Science and Human Behavior

by B.F. Skinner

The psychology classic—a detailed study of scientific theories of human nature and the possible ways in which human behavior can be predicted and controlled—from one of the most influential behaviorists of the twentieth century and the author of Walden Two.“This is an important book, exceptionally well written, and logically consistent with the basic premise of the unitary nature of science. Many students of society and culture would take violent issue with most of the things that Skinner has to say, but even those who disagree most will find this a stimulating book.” —Samuel M. Strong, The American Journal of Sociology“This is a remarkable book—remarkable in that it presents a strong, consistent, and all but exhaustive case for a natural science of human behavior…It ought to be…valuable for those whose preferences lie with, as well as those whose preferences stand against, a behavioristic approach to human activity.” —Harry Prosch, Ethics

Genres: Psychology, Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology, Classics, Reference

461 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1953

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

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG!!!

So I finally finished this thing.

It’s an amazingly brilliant book by an absolute genius visionary hero of science.

And.....

It was a GHASTLY experience of a read.

Not all together unpleasant.

But a real feat of endurance to complete.

Behaviorism has various levels of language (Bx-Speak).

Upper level Bx-Speak is the way behaviorism is communicated to laypeople. It’s easy to understand, but not very precise.

Mid level Bx-Speak is a bit harder to understand without specific training, but it’s also more precise. This is how behaviorism is typically communicated to therapists and other mental health clinicians.

Low Level Bx-Speak is hard to understand, but it’s very precise. This is the language of researchers, and serious behaviorally oriented clinicians e.g. applied behavior analysts etc.

This book is Skinners attempt at a mid to upper level explanation of his work and world view. And. It’s a bit of a fail by today’s standards for popularizations of hard science.

But it’s a totally successful bridge between the common tongue and the lower levels of Bx-Speak. And therefore really useful and oddly satisfying (if you’re a masochist).

So if the common mans aversive stimuli is you’re appetitive reinforcement. Get this thing. But if you’re looking for a user friendly introduction to Skinariean Behaviorism. Than keep looking.

Not much more to say other than reading this thing infects your entire world view. In other words, you begin to see everything in terms of behavior principles, for better or worse.

So if you’re ready to become a Skinn-Head (B.F. Skinner convert) than take this little blue pill and be ready for the awesomely awful/interesting truth to come shining through the infra-thin explanatory fictions we all rely on to simply sustain our lonely meaningless existence in this cold dead universe.

Five anguished emoji faces😫😫😫😫😫

No no. Not really.

Skinner’s work is actually quite life affirming.

The ultimate feeing one is left with after truly grabbing what Skinner is offering is one of optimism and hope for humanity. It’s about conditioning not character, and we humans can take charge of that process (to some extent) and create a life directed by our values rather than our implicit hardwired predilections.

Five rainbows 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read two of his previous books recently (and another one ages ago) that I liked a lot. So I was really looking forward to reading this. It is a sort of text book on Behaviorism (in fact, I read somewhere that the publisher demanded such a book from him for the favour of having published his novel Walden 2.)

There are excellent passages in it but I have to say that for the most part it is just boring. So maybe Skinner didn’t put his heart into this project. And this is, of course, meant as a kind of a joke. Because as a Behaviorist he did not believe in things for which the heart is responsible or any other kind of mystical agent, there are no “drives”, there is just behavior. It is actually very easy to understand. First there is, he says, “intelligent behavior”, which becomes “behavior which shows intelligence” and this becomes “beahvior which is the effect of intelligence”. Or we notice a preoccupation with mirrors, we invent the term narcistic and finally we think that the narcism of a person is the cause for his behavior. It is all fiction, he thinks. It is all made up. The will, desires and so on.

And I do not disagree, I think he is perfectly right. (And I especially like it when he comes to the same conclusions as Wittgenstein but from a totally different angle.) But it is just so boring. Okay, why can’t we agree to say that “I want a taxi” as a façon de parler. And he wants the driver to take him to a restaurant, he wants to open the door, he wants a table, he wants the menu, he wants the beef steak. There is no process of satiation of deprivation, except for the last item, he says. We have no reason to set up corresponding drives. Well, no. Except, that that is the way the language functions.

So we learn a lot about reinforcements and aversions. And conditions. And controls. “We all control, and we all are controlled.” Yes, certainly.

What can we do against control? Or should we do something? We can deny control (we are in fact free agents after, we could insist), we can refuse control, we can diversify control, and we can control control (although I am not sure how this is supposed to work).

It is the unfortunate task of science to disopossess cheriched beliefs regarding the place of man in the universe, he says.

Behaviorism is not well regarded these days. Which is a pity. A lot of deep philosophical and practical missteps could be avoided if one looks on matters in a behavioristic way. Maybe the science of Behaviorism is just too obviously true to have any real value, though.


Here are some other quotes I liked:

Mathematics is rich in problems, but the motivation of the mathematician is often obscure.

Emitting a solution is not solving a problem.

The “difficulty” of a problem is the availability of the response which constitutes the solution.

What is meant by the self and self-control of self knowledge? When a man jams his hands into his pockets to keep himself from biting his nails who is controlling whom?

Is the self which works to facilitate the recall of a name the same as the self which recalls it?

The field of psychology is rich and explanatory fictions. Behaviour itself has not been accepted as a subject that in its own right, but only as an indication of something is wrong somewhere.

The task of therapy is said to be to remedy an inner illness of which the behavioural manifestations are only “symptoms”.

In an American school if you ask for the salt in good French you get an A. In France to get the salt.

The entity which is traditionally sad to be maximise by education is called “knowledge”.

7/10

[Kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

2019: Re-read with my students for my radical behaviorism course. This book is so goddamn good. Skinner's writing is dense and lush and some of the most well-thought-out academic/technical prose I've ever read.

And, like most dense things, it is hard to digest. I can't imagine reading this without a mentor, or at least a reading buddy. (Which makes sense, it was written for use as a graduate textbook.) I'm still finding new things, or getting reminded, as I read.

The heavy theoretical bent to the book is probably its biggest stumbling block to wide adoption, however. I think a lot of classes/programs jump right to protocols and procedures and introduce actual radical behaviorism as a historical event rather than a modern philosophy. CHH is a good book, even great, but it doesn't give the concepts behind the procedures. You need texts like this to show how everything is connected.

10/10, will read again next year.

[Janette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book for school, but it's a topic that would interest me anyway. Some of Skinner's assertions are hard to swallow (goodbye free-will!), but examining and explaining behavior from a strictly scientific perspective makes so much sense.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry and unceasingly mundane to the modern reader. Skinner attempts to use Pavlovian conditioning as a rationale to rid humanity of his pesky soul. We are but animals, gentle reader, no more in control of our actions than a pigeon pushing a button for a pellet of food. We are purely a byproduct of our environment and our perceived individuality is but a trick of the eye, dear friend. Free-will, punishment, law, and even reward would of course need to get chucked out too, but we'll surely not miss them.

I remain unconvinced.

To save time you could really tear the majority of the book out and retain only the final part about culture creation and why rulers would want to manipulate and manage the behavior of their subordinates. This was the science of the early post-war era: culture creation. And a very specific kind of culture was encouraged to prosper among academia: from page 448 - "We may therefore find it necessary to change from a philosophy which emphasizes the individual to one which emphasizes the culture or the group." Peas in a pod, my friend. Birds of a feather. For when you deny the soul of man, well, we might as well be cattle.

[Meghan Fidler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reinforcements do shape behavior... But not enough to explain away human thought, music, and art. Ignore the dogmatic extensions of the theory and one will find a wealth of potential.

[ExtraGravy · Rating 5 out of 5]

That ending hit hard. What a great way to close out the book! Superb.

[lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

In order to get Walden Two published, B.F. Skinner had to agree to write an introductory text as part of the deal, and the result was Science and Human Behavior. Since he wrote the text, an empirical science of human behavior has developed, supplementing Skinner's conceptual analysis in this book. Skinner's later chapters, in which he analyzes economic, social, religious, and governmental agencies remain illustrative of how his concepts can be applied to understand complex human behavior, leading to insights not forthcoming from conventional concepts and methods of analysis.

[sadiq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thick book, too many ideas to keep up with

[Robert Matte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a student of psychology I found very difficult to find some modern literature on behaviorism. Behaviorism has in fact almost disappeared from mainstream psychology which now bubbles with cognitive neuroscience and so on. Being quite difficult to retrieve some basic theory text on behaviorism I then reverted to the original book of Skinner who probably is the most influential divulgation test ever written on behaviorism. Basic aspects of theory of operant behavior are address with some short passage on the ideas developed by Thorndike on learning which actually constituted the basic of operating learning. The powerfullness of behaviorism as a all-in-one theory of human behavior you get reading this book is astounding. I was personally impressed by how our knowledge of behavior was so advanced in 1953 and under certain aspects how little has been made subsequently on the practical plan (a lot of theory and experiments thought). The most impressive feature of this book and the one I had more difficulty to digest as a psychologist was the way in which Skinner convincely rid off every reference to thoughts, will and emotion in his theory of behavior. I could understand only with extreme hardness the fact that you can thrown off all what we think psychology is and indeed instead of having an empty hull you got a sound and proof-tested theory. Emotion for example rather than the cause of a certain behavior is observed to be a sensation of a physiological condition which may act as an internal stimuli. Basically everything can be explained with behaviorism and one guess why psychology, instead of building on that, reverted to other 'theories' thus creating fragmentation (psychology today is a variously defined set of theories encompassing from psychoanalysis to mathematical psychology) thus weakining the scientific status of the discipline. An absolute serious reading to everyone interested in this philosophy and practice of human (and animal) behavior.

[Bekan Romero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not deep but useful

[Regis Hattori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Não é sempre que é possível ler o maior cientista de sua área discorrendo sobre a sua principal teoria. Seria como ler A Origem das Espécies, do Darwin; ou Principia, do Newton.

A primeira parte deste livro é uma das melhores introduções que já li em obras de não-ficção. O autor apresenta o tema de tal forma que é quase impossível não querer ir mais a fundo. Começa desde a filosofia por trás da teoria até suas implicações no mundo real, fornecendo um panorama histórico sobre como o assunto era (e ainda é) muito controverso por bater de frente não apenas com princípios religiosos mas também com filosofias de longa data que colocam o ser humano em uma categoria superior cujo comportamento é 100% livre e fruto de seu "eu" interior (seja lá o que isso signifique). Há vários paralelos aqui com grandes descobertas científicas, como o Heliocentrismo (humanidade deixa de ser o centro do universo) e a Teoria da Evolução (homem passa a ser apenas produto de uma série de evoluções com muita aleatoriedade no meio). Com a Ciência do Comportamento, acabamos por questionar, também, parte de nossa liberdade.

No segundo capítulo, o autor oferece uma das melhores descrições sobre "o que é ciência" que já encontrei. Além de comentar do âmbito mais geral da metodologia científica, ele conta a história dos seus predecessores, o que achei bem interessante. Conhecendo o histórico, como as hipóteses foram confirmadas ou rejeitadas ao longo do tempo, fica mais fácil se convencer da validade da teoria. O histórico também ajuda a entender as nomenclaturas utilizadas.

O Skinner dá vários exemplos comparando a Ciência do Comportamento com ciências "hard" e tenta se distanciar de outras vertentes da psicologia e das ciências humanas em geral. Embora não afirme categoricamente, vários de seus argumentos parecem estigmatizar essas outras ciências como pseudo-ciência. Inclusive, o Feynman, Nobel de física, tinha opinião semelhante. Portanto, fica o aviso que algumas pessoas podem se sentir ofendidas aqui.

A parte central do livro, onde a teoria é detalhada, é o ponto fraco da obra. Publicações mais recentes, como "Princípios Básicos de Análise do Comportamento", conseguem fazer um trabalho melhor nessa parte com melhor organização lógica dos temas e com ajuda de diagramas.

A parte final do livro volta a ficar muito boa embora não tão bem escrita quanto a primeira. Aborda assuntos muito relevantes, complexos, e ainda atuais, apresentando um panorama mais amplo da Ciência do Comportamento em nossa sociedade. Discute como os diferentes agentes (igreja, estado, cultura etc), influenciam o comportamento do indivíduo e filosofa sobre que caminhos podemos seguir para termos uma sociedade "melhor", seja lá o que isso signifique. Acho muito interessante quando uma teoria sai do seu principal raio de atuação e influencia outras áreas. Aqui neste capítulo, por exemplo, ficou bastante claro como a Ciência do Comportamento pode ser bastante útil na filosofia, economia, política, sociologia e afins. Fazendo um paralelo com Economia, o meio do livro me pareceu muito com teorias micro-econômicas e a parte final com teorias macro-econômicas. Fiquei bastante surpreso ao encontrar alguns trechos em que Skinner já havia dado um passo inicial rumo ao que, mais tarde, seria desenvolvido como Economia Comportamental. Essa área sempre me interessou, mesmo antes de conhecer a Análise do Comportamento, e já foi o principal objeto de estudo de diversos ganhadores do Prêmio Nobel de Economia.

Um outro ponto super positivo é a tradução! Dá para perceber como ele introduziu alguns exemplos comuns para o contexto brasileiro, como quando cita Cabral e anagramas como "qu", "nh" e "lh", que não são comuns na língua inglesa.


Uma curiosidade extra para quem gosta do Asimov, principalmente a Trilogia Fundação: há aqui vários indicativos de que ou Skinner influenciou Asimov ou vice-versa. Ou ambos beberam de uma terceira fonte. Veja, por exemplo, os trechos a seguir:

Têm-se dito algumas vezes que a Física, por exemplo, foi incapaz de manter sua filosofia do determinismo, particularmente no nível subatômico. No estágio atual de nossos conhecimentos, certos eventos também parecem por isso imprevisíveis. Mas disso não se segue que estes acontecimentos sejam livres ou arbitrários. Uma vez que o comportamento humano é enormemente complexo e o organismo humano é de dimensões limitadas, muitos atos podem incluir processos aos quais o princípio de indeterminação se aplique. Não se segue que o comportamento humano seja livre, mas apenas que pode estar além do alcance de uma ciência controladora ou preditiva. Muitos dos que estudam o comportamento, entretanto, concordariam prazerosamente em aceitar o grau de previsão e controle conseguido pelas ciências físicas, a despeito desta limitação.
(...)
A suposição de que há no comportamento a ordem do dado científico se defronta algumas vezes com outra objeção. A ciência se ocupa do geral, mas o comportamento do indivíduo é necessariamente único. Esta distinção não é peculiar ao estudo do comportamento. Pode ser sempre feita nos estágios iniciais de qualquer ciência, quando não é ainda claro o que se poderá deduzir de um princípio geral a respeito de um caso particular.

Um argumento semelhante é o composto ao uso da estatística em uma ciência do comportamento. A previsão do que um indivíduo médio fará é, frequentemente, de pouco ou nenhum valor ao se tratar com um indivíduo particular. Os quadros estatísticos das companhias de seguro de vida não são de nenhum valor para um médico, ao prever a morte ou a sobrevivência de um paciente. Esta questão ainda permanece viva nas ciências físicas, onde está associada aos conceitos de causalidade e probabilidade. É raro que a ciência da Física se preocupe com o comportamento de moléculas individuais. Quando ocasionalmente é solicitada a fazê-lo, surgem todos os problemas do evento particular. Em geral, uma ciência é valiosa ao tratar com o indivíduo só na medida em que suas leis se refiram aos indivíduos. Uma ciência do comportamento que diga respeito ao comportamento de grupos não servirá, provavelmente, de ajuda na compreensão do caso particular. Mas uma ciência pode também tratar do comportamento do indivíduo, e seu êxito nisto deve ser avaliado antes em termos de realizações do que em qualquer colocações apriorísticas.
(...)
Ainda outra objeção ao uso do método científico no estudo do comportamento humano é que o comportamento é matéria anômala, porque uma previsão feita a seu respeito pode alterá-lo. Se dissermos a um amigo que ele vai comprar determinado tipo de carro, ele poderá reagir à previsão comprando um tipo diferente.

Esses trechos têm tudo a ver com a psico-história do Asimov. Só para relembrar, a psico-história do Asimov tem esses dois elementos: previsão do comportamento de populações por meio de estatística e ela deixa de ser válida quando as pessoas conhecem as previsões. Com base nisso, eu supunha inicialmente que o Skinner tinha influenciado a psico-história do Asimov. Porém, pesquisando sobre datas, o livro do Skinner foi publicado em 1953. Nesse ano, o Asimov já tinha lançado o terceiro livro da trilogia original, ou seja, a psico-história já tinha sido criada alguns anos antes, no primeiro livro. Ou seja, será que o que aconteceu foi o contrário? Que o Asimov tenha influenciado o Skinner? Uma outra hipótese é de que o livro do Skinner foi publicado em 1953, mas o Asimov já acompanhava o assunto por outros meios, como em artigos científicos, por exemplo. Ou pode ser também que ambos tenham sido influenciados por um terceiro...

[Hyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Why should the design of a culture be left so largely to accident? Is it not possible to change the social environment deliberately so that the human product may meet more acceptable specifications?”
- BF Skinner

“Behaviorism can’t die. It doesn’t matter how often it’s been refuted and how fully it’s refuted, it comes right back to life.”
- Noam Chomsky

I have to say, I am absolutely stunned that behaviorism is so widely accepted and implemented as a “science” across society. Judging by this book, it is at best a crackpot pseudo-science

That is not to say that it doesn’t have practical application. I could say the same about religion. Discussions with fundamentalists about whether or not a God exists are usually pointless, unburdened as they are by any effort towards rationality, logic, science or even honesty, but this doesn’t keep me from recognizing that religious communities provide all kinds of benefits to the believers (being part of a mutually supportive community, for example). The theology doesn’t have to be true for it to be useful.

This is how I feel about behaviorism, or at least about this book. Skinner barrels along as if he has demonstrated the rationality of his argument, when in fact, he has done nothing of the kind, but I do admit that the behaviorist techniques implemented by behavioral therapist in dealing with autism or at risk children can be tremendously effective.

The comparison to religious fundamentalism occurred to me in the early chapters of the book. I was reminded of a book I read titled “Evidence That Demands A Verdict“ by Christian apologist Josh McDowell. He begins to book by presenting strawman versions of atheist skepticism, then proceeding to knock them down with childish glee. He then goes on to build arguments across hundreds of pages as if he had dispensed with the atheist arguments in the first chapter or two, which, needless to say, he had not.

Seems to me that BF Skinner is doing something quite similar in this book. He begins by giving us an elementary school lesson about the scientific method (something that would not be out of place in a fourth grade textbook), and then proceeds to explain explain that all of philosophy of mind and psychology have the fatal flaw of being “unscientific”, because in reality we really cannot look into another person’s “mind”. The only thing we can measure and quantify is “behavior”, and so anything other than the measurement and quantification of behavior is to be discarded as superstitious and irrelevant.

This is the kind of mindset that Louis Mumford criticized in his monumental work “The Myth of The Machine“. It’s basically physics envy. Anything that cannot be proven by the standards of mathematics or physics is not “science”.

Skinner has no use for the unconscious, instincts, or even biology and the genetic endowment. There’s only behavior, which can be influenced either positively through reinforcement or negatively through punishment. Seems to me like he is crafting a language to make commonplace, every day observations sound scientific and insightful. Instead of saying “John wants to read the book”, he would say “John is reinforced by reading the book”. Other than adopting the rhetoric of the dogma he is peddling, I don’t know that much progress is made towards the understanding of human behavior here. But then again, I’m not really sure he has any interest in understanding human behavior. Again and again his true interest is revealed. I cannot tell how many times the subject of “control“ comes up. Parents controlling children, bosses controlling workers, store owners controlling customers, governments controlling citizens, powerful nations controlling weaker nations… It would seem that to Skinner, every human interaction is guided by an inherent Impulse to control. A “will to power“, if you will.

I would imagine Skinner would have no use for the classical formulation “man is the measure of all things“. For him, man is a collection of conditioned reflexes… You know, like a machine that can be programmed any which way you choose, provide it we have absolute control over him through his environment, from cradle to grave. Who controls the controllers, you ask? He does address this towards the end of the book, because I get the feeling he recognized that his prescription for society sounded an awful lot like the worst caricatures of Stalinist totalitarianism.

After giving us the template for creating a society for human beings where controlled and manipulated by creating an environment that makes them behave the way we want them to be behave (the “we“ doing the controlling are always the same, regardless of who presents this type of proposal, whether it be Plato in his Republic or their modern elite counterparts), he explains that unlike totalitarian societies, the control he is proposing is benign. The reason being that in a “democratic“ society (not exactly sure what he means by Democratic), there are many competing institutions manipulating and controlling the public: the government, corporations, the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical industries, the military industrial complex, two political parties (both of them capitalist), academia, psychologists and so on, while in a totalitarian society, it is only the government that is manipulating and controlling people. Not exactly sure why having ten masters rather than a single master would make any difference to a slave.

I believe the reason why behaviorism has remained so widespread and influential is because it provides real practical value to institutions of power in the society. Tech Giants, the state department, political parties and the media would be absolutely delighted to have a program and a science that would help them manipulate and control the public with a minimal use of force. BF Skinner’s project of making psychology the handmaiden of power seems perfect for this role.

If behaviorism didn’t exist, neoliberal technocratic elites would’ve had to invent it.

[Logan Paschke]

A must read for all humanity

This is a must read for all generations. If you want to shape human behavior or want a deeper dive into what BF Skinner actually says-this is the book! I share this with all of my colleagues or future BCBAs.

[Bess Tamton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my "work" favorites.

[Steven H · Rating 1 out of 5]

ONE OF SKINNER'S MOST SIGNIFICANT EXPOSITIONS

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990) was an American psychologist, social philosopher, and author. He was a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974, and perhaps the most influential behaviorist of the 20th century. His most famous books are 'Verbal Behavior,' 'Beyond Freedom & Dignity' and 'Walden Two.'

He wrote in the first chapter of this 1953 book, “The methods of science have been enormously successful wherever they have been tried. Let us them apply them to human affairs… It is necessary only to bring our understanding of human nature up to the same point…. If we can observe human behavior carefully from an objective point of view and come to understand it for what it is, we may be able to adopt a more sensible course of action… It is possible that science has come to the rescue and that order will eventually be achieved in the field of human affairs… There is one difficulty, however. The application of science to human behavior is not as simple as it seems… If we are to use the methods of science in the field of human affairs, we must assume that behavior is lawful and determined. We must expect to discover that what a man does is the result of specifiable conditions and that once these conditions have been discovered, we can anticipate and to some extent determine his actions.” (Pg. 5-6)

He asserts, “Our current practices do not represent any well-defined theoretical position. They are, in fact, thoroughly confused. At times we appear to regard a man[s behavior as spontaneous and responsible. At other times we recognize that inner determination is at least not complete, that the individual is not always to be held to account… We sometimes exonerate a man by pointing to ‘extenuating circumstances.’ We no longer blame the uneducated for their ignorance or call the unemployed lazy… But we have not gone all the way. We regard the common man as the product of his environment, yet we reserve the right to give personal credit to great men for their achievements…” (Pg. 8)

He continues, “All of this suggests that we are in a transition. We have not wholly abandoned the traditional philosophy of human nature; at the same time we are far from adopting a scientific point of view without reservation. We have accepted the assumption of determinism in part; yet we allow our sympathies, our first allegiances, and our personal aspirations to rise to the defense of the traditional view… theories affect practices. A scientific conception of human behavior dictates one practice, a philosophy of personal freedom another… We shall… remain ineffective in solving these problems until we adopt a consistent point of view.” (Pg. 9)

He goes on, “We cannot really evaluate the issue until we understand the alternatives. The traditional view of human nature in Western culture is well known. The conception of a free-responsible individual is embedded in our language and pervades our practices, codes, and beliefs…. Very few people have any notion of the extent to which a science of human behavior is indeed possible. In what way can the behavior of the individual or groups of individuals be predicted and controlled? What are laws of behavior like? … It is only when we have answered these questions, at least in a preliminary fashion, that we may consider the implications of a science of human behavior with respect to either a theory of human nature or the management of human affairs.” (Pg. 9-10)

He asks, “To what extent is it helpful to be told, 'He drinks because he is thirsty'? If to be thirsty means nothing more than to have a tendency to drink, this is mere redundancy. If it means that he drinks because of a state of thirst, an inner causal event is invoked. If this state is purely inferential ... it cannot serve as an explanation." (Pg. 33)

He asserts, “The objection to inner states is not that they do not exist, but that they are not relevant in a functional analysis. We cannot account for the behavior of any system while remaining wholly inside it; eventually we must turn to forces operating upon the organism from without.” (Pg. 35)

He states, “The process of conditioning also has survival value. Since the environment changes from generation to generation… appropriate reflex responses cannot always develop as inherited mechanisms… Since nature cannot foresee… that an object with a particular appearance will be edible, the evolutionary process can only provide a mechanism by which the individual will ACQUIRE responses to particular features of a given environment. After they have been encountered, their inherited behavior leaves off, the inherited modifiability of the process of conditioning takes over.” (Pg. 55)

After describing his work with pigeons, he explains, “food is the ‘reinforcer’ and presenting food when a response is emitted is the ‘reinforcement.’ The ‘operant’ is defined by the property upon which reinforcement is contingent---the height to which the [pigeon’s] head must be raised, the change in frequency with which the head is lifted to this height is the process of OPERANT CONDITIONING.” (Pg. 66)

He acknowledges, “A biological explanation of reinforcing power is perhaps as far as we can go in saying why an event is reinforcing. Such an explanation is probably of little help in a functional analysis, for it does not provide us with any way of identifying a reinforcing stimulus as such before we have tested its reinforcing power upon a given organism. We must therefore be content with a survey in terms of the effects of stimuli upon behavior.” (Pg. 84)

He further explains, “We first define a positive reinforcer as any stimulus the PRESENTATION of which strengthens the behavior upon which it is made contingent. We define a negative reinforcer (an aversive stimulus) as any stimulus the WITHDRAWAL of which strengthens behavior.” (Pg. 185)

He states, "Trait-names begin as adjectives--'intelligent,' 'aggressive,' 'disorganized,'... and so on... But at no point in such a series do we make contact with any event outside the behavior itself which justifies the claim of a causal connection." (Pg. 202)

He also admits, "We cannot account for suicide as a simple response... No one jumps into a brook to bring his life to an end because the same behavior had a similar consequence in the past... Fortunately we need not decide this issue to make the present point." (Pg. 223)

He contends, “an analysis which appeals to external variables makes the assumptions of an inner originating and determining agent unnecessary. The scientific advantages of such an analysis are many, but the practical advantages may well be even more important. Traditional conception of what is happening when an individual controls himself has never been successful as an educational device. It is of little help to tell a man to use his ‘will power’ or his ‘self-control.' Such an exhortation may make self-control slightly more probable by establishing additional aversive consequences of failure to control, but it does not help anyone to understand the actual processes.” (Pg 241)

He asserts, “The scientist humbly admits that … he defers to [the] world of mind and consciousness---for which another mode of inquiry is assumed to be required. Such a point of view is by no means inevitable, but is part of the cultural heritage from which science has emerged. It obviously stands in the way of a unified account of nature. The contribution which a science of behavior can make in suggesting an alternative point of view is perhaps one of its most important achievements." (Pg. 258)

He argues, “A description of behavior which has not been executed appears to depend upon private events only. For example, a man may say, ‘I was … going home at three o’clock,’ though he did not go. Here the controlling stimuli are not only private, they appear to have no public accompaniments… How can the verbal community establish responses of this sort? A possible explanation is that the terms are established as part of a repertoire when the individual is behaving publicly. Private stimuli… then gain the necessary degree of control.” (Pg. 262)

He states, “Our survey … did not reveal any means of setting up a discriminative response to privacy AS SUCH. A world of experience which is by definition available only to the individual, wholly without public accompaniment, could never become the discriminative occasion for self-description." (Pg. 280)

This book will interest those studying Skinner and behaviorism, but I am personally glad that they are both rather passé today.

[Gabriel Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Para muitos a escrita de Skinner é seca e desinteressante. A minha impressão é bem diferente. Não que eu ache a sua escrita romântica, envolvente ou algo do tipo, mas dentro de sua proposta, a sua escrita é extremamente esclarecedora.

Quando falamos de psicologia, tanto no senso comum como no meio acadêmico, é bem comum cairmos na ideia de excepcionalismo humano, seja de forma intencional ou não intencional, seja de forma explícita ou implícita. Abordar o comportamento como um fenômeno natural digno de estudo científico exige abdicação das noções românticas que temos sobre nós mesmos (de que somos agentes livres, independentes, donos do nosso próprio destino) a fim de entender uma realidade que a ciência já tem demonstrado a respeito de diversos fenômenos, mas nós resistimos a ideia de que o mesmo se aplica a nós: eventos são ordenados e controlados de forma probabilística por outros eventos antecedentes e consequentes.

Não há debate sobre a complexidade do ser humano em comparação a outros animais. Essa obviedade fez com que atribuíssemos tal complexidade a uma "natureza" ou "essência" intrínseca a todos nós e as tentativas de explicá-la foram profundamente pervertidas por essa perspectiva. A religião, a filosofia e até a própria ciência buscaram colocar o ser humano como um ser acima da natureza e não como parte dela. Entender como nós humanos nos comportamos exige reconhecer o nosso lugar na natureza e como esta nos molda como espécie e como indivíduos.

Ao contrário do que muitos críticos falam a respeito da Análise do Comportamento Experimental e Aplicada (as ciências) e o Behaviorismo Radical (a filosofia), uma abordagem monista e materialista do comportamento não nos rouba daquilo que chamamos de valor, espírito ou dignidade humana, apenas nega a ideia de que essas coisas são intrínsecas a nossa espécie por razões misteriosas, místicas ou divinas. Tal visão não nega a existência e nem desvia sua atenção daquilo que ocorre dentro da pele de indivíduos (pensamentos, sentimentos, sensações, emoções). Ela não diminui a arte, a filosofia, a tecnologia, ou qualquer outra atividade humana. Ela apenas traz luz para as condições materiais e sociais que permitem o desenvolvimento humano e das atividades que valorizamos. Além disso, essa mesma abordagem nos permite olhar não apenas para as condições materiais ao nosso redor que contribuem para a nossa exploração, nosso sofrimento, nossas dificuldades, mas também para as condições que podem proporcionar maior qualidade de vida para indivíduos, grupos e sociedades. Ainda mais, proporciona as ferramentas para que algo possa ser feito a respeito disso. Esse livro é fundamental para entender bem essas ideias e ferramentas.

Esse talvez não seja o melhor livro para iniciar o seu contato com a Análise do Comportamento, mas com certeza é indicado para se aprofundar mais sobre o assunto.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's strange to read a non-fiction book this long and never feel like the material is stretched. On the contrary, the content, particularly in the first half, can be quite dense. This was one of the more dry, trying books I've read.

There's a lot of abstract concepts being considered and inevitably I needed to concentrate to keep up. At least I did at first. Things got easier once I started trusting Skinner to continue his consistent use of examples to demonstrate his concepts.

The book goes from rigorous behavioral findings into increasingly speculative thoughts. Skinner is straight-forward that he will do this and leaves a number of reminders that this is what he's doing once he gets there. I thoroughly enjoy authors that approach their subject with this amount of humility and open-mindedness. Skinner's humility, more specifically, is that he doesn't express a subtext of desperation to have the reader believe his work (it makes his indifference to Chomsky's scathing critique unsurprising).

One great example of his humble approach comes when Skinner writes "It would be quite inconsistent if we were to exempt the scientist from the account which science gives of human behavior in general."

The actual covered behavioralism content gave me a lot to think about as an additional model to interpret the world from. The perspective I'm used to encountering places a lot more stress on the extent of traumatic events and their processing. Skinner's behavioralism instead removes the urge to rationalize behavior with proportional origins. That happens to suit my current mentality.

Overall, a great read for those enthused by behavioral economics and other such behavioral pop-psych and are hungry for a deeper exploration.

[Bumbierītis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a book. Not gonna lie, I didn't feel proud of myself when I finished War and Peace or The Count of Monte Cristo, but, o boi, I do feel kind of proud that I got through this one -- it is very, very dense and took me a year.

The first half of the book is Skinner explaining behavioral science - basically the building blocks of a new scientific discipline. Just like it takes a learning curve to get the basics of physics and chemistry, also here it takes some time to understand contingences, reinforment schedules, variables, etc.

However, it is the second part that I found the most thought provoking. Drawing from the experimental building blocks that Skinner laid out in the first half of the book, here he extends them to societal structures. He speculates that everything - government agencies, religion, psychotherapy, etc - function as group imposed reward and punishment schedules, that act out of structural self-preservation, and is less interested in the individual well-being.

As such Skinner clearly lays out that 'neurosis' (modern day anxiety and depression) is not an individual failure but the outcome of adverse reinforcement environments. People behave 'abnormally' because the contingencies around them are punishing, contradictory, or unyielding. Skinner doesn't pathologize the individual - he pathologizes the system. And he does so not with moral outrage like Nietzsche, but with cold empirical clarity, and, o boi, it cuts deep.

This book doesn't offer comforting fictions. There's no heroic self, no deep unconscious, no mysterious will. There's just behavior, history, environment, and under it all the optimism of the possibility of reshaping it, if we're honest enough to see what's really going on.

[Kyler Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As others have noted, this book can be a bit dry and mundane at times, which was made a bit worse by the reader of the audiobook in my case. However, I think this is one of those books that is probably worth the read for anyone who has an interest in learning more about why we behave the way we do and what factors influence our behaviors.

Having never read Skinner in full before outside of examples cited in collage textbooks, I found this book incredibly surprising in a few areas. First, for a book over 70 years old, it holds up surprisingly well. Some of Skinner's assertions have certainly been challenged and modified over the years, but his cautions regarding leaning too heavily on un-observable explanations for human behavior holds up very well in a field where doing so has lead to many of the problems present in modern day psychology and clinical therapy. Secondly, many of the criticisms I have heard about Skinner were addressed thoroughly in the book, and if you are someone who feels critical of his ideas I would recommend giving it a read to gain a better understanding of what he is actually proposing and why.

For someone who hypothesizes we have no free will and proves behavior can be controlled and modified though punishment and reinforcement, Skinner seems to have a very optimistic and encouraging view of how we can use this science to positively impact humanity as a whole. If you already have a decent grasp on radical behaviorism, the last quarter of the book where he addresses government, religion, and culture provide a really helpful view of how this science can be applied in a way that is not solely focused on the individual.

[Thomas Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genius ideas, mediocre execution. This was an extremely challenging read. The content is difficult enough, but Skinner and his editors do the reader no favors with the structure of the book. Paragraphs are long winded and unnecessarily blocky. Skinner goes into examples before the idea is fully formed on the page.

The first half of the book is much stronger and focuses more on individual behaviors. The second half Skinner tries to make his theory applicable to group behaviors. I think he succeeds for the most part, but he has much stronger evidence and arguments for individual behavior than he does for groups.

Overall an essential read for anyone interested in human behavior, but not a very good reading experience.

[Javi Hernández · Rating 5 out of 5]

El libro referencia en el análisis de conducta. Un buen anclaje para cualquiera que quiera interesarse por el GOAT de la psicología científica, Skinner y todos los mecanismos que propone, descubre e implementa a raíz de la creación del condicionamiento operante. No solo expone la teoría de manera excepcional sino que los ejemplos y reflexiones que surgen a partir de ahí son didácticos a la par de sorprendentes por las semejanzas que encontramos a día de hoy pese a ser una publicación de 1953.

Pilar básico para cualquier psicólogo ya sea en ámbito de investigación o aplicado. Recomendadísimo.

[Nosemonkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally blitzed the last few chapters, and remembered why I stalled.

This is an extremely influential book. So influential, most of its ideas now seem obvious.

But equally, it's been attacked pretty successfully as being simplistic and deterministic - and the alternative views of Skinner's anti-Behaviouralist opponents have bedded into the culture successfully enough that it's kinda impossible to read this now without being critical.

It also didn't help that the audiobook version I had the most annoying narrator, who managed to read every line as if it were both profound and obvious at the same time.

[Robert Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fundamentally important book for learning about the science of behavior and its general applications, for example, to Law, Government, Education and Culture. The early portion of the book describes the principles of behavior science as they were known in the 1940-50s, so somewhat dated. The latter chapters offer eye-opening ideas about how centrally important institutions can be understood and improved by constructively using principles o behavior science.

[Krystine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this as part of my graduate studies. I hated almost every minute of it. The further away we get from the era in which this was written, the more difficult this text is to stomach. However, this is more a fault of the content and context in which it was written than the core of the material itself. Skinner is the father of modern behaviorism, and my, how far we've grown since this book was published.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review in progress:
! Only listened to half of the book !

It is a very comprehensive book. It is not for leasurley reading.
If you are determined to read the book, may it be a part of your studying process or a 100% dedication to it when you read it.

Very cut and dry with scientific jargon, but it does explain what it sets out to.

[David Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a tough read for the unscientific layman but a very interesting topic, crucial to the understanding of humanity. It's basically the scientific theory behind his novel Walden Two and with that change from factual to fiction, it loses a bit of the narrative flow and instead gets a bit dragged down with the strictly scientific language. Worth a read but could've done with a severe edit.

[Arrobarsandias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Realmente lo considero una lectura obligatoria para todo el mundo que tenga un mínimo de interés en analizar la realidad. Pero en especial lo pondría de lectura obligatoria en periodismo, porque honestamente si eres psicólogx y no lo has leido eres realmente psicólogx o eres psicólogx de la mierda??

[Ferdinando C · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really cool to read BF Skinner's work. As was common of the day he seemed to broadly apply his theory to everything including speech. It was definitely a cool read though and hearing BF Skinner be critical of society's obsession with punishment despite it being ineffective was really interesting.

[Jacob Schmitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to About Behaviorism with more science, naturally. A little redundant having read them back-to-back, as he touches upon some of the philosophy, but worth the read. Overall, Skinner's writes with the intention for the reader to grasp his concepts, with excellent examples to support. Easier to digest than Freud, Jung, and, especially, Piaget.