Skinner and psycholgy: What he did, what he did not do, and what we must continue to do.

Abstract

This paper which concentrates on the behaviourist conceptual approach, reflects, firstly, on Skinner's role in relation with various behavioursms and then goes on to tackle the Skinnerian conception of sicentific explanation, the logic of research and theoretical construction. Subsequently the innovations are analyzed that, within the conditioning theory, Skinner introduced, pointing out the advantages of these innovations as well as the new problems that they created for the behaviour theory. In the following an approximation'to Skinner's methodological contribution —the free operant— is carried out, and its historical impact on the practices of psychological research is assessed. The paper also highlights Skinnerian interest for human behaviour and how, only in an analogical fashion and very partially, Skinner approached its experimen- tal analysis in the laboratory; it is emphasized how the rest of his approach towards human behaviour can be characterized as a hermeneutical analysis and as a definitional and theoretical extension. Thus, it is mainly his conceptions about rule-governed behaviour and verbal behaviour that are reviewed. Finally, the logic of the birth and evolution of Skinnerian based behavioural technology is analyzed, underlining the restrictions that the paradigm of operant conditioning imposed on applied methodology on being extrapolated to human social conditions.