Skinner’s Quote of the Day

Pictures are by definition reinforcing in the sense that they are responsible for the fact that artists paint them and people look at them. (p. 381)

The word “reinforcing,” though technical, is useful as a rough synonym for “interesting,” “attractive,” “pleasing,” and “satisfying,” and all these terms are commonly applied to pictures. For our present purposes…

. . . if we can discover the reinforcers which are contingent upon the artist’s behavior when he paints a picture, and upon the behavior of others when they look…

Artists paint pictures because of the consequences, and people look at pictures because of the consequences. (pp. 380-381)

If art springs from an inner life which is truly original, in the sense that it begins with the artist, then there is nothing to be done beyond giving the…

When [artists] talk about their emotions, thoughts, ideas, and impulses, they necessarily use a vocabulary that they have learned from people who have had no contact with these things and…

Why, indeed, do artists paint pictures? The traditional answers are not very helpful. They refer to events supposedly taking place inside the artist himself . . . They represent the…

We usually know why people behave as they do when they “have” to do so, but less compelling reasons are usually less obvious. They exist, however, and if we are…

We are living in an age in which science fiction is coming true. The thrilling spectacle of man-made satellites has turned our eyes toward outer space. What we shall find…

If we are to make a study of behavior sufficiently reinforcing to hold the interest of young men in competition with inner mechanisms, we must make clear that behavior is…

Under the influence of a contrary philosophy of explanation, which insists upon the reductive priority of the inner event, many brilliant men who began with an interest in behavior, and…

In an acceptable explanatory scheme the ultimate causes of behavior must be found outside the organism. (p. 371)

Experimental psychology has suffered perhaps its greatest loss of manpower because competent investigators, beginning with a descriptive interest in behavior, have passed almost immediately to an explanatory preoccupation with what…

Mathematics will come into its own in the analysis of behavior when appropriate methods yield data which are so orderly that there is no longer any need to escape to…

The psychologist who adopts the commoner statistical methods . . . is inclined to rest content with rough measures of behavior because statistics shows him how to “do something about…

For more than a generation, however, our graduate schools have been building psychologists on a different pattern of Man Thinking. They have taught statistics in lieu of scientific method. Unfortunately,…

The very success of a science may force it to become preoccupied with smaller and smaller details, which cannot compete with broad new issues. The philosophical motivation of the pioneers…

When we have studied the performances generated by various contingencies of reinforcement in a single arbitrary response, we can move on to two or more concurrent responses. Instead of one…

I propose to analyze the behavior of psychologists. Why are they not currently developing the pure science of human behavior from which such tremendous technological advances would certainly flow? How…

Very little current research is reported in the frame of reference of a comprehensive theory. Nor has the point of view of an experimental analysis yet reached far afield. Many…

The principles of an experimental analysis are now being extended to the field of verbal behavior, and it is inconceivable that the results will not be used to improve instructional…

We do not really explain “disturbed behavior” by attributing it to “anxiety” until we have also explained the anxiety. The extra step required is in the spirit of an experimental…

It is possible that theories of behavior derived from the clinic or from field studies, rather than from the laboratory, are on the wane. A strict Freudian psychology, for example,…

Given unlimited power it is possible that we should all become selfish monsters. (p. 334)

Fortunately, there are those who are inclined to do something about the mistreatment of children, the aged, prisoners, psychotics, and retardates. We say that they care, but it is important…

It would be difficult for a normal child to develop normally under many forms of institutional care. (p. 333)

Compassion will not explain action until the compassion has in turn been explained. (p.331)

When someone mistreats us, we may feel angry or enraged, but if we call him bad and his behavior wrong or take more effective action, it is not because of…

The close check with reality characteristic of experimental analysis would be most likely to expose the fictional entities which had played so devastating a role in what passed for psychological…

. . . the special control of variables attainable only in laboratory experimentation would ultimately supply the account which, being in closest accord with the actual properties of the human…

After all, it was the same man who was of interest to psychologists, political scientists, theologians, psychotherapists, economists, educators, literary critics, and scientific methodologists. Why should there be a different…

If the history of science were any guide, an effective psychology would eventually develop a central conception of human behavior which not only would be fundamentally “right” in the sense…

We cannot remedy the situation by mere dialectic. We need to arrive at a theory of human behavior which is not only plausible, not only sufficiently convincing to be “sold”…

There are facts which have been well established for centuries which are incompatible with the traditional theories of human behavior, and these theories move about in the modern world in…

The survival of the traditional conception of man as a free and responsible agent is an excellent example of the general principle that a theory is never overthrown by facts,…

The most important contribution that psychology can make today is a workable theory of behavior in the present sense—a conception of man which is in accord with all the facts…

As everyone knows, many technical procedures which would improve our practices in education, law, politics, and so on are now available. (p. 357)

One important role of a scientific theory of behavior, then, is to replace the theories which now pervade our thinking, which are part of our everyday speech, which Influence all…

The lack of an adequate understanding of human behavior is most cruelly felt in the field of government and world affairs. We are faced with the disheartening spectacle of hundreds…

Ancient theories of the nature of man recur again and again with their familiar cant—“an integrated view of life,” “a sense of personal responsibility,” “a capacity to experience and understand…

Whatever his field, the social scientist does not currently find in the science of psychology a conceptual scheme with which he can talk about human behavior consistently and effectively. Economic…

In any event an independent theory of behavior is not only possible, it is highly desirable, and such a theory is in no sense opposed to physiological speculation or research.…

The hypothetical physiological mechanisms which inspire so much research in psychology are not acceptable as substitutes for a behavioral theory. On the contrary, because they introduce many irrelevant matters, they…

As the science of physiology advances, it will presumably be possible to show what is happening in various structures within the organism during particular behavioral events, and the theoretical systems…

The simple fact is that psychologists have never made a thoroughgoing renunciation of the inner man. He is surreptitiously appealed to from time to time in all our thinking, especially…

A proper theory must be able to represent the multiplicity of response systems. It must do something more: it must abolish the conception of the individual as a doer, as…

The integrity or unity of the individual has been assumed, perhaps because the organism is a biological unit. But it is quite clear that more than one person, in the…

Since we have not clearly identified the significant data of a science of behavior, we do not arrive well prepared at the second stage of theory building, at which we…

It may be that the notion of a unit of response is at fault and that a final statement will reflect the fluidity and continuity of behavior as a whole.…

The current theoretical practice which is objectionable is the use of a hypothetical neural structure, the conceptual nervous system, as a theory of behavior. The neurological references introduced into such…