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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

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
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
If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
B. F. SKINNER

Freedom Happiness Human Illusion Necessary
The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.
B. F. SKINNER

Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Change Effort Mindset Violence
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
B. F. SKINNER

Avoid Learning Person Punishment Simplicity Way
A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.
B. F. SKINNER

Development Mathematics Nature Process Reading Violence
Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
B. F. SKINNER

Accomplishment Education Fear Live Punishment Trouble
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Absence Control Feeling Force Freedom
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
B. F. SKINNER

Animal Learning Myself Teaching
Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
B. F. SKINNER

Important Talk
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
B. F. SKINNER

Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
B. F. SKINNER

Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
A person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
B. F. SKINNER

Explanation History Mindset Person Work

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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