On January 4, 2016, the B. F. Skinner Foundation launched a new project – Skinner’s Quote of the Day. Quotes from B. F. Skinner’s works, selected by renowned scientists, appear daily Monday-Friday in order, starting with Chapter 1 of each book and running all the way through the last chapter. We started with the Science and Human Behavior (January-December 2916), followed by About Behaviorism (January-November 2017), Contingencies of Reinforcement (January-October 2018), Recent Issues (October 2018-May 2019), Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (May 2019-February 2020), and now moving on to Upon Further Reflection (from February 10 2020).
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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…
The Judaeo-Christian “conscience,” like the Freudian superego, represents an inner controlling mechanism concerned with the automatic self punishment conditioned by the punishments meted out by society. (pp. 394-395)
A stimulus may be effective enough to evoke a response although the relationship between the two cannot be identified. When we say He reminds me of so-and-so, but I don’t…
Controlling variables are commonly overlooked in literary borrowing ... . When it is inferred that the writer is aware of the source but, by not mentioning it, takes credit for…
Some verbal environments do not demand much self-descriptive behavior, while others produce the familiar “introspective” person. (p. 385)
If editing is to occur, the speaker must react as a listener to his own behavior. If he cannot do so, he cannot edit. (p. 384)
The automatic reinforcement of verbal behavior also plays a role in the process of editing. If the subvocal test reveals simply that a response generates no conditioned aversive stimulation, the…
The processes of editing generated by punishment greatly increase the appropriateness of verbal behavior to all features of an occasion, including the audience. Unfortunately, however, the consequences are not always…
If all one’s verbal responses were invariably reinforced, one would be almost constantly occupied with verbal behavior. (p. 380)
It is sometimes necessary . . . to regard “doing nothing” as a response if it has identifiable reinforcing consequences. (p. 379)
The rhetorical device called “paraleipsis” consists of emitting a response together with an autoclitic which asserts that the response is not being emitted: I will not mention the obvious lack…
One form of editing which involves an obvious process of review and revision consists of emitting the response but qualifying it with an autoclitic which reduces the threat of punishment…
In general, symbolic behavior lacks the punishable properties of the unsymbolic counterpart but retains properties which are positively reinforcing. (p. 377)
There are many reasons ... why behavior drops below the level of scope or energy at which it affects the surrounding world, but much behavior is covert simply because it…