B.F. Skinner Biography

B.F. Skinner Biography

Burrhus Frederic Skinner, or B.F. Skinner for short, was born on March 20, 1904. Skinner spent most of his childhood in Pennsylvania, which he described as "warm and stable." As a child he loved building and inventing things, especially building Rube Goldberg contraptions. Later on in life he received his B.A. in English Literature from Hamilton College and moved to New York as an aspiring writer. After his career as a novelist failed he returned to school by entering the psychology graduate program at Harvard University and received his PhD in 1931. He got married to Yvonne Blue in 1936 and had 2 daughters named Julie and Deborah shortly after. In 1936 Skinner took an academic position at the University of Minnesota. Then, in 1945 he became the psychology Department Chair at the University of Indiana. After that Skinner joined the psychology department at Harvard University in 1948 which was the position he held until he died on August 18, 1990.

For more information on B.F. Skinner visit the links below:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhskin.html

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm