The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
B. F. SKINNERThe major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
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Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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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.
B. F. SKINNER