Skinner’s Quote of the Day

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

... I have been wallowing in reminiscence lately in writing my autobiography. The trouble is that it takes you backward. You begin to live your life in the wrong direction.…

I have been guilty of . . . name-dropping myself when other reinforcers were in short supply . . . (p. 154)

... it is a mistake to say that we suffer from feelings. We suffer from the defective contingencies of reinforcement responsible for the feelings. (p. 154)

When the occasion for strong behavior is lacking or when reinforcing consequences no longer follow, we are bored, discouraged, and depressed. (p. 154)

The totalitarian state begins perhaps by merely restricting the control of the agencies under it, but it can eventually usurp their functions. (Skinner, 1953, p. 443)

Creative verbal behavior is not produced by exercising creativity; it is produced by skillful self-management. (p. 153)

"One of the more disheartening experiences of old age is discovering that a point you have just made—so significant, so beautifully expressed—was made in something you published a long time…

"I could have doubled my readership by calling this article “Cognitive Self-Management in Old Age.” Cognitive means so many things that it could scarcely fail to apply here. But I…

When I find myself saying “damn,” I know it is time to relax. (p. 151)

Old age is like fatigue, except that its effects cannot be corrected by relaxing or taking a vacation. (p. 150)

If the stages in our lives were due merely to the passage of time, we should have to find a fountain of youth to reverse the direction of change, but…

Much of what seems to be the unfolding of an inner potential is the product of an unfolding environment: A person’s world develops. The aging of a person as distinct…

In accepted usage, to develop is not simply to grow older but to unfold a latent structure, to realize an inner potential, to become more effective. (pp. 145-146)

"Developmentalism is a branch of structuralism in which the form, or topography, of behavior is studied as a function of time." (p. 145)

"As in any application of a behavioral analysis, the secret of successful verbal self-management is understanding what verbal behavior is all about." (p. 143)

"Samuel Butler’s comment that “a hen is simply an egg’s way of making another egg” holds for the human egg as well and for the poet." (p. 140)

"In a paper called “On ‘Having’ a Poem,” I compared a poet to a mother. Although the mother bears the child and we call it her child, she is not…

"I once gave what was supposed to be the same lecture to fifteen audiences. I used a good many slides that served as an outline, but I began to abbreviate…

"I once used E. G. Boring’s The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness as an instrument of self-management. I disagreed so violently with the author’s position that after reading a page or…

"Reading what somebody else has said about you sometimes strengthens behavior, since one is seldom at loss for words in a warm discussion." (p. 138)

"The best reason for liking what you have written is that it says what you have to say." (p. 138)

"Suppose you are at your desk two hours a day and produce on the average 50 words an hour. That is not much, but it is about 35,000 words a…

"For years, an electric clock on my desk ran only when the light was on, and I added a point to a cumulative record whenever the clock completed twelve hours.…

"The great generalized reinforcer, money, is usually poorly contingent upon behavior at your desk. It controls too effectively when a writer begins to write only the kinds of things that…

"The results [of aversive control] are not always bad. Many famous writers have worked mostly under aversive pressure. Balzac wrote only when he needed money, Dostoevski only in return for…

"A familiar example [of aversive control] is the pause in conversation that must be filled and that leads, too often, to verbal behavior about trivia—the weather, the latest news, what…

" “More than one history in one lifetime leads to multiple selves, no one of which can be said to be the real you. The writer of fiction profits from…

"One of the most widely reprinted and translated papers of mine, “Freedom and the Control of Men,” was first written almost entirely in the form of notes. When I was…

"It may be a mistake to try to do too much [writing] at first . . . It is enough to begin with short sessions, perhaps fifteen minutes a day.…