erent then the psychoanalytical theory of the time. Burrhus Frederick Skinner (1904 – 1990) led a life that enabled him to take behaviorism to an extreme. His father was an ambitious lawyer and his mother was a bright woman with high moral standards. His younger brother died suddenly at the age of sixteen. Skinner was raised in a small town as a middle class American. His parents did not use physical punishments but their method of child rearing succeeded in teaching their son "to fear God, the police, and what people would think" (Englar 209). As a child, Skinner was fascinated with machines and interested in knowing how things worked. He developed a mechanical device to remind himself to hang up his pajamas, a gadget that enabled him to blow smoke rings without violating his parents prohibition on smoking, and a floatation system to separate ripe elderberries from green ones. As he matured so did his inventions. He worked unsuccessfully for several years on a perpetual motion machine. When his second daughter was born he invented an air crib to simplify her care and give her unrestrained movement in a temperature-controlled space. Unfortunately his air crib never marketed well. Skinner had wanted to become a writer. He majored in English at Hamilton College. He sent some of his short stories to Robert Frost who encouraged him to write. After a while, Skinner realized that he did not have anything important to say so he gave up writing for a while. About this time he read a book by John Watson and Ivan Pavlov, which influenced him to begin graduate work in psychology at Harvard. He got his PhD in 1931. He taught at the University of Minnesota for nine years. He then became the chairman of the department of psychology at Indiana University. He wrote Walden II, a book that describes a utopian society based on psychological principles. He returned to teaching at Harvard. At the age of 86 he died from leukemia. Skinner&apos...