Science and Human Behavior: Extended Edition (PDF)

Description

When the manuscript of Science and Human Behavior landed on the desk of Skinner’s publishers in January 1953, they were dismayed. “It simply does not look like an ordinary textbook,” they grumbled. But they are grumbling no more, for the book has been continuously in print ever since. The reason for this longevity is, of course, that what the book lacks in glossy photographs, tables, graphs, optical illusions, and personality inventories, it more than makes up for in its elegance, parsimony, and scope. The small family of behavioral principles that have emerged from the animal laboratory play a fundamental role in all behavior. They are natural selection’s powerful solution to the problem of shaping adaptive behavior in mobile organisms in unpredictable environments.

This Extended Edition features a foreword by Dr. Vincent J. Carbone, which is both a retrospective appreciation and a contemporary evaluation of the book. Also added is a a moving reminiscence and appraisal of the book by Skinner’s closest friend and colleague, Dr. Fred S. Keller. The students of behavior analysis will appreciate a functionally improved and expanded index created by Dr. David C. Palmer.