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B.F. Skinner: The Man and His Ideas
- GenresPsychology
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First published June 1, 1968
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September 30, 2025
THE TRANSCRIPT OF TELEVISED INTERVIEWS WITH SKINNER
The Preface to this 1968 book explains, “A recent survey based on a sampling of … the American Psychological Association rated Dr. B.F. Skinner as perhaps the most influential contemporary psychologist… Skinner’s approach … challenges the very foundations of the means by which man in our society is shaped and controlled… He believes that society must shift to a system which emphasizes positive rather than negative reinforcement… The fact that he has developed techniques of shaping behavior through a program of scheduled reinforcement poses a threat to individuals with humanistic values, who fear that Skinner’s powerful techniques of control will tend to dehumanize the individual… Skinner is given an opportunity in this book to clarify his position and challenge the validity of this criticism… The inclusion of Dr. Skinner in a series which features primarily personality psychologists is suggested by the fact that his approach to the analysis of behavior may be the most significant alternative to a personality psychology.”
Skinner states, “It doesn’t make any difference to me whether things are conscious or unconscious; the causality in behavior does not depend upon awareness. Awareness is something imposed upon us… because society insists that we talk about these things… There is nothing in a nonsocial environment which would ever generate awareness.” (Pg. 7-8)
He asserts, “Emotion, so far as I am concerned, is a matter of the probability of engaging in certain kinds of behavior defined by certain kinds of consequences… Physiology will no doubt be more meaningful when it can clarify these various aspects of the organism. At the moment its attempts to explain behavior are vague, and do not seem to me very useful.” (Pg. 11)
He explains, “Operant behavior, as I see it, is simply a study of what used to be dealt with by the concept of purpose. The purpose of an act is the consequences it is going to have… in the case of operant conditioning, we study the consequences an act has had in the past…” (Pg. 19) Later, he adds, “As I see it, psychology is concerned with establishing relations between the behavior of an organism and the forces acting upon it.” (Pg. 21)
He says, “I don’t want to borrow support from physiology when my formulation breaks down. If I can’t give a clean-cut statement of a relationship between behavior and antecedent variables, it is no help to me to speculate about something inside the organism which will fill the gap. The gap is in my data. It is something that I must eventually fill by improving the analysis, not by borrowing from somewhere else. As far as I’m concerned, the organism is irrelevant either as the site of physiological processes or as the locus of mentalistic activities. I don’t believe the organism contributes anything to these overall relationships beyond the fact that it is the behavior of an organism we are studying.” (Pg. 22) He adds, “As a determinist, I must assume that the organism is simply mediating the relationships between the forces acting upon it and its own output…” (Pg. 23)
He argues, “A psychotic patient is psychotic because of his behavior. You don’t institutionalize a person because of his feelings. You may say that behavior is a result of his feelings, but the feelings must be a result of something, too. When you look farther, you find environmental factors.” (Pg. 42)
He explains, “Contrary to what my critics have said, I regard myself simply as an organism responding to its environment. This is my environment. It’s designed to bring out my verbal behavior with maximal efficiency.” (Pg. 65)
He notes, “The whole thing is a question of method. That’s the crux of my argument with Carl Rogers; I’d like people to be approximately as Rogers wants them to be. I want independent people… people who don’t have to be told when to act or who don’t do things just because they’ve been told they’re the right things to do. But how do you build independence? I’m convinced that I can specify methods which will be more effective than Rogers’. I just don’t think his conception of inner determiners is valid.” (Pg. 67-68)
He acknowledges, “The curves published in ‘The Behavior of Organisms’ [Skinner’s first book] in 1938 wouldn’t pass muster today. They were ‘noisy,’ they had all sorts of defects. We’ve developed better ways to control behavior, but we don’t do it by averaging. I could have done that in 1938, but I didn’t, and this is one of the reasons why we have learned to control the variables which caused the irregularities in the earlier records.” (Pg. 92-93)
He summarizes, “I take an optimistic view. Man can control his future even though his behavior is wholly determined. It is controlled by the environment, but man is always changing his environment. He builds a world in which his behavior has certain characteristics. He does this because the characteristics are reinforcing him. He builds a world in which he suffers fewer aversive stimuli and in which he behaves with maximum efficiency…. Man controls himself, but he does so by controlling his environment.” (Pg. 107)
I am definitely no ‘fan’ of Skinner; but this book is very helpful in understanding his positions, as he states them quite clearly and frankly.
The Preface to this 1968 book explains, “A recent survey based on a sampling of … the American Psychological Association rated Dr. B.F. Skinner as perhaps the most influential contemporary psychologist… Skinner’s approach … challenges the very foundations of the means by which man in our society is shaped and controlled… He believes that society must shift to a system which emphasizes positive rather than negative reinforcement… The fact that he has developed techniques of shaping behavior through a program of scheduled reinforcement poses a threat to individuals with humanistic values, who fear that Skinner’s powerful techniques of control will tend to dehumanize the individual… Skinner is given an opportunity in this book to clarify his position and challenge the validity of this criticism… The inclusion of Dr. Skinner in a series which features primarily personality psychologists is suggested by the fact that his approach to the analysis of behavior may be the most significant alternative to a personality psychology.”
Skinner states, “It doesn’t make any difference to me whether things are conscious or unconscious; the causality in behavior does not depend upon awareness. Awareness is something imposed upon us… because society insists that we talk about these things… There is nothing in a nonsocial environment which would ever generate awareness.” (Pg. 7-8)
He asserts, “Emotion, so far as I am concerned, is a matter of the probability of engaging in certain kinds of behavior defined by certain kinds of consequences… Physiology will no doubt be more meaningful when it can clarify these various aspects of the organism. At the moment its attempts to explain behavior are vague, and do not seem to me very useful.” (Pg. 11)
He explains, “Operant behavior, as I see it, is simply a study of what used to be dealt with by the concept of purpose. The purpose of an act is the consequences it is going to have… in the case of operant conditioning, we study the consequences an act has had in the past…” (Pg. 19) Later, he adds, “As I see it, psychology is concerned with establishing relations between the behavior of an organism and the forces acting upon it.” (Pg. 21)
He says, “I don’t want to borrow support from physiology when my formulation breaks down. If I can’t give a clean-cut statement of a relationship between behavior and antecedent variables, it is no help to me to speculate about something inside the organism which will fill the gap. The gap is in my data. It is something that I must eventually fill by improving the analysis, not by borrowing from somewhere else. As far as I’m concerned, the organism is irrelevant either as the site of physiological processes or as the locus of mentalistic activities. I don’t believe the organism contributes anything to these overall relationships beyond the fact that it is the behavior of an organism we are studying.” (Pg. 22) He adds, “As a determinist, I must assume that the organism is simply mediating the relationships between the forces acting upon it and its own output…” (Pg. 23)
He argues, “A psychotic patient is psychotic because of his behavior. You don’t institutionalize a person because of his feelings. You may say that behavior is a result of his feelings, but the feelings must be a result of something, too. When you look farther, you find environmental factors.” (Pg. 42)
He explains, “Contrary to what my critics have said, I regard myself simply as an organism responding to its environment. This is my environment. It’s designed to bring out my verbal behavior with maximal efficiency.” (Pg. 65)
He notes, “The whole thing is a question of method. That’s the crux of my argument with Carl Rogers; I’d like people to be approximately as Rogers wants them to be. I want independent people… people who don’t have to be told when to act or who don’t do things just because they’ve been told they’re the right things to do. But how do you build independence? I’m convinced that I can specify methods which will be more effective than Rogers’. I just don’t think his conception of inner determiners is valid.” (Pg. 67-68)
He acknowledges, “The curves published in ‘The Behavior of Organisms’ [Skinner’s first book] in 1938 wouldn’t pass muster today. They were ‘noisy,’ they had all sorts of defects. We’ve developed better ways to control behavior, but we don’t do it by averaging. I could have done that in 1938, but I didn’t, and this is one of the reasons why we have learned to control the variables which caused the irregularities in the earlier records.” (Pg. 92-93)
He summarizes, “I take an optimistic view. Man can control his future even though his behavior is wholly determined. It is controlled by the environment, but man is always changing his environment. He builds a world in which his behavior has certain characteristics. He does this because the characteristics are reinforcing him. He builds a world in which he suffers fewer aversive stimuli and in which he behaves with maximum efficiency…. Man controls himself, but he does so by controlling his environment.” (Pg. 107)
I am definitely no ‘fan’ of Skinner; but this book is very helpful in understanding his positions, as he states them quite clearly and frankly.
March 13, 2025
Read an atrocious translation, which made it more difficult to enjoy it, but i wanted to read more about someone that has influenced so much his field of work and still has such a profound impact on how we address behavioral issues. As I suspected when I was reading his critics, there is more here to understand about the philosophy and the theory from the original author. Still, I strongly disagree with the fundamentals, but I can clearly see how the original message has been interpreted (or misinterpreted) in the following decades.
August 5, 2011
Degree reading
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews