Burrhus Frederick Skinner

"The present argument is this: mental life and the world in which it is lived are inventions. They have been invented on the analogy of external behavior occurring under external contingencies. Thinking is behavior. The mistake is in allocating the behavior to the mind." -- B. F. Skinner

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B.F. Skinner is second only to Freud for his contribution to Psychology. Determined to make psychology the science of human behaviour, he dismissed the notion of internal "drives" and the use of mentalistic terms to describe behaviour. He maintained that behaviour could be explained by contingencies of reinforcement and punishment. In 1990, eight days before his death, he received the lifetime contribution award from the American Psychological Association. This web-based assignment briefly outlines his contribution to psychology, and the implications that radical behaviourism has on traditional ideas of Human behaviour and free will.