Skinner’s Quote of the Day

"The development of environmental control of the vocal musculature greatly extended the help one person receives from others." (p. 54)

"The human species presumably became much more social when its vocal musculature came under operant control." (p. 53)

"Because a species that quickly acquires behavior appropriate to a given environment has less need for an innate repertoire, operant conditioning could not only supplement the natural selection of behavior…

"Reproduction under a much wider range of conditions became possible with the evolution of two processes [i.e., respondent and operant conditioning] through which individual organisms acquired behavior appropriate to novel…

"The story [of human behavior] presumably began not with a big bang, but with that extraordinary moment when a molecule that had the power to reproduce itself came into existence.…

"[Frazier:] Welfare payments are not effectively contingent on behavior. The health-giving side of operant reinforcement is missing." (p. 42)

"[Frazier:] Helping those who cannot help themselves strengthens a culture, but helping those who can help themselves destroys it." (p. 42)

"[Frazier:] Behavior becomes conscious when society gives us reasons to examine ourselves." (p. 38)

"[Frazier:] Of course Marx put it all in terms of feelings (he was not a full-fledged behaviorist, alas), but it is easy enough to put it right. It all comes…

"[Frazier:] Those who found themselves in possession of administrative power could never resist using it to their own aggrandizement. To justify themselves, they invented myths—like the divine right of kings,…

"[Burris:] Frazier had founded Walden Two and was still living there, but he was far from a leader. He had concealed his part in Walden Two as far as possible.…

"We are beginning to see why people act as they do, and the reasons are of a sort that can be changed." (p. 30)

"How much richer would the whole world be if the reinforcers in daily life were more effectively contingent on productive work?" (p. 30)

"The quality of life in the West is not the most important problem in the world today. It cannot compare with global poverty, illness, and violence or with overpopulation, the…

"When people work only to avoid losing a job, study only to avoid failure, and treat each other well only to avoid censure or institutional punishment, the threatening contingencies generalize.…

"That cultures have often turned to punitive control may be the best evidence we have that they have neglected strengthening alternatives." (p. 29)

"Historically [in education] the consequences have been almost always punitive: if not the birch rod or cane, then criticism or failure. The three classical by-products of punishment follow: escape (truancy),…

"The task of education is to build a repertoire of behavior that will eventually have reinforcing consequences in the daily and professional life of the graduate." (p. 28)

" . . . applied behavior analysis. That term is better than behavior modification because it does not mean prescribing drugs, implanting electrodes, or performing surgery. It means improving the…

"When for the first time we make a reinforcer contingent upon a response, we bring an operant into existence." (p. 27)

"Strength is a basic concept in the analysis of operant behavior, but there is no good word for it in everyday English . . . It is possible that a…

"When the vocal apparatus of Homo sapiens came under operant control, language was born and with it a much more rapid evolution of cultural practices." (p. 26)

"What is wrong with life in the West is not that it has too many reinforcers, but that the reinforcers are not contingent upon the kinds of behavior that sustain…

"Beautiful pictures reinforce looking at them, delicious foods reinforce eating them, entertaining performances and exciting games reinforce watching them, and interesting books reinforce reading them—but nothing else is done." (p.…

"We are seldom as strongly inclined to behave rationally as we are inclined to act according to experienced consequences."  (p. 22)

"Formal education is largely a form of advice, but little of the behavior shaped and maintained in the classroom is ever subsequently reinforced in daily life." (p. 22)

We escape not only the painful extremes of temperature and exhaustive work but also the mildest discomforts and annoyances. As a result, there is very little left to the strengthening…

"Helping older people to do things they could do for themselves deprives them of the opportunity to engage in reinforcing activities." (p. 20)

"Helping children do something they can do alone deprives them of reinforcing consequences that would shape and maintain more useful behavior." (p. 20)

"We give heroes medals, students degrees, and famous people prizes, but those rewards are not directly contingent upon what they have done, and it is generally felt that they would…

"The strengthening effect is missed . . . when reinforcers are called rewards. People are rewarded, but behavior is reinforced." (p. 19)

"Workers rarely put in a free day at the factory just because they have been paid for working there at other times." (p. 19)

"Workers do not work “in order to be paid,” if that means that the money they will receive at the end of the week affects their behavior during the week.…

"The world we live in is largely a creation of people, and nowhere more so than in the West—but in an important sense it is not well made." (p. 18)

"When we repeat behavior that has been reinforced, . . . we do not feel the pleasing effect we felt at the time the reinforcement occurred. Pleasing appears to be…

"When we feel pleased, we are not necessarily feeling a greater inclination to behave in the same way. (Indeed, when we call a reinforcer satisfying rather than pleasing, as Thorndike…

"The association of reinforcement with feeling is so strong that it has long been said that things reinforce because they feel good or feel good because they reinforce. We should…

"The human species took a unique evolutionary step when its vocal musculature came under operant control and language was born." (p. 16)

"Because what we feel is within our skin, we cannot escape from it. The sense organs with which we feel it are not as easily observed as those with which…

"Because feelings appear to play such an important role, it has been argued that a science of behavior must be incomplete, that it cannot solve the kinds of problem we…

"Many organizations are dedicated to the prevention of nuclear war, overpopulation, and the exhaustion and destruction of a livable environment, but . . .  the principal modus operandi of these…

"A designed way of life would be liked by those who lived it (or the design would be faulty), but it would almost certainly not appeal to those who like…

"If human nature means the genetic endowment of the species, we cannot change it. But we have the science needed to design a world that would take that nature into…

"The basic behavioral processes can be studied without confusion only when [verbal behavior] is out of action. However, verbal behavior itself can be analyzed in the same terms." (p. 10)

"The theory of evolution is an interpretation, but it is strongly supported by a science in which prediction and control are possible—the science of genetics. The experimental analysis of behavior…

"Where prediction and control are not yet possible, one must turn to interpretation. That is standard scientific practice." (p. 9)

"In any field of science, one begins with facts that can be predicted and controlled with some precision and then moves on to more complex facts only when the increasing…

"Much of what is called behavioral science . . . is confined to what people have done throughout history or are doing now in the environments in which they live."…

"The fact that selection by consequences prepares only for a future like the selecting past is a flaw that, as we have seen, has been successively corrected—the flaw in natural…