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B. F. Skinner

(1904–1990) Psychologist

105 quotes in 674 categories

B. F. Skinner was a psychologist.

Quick Facts About B. F. Skinner

Born: March 20, 1904
Died: August 18, 1990
Profession: Psychologist

About B. F. Skinner

[Wikidata] American behaviorist (1904–1990)... | [Wikipedia] Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in 1974.

Quotes by B. F. Skinner · Page 3

A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the…

Comfort

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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

Computers

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I've often said that my rats have taught me much more than I've taught them.

Rats

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The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called 'conditioning'. In operant conditioning we 'strengthen' an operant in the sense…

Behavior

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I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for…

Decision making

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Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and…

Behavior

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I won't say that I'm an agnostic, since agnosticism maintains that one cannot know... but I'm not averse to the idea of…

Agnostic

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Overcrowding can be corrected only by inducing people not to crowd, and the environment will continue to deteriorate until polluting practices are…

Abandoned

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Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in…

Accomplished

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I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for…

Altruism

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I never really expected to be controversial.

Controversial

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It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a…

Behavior

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Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than…

Accepting

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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the…

Balance

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The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned.

Abandoned

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

Circumstances

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I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I…

Anxiety

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No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been.

About

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Punitive measures whether administered by police, teachers, spouses or parents have well known standard effects: (1) escape-education has its own name for…

Apathy

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A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.

Behavior

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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.

Consequences

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The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce…

Apply

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We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is…

Achievement

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The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.

Delinquents

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Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we…

Ask questions

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B. F. Skinner by topic

Behavior (24) Habits (20) Education (16) Men (15) People (14) Way (10) Language (9) Behaviorism (9) Environment (8)