I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
B. F. SKINNERA 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
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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 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.
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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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Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
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What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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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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Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
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We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
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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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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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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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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