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That's all teaching is arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
B. F. Skinner
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B. F. Skinner
Age: 86 †
Born: 1904
Born: March 20
Died: 1990
Died: August 18
Autobiographer
Ethologist
Inventor
Philosopher
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Susquehanna Depot
Pennsylvania
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Skinner BF
moiksu moiii
Bring
Contingencies
Contingency
Arranging
Changes
Behavior
Teaching
More quotes by B. F. Skinner
Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it's merely their guess.
B. F. Skinner
To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. Skinner
The evolution of cultures appears to follow the pattern of the evolution of species. The many different forms of culture which arise correspond to the mutations of genetic theory. Some forms prove to be effective under prevailing circumstances and others not, and the perpetuation of the culture is determined accordingly.
B. F. Skinner
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.
B. F. Skinner
Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?
B. F. Skinner
Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
B. F. Skinner
We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. Skinner
I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying.
B. F. Skinner
The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us - here and now.
B. F. Skinner
The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called 'conditioning'. In operant conditioning we 'strengthen' an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent.
B. F. Skinner
I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
B. F. Skinner
A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.
B. F. Skinner
Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
B. F. Skinner
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
I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
B. F. Skinner
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. Skinner
The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
B. F. Skinner
But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn't freedom. It's not control that's lacking when one feels 'free', but the objectionable control of force.
B. F. Skinner
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
B. F. Skinner
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
B. F. Skinner
