Charles Ferster
Encyclopedia
Charles Bohris Ferster was an American behavioral psychologist.
, the second son of Julius B. and Molly Madwin Ferster.
He was married to Marilyn Ferster, with whom he had four children- Bill, Andrea, Sam and Warren. He later married Elyce Zenoff Ferster, a professor of law at George Washington University
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Ferster died on February 3, 1981 at the age of 58 in Washington, D.C.
Post-Doctoral Professional Affiliations
Margaret J. Rioch, David McK. Rioch, John L. Cameron, James Dinsmoor,
Douglas G. Anger, James E. Anliker, Donald S. Blough, Richard J. Herrnstein, Alfredo V. Lagmay, William H. Morse, Nathan H. Azrin, Ogden R. Lindsley, Lewis R. Gollub, Matthew L. Israel, Harlan L. Lane, George S. Reynolds, A. Charles Catania, Herbert S. Terrace, Neil J. Peterson. William N. Schoenfeld
Articles
Biography
Ferster was born November 1, 1922 in Freehold, New JerseyFreehold Borough, New Jersey
Freehold is a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 12,052. It is the county seat of Monmouth County....
, the second son of Julius B. and Molly Madwin Ferster.
He was married to Marilyn Ferster, with whom he had four children- Bill, Andrea, Sam and Warren. He later married Elyce Zenoff Ferster, a professor of law at George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
,
Ferster died on February 3, 1981 at the age of 58 in Washington, D.C.
Timeline
Education- 1940 - 1943 Rutgers UniversityRutgers UniversityRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
(New Brunswick, NJ) - 1943 - 1946 Military Service
- 1946 - 1947 Rutgers UniversityRutgers UniversityRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
(New Brunswick, NJ) (B.S, 1947) - 1947 - 1950 Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(New York, NY) (M.A., 1948; Ph.D, 1950)
Post-Doctoral Professional Affiliations
- 1950 - 1955 Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(Cambridge, MA) Research Fellow under B.F. Skinner - 1955 - 1957 Yerkes LaboratoryYerkes National Primate Research CenterThe Yerkes National Primate Research Center, originally established and located in Orange Park, Florida but was later relocated to Atlanta, Georgia at Emory University, is one of eight national primate research centers funded by the National Institutes of Health...
(Atlanta, GA at Emory UniversityEmory UniversityEmory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
)(Chimpanzee work) - 1957 - 1962 Indiana University Medical Center (Indianapolis, IN) (work with autistic children; collaboration with Nurnberger & Brady)
- 1958 - First Executive Editor, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of BehaviorJournal of the Experimental Analysis of BehaviorThe Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior was established in 1958 as apeer-reviewed, psychology journal, that publishes fundamental research about the experimental analysis of behavior....
(JEAB); See Founding of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/society/history/jeab_founding.shtml - 1962 - 1963 Executive Director, Institute for Behavioral Research (Silver Spring, MD)
- 1963 - 1965 Associate Director, Institute for Behavioral Research (Silver Spring, MD)
- 1965 - 1968 Senior Research Associate, Institute for Behavioral Research (Silver Spring, MD)
- 1967 - 1968 Professor of Psychology, Georgetown UniversityGeorgetown UniversityGeorgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
(Washington, DC) - 1969 - 1981 Professor of Psychology, American UniversityAmerican UniversityAmerican University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
(Washington, DC) (Department Chair, 1970–1973)
Laboratory Work
Application of the Theory
- Linwood Project
- Individualized Instruction at Georegetown, American Universities
- The University Learning Center at American UniversityAmerican UniversityAmerican University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
: The University Learning Center represented a radical experiment in undergraduate, interdisciplinary education in which the principles of operant behavior were directly applied. The center itself—an open, free-flowing physical space on campus—was conceived of as the "chamber" in which instruction and learning occurred. The environment adhered in obvious ways to such cornerstone concepts as immediate positive reinforcement, successive approximation, schedules of reinforcement, discriminative stimui and the like. Professors of Psychology, Physics, Anthropology, Psychiatry, Sociology, Philosophy, Mathematics staffed the Learning Center, as did many graduate students in these fields.
Social and Professional Network
Following is a partial list of professional colleagues and friends of Charles Ferster; those interested in behaviorism, operant conditioning, and human behavior more generally may be interested in these people and their work:Margaret J. Rioch, David McK. Rioch, John L. Cameron, James Dinsmoor,
Douglas G. Anger, James E. Anliker, Donald S. Blough, Richard J. Herrnstein, Alfredo V. Lagmay, William H. Morse, Nathan H. Azrin, Ogden R. Lindsley, Lewis R. Gollub, Matthew L. Israel, Harlan L. Lane, George S. Reynolds, A. Charles Catania, Herbert S. Terrace, Neil J. Peterson. William N. Schoenfeld
William N. Schoenfeld
William N. Schoenfeld was an American psychologist and author.Born in New York City, he conducted original research in experimental psychology, and advocated behaviorism, which seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of experiencing consequences. Dr...
Written Works
Books- Schedules of Reinforcement, with B.F. Skinner, 1957 ISBN 0-13-792309-0.
- An Introduction to the Science of Human Behavior, with Nurnberger, J. I. & Brady, J. P., 1963
- Behavior Principles, with Mary Carol Perott, 1968; (Second Edition 1981, with Stuart A. Culbertson)
Articles
- Arbitrary and Natural Reinforcement 1967, The Psychological Record, 22, 1-16
- An Experimental Analysis of Clinical Phenomena 1972, The Psychological Record, 22, 1-16 [citation incorrect]
- Clinical Reinforcement 1972, Seminars in Psychiatry, 4(2), 110-111
- A Laboratory Model of Psychotherapy 1979, In P. Sjoden (Ed), Trends in Behavior Therapy. New York, Academic Press
- Psychotherapy from the standpoint of a behaviorist, 1972, In J.D. Keehn (Ed.), Psychopathology in Animals: research and clinical implications. New York, Academic Press
- The Autistic Child
- Positive Reinforcement and Behavioral Deficits of Autistic Children, Child Development 1961, 32:437-456
- The use of the free operant in the analysis of behavior, 1953 Psychological BulletinPsychological BulletinPsychological Bulletin is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in literature reviews. It was founded by Johns Hopkins psychologist James Mark Baldwin in 1904 immediately after he had bought out James McKeen Cattell's share of Psychological Review, which the two had founded ten years...
, 50, 263-274. - The Development of Performances in Autistic Children in an Automatically Controlled Environment, Charles B. Ferster, Marian K. DeMyer, Journal of Chronic Diseases 1961 Apr; 13:312-4
- A functional analysis of depression, American Psychologist 1973, 857-870.
- The control of eating, In J. P. Foreyt (Ed.), Behavioral treatments of obesity (pp. 309–326). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Ferster, C. B., Nurnberger, J. I. & Levitt, E. E. (1977).