The stimulus-response theory of psychology B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorism vitalizes the relationship between behavior and environmental influence. Human behavior is learned through reinforcement or punishment which encourages or discourages the behavior. To fix a maladaptive behavior according to Skinner is to remove environmental variables that encourage the behavior.

Application Questions

1. What motivates our behavior is the reinforcement or punishment we receive in response to the behavior.
2. Yolanda's early success in school could be explained by the personal relationships she had with the teachers whom praised and encouraged her.
3. Radical behaviorism could explain Yolanda dropping out of college because the effect of her response to reinforcement in high school she now did not receive.
4. Yolanda's decision to go back to college can be explained by Skinner's theory because the discouragement she received in not going back to college may have ceased the behavior.
5. Her success from then on could be explained by the reinforcements of a close proximity to home and personalized learning methods.

Theory Comparison Questions

1. Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal psychology can explain Yolanda's academic success. Dynamisms, a tranformation of energy in interpersonal relationships, can account for the success of Yolanda through personalized learning in high school and later in college. She succeeded in the context of relations with other people.
2. Adler's individual personality theory can explain Yolanda's success as shown in her "creative self." In high school and later in college her creative self searched for and interpreted experiences that were meaningful and interesting to her. When the environment Yolanda was accustomed to changed the personality that was once thriving was now dimmed and suffering of failed classes. // Skinner and Adler differ in that the latter focused not only on environmental influence but highlighted internal circumstances such as unrealistic goals and developing superiority.
3. Bandura's self-regulation and Yolanda's career success have in common a understanding of how to control one's behavior through self-judgment of what is and is not working (such as personal vs. impersonal learning) in the environment.