Skinner’s Quote of the Day

Skinner’s Quote of the Day is the project of the B. F. Skinner Foundation, copyright holder for Skinner’s works. On January 4, 2016, we started with Science and Human Behavior, followed by About Behaviorism, Contingencies of Reinforcement, Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior, Reflections on Behaviorism and Society, Upon Further Reflection, and Cumulative Record. Quotes are selected by renowned scientists and published every workday (Monday through Friday). The daily quote is also posted on the Facebook forum. RSS feed for “Skinner’s Quote of the Day” is available here: http://www.bfskinner.org/category/quotes/feed/. Please use the Archives function below to access previous quotes, or to search by a keyword.

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Recent Quotes:

• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 2: The Origins of Cognitive Thought. Quote 6
  Since the observable effects of reinforcement are usually not immediate, we often overlook the connection. Behavior is then often said to grow or develop. Develop originally meant to unfold, as one unfolds a letter. We assume that what we see was there from the start. (p. 16)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 2: The Origins of Cognitive Thought. Quote 5
  Since behavior analysts deal only with complete instances of behavior, the sensing part is out of reach of their instruments and methods and must … be left to physiologists. (p. 16)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 2: The Origins of Cognitive Thought. Quote 4
  The world takes control of behavior when either survival or reinforcement has been contingent upon it. (p. 16)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 2: The Origins of Cognitive Thought. Quote 3
  We do what we do because of what has happened, not what will happen. Unfortunately, what has happened leaves few observable traces, and why we do what we do and how likely we are to do it are therefore largely beyond the reach of introspection. (p. 15)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 2: The Origins of Cognitive Thought. Quote 2
  As an experimental analysis has shown, behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences, but only by consequences that lie in the past. (p. 15)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 2: The Origins of Cognitive Thought. Quote 1
  What is felt when one has a feeling is a condition of one’s body, and the word used to describe it almost always comes from the word for the cause of the condition felt. (p. 13)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 14
  The inspection or introspection of one’s own body is a kind of behavior that needs to be analyzed, but as the source of data for a science it is largely of historical interest only. (p. 20)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 12
  For at least 3,000 years … philosophers, joined recently by psychologists, have looked within themselves for the causes of their behavior. For reasons which are becoming clear, they have never agreed upon what they have found. (p. 11)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 11
  On the point of offering a friend a glass of water, we do not ask, “How long has it been since you last drank any water?” or “If I offer you a glass of water, what are the chances you will accept it?” We ask, “Are you thirsty?” The answer tells us all we need… Read more: Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 11
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 10
  Cognitive psychologists are among those who most often criticize behaviorism for neglecting feelings, but they themselves have done very little in the field. The computer is not a helpful model. (p. 10)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 9
  Psychoanalysis is largely concerned with discovering and changing feelings. An analysis sometimes seems to work by extinguishing the effects of old punishments. (p. 10)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 8
  In his remarkable book, Émile, Rousseau described what is now called desensitization. If a baby is frightened when plunged into cold water (presumably an innate response), begin with warm water and reduce the temperature a degree a day. The baby will not be frightened when the water is finally cold. (p. 10)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 7
  Feelings are most easily changed by changing the settings responsible for what is felt … When a setting cannot be changed, a new history of reinforcement may change its effect. (p. 15)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 6
  Presumably we are more likely to avoid hurting animals if what they would do resembles what we would do when hurt in the same way … It is a rare person, indeed, who would not hurt a fly. (p. 9)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 5.
  All words for feelings seem to have begun as metaphors, and it is significant that the transfer has always been from public to private. No word seems to have originated as the name of a feeling. (p. 8).
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 4.
  Good behaviorists would say, “You reinforce my behavior” rather than “You reinforce me,” because it is behavior, not the behaving person, that is being reinforced in the sense of being strengthened; but they would say much more. (p. 5)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 3.
  The very privacy which suggests that we ought to know our own bodies especially well is a severe handicap for those who must teach us to know them. (p. 4)
• Recent Issues: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 2.
  Methodological behaviorists, like logical positivists, argued that science must confine itself to events that can be observed by two or more people; truth must be truth by agreement … That was not a very satisfactory position, of course … Radical behaviorism has never taken that line. (p. 3)
• Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: The Place of Feeling in the Analysis of Behavior. Quote 1.
  Behaviorists are not supposed to have feelings, or at least to admit that they have them. Of the many ways in which behaviorism has been misunderstood for so many years, that is perhaps the commonest. (p. 3)
• Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior: Extended Edition
  In 2018, we published a selection of quotes from Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior. Since then, the Foundation has published an Extended Edition of the book, featuring two additional papers: The World of Our Own and Can Psychology Be a Science of Mind? We decided to revisit the title with a new selection… Read more: Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior: Extended Edition

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