Top 10 B.F.Skinner Quotes

B. F. Skinner
(Psychologist)

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.
Skinner considered free will an illusion and human action dependent on consequences of previous actions. If the consequences are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the actions that led to it being repeated become more probable. Skinner called this the principle of reinforcement.
To strengthen behavior, Skinner used operant conditioning, and he considered the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning he invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box, and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and C. B. Ferster produced his most influential experimental work, which appeared in the book Schedules of Reinforcement.
Skinner developed a philosophy of science that he called radical behaviorism, and founded a school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his utopian novel, Walden Two, and his analysis of human behavior culminated in his work, Verbal Behavior. Skinner was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles. Contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism, along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov. A June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.

Top 10 B.F.Skinner Quotes

A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.

The interchanges within a group and the heightened effect of the group upon the environment may be studied within the framework of a natural science.

Behavior is determined by its consequences.

Situations [where behaving as others behave is likely to be reinforcing] multiplied a thousandfold generate and sustain an enormous tendency to behave as others are behaving.

We have not yet seen what man can make of man.

The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.

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.

The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience. 

Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. 

The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount. 

Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, to Grace and William Skinner. His father was a lawyer. He became an atheist after a Christian teacher tried to assuage his fear of the hell that his grandmother described. His brother Edward, two and a half years younger, died at age sixteen of a cerebral hemorrhage. He attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer. He found himself at a social disadvantage at Hamilton College because of his intellectual attitude. While attending, he joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He wrote for the school paper, but, as an atheist, he was critical of the religious school he attended. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1926, he attended Harvard University, where he would later research, teach, and eventually become a prestigious board member. While he was at Harvard, a fellow student, Fred Keller, convinced Skinner that he could make an experimental science from the study of behavior. This led Skinner to invent his prototype for the Skinner Box and to join Keller in the creation of other tools for small experiments. After graduation, he unsuccessfully tried to write a great novel while he lived with his parents, a period that he later called the Dark Years. He became disillusioned with his literary skills despite encouragement from the renowned poet Robert Frost, concluding that he had little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write. His encounter with John B. Watson's Behaviorism led him into graduate study in psychology and to the development of his own version of behaviorism.
Skinner received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as a researcher until 1936. He then taught at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and later at Indiana University, where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946–1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his life. In 1973, Skinner was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.
In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne (Eve) Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (m. Vargas) and Deborah (m. Buzan). Yvonne Skinner died in 1997, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Skinner continued to write and work until just before his death. Just a few days before his death, he was given a lifetime achievement award by the American Psychological Association, and delivered a 15-minute address concerning his work.