B.F. Skinner: Quotes about the trip

B.F. Skinner was American behaviorist. Explore interesting quotes on way.

B.F. Skinner: 60 quotes28 likes

“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.”

B.F. Skinner Walden Two

Source: Walden Two

“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 book Beyond Freedom and Dignity

Source: Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972).

“It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.”

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

As quoted in Meditations for Parents Who Do Too Much (1993) by Jonathon Lazear and Wendy Lazear, p. 5.

“Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived", but there is nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. Their relevance to a future usefulness need not be obvious.
It is a difficult assignment. The conditions the teacher arranges must be powerful enough to compete with those under which the student tends to behave in distracting ways.”

"Free and Happy Student" in The Phi Delta Kappan (September 1973); later published in Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978)