B.F. Skinner's theory of personality views personality as patterns of behavior shaped by reinforcement and conditioning. According to Skinner, behaviors are strengthened when followed by rewarding consequences or reinforcers, and weakened when not followed by reinforcers. An example is a rat in an experiment pressing a bar that dispenses food pellets when pressed. The rat learns to repeatedly press the bar as it associates this behavior with the reinforcing food pellets. Over time, behaviors followed by reinforcers are more likely to occur again in the future.

1. Meaning of Personality in Psychology
The sum total of all the behavioural and mental characteristics by me
ans of which an individual is recognizedas being unique.
Behavioral theory of personality:
The behaviorist approach views personality as a pattern of learned behaviors
acquired through either classical (Pavlovian) or operant
(Skinnerian) conditioning and shaped by reinforcement in the form of
rewards or punishment. A relatively recent extension of behaviorism, the
cognitive-behavioral approach emphasizes the role cognition plays in the
learning process. Cognitive and social learning theorists focus not only on the
outward behaviors people demonstrate but also on their expectations and
their thoughts about others, themselves, and their own behavior. For example,
one variable in the general theory of personality developed by social learning
theorist Julian B. Rotter is internal-external orientation. "Internals" think of
themselves as controlling events, while "externals" view events as largely
outside their control. Like phenomenological theorists, those who take a social
learning approach also emphasize people's perceptions of themselves and
their abilities (a concept called "self-efficacy" by Albert Bandura). Another
characteristic that sets the cognitive-behavioral approach apart from
traditional forms of behaviorism is its focus on learning that takes place in
social situations through observation and reinforcement, which contrasts with
the dependence of classical and operant conditioning models on laboratory
research.
B. F. Skinner Theory of
Personality:
B. F. Skinner’s entire system is based on operant conditioning. The organism is in
the process of “operating” on the environment, which in ordinary terms means it is
bouncing around its world, doing what it does. During this “operating,” the organism
encounters a special kind of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a
reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of increasing the operant -- that is, the

2. behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. This is operant conditioning: “the
behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies
the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.”
Imagine a rat in a cage. This is a special cage (called, in fact, a “Skinner box”) that
has a bar or pedal on one wall that, when pressed, causes a little mechanism to release
a food pellet into the cage. The rat is bouncing around the cage, doing whatever it is
rats do, when he accidentally presses the bar and -- hey, presto! -- a food pellet falls
into the cage! The operant is the behavior just prior to the reinforcer, which is the food
pellet, of course. In no time at all, the rat is furiously peddling away at the bar,
hoarding his pile of pellets in the corner of the cage.
A behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus results in a decreased
probability of that behavior occurring in the future.
This is because the return of the reinforcer takes place in the context of a
reinforcement history that goes all the way back to the very first time the rat was
reinforced for pushing on the bar.