Learning, Knowledge and Human Development MOOC’s Updates
Peer Review Assignment #1 Skinner and Free Will
Skinner essentially theorizes that learning is a conditioning from environmental stimuli rather than a willful and voluntary interaction.
I disagree with Skinner's summation and instead am more inclined to believe that humans follow their personal inclinations (i.e. free will). We know that more often than not children are more susceptible to assimilation via reinforced practices of protocol and procedure because they are malleable; however, children also break the rules because of personal impulses and compulsions that not even they understand. In adults, these impulses or compulsions evolve into regular behavior regardless of the positive or negative reinforcement associated with it.
Skinner's work does not hold up simply because if external forces were in complete control, how or why does crime exist despite religious or governmental influence that condems "illegal" behavior. The penalty/punishment of fines, jail, or imprisonmemt alone should deter the behavior yet historically and contemporarily across age, gender, religions, and sexualities prisons are full of "dissenters" and "nonconformist".
I think that personal agency has a far greater impact on human behavior than external positive or negative reinforcement ever could. Adults (aside from extreme outliers) make conscious decisions to behave in the manner that they do despite whatever societal values, morals, or beliefs exist.