Skinner’s Quote of the Day

The probability that a verbal response of given form will occur at a given time is the basic datum to be predicted and controlled. It is the “dependent variable” in…

Our basic datum is not the occurrence of a given response as such, but the probability that it will occur at a given time. Every verbal operant may be conceived…

To ask where a verbal operant is when a response is not in the course of being emitted is like asking where one’s knee-jerk is when the physician is not…

We observe that a speaker possesses a verbal repertoire in the sense that responses of various forms appear in his behavior from time to time in relation to identifiable conditions.…

A long-standing problem in the analysis of verbal behavior is the size of the unit. Standard linguistic units are of various sizes. Below the level of the word lie roots…

In traditional terms we might say that we need a unit of behavior defined in terms of both “form and meaning.” The analysis of nonverbal behavior has clarified the nature…

We distinguish between an instance of a response and a class of responses ... when we are concerned with the prediction of future behavior it may be either impossible to…

In the case of any medium, the behavior is both verbal and nonverbal at once—nonverbal in the effect upon the medium—verbal in the ultimate effect upon the observer. (p. 14)

Pointing to words is verbal—as, indeed, is all pointing, since it is effective only when it alters the behavior of someone. (p. 14)

Audible behavior which is not vocal (for example, clapping the hands for a servant, or blowing a bugle) and gestures are verbal, although they may not compose an organized language.…

In defining verbal behavior as behavior reinforced through the mediation of other persons we do not, and cannot, specify any one form, mode, or medium. Any movement capable of affecting…

When someone says that he can see the meaning of a response, he means that he can infer some of the variables of which the response is usually a function.…

Technically, meanings are to be found among the independent variables in a functional account, rather than as properties of the dependent variable. (p.14)

Any effort to deal with behavior as a movement of the parts of an organism meets at once the objection that it cannot be mere movement which is important but…

Although the emphasis is not upon experimental or statistical facts, the book [Verbal Behavior] is not theoretical in the usual sense. It makes no appeal to hypothetical explanatory entities. The…

The formulation [in Verbal Behavior] is inherently practical and suggests immediate technological applications at almost every step. (p. 12)

The emphasis is upon an orderly arrangement of well-known facts, in accordance with a formulation of behavior derived from an experimental analysis of a more rigorous sort. The present extension…

One important feature of the analysis is that it is directed to the behavior of the individual speaker and listener; no appeal is made to statistical concepts based upon data…

No assumption is made of any uniquely verbal characteristic, and the principles and methods employed are adapted to the study of human behavior as a whole. An extensive treatment of…

The speaker and listener within the same skin engage in activities which are traditionally described as “thinking.” The speaker manipulates his behavior; he reviews it, and may reject it or…

... some of the behavior of listening resembles the behavior of speaking, particularly when the listener “understands” what is said. (p. 11)

... a speaker is normally also a listener. He reacts to his own behavior in several important ways. Part of what he says is under the control of other parts…

Once a repertoire of verbal behavior has been set up, a host of new problems arise from the interaction of its parts. Verbal behavior is usually the effect of multiple…

Our first responsibility is simple description: what is the topography of this subdivision of human behavior? Once that question has been answered in at least a preliminary fashion we may…

We seek “causes” of behavior which have an acceptable scientific status and which, with luck, will be susceptible to measurement and manipulation ... The only solution is to reject the…

The impulse to explicate a meaning is easily understood. We ask, “What do you mean?” because the answer is frequently helpful ... But the explication of verbal behavior should not…

... dictionaries do not give meanings; at best they give words having the same meanings (p. 9)

To define a proposition as “something which may be said in any language” does not tell us where propositions are, or of what stuff they are made. Nor is the…

... we must avoid the unnatural formulation of verbal behavior as the “use of words.” We have no more reason to say that a man “uses the word water” in…

It is the function of an explanatory fiction to allay curiosity and to bring inquiry to an end. (p. 6)

When we say that a remark is confusing because the idea is unclear, we seem to be talking about two levels of observation although there is, in fact, only one.…

There is obviously something suspicious in the ease with which we discover in a set of ideas precisely those properties needed to account for the behavior which expresses them. We…

[An idea] is, in fact, often defined as something common to two or more expressions. But we shall not arrive at this “something” even though we express an idea in…

... the ideas for which sounds are said to stand as signs cannot be independently observed. If we ask for evidence of their existence, we are likely to be given…

It has generally been assumed that to explain behavior, or any aspect of it, one must attribute it to events taking place inside the organism. In the field of verbal…

Together with other disciplines concerned with verbal behavior, psychology has collected facts and sometimes put them in convenient order, but in this welter of material it has failed to demonstrate…

What happens when a man speaks or responds to speech is clearly a question about human behavior and hence a question to be answered with the concepts and techniques of…

A science of behavior does not arrive at this special field to find it unoccupied. Elaborate systems of terms describing verbal behavior have been developed. The lay vocabulary abounds in…

The extent to which we understand verbal behavior in a “causal” analysis is to be assessed from the extent to which we can predict the occurrence of specific instances and,…

The basic processes and relations which give verbal behavior its special characteristics are now fairly well understood. Much of the experimental work responsible for this advance has been carried out…

It would be foolish to underestimate the difficulty of this subject matter, but recent advances in the analysis of behavior permit us to approach it with a certain optimism. (p.…

The behaviors of speaker and listener taken together compose what may be called a total verbal episode. There is nothing in such an episode which is more than the combined…

[The behavior of the listener] cannot, in fact, be distinguished from behavior in general, and an adequate account of verbal behavior need cover only as much of the behavior of…

A definition of verbal behavior as behavior reinforced through the mediation of other persons needs, as we shall see, certain refinements. (p. 2)

The term “verbal behavior” has much to recommend it. Its etymological sanction is not too powerful, but it emphasizes the individual speaker and, whether recognized by the user or not,…

“Language” is now satisfactorily remote from its original commitment to vocal behavior, but it has come to refer to the practices of a linguistic community rather than the behavior of…

Unfortunately, the term “speech” emphasizes vocal behavior and is only awkwardly applied to instances in which the mediating person is affected visually, as in writing a note. (p. 2)

Behavior which is effective only through the mediation of other persons has so many distinguishing dynamic and topographical properties that a special treatment is justified and, indeed, demanded. (p. 2)

Behavior alters the environment through mechanical action, and its properties or dimensions are often related in a simple way to the effects produced ... Much of the time, however, a…

Men act upon the world, and change it, and are changed in turn by the consequences of their action. (p. 1)