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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"It is true that the simplicity is to some extent artificial. We do not often find anything like it outside the laboratory—especially in the field of human behavior, which is…
"In a scientific analysis it is seldom possible to proceed directly to complex cases. We begin with the simple and build up to the complex, step by step." (p. 204)…
"A fairly exhaustive set of tests may enable us to evaluate traits and to predict performances in a wide range of situations, but the prediction is still from effect to…
"Trait-names usually begin as adjectives—"intelligent," "aggressive," "disorganized," "angry," "introverted," "ravenous," and so on—but the almost inevitable linguistic result is that adjectives give birth to nouns. The things to which these…
"We are all thoroughly familiar with descriptions of behavior in terms of traits, and trait-names are an extensive part of our daily vocabulary. As a result, we feel at home…
"We have seen that there are practical circumstances under which it may be useful to predict traits, but in general the trait-name tells us little about behavior. It is not…
"The principal advantages of a functional analysis are lost, however, when we resort to these alternative practices. Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of an aspect-description is its failure to advance…
"A prediction from effect to effect is, of course, sometimes useful. It may enable us to dispense with the direct observation of variables. This is particularly important when the variables…
"A test is simply a convenient opportunity to observe behavior—to survey or sample our dependent variable. The score may be used to predict some aspect of the larger universe of…
"Differences in experience between the "ignorant" and the "learned," the "naive" and the "sophisticated," or the "innocent" and the "worldly" refer mainly to differences in histories of reinforcement. Such terms…
"There are practical circumstances under which it is useful to know that a man will behave in a given manner even though we may not know precisely what he will…
"Frequently we describe behavior not with verbs which specify action but with adjectives describing characteristics or aspects of action." (p. 194) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"We may avoid the use of punishment by weakening an operant in other ways . . . The most effective alternative process is probably extinction . . . Another technique…
"In the long run, however, punishment does not actually eliminate behavior from a repertoire, and its temporary achievement is obtained at tremendous cost in reducing the over-all efficiency and happiness…
"Severe punishment unquestionably has an immediate effect in reducing a tendency to act in a given way. This result is no doubt responsible for its widespread use." (p. 190) Subscribe…
"The most important effect of punishment, then, is to establish aversive conditions which are avoided by any behavior of "doing something else." (p. 189) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"Strong emotional predispositions are also rearoused by the beginnings of severely punished behavior. These are the main ingredient of what we speak of as guilt, shame, or a sense of…
". . . as a second effect of punishment, behavior which has consistently been punished becomes the source of conditioned stimuli which evoke incompatible behavior." (p. 187) Subscribe to RSS…
"The first effect of the aversive stimuli used in punishment is confined to the immediate situation . . . When we stop a child from giggling in church by pinching…
"We first define a positive reinforcer as any stimulus the presentation of which strengthens the behavior upon which it is made contingent. We define a negative reinforcer (an aversive stimulus)…
"The fact that punishment does not permanently reduce a tendency to respond is in agreement with Freud's discovery of the surviving activity of what he called repressed wishes." (p. 184)…
"More recently, the suspicion has also arisen that punishment does not in fact do what it is supposed to do. An immediate effect in reducing a tendency to behave is…
"In the long run, punishment, unlike reinforcement, works to the disadvantage of both the punished organism and the punishing agency." (p. 183) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"Reinforcement builds up these tendencies [to behave in certain ways]: punishment is designed to tear them down." (p. 182) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"The commonest technique of control in modern life is punishment." (p. 182) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"When we speak of the effects of anxiety, we imply that the state itself is a cause, but so far as we are concerned here, the term merely classifies behavior.…
"The effect of stimuli which characteristically precede positive reinforcement may be chronic in a world in which "good" things frequently happen. It is not seen in the clinic because it…
"Since conditioning may take place as the result of one pairing of stimuli, a single aversive event may bring a condition of anxiety under the control of incidental stimuli." (p.…
"In the design of controlling techniques the possibility of generating anxiety as an unfortunate by-product must constantly be kept in mind." (p. 179) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"Although the biological advantage of avoidance is obvious, the emotional pattern of anxiety appears to serve no useful purpose. It interferes with the normal behavior of the individual and may…
"Although avoidance suggests that behavior may be influenced by an event which does not occur, we may account for the effect without violating any fundamental principle of science with the…
"An important example of [the] use of aversive conditioning is the practice of branding an act wrong or sinful. Any behavior which reduces the stimulation arising from the early stages…
"It is not difficult to show that an organism which is reinforced by the withdrawal of certain conditions should have an advantage in natural selection." (p. 173) Subscribe to RSS…
"Just as we did not define a positive reinforcer as pleasant or satisfying, so in defining a negative reinforcer in terms of its power to reinforce when withdrawn we do…
"Painful stimuli are generally aversive, but not necessarily so—as a counterirritant shows. Stimuli which have acquired their aversive power in the process of conditioning are especially unlikely to possess identifying…
"Moods and dispositions represent a kind of second-order probability—the probability that a given circumstance will raise the probability of a given response." (p. 169) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"A man does not neglect his business because of anxiety or worry. Such a statement is at best merely a way of classifying a particular kind of neglect. The only…
"It does not help in the solution of a practical problem to be told that some feature of a man's behavior is due to frustration or anxiety; we also need…
"Responses that vary together in an emotion do so in part because of a common consequence . . . Some of the behavior involved in an emotion is apparently unconditioned,…
"In casual discourse and for many scientific purposes some such way of referring to current strength in terms of the variables of which it is a function is often desirable.…
"When the man in the street says that someone is afraid or angry or in love, he is generally talking about predispositions to act in certain ways . . .…
"In the search for what is happening "in emotion" the scientist has found himself at a peculiar disadvantage. Where the layman identifies and classifies emotions not only with ease but…
"The "emotions" are excellent examples of the fictional causes to which we commonly attribute behavior." (p. 160) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"Behavior is as much a part of the organism as are its anatomical features . . . Since we cannot change the species of an organism, the variable is of…
"Behavior which is characteristic of a species is attributed to an instinct (of uncertain location or properties) said to be possessed by all members of the species. This is a…
"We could say that the eating of salty hors d'oeuvres makes a guest thirsty and that his thirst then drives him to drink. It is simpler, in both theory and…
"So long as the inner event [e.g., need or want] is inferred, it is in no sense an explanation of behavior and adds nothing to a functional account." (pp. 143-144)…
"Needs and wants are likely to be thought of as psychic or mental, while hungers are more readily conceived of as physiological. But the terms are freely used when nothing…
"Not all deprivation or satiation is concerned with the conspicuous interchange of materials. A man may be “deprived of physical exercise” if he is kept indoors by bad weather; as…
"In the search for what is happening "in emotion" the scientist has found himself at a peculiar disadvantage. Where the layman identifies and classifies emotions not only with ease but…