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B.F. Skinner: A Life
This reissued biography of one of the world's most eminent psychologists will appeal to interested general readers as much as it will to psychologists. Accessible and engaging, it brings Skinner fully to life, describing his youth, family, and education; his early and lingering desires to become famous as a writer or artist; his lifelong fascination with literary and "bohemian" figures; his difficault marriage; and his devotion to his children. The author strips away many misconceptions about the great behaviorist. The result is a fascinating narrative of a fascinating life, of the astounding breakthroughs Skinner made as a researcher, and the lasting influences that his work has on the science of psychology.
- GenresPsychologyBiography
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 6, 2020
As a psych major in grad school, I was fascinated by Behaviorism—or at least my take on Behaviorism, but I had no true picture about the life of Skinner. Bjork opens up that can of worms well to show the complexity and dimensionality of such a controversial benchmark in the field. Most textbooks toss him into a footnote now, but I disagree. Behaviorism looks at mankind as human animals, and through my pessimistic lens I see the bulk of humanity as selfish, lazy, greedy, and myopic, typically following the path of least resistance, mired in biased ignorance, and oftentimes enslaved by our brain chemistry and other hormones to feed our impulses and react to external forces constantly at play upon us, now more than ever. Skinner’s “radical behaviorism” is a bit more complex—and surprisingly more positive—than that.
By the time Skinner's theories matured during and after WWII, you could see the fields of psychology and physiology blossoming in culture-jamming ways: “The astonishing popularity of Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care (1946) and the uproar over Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) were dramatic testimonials to the new strains of raising children as well as to marital difficulties” (p. 130). Skinner sought to help humanity rise into a stronger collective, more Amish than Borg, by illuminating the drones into a higher form of educated and self-aware citizen through self-control, empathy, and collective will.
With him penning Walden Two (something I've not yet read), a quasi-Thoreauvian rejuvenation after the bloodbath, carnage, and nuclear annihilation of the last global war, as much as the rapid thrust of industrial modernization and revved-up consumerism in the US, Skinner illustrated his daydreams vividly: “The citizens are not taking much out of nature nor are they putting much waste back in.” At one point his main character exclaims a bit of fantasyland socialism: “The one fact that I would cry from every housetop is this: The Good Life is waiting for us-here and now! We have the necessary techniques, both material and psychological, to create a full and satisfying life for everyone.”
If you've read any of my other reviews, you can see powerful similarities in such daydreaming, and as Bjork sums up: “Having found the laws of operant conditioning, Skinner was ready to apply them to humanity itself” (p. 148) and help refine a better version of ourselves. If only he had succeeded to staunch the power of vampiric capitalism and the addictive consumerism of Americans.
“The power to control human behavior had been held by the wrong people and used for the wrong reasons—personal aggrandizement—and its cruel effects had rained down on millions of people” (pp. 149-50). He had no idea what was to come, but he could smell the perfumed smoke, and he saw it all unfold (he died in 1990). This stance clearly conflicted with many ironclad views of personal freedom in the US, not unlike the flak-vest wearing, furiously flag-waving, social-media-screaming morons of today. He believed human nature to have plasticity, to be able to overcome base instincts and work towards greater goods. Now, behavioral psychology is used to monitor and fuel tech-addiction, social media narcissism, our hyper-consumerism, and so much more—again, power continuously “held by the wrong people”.
Skinner was an egotist, and elitist, often delusional by way of super-optimist, and seemed to have a god complex. None of it is terribly surprising. He was a human being who found the spotlight early and held it for decades. He published Beyond Freedom and Dignity in 1971, where “[n]o American had ever written such a book. If baby tenders had worried some American parents, ‘Walden Two’ had infuriated certain critics, and teaching machines had frightened the educational establishment, ‘Beyond Freedom and Dignity’ was the final outrage” (pp. 192-3). Now I have to read this book.
“In nine chapters and slightly more than two hundred pages, Skinner had proposed that the survival of the human species and hence the future of humankind could be best engineered by a science of behavior that decried the concept of individual freedom as the solution to the great problems of the day: the threat of nuclear war, overpopulation, and ecological ruin” (p. 193). This was 1971, when the cultural fabric was being ripped apart by assassinations, the lost cause of Vietnam, nuclear doom, violent racism and police brutality, militant feminism and gay rights, FBI infiltrations, smog and despoilation, and so much more that irked the public to challenge the Neo-Conservative, neo-liberal, warmongering regime. “The book challenged what most Americans believed it meant to be American. Skinner was not simply arguing about the meaning of freedom; he seemed to dismiss it as a dangerous illusion” (p. 193), and he was attacked from all sides, a soft target from both the Right and the Left. Funny that, since so many young men were drafted into service to serve and die in a foreign country for a fruitless war, so many Black and Brown and Native Americans were forced to live in squalor devoid of opportunities, and so many women still forced to work in the home raising offspring—all forms of control and power in various disguises. Nevermind traffic laws, human morality, social constructions, religious dictums, and other systems of control most of us adhere to as best we can, oblivious to all of it. “Everyone is controlled, whether by peer pressure, the need for approval, advertisements, or fear of punishment. Skinner wanted to replace ineffective and harmful means of control with scientifically designed mechanisms of self-control: environmental contingencies that would positively reinforce individual behaviors, which, when conditioned, automatically produce a socially responsible culture” (p. 210). Noble yet incredibly naive. His ego probably blinded him to the ridiculousness of his proposals.
“Skinner’s objective, however, was not to ‘free’ humans from social controls; that was not possible, nor did the illusion of being a ‘free individual’ promote human survival. Rather, by shaping the environmental variables of which individual behavior is a function—or, more generally, by careful environmental design—the individual would become socially responsible, an absolutely essential behavior for a livable future. But with the shaping effects of a technology of positive reinforcement, the individual did not have to depend on a personal conscience, God, or a social cause to be a good citizen; one did not do one’s civic duty for fear of punishing consequences, whether personal or social. Hence Skinner rejected the usual American practices that have historically promoted social responsibility. Not a personal conscience or a social crusade or governmental restraints or religious rewards would effectively promote the survival of a responsible social culture into the twenty-first century. Skinner stepped outside both the party of Hope and the party of Memory, outside liberation and tradition, to present Americans with another cultural alternative” (p. 212).
To me this was a beautiful diagnosis, prescription, and prognosis of humanity. “Human nature as self-consciousness was not located inside the organism, inside the mind, inside the brain, in a free will, or in God. Human nature was nothing more or less than behavior, verbal and otherwise, controlled by evolutionary history and the contingencies of the environment” (p. 194). My original fawning over Behaviorism was on target after all.
“An ideology of individualism must be laid aside if species survival was to be secured. Skinner concluded, ‘We have not yet seen what man can make of man.’ This final sentence in the book was intended as the behavioral scientist’s hope for a better human future, but it has most often been interpreted as a threat to eliminate individual freedom” (p. 195). “In this sense, he transcended his reading public, and they naturally reacted by aggressively defending their traditional opinions” (p. 195). Anyone seeing parallels to our current climate of polarized tribalism, and how people in positions of power can pull the puppet-strings of certain mob mentalities? The freedom to control others, the freedom to desire to be controlled by others, that is the hallmark of Capitalism in a plutocratic Republic. I think the proposal of the Green New Deal fomented similar vitriol by the same slivers of society. History does echo indeed.
“A country which annually produces millions of refrigerators, dishwashers, automatic washing machines, automatic clothes dryers, and automatic garbage disposers can certainly afford the equipment necessary to educate its citizens to high standards of competence in the most effective way” (The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching, 1954). Nope. Not then, probably not ever, but I adore the wishful thinking, even if our manufacturing base was shipped off to elsewhere decades ago. Another way of looking at this radical behaviorism is along the lines of “what if we had implemented a reuse-repurpose-recycle mindset at the onset of the Industrial Revolution?”, or at the very least in the early ‘70s. The world today would most likely be a very different place because our infrastructure, our social constructions, civic responsibilities, and basic humanistic morals would be different for the majority. Now, look 50 years into the future on our current course and tell me what you see with your scrying device. Greta Thunberg can help eloquently cast some light upon whatever vision you have.
I won't be heroizing Skinner, but his way of thinking is—to me—worthy of pondering more thoroughly, even if only in a philosophical vein, alongside Toffler’s Future Shock. “I am not trying to change people,” Skinner insisted. “All I want to do is change the world in which they live.”
I want the very same thing.
By the time Skinner's theories matured during and after WWII, you could see the fields of psychology and physiology blossoming in culture-jamming ways: “The astonishing popularity of Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care (1946) and the uproar over Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) were dramatic testimonials to the new strains of raising children as well as to marital difficulties” (p. 130). Skinner sought to help humanity rise into a stronger collective, more Amish than Borg, by illuminating the drones into a higher form of educated and self-aware citizen through self-control, empathy, and collective will.
With him penning Walden Two (something I've not yet read), a quasi-Thoreauvian rejuvenation after the bloodbath, carnage, and nuclear annihilation of the last global war, as much as the rapid thrust of industrial modernization and revved-up consumerism in the US, Skinner illustrated his daydreams vividly: “The citizens are not taking much out of nature nor are they putting much waste back in.” At one point his main character exclaims a bit of fantasyland socialism: “The one fact that I would cry from every housetop is this: The Good Life is waiting for us-here and now! We have the necessary techniques, both material and psychological, to create a full and satisfying life for everyone.”
If you've read any of my other reviews, you can see powerful similarities in such daydreaming, and as Bjork sums up: “Having found the laws of operant conditioning, Skinner was ready to apply them to humanity itself” (p. 148) and help refine a better version of ourselves. If only he had succeeded to staunch the power of vampiric capitalism and the addictive consumerism of Americans.
“The power to control human behavior had been held by the wrong people and used for the wrong reasons—personal aggrandizement—and its cruel effects had rained down on millions of people” (pp. 149-50). He had no idea what was to come, but he could smell the perfumed smoke, and he saw it all unfold (he died in 1990). This stance clearly conflicted with many ironclad views of personal freedom in the US, not unlike the flak-vest wearing, furiously flag-waving, social-media-screaming morons of today. He believed human nature to have plasticity, to be able to overcome base instincts and work towards greater goods. Now, behavioral psychology is used to monitor and fuel tech-addiction, social media narcissism, our hyper-consumerism, and so much more—again, power continuously “held by the wrong people”.
Skinner was an egotist, and elitist, often delusional by way of super-optimist, and seemed to have a god complex. None of it is terribly surprising. He was a human being who found the spotlight early and held it for decades. He published Beyond Freedom and Dignity in 1971, where “[n]o American had ever written such a book. If baby tenders had worried some American parents, ‘Walden Two’ had infuriated certain critics, and teaching machines had frightened the educational establishment, ‘Beyond Freedom and Dignity’ was the final outrage” (pp. 192-3). Now I have to read this book.
“In nine chapters and slightly more than two hundred pages, Skinner had proposed that the survival of the human species and hence the future of humankind could be best engineered by a science of behavior that decried the concept of individual freedom as the solution to the great problems of the day: the threat of nuclear war, overpopulation, and ecological ruin” (p. 193). This was 1971, when the cultural fabric was being ripped apart by assassinations, the lost cause of Vietnam, nuclear doom, violent racism and police brutality, militant feminism and gay rights, FBI infiltrations, smog and despoilation, and so much more that irked the public to challenge the Neo-Conservative, neo-liberal, warmongering regime. “The book challenged what most Americans believed it meant to be American. Skinner was not simply arguing about the meaning of freedom; he seemed to dismiss it as a dangerous illusion” (p. 193), and he was attacked from all sides, a soft target from both the Right and the Left. Funny that, since so many young men were drafted into service to serve and die in a foreign country for a fruitless war, so many Black and Brown and Native Americans were forced to live in squalor devoid of opportunities, and so many women still forced to work in the home raising offspring—all forms of control and power in various disguises. Nevermind traffic laws, human morality, social constructions, religious dictums, and other systems of control most of us adhere to as best we can, oblivious to all of it. “Everyone is controlled, whether by peer pressure, the need for approval, advertisements, or fear of punishment. Skinner wanted to replace ineffective and harmful means of control with scientifically designed mechanisms of self-control: environmental contingencies that would positively reinforce individual behaviors, which, when conditioned, automatically produce a socially responsible culture” (p. 210). Noble yet incredibly naive. His ego probably blinded him to the ridiculousness of his proposals.
“Skinner’s objective, however, was not to ‘free’ humans from social controls; that was not possible, nor did the illusion of being a ‘free individual’ promote human survival. Rather, by shaping the environmental variables of which individual behavior is a function—or, more generally, by careful environmental design—the individual would become socially responsible, an absolutely essential behavior for a livable future. But with the shaping effects of a technology of positive reinforcement, the individual did not have to depend on a personal conscience, God, or a social cause to be a good citizen; one did not do one’s civic duty for fear of punishing consequences, whether personal or social. Hence Skinner rejected the usual American practices that have historically promoted social responsibility. Not a personal conscience or a social crusade or governmental restraints or religious rewards would effectively promote the survival of a responsible social culture into the twenty-first century. Skinner stepped outside both the party of Hope and the party of Memory, outside liberation and tradition, to present Americans with another cultural alternative” (p. 212).
To me this was a beautiful diagnosis, prescription, and prognosis of humanity. “Human nature as self-consciousness was not located inside the organism, inside the mind, inside the brain, in a free will, or in God. Human nature was nothing more or less than behavior, verbal and otherwise, controlled by evolutionary history and the contingencies of the environment” (p. 194). My original fawning over Behaviorism was on target after all.
“An ideology of individualism must be laid aside if species survival was to be secured. Skinner concluded, ‘We have not yet seen what man can make of man.’ This final sentence in the book was intended as the behavioral scientist’s hope for a better human future, but it has most often been interpreted as a threat to eliminate individual freedom” (p. 195). “In this sense, he transcended his reading public, and they naturally reacted by aggressively defending their traditional opinions” (p. 195). Anyone seeing parallels to our current climate of polarized tribalism, and how people in positions of power can pull the puppet-strings of certain mob mentalities? The freedom to control others, the freedom to desire to be controlled by others, that is the hallmark of Capitalism in a plutocratic Republic. I think the proposal of the Green New Deal fomented similar vitriol by the same slivers of society. History does echo indeed.
“A country which annually produces millions of refrigerators, dishwashers, automatic washing machines, automatic clothes dryers, and automatic garbage disposers can certainly afford the equipment necessary to educate its citizens to high standards of competence in the most effective way” (The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching, 1954). Nope. Not then, probably not ever, but I adore the wishful thinking, even if our manufacturing base was shipped off to elsewhere decades ago. Another way of looking at this radical behaviorism is along the lines of “what if we had implemented a reuse-repurpose-recycle mindset at the onset of the Industrial Revolution?”, or at the very least in the early ‘70s. The world today would most likely be a very different place because our infrastructure, our social constructions, civic responsibilities, and basic humanistic morals would be different for the majority. Now, look 50 years into the future on our current course and tell me what you see with your scrying device. Greta Thunberg can help eloquently cast some light upon whatever vision you have.
I won't be heroizing Skinner, but his way of thinking is—to me—worthy of pondering more thoroughly, even if only in a philosophical vein, alongside Toffler’s Future Shock. “I am not trying to change people,” Skinner insisted. “All I want to do is change the world in which they live.”
I want the very same thing.
February 18, 2011
interesting read, but pales in comparison to Skinner's own three-part autobiography. also, i didn't agree with a number of bjork's interpretations. better to read the primary source.
February 21, 2014
I was in love with the man and his ideas before I read this book..and now, my love is 'eternal'. A beautifully written book that talks about Skinner's life from the beginning until the end. I have not read Skinner's autobiographies so no way to compare the credibility of Bjork claims,however, I am satisfied with his interpretations.
March 28, 2014
For obvious reasons, B.F.Skinner's "Particulars of my life" is much better than Bjork's interpretation of his early life. I am curious to read Skinner's "A shaping of a behaviourist" and "A matter of consequences" to see how well Bjork has captured Skinner's life. So far, I have found Bjork's interpretation to be the closest to Skinner's life.
July 6, 2011
I really enjoyed this book. It was great to get to know the man whose science has shaped my life.
August 5, 2011
Degree reading
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews