Skinner’s Quote of the Day

"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…

"Ethics is mainly a matter of the conflict between immediate and remote consequences." (p. 6)

"Operant behavior, like natural selection, prepares the organism for a future, but it is only a future that is similar to the selecting past." (p. 3)

"The concept of purpose has been replaced by that of selection, which was first recognized by Darwin and Wallace in the natural selection of species." (p. 2)

"Why are we not more responsible or more intelligent? Why are we suffering from a failure of will? A better strategy is to look at our behavior and at the…

"... the earth grows steadily less habitable; and all this is exacerbated by a burgeoning population that resists control." (p. 1)

"Countercontrol is certainly effective, but it leads at best to a kind of uneasy equilibrium. The next step can be taken only through the explicit design of a culture which…

"The question Who will control? Is not to be answered with a proper name or by describing a kind of person (e.g., a benevolent dictator) or his qualifications (e.g., a…

" The struggle for freedom has not reduced or eliminated control; it has merely corrected it." (p. 197)

"When we punish bad behavior, we can give the individual credit for behaving well, but if we arrange conditions under which he “desires” to behave well, the conditions must get…

"Evidence recently acquired in the experimental analysis of operant conditioning . . . suggests that there are ways in which we could all feel freer than ever before." (p. 196)

"There are certain kinds of control under which people feel perfectly free." (p. 196)

"To say with John Stuart Mill, that “liberty consists in doing what one desires” is to neglect the determiners of desires." (p. 196)

"[In Beyond Freedom and Dignity] I was not discussing a philosophical entity called freedom but rather the behavior of those who struggle to be free." (pp. 195-196)

"[Many of my critics] have resorted to highly emotional terms, and a kind of hysterical blindness seems to have prevented some of them from reading what I actually wrote." (p.…

"The feeling of freedom is associated with doing the things a person wants to do. But why does he want to do them?" (p. 192)

"As Thoreau said, you don’t own things; things own you." (pp. 190-191)

"Hawthorne said that Thoreau made people feel guilty about their possessions, and I know what he meant. When I got my doctor’s degree, my family gave me a car, but…

"The linguist’s “deep structure,” like Freud’s “depth psychology,” is a spatial metaphor which serves several functions. It is useful in referring to the visibility in the determination of behavior. It…

"A dictionary does not give meanings of words, it gives other words having the same meanings." (p. 177)

"It is a rare person who picks up a hand of thirteen spades at bridge and views it as no less likely to occur than any of the other hands…