Author: B. F. Skinner Foundation

. . . as a living organism a man is behaving in some sense while “doing nothing,” even though his behavior may not be easily observed by others or possibly…

If someone who is sitting quite still is asked What are you doing?, he may reply Nothing, I’m just thinking. In the terminology of the layman (and of many specialists)…

An account of verbal behavior is not complete until its relation to the rest of the behavior of the organism has been made clear. This can be done conveniently by…

Once a speaker also becomes a listener, the stage is set for a drama in which one man plays several roles . . . This has been recognized traditionally when…

Verbal behavior must have become much more valuable, both to the group as a whole and severally to its members, when responses began to be transmitted from one man to…

Co-operative enterprises are not always for the benefit of all parties, but the interlocking contingencies necessary to sustain verbal behavior prevail even in the extremely unsymmetrical relation of master and…

Verbal behavior extends both the sensory powers of the listener, who can now respond to the behavior of others rather than directly to things and events, and the power of…

Plausible advantages are not, as such, an explanation of the origin and maintenance of verbal behavior, but they point to the reinforcing contingencies which are. (p. 432)

One of the ultimate accomplishments of a science of verbal behavior may be an empirical logic, or a descriptive and analytical scientific epistemology, the terms and practices of which will…

. . . the behavior of both logician and scientist leads at last to effective nonverbal action, and it is here that we must find the ultimate reinforcing contingencies which…

The test of scientific prediction is often, as the word implies, verbal confirmation. (p. 429)

An important part of scientific practice is the evaluation of the probability that a verbal response is “right” or “true”—that it may be acted upon successfully. (p. 428)

Empirical science is only in part concerned with the construction and confirmation of verbal behavior. In broader terms, it is a set of practices which are productive of useful behavior.…

The theory of evolution cannot be confirmed by a set of tacts to the actual events taking place in the remote past, but a single set of verbal responses which…

It is useful to maintain the distinction between the confirmation of a tact and of an intraverbal. If we have put something in one of two boxes labeled A and…

Frequently we confirm a response by finding variables which control a similar form of response in some other type of operant. Thus, we confirm our guess that an animal at…

We confirm any verbal response when we generate additional variables to increase its probability. Thus, our guess that something seen at a distance is a telescope is confirmed by moving…

Although the notion of a word as something “used” by the speaker has had unfortunate results, records or traces of verbal responses can, of course, be treated as independent objects.…

When a speaker says four in response to four men seated about a table, his response may be as directly controlled by a property of the situation as men or…

Metaphorical extension may occur [in scientific practice], but either the controlling property is quickly emphasized by additional contingencies which convert the response into an abstraction or the metaphor is robbed…

Generic extensions are tolerated in scientific practice, but metaphorical, metonymical, and solecistic extensions are usually extinguished or punished. (p. 419)

The scientific community encourages the precise stimulus control under which an object or property of an object is identified or characterized in such a way that practical action will be…

... when a speaker intraverbally reconstructs directions, rules of conduct, and “laws of thought,” he increases the likelihood of successful practical, ethical, and intellectual behavior, respectively, and his success in…

... most verbal behavior has to do with effective action. (p. 418)

Brief spans of time are frequently bridged by setting up self-echoic chains, as in carrying a telephone number from the directory to the phone by repeating it until it has…

By memorizing a series of tacts on the spot, the speaker may later describe the scene with the intraverbal behavior he thus sets up. The bridging is accomplished by some…

... distant stimuli are ... weak variables, and contingencies which involve them usually reinforce “bridging” behavior. The distant stimulus may be represented in a form which survives until a response…

The contingencies of reinforcement of verbal behavior often extend over long periods of time. Thus, an envoy is sent to observe events in a foreign country and to report upon…

The explicit reinforcing of “observing” behavior has only recently been studied experimentally, and mostly on lower organisms.7 Enough has been learned, however, to justify certain distinctions. Any behavior is reinforced…

A skilled thinker ... may encourage the emission of verbal behavior by briefly doing something else or, as we say, by thinking of something else. Such behavior is acquired as…

The verbal behavior of a mathematician, as of anyone else, is presumably a function of variables in the external environment and in other parts of his own behavior. (p. 413)

A man may increase the probability that he will answer a letter by rereading it and thus generating an appropriate emotional disposition—to console the writer, say, or attack him. (p.…

A man may generate aversive conditions from which he can escape only by engaging in verbal behavior, as by accepting an invitation to speak or an advance royalty. (p. 412)

Solitude is not only freedom from distraction, it is a condition in which the self is an important audience. (p. 410)

If verbal behavior is weak or lacking because one “cannot hear one’s self think,” the remedy is to escape into silence. (p. 408)

Fortune-tellers use such devices for their effect upon the observer. The fortune-teller is more readily accepted as a “seer” if he is looking at something— perhaps only what he sees…

Self-probes. A nonverbal probe commonly used by the speaker to encourage his own verbal behavior is a crystal ball or other source of vague visual stimuli. (p. 406)

Thematic self-prompts are familiar to everyone. We facilitate the recall of a word by repeating synonyms or near-synonyms, hoping that an intraverbal relation will supply needed strength. (p. 406)

We use a self-echoic prompt to strengthen textual behavior when, in looking for a name in a telephone directory, we keep repeating the name as we run down the list.…

Self-prompts. Verbal stimuli are commonly used as formal prompts. A shopper may search for an appropriate verbal stimulus by going down a list of reminders of things to buy. A…

When a speaker is unable to name an object correctly or describe it adequately, he may find it useful simply to improve his contact with it. (p. 405)

... in finding something to say to fill an embarrassing pause, we cast about for a stimulus—the weather is usually available—and respond to it. “Casting about” is the sort of…

Much of the behavior emitted upon any occasion “just grows”—it springs from the current changing environment and from other verbal behavior in progress. (p. 403)

Various neuroses, not to say psychoses, have been said to be alleviated by an exhausting logorrhea. But it does not follow that if “talking it out” is followed by relief,…

Because of punishment, incipient stages of behavior often produce conditioned aversive stimuli which evoke emotional reactions, mainly anxiety. The punishment of strong behavior may result in repeated automatic aversive stimuli…

Behavior which is emitted often changes the conditions responsible for its strength . . . Unemitted behavior cannot, of course, do this. Since conditions which make verbal behavior strong are…

Incipient stages of behavior which has been punished generate aversive stimuli, and possibly the concomitant emotional effect called anxiety, and the speaker escapes from these and avoids punishment by “doing…

A bosom friend may serve in place of a psychiatrist. (p. 399)

A symbolic response is metaphorical; but where the metaphor is often useful because a nonmetaphorical response is lacking, the symbolic response emerges because a nonsymbolic response is subject to punishment.…

The “confidant” is a nonpunishing audience—any sympathetic person to whom one may speak with less fear of punishment than to listeners at random. The psychotherapist usually establishes himself as a…