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To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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
Controlled
Behavior
Saying
Another
Different
Way
Behaviors
Variables
Meanings
More quotes by B. F. Skinner
I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying.
B. F. Skinner
If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.
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Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code - a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren't any right people.
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The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... a man may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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The extent to which human aggression exemplifies innate tendencies is not clear.
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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.
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Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.
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The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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...not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.' There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
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Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
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Fame is also won at the expense of others. Even the well-deserved honors of the scientist or man of learning are unfair to many persons of equal achievements who get none. When one man gets a place in the sun, the others are put in a denser shade. From the point of view of the whole group there's no gain whatsoever, and perhaps a loss.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Something doing every minute' may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
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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.
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We shouldn't teach great books we should teach a love of reading.
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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.
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A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.
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Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
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