Upon Further Reflection

by B.F. Skinner

This book deals with global issues concerning ecology and world government. It moves from the very general to the very specific.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1986

About the author

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was a highly influential American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings. He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement. In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. He was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles.

Reviews

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Let us bring behaviourism back from the Devil's Island to which it was transported for a crime it never committed, and let psychology become once again a behavioural science" - B.F. Skinner in 'Upon Further Reflection'. This quote sums up the purpose of this book. Skinner starts off the book by explaining how behaviourism can tackle long standing issues of inequality in chapters "Why we are not acting to save the world?" and "What is wrong with daily life in the western world?". The chapters transit from being general to very specific. The chapters can be read in any order since the book is a compilation of Skinner's essays committed to 'an experimental analysis of behaviour and its use in the interpretation of human affairs'. Anyone familiar with the global issues can read, understand - and hopefully act upon - this book.

[Lucas Brands · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helps if you've got a background in behaviour analysis or are at least familiar with Skinners's work