B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist and an influential advocate of behaviorism, which views human behavior in terms of physiological responses to the environment and regards the controlled, scientific study of response as the most direct means of studying human behavior.

Skinner was attracted to psychology through the work of the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov on conditioned response, articles on behaviorism by Bertrand Russell, and the ideas of John B. Watson, the founder of behaviorism. After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1931, he remained there as a researcher until 1936, when he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where he wrote The Behavior of Organisms (1938).

As professor of psychology at Indiana University, Bloomington (1945-48), Skinner gained public attention through his invention of the Air-Crib, a large, soundproof, germ-free, air-conditioned box designed to serve as a mechanical baby tender, supposed to provide an optimal...