B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederic Skinner, commonly known as B. F. Skinner, was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth20 March 1904
CitySusquehana Depot, PA
CountryUnited States of America
obedience strengthen work
Religions work for their own aggrandizement - strengthen the church and so on - and they use reinforcers of one kind or another to get obedience and so on from their communicants.
defined doubts parents punished strictly
I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture.
bothered faith freshman lost philosophy professor religion remember somewhat telling
I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to this professor of philosophy and telling him that I had lost my faith.
allow dominate expect good minutes next played ready team totally
Ultimately, we weren't ready to play, and (Murrieta) played hard. You can't let a team totally dominate you for 40 minutes and expect that, in the next 40 minutes, you can come back, because Murrieta is a good team. You just can't allow that to happen.
continue environment practices until
The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned.
avoid behave best given inclined learns punished
A person who has been punished is not less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
awful people somewhere
I have to tell people that they are not responsible for their behavior. They're not creating it; they're not initiating anything. It's all found somewhere else. That's an awful lot to relinquish.
activities dishes example filled hand lives mundane task tasks washing
Even the mundane task of washing dishes by hand is an example of the small tasks and personal activities that once filled people's daily lives with a sense of achievement.
benefits changing controls eliminate environment ideal
The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone.
reasonably simply valid
You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements.
behavior committed culture feeding great longer money nor offers people reinforced whether work
Behavior used to be reinforced by great deprivation; if people weren't hungry, they wouldn't work. Now we are committed to feeding people whether they work or not. Nor is money as great a reinforcer as it once was. People no longer work for punitive reasons, yet our culture offers no new satisfactions.
children cost deny fact gene history importance might operated
I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for altruism; the fact that I do something for my children at some cost to myself comes from a history that has operated on me.
men military opposed
I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
falls insist society structure
If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down.