Skinner’s Quote of the Day

"The thirsty man does not reach for the fantasied glass of water, but the dreamer does not know that what he is seeing is “not really there,” and he responds…

"There are many ways of getting a person to see when there is nothing to be seen, and they can all be analyzed as the arrangement of contingencies which strengthen…

"A person is changed by the contingencies of reinforcement under which he behaves; he does not store the contingencies . . . he has no “cognitive map” of the world…

"After hearing a piece of music several times, a person may hear it when it is not being played, though probably not as richly or as clearly. So far as…

". . . as a modern authority has pointed out, it is as difficult to explain how we see a picture in the occipital cortex of the brain as to…

"The brain is said to use data, make hypotheses, make choices, and so on, as the mind was once said to have done. In a behavioristic account it is the…

"In the traditional view, a person responds to the world around him in the sense of acting upon it . . . The opposing view—common, I believe to all versions…

"Happiness is a feeling, a by-product of operant reinforcement. The things which make us happy are the things which reinforce us, but it is the things, not the feelings, which…

"All gambling systems are based on variable-ratio schedules of reinforcement, although their effects are usually attributed to feelings . . . The same variable-ratio schedule affects those who explore, prospect,…

"When the ratio of responses to reinforcements is favorable, the behavior is commonly attributed to (1) diligence, industry, or ambition, (2) determination, stubbornness, staying power, or perseverance (continuing to respond…

"The behavior of the homesick, forlorn, lovelorn, or lonely is commonly attributed to the feelings experienced rather than to the absence of a familiar environment." (p. 65)   Subscribe to…

". . . a person is said to be unable to go to work because he is discouraged or depressed, although his not going, together with what he feels, is…

"People can usually say what they are looking for and why they are looking in a given place, but like other species they also may not be able to do…

"Seeking or looking for something seems to have a particularly strong orientation toward the future. We learn to look for an object when we acquire behavior which commonly has the…

"​Purpose" was once commonly used as a verb, as we now use "propose."  " I propose to go" is similar to "I intend to go." If instead we speak of…

"​Possibly no charge is more often leveled against behaviorism or a science of behavior than that it cannot deal with purpose or intention. A stimulus—response formula has no answer, but…

"​The critical condition for the apparent exercise of free will is positive reinforcement as the result of which a person feels free and calls himself free and says he does…

"​The conspicuousness of the causes is at issue when reflex behavior is called involuntary—one is not free to sneeze or not to sneeze; the initiating cause is the pepper. Operant…

"​Freedom" usually means the absence of restraint or coercion, but more comprehensively it means a lack of any prior determination: "All things that come to be, except acts of will,…

"​The spontaneous generation of behavior has reached the same stage as the spontaneous generation of maggots and micro organisms in Pasteur’s day. " (p. 59)   Subscribe to RSS feed…

"The apparent lack of immediate cause in operant behavior has led to the invention of an initiating event. Behavior is said to be put into play when a person wills…

"To distinguish an operant from an elicited reflex, we say that the operant response is “emitted.” (It might be better to say simply that it appears, since emission may imply…

"The process of operant conditioning . . . is simple enough. When a bit of behavior has the kind of consequence called reinforcing, it is more likely to occur again…

"Contingencies of reinforcement have the edge with respect to prediction and control. The conditions under which a person acquires behavior are relatively accessible and can often be manipulated; the conditions…

"The question is not whether the human species has a genetic endowment but how it is to be analyzed. It begins and remains a biological system, and the behavioristic position…

"In an important sense all behavior is inherited, since the organism that behaves is the product of natural selection. Operant conditioning is as much a part of the genetic endowment…

"Universal features of language do not imply a universal innate endowment, because the contingencies of reinforcement arranged by verbal communities have universal features." (p. 48) Subscribe to RSS feed here

"When we have reviewed the contingencies which generate new forms of behavior in the individual, we shall be in a better position to evaluate those which generate innate behavior in…

"There are certain remarkable similarities between contingencies of survival and contingencies of reinforcement. Both exemplify, as I have noted, a kind of causality which was discovered very late in the…

". . . verbal behavior could arise only when the necessary ingredients had already evolved for other reasons." (p. 42) Subscribe to RSS feed here

". . . plausible conditions of selection are hard to find in support of such an assertion as that “principles of grammar are present in the mind at birth,” since…

"Darwin simply discovered the role of selection, a kind of causality very different from the push-pull mechanisms of science up to that time. The origin of a fantastic variety of…

". . . to say that a bird builds a nest because it possesses a nest-building instinct, or because certain conditions release nest building, is merely to describe the fact,…

"Profiting from recent advances in the experimental analysis of behavior, [behaviorism] has looked more closely at the conditions under which people respond to the world within their skin, and it…

"Even those who insist upon the reality of mental life will usually agree that little or no progress has been made since Plato’s day." (p. 36) Subscribe to RSS feed…

"Plato is said to have discovered the mind, but it would be more accurate to say that he invented one version of it." (p. 35) Subscribe to RSS feed here

"A person who has been “made aware of himself” by the questions he has been asked is in a better position to predict and control his own behavior." (p. 35)…

"Self-knowledge is of social origin. It is only when a person’s private world becomes important to others that it is made important to him." (p. 35) Subscribe to RSS feed…

"Explanations of behavior vary with the kinds of answers accepted by the verbal community. If a simple “I feel like it” suffices, nothing else will appear. Freud was influential in…

"The words used to describe covert behavior are the words acquired when behaving publicly." (p. 31) Subscribe to RSS feed here

"Verbal behavior can easily become covert because it does not require environmental support. “I said to myself . . . “ used synonymously with “I thought . . . ,”…

"We often ask about feelings by asking “What does it feel like?” and the answer usually refers to a public condition which often produces a similar private effect." (p. 27)…

"Fortunately, . . . the verbal community can to some extent solve the problem of privacy. For example, it can teach responses descriptive of internal conditions by using associated public…

"The community can teach a child to name colors in various ways. For example, it can show him colored objects, ask him to respond with color words, and commend or…

"We might expect that because a person is in such intimate contact with his own body he should be able to describe its conditions and processes particularly well, but the…

"We respond to our own body with three nervous systems, two of which are particularly concerned with internal features. The so-called interoceptive system . . . The so-called proprioceptive .…

"We feel [the world within our skins] and in some sense observe it, and it would be foolish to neglect this source of information just because no more than one…

"A small part of the universe is contained within the skin of each of us. There is no reason why it should have any special physical status because it lies…

"When it is important to be clear about an issue, nothing but a technical vocabulary will suffice. It will often seem forced or roundabout. Old ways of speaking are abandoned…

"For purposes of casual discourse, I see no reason to avoid such an expression as “I have chosen to discuss . . .” (though I question the possibility of free…