Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
B. F. SKINNERIt is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.
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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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I did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
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That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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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.
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Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
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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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We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
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Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.
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A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
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Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely their guess.
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It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.
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Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER







