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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The role of natural selection in evolution was formulated only a little more than a hundred years ago, and the selective role of the environment in shaping and maintaining the…
The environment is obviously important, but its role has remained obscure. It does not push or pull, it selects, and this function is difficult to discover and analyze. (p. 25)
When we have observed behavioral processes under controlled conditions, we can more easily spot them in the world at large. (p. 23)
A scientific analysis shifts the credit as well as the blame to the environment, and traditional practices can then no longer be justified. These are sweeping changes, and those who…
Personal exemption from a complete determinism is revoked as a scientific analysis progresses, particularly in accounting for the behavior of the individual. (p. 21)
In the traditional view, a person is free. He is autonomous in the sense that his behavior is uncaused. He can therefore be held responsible for what he does and…
We have moved forward by dispossessing autonomous man, but he has not departed gracefully. He is conducting a sort of rear-guard action in which, unfortunately, he can marshal formidable support.…
The inner man is not seriously threatened by data obtained through casual observation or from studies of the structure of behavior, and many of these fields deal only with groups…
A technology of operant behavior is, as we shall see, already well advanced, and it may prove to be commensurate with our problems. (p. 19)
The contingencies under investigation have become steadily more complex, and one by one they are taking over the explanatory functions previously assigned to personalities, states of mind, feelings, traits of…
Behavior which operates upon the environment to produce consequences ("operant" behavior) can be studied by arranging environments in which specific consequences are contingent upon it. (p. 18)
It is now clear that we must take into account what the environment does to an organism not only before but after it responds. Behavior is shaped and maintained by…
For thousands of years in the history of human thought the process of natural selection went unseen in spite of its extraordinary importance. When it was eventually discovered, it became,…
We do feel certain states of our bodies associated with behavior, but as Freud pointed out, we behave in the same way when we do not feel them; they are…
Physics did not advance by looking more closely at the jubilance of a falling body, or biology by looking at the nature of vital spirits, and we do not need…
We can follow the path taken by physics and biology by turning directly to the relation between behavior and the environment and neglecting supposed mediating states of mind. (p. 15)
Autonomous man serves to explain only the things we are not yet able to explain in other ways. His existence depends upon our ignorance, and he naturally loses status as…
The mental explanation brings curiosity to an end. We see the effect in casual discourse. If we ask someone, "Why did you go to the theater?" and he says, "Because…
For more than twenty-five hundred years close attention has been paid to mental life, but only recently has any effort been made to study human behavior as something more than…
The dimensions of the world of mind and the transition from one world to another do raise embarrassing problems, but it is usually possible to ignore them, and this may…
Almost everyone who is concerned with human affairs—as political scientist, philosopher, man of letters, economist, psychologist, linguist, sociologist, theologian, anthropologist, educator, or psychotherapist—continues to talk about human behavior in this…
Careless references to purpose are still to be found in both physics and biology, but good practice has no place for them; yet almost everyone attributes human behavior to intentions,…
The exciting thing about getting to the moon was its feasibility. Science and technology had reached the point at which, with one great push, the thing could be done. There…
Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools? Or than constructing better kinds of living space for everyone? (p. 6)
It can always be argued that human behavior is a particularly difficult field. It is, and we are especially likely to think so just because we are so inept in…
Aristotle could not have understood a page of modern physics or biology, but Socrates and his friends would have little trouble in following most current discussions of human affairs. (p.…
Greek physics and biology are now of historical interest only (no modern physicist or biologist would turn to Aristotle for help), but the dialogues of Plato are still assigned to…
Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of his world. Today he is the thing he understands least.…
... a behavioral technology comparable in power and precision to physical and biological technology is lacking, and those who do not find the very possibility ridiculous are more likely to…
It is not enough to "use technology with a deeper understanding of human issues," or to "dedicate technology to man's spiritual needs," or to "encourage technologists to look at human…
In short, we need to make vast changes in human behavior, and we cannot make them with the help of nothing more than physics or biology, no matter how hard…
The application of the physical and biological sciences alone will not solve our problems because the solutions lie in another field. (p. 4)
In trying to solve the terrifying problems that face us in the world today, we naturally turn to the things we do best. We play from strength, and our strength…
2021 marks the 50-year anniversary of the original publication of Skinner’s book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (BFD). Celebrating this anniversary, today we switch to publishing quotes from BFD for the next several weeks.…
If we are to predict behavior (and possibly to control it), we must deal with probability of response. The business of a science of behavior is to evaluate this probability…
Progress in a scientific field usually waits upon the discovery of a satisfactory dependent variable. Until such a variable has been discovered, we resort to theory. (p. 75)
Rate of responding appears to be the only datum which varies significantly and in the expected direction under conditions which are relevant to the “learning process.” (p. 75)
To show an orderly change in the behavior of the average rat or ape or child is not enough, since learning is a process in the behavior of the individual.…
That a theory generates research does not prove its value unless the research is valuable. (p. 71)
When we assert that an animal acts in a given way because it expects to receive food, then what began as the task of accounting for learned behavior becomes the…
When we attribute behavior to a neural or mental event, real or conceptual, we are likely to forget that we still have the task of accounting for the neural or…
A science of behavior must eventually deal with behavior in its relation to certain manipulable variables. Theories—whether neural, mental, or conceptual—talk about intervening steps in these relationships. But instead of…
It would be foolhardy to deny the achievements of theories . . . in the history of science. The question of whether they are necessary, however, has other implications and…
The term theory will . . . refer here . . . to any explanation of an observed fact which appeals to events taking place somewhere else, at some other…
No empirical statement is wholly nontheoretical . . . because evidence is never complete, nor is any prediction probably ever made wholly without evidence. (p. 69)
Certain statements are also theories simply to the extent that they are not yet facts. A scientist may guess at the result of an experiment before the experiment is carried…
Certain basic assumptions, essential to any scientific activity, are sometimes called theories. That nature is orderly rather than capricious is an example. (p. 69)
Asked to describe a world in which he would like to live, a man will often refer directly to reinforcing conditions—freedom from aversive stimulation and an abundance of positive reinforcers—but…
From the point of view of an experimental analysis of behavior, [the concept of “happiness”] appears to be merely an awkward way of representing the roles of positive and negative…
If the community has solved the essential problems of daily life, it may leave each member free to do as he pleases. But he is free only to come under…