No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.
B. F. SKINNERThe way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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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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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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A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
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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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…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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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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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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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
B. F. SKINNER