is about B.F. Skinner and he, himself, only applied contingencies of reinforcement to education, i.e. programmed instruction and teaching machines. That's not quite true, however, in that he also, among other things, invented the cumulative recorder, designed an air crib for his daughter, and other contraptions to enhance his own productivity. Incidentally it was great to listen to his daughters, Julie and Debbie, talking about their father and the “baby box.”

When I first heard that Davidson Films were doing a video of the life and work of Fred Skinner to fit within the standard 50 minute lecture hour, I wondered how it could be done. Well, they have shown me. In a highly stimulating 41 minutes, they have captured the accomplishments of this “amazing man.” Be warned, however, that you may well want to watch it again.

Jay Birnbrauer is Senior Fellow, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.
This review was written in January, 2000.

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