B.F.Skinner and Sigmund Freud are often viewed as polar opposites; upon comparison, however, Skinner and Freud both believed that a system of rewards and punishments was necessary to increase desirable behavior. Freud believed that the superego, the component of the personality that was moral and unselfish, was created through the rewards and punishments that a child was given by their parents and society.Freud felt that our impulses, the id, were controlled by the externally derived superego. Skinner, similar to Freud, believed that desirable behavior was increased through the system of providing rewards, postive reinforcement, and punishments. Skinner's experimental method, operant conditioning, was based off the principles of reward, reinforcement, and punishment.
Freud and Skinner differ, however, in their methodology and conclusions about the long term effectiveness of the behavior modification. Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis, felt that the id, ego, and superego were all involved in the behavior of an individual. He felt that the superego,if properly shaped by the parents and society, would maintain the desired behavior. Skinner, in contrast, felt that the reinforced operant behavior would only last temporarily without some intermittent reinforcement. He felt that the reinforced behavior would undergo an extinction effect if reinforcement totally ceased;this extinction effect could be avoided by intermittent reinforcement because the connection between the desired behavior and the "reward" would grow stronger. In summary Freud believed that the desired behavior would become part of the personality which eliminated the need for additional behavior modification; Skinner felt that the desired behavior always required an occasional reinforcement or the effects of the opearant conditioning would become extinct over time.
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