On January 4, 2016, the B. F. Skinner Foundation launched a new project – Skinner’s Quote of the Day. Quotes from B. F. Skinner’s works, selected by renowned scientists, appear daily Monday-Friday in order, starting with Chapter 1 of each book and running all the way through the last chapter. We started with the Science and Human Behavior (January-December 2916), followed by About Behaviorism (January-November 2017), Contingencies of Reinforcement (January-October 2018), Recent Issues (October 2018-May 2019), Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (May 2019-February 2020), and now moving on to Upon Further Reflection (from February 10 2020).

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 13

In spite of great phylogenetic differences, all these organisms [pigeons, rats, dogs, monkeys, humans] show amazingly similar properties of the learning process. It should be emphasized that this has been…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 13

Cumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 12

Comparable results have been obtained with pigeons, rats, dogs, monkeys, human children, and most recently, by the author in collaboration with Ogden R. Lindsley, human psychotic subjects. (p. 182)

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 12

Cumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 10

One of the most dramatic applications of these techniques has recently been made in the Harvard Psychological Laboratories by Floyd Ratliff and Donald S. Blough, who have skillfully used multiple…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 10

Cumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 9

In a special case, first investigated by L. B. Wyckoff, Jr., the organism responds to one stimulus where the reinforcement consists of the clarification of the stimulus controlling another response.…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 9

Cumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 2

Extremely complex performances may be reached through successive stages in the shaping process, the contingencies of reinforcement being changed progressively in the direction of the required behavior. The results are…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 12: The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching. Quote 2

Cumulative Record. Chapter 11: Reinforcement Today. Quote 31

Sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, theologians, psychotherapists, and psychologists have long tried to reach an understanding of human behavior which would be useful in solving practical problems. In that technological…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 11: Reinforcement Today. Quote 31