ning theory and the Neo-Piagetian and Information-processing approaches.
Skinner's achievement included the development of a procedure, known as the "Skinner box" for studying behavior, the discovery of operant conditioning, and his "theoretical endeavour, aimed at the explanation of behaviour, be it in animals or humans, in terms of control by consequences" (Richelle, 1993, p. 3). His early study of behaviorists such as Ivan Pavlov and J. B. Watson, and their stimulus-response (S-R) model of behavior, led to his work on the behavior of rats. He determined, by plotting intervals between feedings, that a behavior such as eating which was, as he put it, "supposed to be 'free' behavior on the part of the rat is now shown to be just as much subject to natural laws as, for example, the rate of his pulse" (quoted in Iversen, 1992, p. 1319). Having determined that behavior was reflexive, Skinner then sought in his experiments "a separation of the learned component from the food retrieval component by adding a new response that was arbitrary with respect to eating" (Iverson, p. 1319). By adding a lever to his test "box," which rats could push to get food, Skinner was able to study his rats' learning behavior. In classical conditioning, as demonstrated by Pavlov, responses (involuntary and acquired) are elicited by a stimulus. But Skinner's observation of learning in the rats who operated the lever led to the discovery of a second type of conditioning. This was "operant" conditioning which means "that if an operant behavior [rats pressing the lever] is followed by the presentation of a reinforcing stimulus [the food pellet appears], the strength of the behavior is increased" (Cosgrove, 1982, p. 34). The discovery of operant conditioning made it possible, in Skinner's view, to "move beyond the level of simple description [of behavior] to the level of identifying key processes that account for much of behavioral development" (Gewirtz &...