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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

I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn’t given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
B. F. SKINNER

Anxiety Death Myself Worry
The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
B. F. SKINNER

Cry Goodness Life Wait
To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Citizenship Destroy Loyalty Promise
Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SKINNER

Deep Destruction Genius Mad Men
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Himself Men
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
B. F. SKINNER

Act Chance Repeat
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Affection Friendship Parents Problem Win
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Education Enjoyment Life
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Himself Men
A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.
B. F. SKINNER

Enjoyment Philosophy Science
Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
B. F. SKINNER

Education Learning Need Teaching
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
B. F. SKINNER

Children Education Himself Myself
I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Difference Lying Men

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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Popular Authors

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