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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.

B. F. Skinner

At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
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Born Intelligence Man Moments Problem Solve
The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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Army Battle Fear People
The simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of “winning friends.
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Affection Friendship Parents Problem Win
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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Change Men Science See Transformation
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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Attitude Determination
The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
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Control Education Mystery Relationship Responsible Satisfaction Simplicity View
…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
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Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
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Absence Control Feeling Force Freedom
It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student’s life.
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Education Enjoyment Life
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
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Change Effort Mindset Violence
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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Control Deep Different Way
We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.
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Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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Ideas Myself People Thinking Value
Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.
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Acceptance Education Honesty Intellectual Value
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
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Explanation Justice Person Question See Understand

To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.

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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.

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