Skinner’s Quote of the Day

We cannot reconcile traditional and scientific views by agreeing upon what is to be admired or condemned. The question is whether anything is to be so treated. (p. 15)

It is reasonable to look forward to a time when man will seldom ”have” to do anything, although he may show interest, energy, imagination, and productivity far beyond the level…

“Having to be good” is an excellent example of an expendable honorific . . . In a culture which did not resort to punishment we should never "have" to do…

. . . if really effective techniques are available, we cannot avoid the problem of design simply by preferring the status quo. At what point should education be made deliberately…

Suppose . . . that we someday possess such effective educational techniques that every student will in fact be put in possession of all the behavior specified in a syllabus.…

The experimental method is superior to simple observation just because it multiplies “accidents” in a systematic coverage of the possibilities. (p. 12)

Those who reject the scientific conception of man must, to be logical, oppose the methods of science as well. (p. 11)

. . . it is only through . . . counter-control that we have achieved what we call peace—a condition in which men are not permitted to control each other…

Slowly, and as yet imperfectly, we have worked out an ethical and governmental design in which the strong man is not allowed to use the power deriving from his strength…

The danger of the misuse of power is possibly greater than ever. It is not allayed by disguising the facts. We cannot make wise decisions if we continue to pretend…

We are all controlled by the world in which we live, and part of that world has been and will be constructed by men. The question is this: Are we…

Education grown too powerful is rejected as propaganda or “brain-washing,” while really effective persuasion is described as “undue influence,” “demagoguery,” “seduction” and so on. (p. 10)

The appeal to reason has certain advantages over the authoritative command. A threat of punishment, no matter how subtle, generates emotional reactions and tendencies to escape or revolt. (p. 9)

A philosophy which has been appropriate to one set of political exigencies will defeat its purpose if, under other circumstances, it prevents us from applying to human affairs the science…

The ultimate achievement of democracy may be long deferred unless we emphasize the real aims rather than the verbal devices of democratic thinking. (p. 8)

Every discovery of an event which has a part in shaping a man’s behavior seems to leave so much the less to be credited to the man himself; and as…

To confuse and delay the improvement of cultural practices by quibbling about the word improve is itself not a useful practice. Let us agree, to start with, that health is…

Scientists themselves have unsuspectingly agreed that there are two kinds of useful prepositions about nature—facts and value judgments—and that science must confine itself to “what is,” leaving “what ought to…

The simple fact is that man is able, and now as never before, to lift himself by his own bootstraps. In achieving control of the world of which he is…

Just as biographers and critics look for external influences to account for the traits and achievements of the men they study, so science ultimately explains behavior in terms of “causes”…

Although Western democracy created the conditions responsible for the rise of modern science, it is now evident that it may never fully profit from that achievement. (p. 3)

The B. F. Skinner Foundation wishes you happy, healthy, and productive 2021! Skinner's Quote of the Day will return in January.

I think the experimental analysis of behavior can best proceed as it started, until the control of the behavior of an organism in an experimental space is very nearly total.…

It is unlikely that a remote consequence of any kind can reinforce operant behavior in the absence of mediating events. (p. 200)

Choice is something to be explained, not to be used in the analysis of basic processes. (p. 199)

To return to choice and especially to regard a single response as a choice between responding and not responding are, I think, steps backward. (p. 199)

When W.H. Heron and I built our twenty-four-box Behemoth, I wrote to Tolman that we had put in two levers and hoped to get around soon to some problems involving…

The contrived contingencies of both education and therapy must eventually be terminated. Teacher or therapist must withdraw from the life of the student or client before teaching or therapy can…

In general, by allowing natural contingencies to take control whenever possible we generate behavior that is more likely to be appropriate to any occasion upon which it may occur again,…

As friends, lovers, and acquaintances we modify the behavior of each other. The only thing that is new is the better understanding of how we do so derived from an…

The experimental analysis of behavior is alive and well. Psychology needs it. (p. 172)

So-called objections to operant theory need not detain us. There is work to be done. (p. 171)

Pavlov’s dog is said to have associated the bell and the food, but as I have pointed out, it was Pavlov who associated them, that is, who put them together…

Another source of misunderstanding of the relation between operant conditioning and natural selection is the strong inclination to look inside a system to see what makes it tick. Those who…

Several writers have recently implied that organisms may have been sensitive to an increase in the mere probability of reinforcement when no reinforcer is immediately contingent upon a response. I…

Organisms differ from physical things because they show selection by consequences. (p. 165)

I see no reason why there should not be a drift toward phylogenic behavior [in experiments on superstition]. It would be something like the Breland Effect unopposed by operant contingencies.…

I am quite sure of my original observation [of “superstition in the pigeon”]. I have repeated it many times, often as a surefire lecture demonstration. Deliver food every twenty seconds…

The effect of an accidentally contingent reinforcer offers some of the best evidence of the power of operant conditioning, and possibly for that reason it has been challenged—as, for example,…

When Keller Breland first told the Harvard “Pigeon Staff” about [the “Breland Effect”] in 1960, we were impressed. Contrary to certain claims, we were far from ‘disturbed.’ (p. 163)

The experimental analysis of behavior . . . is steadily building upon its past and proceeding in a reasonably ordered way to embrace more and more of what people are…

Psychology as a science is, in fact, in shambles. (p. 160)

If you are still struggling to be successful, flattery will more often than not put you on the wrong track by reinforcing useless behavior. (p. 157

If you have been very successful, the most sententious stupidities will be received as pearls of wisdom, and your standards will instantly fall. (p. 157)

... those who thoughtlessly help those who can help themselves work a sinister kind of destruction by making the good things in life no longer properly contingent on behavior. (p.…

In searching for an audience, beware of those who are trying to be helpful and too readily flatter you. (p. 156)

In talking with another person we have ideas that do not occur when we are alone at our desk. Some of what we say may be borrowed from what the…

An audience is a neglected, independent variable. What one says is determined in a very important way by the person one is talking to. (p. 156)

Learning to enjoy good literature is essentially learning to read for longer and longer periods of time before coming upon a moving passage—a passage all the more moving for having…

Reinforcers need not occur too frequently if we are fortunate enough to have been reinforced on a good schedule. (p. 155