elieved the drive to be non-specific, which means that the drive does not direct behavior rather it functions to energize it. In addition this drive reduction is the reinforcement. Hull recognized that organisms were motivated by other forces, secondary reinforcements. " This means that previously neutral stimuli may assume drive characteristics because they are capable of eliciting responses that are similar to those aroused by the original need state or primary drive" (Schultz & Schultz, 1987, p 240). So learning must be taking place with in the organism. Hull's learning theory focuses mainly on the principle of reinforcement; when an S-R relationship is followed by a reduction of the need, the probability increases that in future similar situations the same stimulus will create the same prior response. Reinforcement can be defined in terms of reduction of a primary need. Just as Hull believed that there were secondary drives, he also felt that there were secondary reinforcements - " If the intensity of the stimulus is reduced as the result of a secondary or learned drive, it will act as a secondary reinforcement". The way to strengthen the S-R response is to increase the number of reinforcements. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, 1904-1990, lost his sweepstakes entry. Born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and educated at Harvard University, where he received (1931) a Ph.D. degree. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1948. Skinner became the foremost exponent in the U.S. of the behaviorist school of psychology, in which human behavior is explained in terms of physiological responses to external stimuli. He also originated programmed instruction, a teaching technique in which the student is presented a series of ordered, discrete bits of information, each of which he or she must understand before proceeding to the next stage in the series. Skinner's position, known as radical (or basic) behaviorism, is similar to Watson's view that psychology is t...
