B. F. Skinner - Wikipedia





	
	

	
	

	B. F. Skinner

	
		From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

		

		

		
		

		Jump to navigation
		Jump to search
		American psychologist and social philosopher (1904-1990)




	B. F. Skinner

	Skinner at the Harvard Psychology Department, c. 1950

	Born	Burrhus Frederic Skinner

(1904-03-20)March 20, 1904
Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, U.S.

	Died	August 18, 1990(1990-08-18) (aged 86)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.

	Nationality	American
	Alma mater	Hamilton College
Harvard University
	Known for	Operant conditioning
Radical behaviorism
Behavior analysis
Verbal behavior
	Spouse(s)	Yvonne (Eve) Blue

   ​
 ​
(m. 1936; his death 1990)​
[1]

	Awards	National Medal of Science (1968)
	Scientific career
	Fields	Psychology, linguistics, philosophy
	Institutions	University of Minnesota
Indiana University
Harvard University
	Influences	Charles Darwin
Ivan Pavlov
Ernst Mach
Jacques Loeb
Edward Thorndike
William James
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Henry David Thoreau
	Influenced	Maxie Clarence Maultsby Jr.
Shoshana Zuboff
	

	Signature
	


Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.[2][3][4][5] He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[6]

Considering free will to be an illusion, Skinner saw human action as dependent on consequences of previous actions, a theory he would articulate as the principle of reinforcement: If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger.[7]:17

Skinner developed behavior analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviorism,[8] and founded the experimental analysis of behavior, a school of experimental research psychology. He also used operant conditioning to strengthen behavior, considering the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner Box),[7] and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner's most influential experimental work, outlined in their book Schedules of Reinforcement (1957).[9][10]

Skinner was a prolific author, having published 21 books and 180 articles.[11] He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his utopian novel, Walden Two (1948),[12] while his analysis of human behavior culminated in his work, Verbal Behavior.[13]

Contemporary academia considers Skinner, along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, a pioneer of modern behaviorism. Accordingly, a June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[14]


Contents


	1 Biography
	1.1 Education
	1.2 Later life



	2 Contributions to psychology
	2.1 Behaviorism
	2.2 Foundations of Skinner's behaviorism
	2.2.1 1. Origin of operant behavior
	2.2.2 2. Control of operant behavior
	2.2.3 3. Explaining complex behavior



	2.3 Reinforcement
	2.3.1 Schedules of reinforcement
	2.3.2 Token economy



	2.4 Verbal Behavior



	3 Scientific inventions
	3.1 Operant conditioning chamber
	3.2 Cumulative recorder
	3.3 Air crib
	3.4 Teaching machine
	3.5 Pigeon-guided missile
	3.6 Verbal summator



	4 Influence on teaching
	5 Contributions to social theory
	6 Political views
	7 'Superstition in the pigeon' experiment
	8 Criticism
	8.1 Noam Chomsky
	8.2 Psychodynamic psychology
	8.3 J. E. R. Staddon



	9 Professional career
	9.1 Roles
	9.2 Awards
	9.3 Honorary degrees
	9.4 Honorary Societies



	10 Bibliography
	11 See also
	12 References
	12.1 Notes
	12.2 Citations



	13 Further reading
	14 External links





Biography[edit]

Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, to Grace and William Skinner, the latter of whom was a lawyer. Skinner became an atheist after a Christian teacher tried to assuage his fear of the hell that his grandmother described.[15] His brother Edward, two and a half years younger, died at age 16 of a cerebral hemorrhage.[16]

Skinner's closest friend as a young boy was Raphael Miller, whom he called Doc because his father was a doctor. Doc and Skinner became friends due to their parents’ religiousness and both had an interest in contraptions and gadgets. They had set up a telegraph line between their houses to send messages to each other, although they had to call each other on the telephone due to the confusing messages sent back and forth. During one summer, Doc and Skinner started an elderberry business to gather berries and sell them door to door. They found that when they picked the ripe berries, the unripe ones came off the branches too, so they built a device that was able to separate them. The device was a bent piece of metal to form a trough. They would pour water down the trough into a bucket, and the ripe berries would sink into the bucket and the unripe ones would be pushed over the edge to be thrown away.[17]


Education[edit]

Skinner attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer. He found himself at a social disadvantage at the College because of his intellectual attitude.[18]

The school was known for being a strong fraternity college, and Skinner joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity while attending. Skinner had thought that his fraternity brothers would be respectful and would not haze or mistreat the newcomers, instead helping out the other boys with courses or other activities. Contrary to his expectations, at Lambda Chi Alpha freshmen were called “slimers” who had to wear small green knit hats and greet everyone that they passed for punishment. The year before Skinner entered Hamilton, there was a hazing accident that caused the death of a student. The freshman was asleep in his bed when he was pushed onto the floor, where he smashed his head, resulting in his death. Skinner had a similar incident where two sophomores captured him and tied him to a seat in an empty classroom with a clothesline, where he should have stayed all night, but he had a razor blade in his shoe for emergency and managed to cut himself free.[17]

He wrote for the school paper, but, as an atheist, he was critical of the traditional mores of his college. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1926, he attended Harvard University, where he would later research, teach, and eventually become a prestigious board member. While attending Harvard, a fellow student, Fred Keller, convinced Skinner that he could make an experimental science from the study of behavior. This led Skinner to invent a prototype for the Skinner Box and to join Keller in the creation of other tools for small experiments.[18]

After graduation, Skinner unsuccessfully tried to write a great novel while he lived with his parents, a period that he later called the 'Dark Years.'[18] He became disillusioned with his literary skills despite encouragement from the renowned poet Robert Frost, concluding that he had little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write. His encounter with John B. Watson's Behaviorism led him into graduate study in psychology and to the development of his own version of behaviorism.[18]


Later life[edit]

  
The gravestone of B.F. Skinner and his wife Eve at Mount Auburn Cemetery



Skinner received a PhD from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as a researcher for some years. In 1936, he went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to teach.[19]  In 1945, he moved to Indiana University,[20] where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946–1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his life. In 1973, Skinner was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.[21]

In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne (Eve) Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (m. Vargas) and Deborah Buzan (married Barry Buzan).[22][23] Yvonne died in 1997,[24] and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[25]

Skinner's public exposure had increased in the 1970s, he remained active even after his retirement in 1974, until his death. In 1989, Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia and died on August 18, 1990, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ten days before his death, he was given the lifetime achievement award by the American Psychological Association and gave a talk in an auditorium concerning his work.[26]


Contributions to psychology[edit]

Behaviorism[edit]

Main articles: Behaviorism and Radical behaviorism

Skinner referred to his approach to the study of behavior as radical behaviorism.[27] This philosophy of behavioral science assumes that behavior is a consequence of environmental histories of reinforcement (see applied behavior analysis). In his words: 



 The position can be stated as follows: what is felt or introspectively observed is not some nonphysical world of consciousness, mind, or mental life but the observer's own body. This does not mean, as I shall show later, that introspection is a kind of psychological research, nor does it mean (and this is the heart of the argument) that what are felt or introspectively observed are the causes of the behavior. An organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is out of reach of introspection. At the moment we must content ourselves, as the methodological behaviorist insists, with a person's genetic and environment histories. What are introspectively observed are certain collateral products of those histories.… In this way we repair the major damage wrought by mentalism. When what a person does [is] attributed to what is going on inside him, investigation is brought to an end. Why explain the explanation? For twenty-five hundred years people have been preoccupied with feelings and mental life, but only recently has any interest been shown in a more precise analysis of the role of the environment. Ignorance of that role led in the first place to mental fictions, and it has been perpetuated by the explanatory practices to which they gave rise.


Foundations of Skinner's behaviorism[edit]

Skinner's ideas about behaviorism were largely set forth in his first book, Behavior of Organisms (1938).[9] Here, he gives a systematic description of the manner in which environmental variables control behavior. He distinguished two sorts of behavior which are controlled in different ways:


	Respondent behaviors are elicited by stimuli, and may be modified through respondent conditioning, often called classical (or pavlovian) conditioning, in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an eliciting stimulus. Such behaviors may be measured by their latency or strength.
	Operant behaviors are 'emitted,' meaning that initially they are not induced by any particular stimulus. They are strengthened through operant conditioning (aka instrumental conditioning), in which the occurrence of a response yields a reinforcer. Such behaviors may be measured by their rate.


Both of these sorts of behavior had already been studied experimentally, most notably: respondents, by Ivan Pavlov;[28] and operants, by Edward Thorndike.[29] Skinner's account differed in some ways from earlier ones,[30] and was one of the first accounts to bring them under one roof.

The idea that behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences raises several questions. Among the most important are these:[clarification needed]


	Operant responses are strengthened by reinforcement, but where do they come from in the first place?
	Once it is in the organism's repertoire, how is a response directed or controlled?
	How can very complex and seemingly novel behaviors be explained?


1. Origin of operant behavior[edit]

Skinner's answer to the first question was very much like Darwin's answer to the question of the origin of a 'new' bodily structure, namely, variation and selection. Similarly, the behavior of an individual varies from moment to moment; a variation that is followed by reinforcement is strengthened and becomes prominent in that individual's behavioral repertoire. Shaping was Skinner's term for the gradual modification of behavior by the reinforcement of desired variations. Skinner believed that 'superstitious' behavior can arise when a response happens to be followed by reinforcement to which it is actually unrelated.[clarification needed]


2. Control of operant behavior[edit]

The second question, "how is operant behavior controlled?" arises because, to begin with, the behavior is "emitted" without reference to any particular stimulus.  Skinner answered this question by saying that a stimulus comes to control an operant if it is present when the response is reinforced and absent when it is not.  For example, if lever-pressing only brings food when a light is on, a rat, or a child, will learn to press the lever only when the light is on. Skinner summarized this relationship by saying that a discriminative stimulus (e.g. light) sets the occasion for the reinforcement (food) of the operant (lever-press). This three-term contingency (stimulus-response-reinforcer) is one of Skinner's most important concepts, and sets his theory apart from theories that use only pair-wise associations.[30]


3. Explaining complex behavior[edit]

Most behavior of humans cannot easily be described in terms of individual responses reinforced one by one, and Skinner devoted a great deal of effort to the problem of behavioral complexity. Some complex behavior can be seen as a sequence of relatively simple responses, and here Skinner invoked the idea of "chaining".  Chaining is based on the fact, experimentally demonstrated, that a discriminative stimulus not only sets the occasion for subsequent behavior, but it can also reinforce a behavior that precedes it. That is, a discriminative stimulus is also a "conditioned reinforcer". For example, the light that sets the occasion for lever pressing may also be used to reinforce "turning around" in the presence of a noise. This results in the sequence "noise – turn-around – light – press lever – food." Much longer chains can be built by adding more stimuli and responses.

However, Skinner recognized that a great deal of behavior, especially human behavior, cannot be accounted for by gradual shaping or the construction of response sequences.[31] Complex behavior often appears suddenly in its final form, as when a person first finds his way to the elevator by following instructions given at the front desk. To account for such behavior, Skinner introduced the concept of rule-governed behavior. First, relatively simple behaviors come under the control of verbal stimuli: the child learns to "jump," "open the book," and so on. After a large number of responses come under such verbal control, a sequence of verbal stimuli can evoke an almost unlimited variety of complex responses.[31]


Reinforcement[edit]

Main article: Reinforcement

Reinforcement, a key concept of behaviorism, is the primary process that shapes and controls behavior, and occurs in two ways: positive and negative.  In The Behavior of Organisms (1938), Skinner defines negative reinforcement to be synonymous with punishment, i.e. the presentation of an aversive stimulus. This definition would subsequently be re-defined in Science and Human Behavior (1953).

In what has now become the standard set of definitions, positive reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the occurrence of some event (e.g., praise after some behavior is performed), whereas negative reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the removal or avoidance of some aversive event (e.g., opening and raising an umbrella over your head on a rainy day is reinforced by the cessation of rain falling on you).

Both types of reinforcement strengthen behavior, or increase the probability of a behavior reoccurring; the difference being in whether the reinforcing event is something applied (positive reinforcement) or something removed or avoided (negative reinforcement). Punishment can be the application of an aversive stimulus/event (positive punishment or punishment by contingent stimulation) or the removal of a desirable stimulus (negative punishment or punishment by contingent withdrawal). Though punishment is often used to suppress behavior, Skinner argued that this suppression is temporary and has a number of other, often unwanted, consequences.[32] Extinction is the absence of a rewarding stimulus, which weakens behavior.

Writing in 1981, Skinner pointed out that Darwinian natural selection is, like reinforced behavior, "selection by consequences." Though, as he said, natural selection has now "made its case," he regretted that essentially the same process, "reinforcement", was less widely accepted as underlying human behavior.[33]


Schedules of reinforcement[edit]

Main article: Schedules of reinforcement

Skinner recognized that behavior is typically reinforced more than once, and, together with Charles Ferster, he did an extensive analysis of the various ways in which reinforcements could be arranged over time, calling it the schedules of reinforcement.[10]

The most notable schedules of reinforcement studied by Skinner were continuous, interval (fixed or variable), and ratio (fixed or variable). All are methods used in operant conditioning.


	Continuous reinforcement (CRF): each time a specific action is performed the subject receives a reinforcement. This method is effective when teaching a new behavior because it quickly establishes an association between the target behavior and the reinforcer.[34]
	Interval schedule: based on the time intervals between reinforcements.[7]
	Fixed Interval schedule (FI): A procedure in which reinforcements are presented at fixed time periods, provided that the appropriate response is made. This schedule yields a response rate that is low just after reinforcement and becomes rapid just before the next reinforcement is scheduled.
	Variable Interval schedule (VI): A procedure in which behavior is reinforced after scheduled but unpredictable time durations following the previous reinforcement. This schedule yields the most stable rate of responding, with the average frequency of reinforcement determining the frequency of response.


	Ratio schedules: based on the ratio of responses to reinforcements.[7]
	Fixed Ratio schedule (FR): A procedure in which reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made.
	Variable Ratio schedule (VR):[7] A procedure in which reinforcement comes after a number of responses that is randomized from one reinforcement to the next (e.g. slot machines). The lower the number of responses required, the higher the response rate tends to be. Variable ratio schedules tend to produce very rapid and steady responding rates in contrast with fixed ratio schedules where the frequency of response usually drops after the reinforcement occurs.




Token economy[edit]

Skinnerian principles have been used to create token economies in a number of institutions, such as psychiatric hospitals. When participants behave in desirable ways, their behavior is reinforced with tokens that can be changed for such items as candy, cigarettes, coffee, or the exclusive use of a radio or television set.[35]


Verbal Behavior[edit]

Main article: Verbal Behavior (book)

Challenged by Alfred North Whitehead during a casual discussion while at Harvard to provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal behavior,[36] Skinner set about attempting to extend his then-new functional, inductive approach to the complexity of human verbal behavior.[37] Developed over two decades, his work appeared in the book Verbal Behavior. Although Noam Chomsky was highly critical of Verbal Behavior, he conceded that Skinner's "S-R psychology" was worth a review.[38] (Behavior analysts reject the "S-R" characterization: operant conditioning involves the emission of a response which then becomes more or less likely depending upon its consequence.)[38]

Verbal Behavior had an uncharacteristically cool reception, partly as a result of Chomsky's review, partly because of Skinner's failure to address or rebut any of Chomsky's criticisms.[39] Skinner's peers may have been slow to adopt the ideas presented in Verbal Behavior because of the absence of experimental evidence—unlike the empirical density that marked Skinner's experimental work.[40]


Scientific inventions[edit]

Operant conditioning chamber[edit]

Main article: Operant conditioning chamber

An operant conditioning chamber (also known as a Skinner Box) is a laboratory apparatus used in the experimental analysis of animal behavior.  It was invented by Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. As used by Skinner, the box had a lever (for rats), or a disk in one wall (for pigeons). A press on this "manipulandum" could deliver food to the animal through an opening in the wall, and responses reinforced in this way increased in frequency. By controlling this reinforcement together with discriminative stimuli such as lights and tones, or punishments such as electric shocks, experimenters have used the operant box to study a wide variety of topics, including schedules of reinforcement, discriminative control, delayed response ("memory"), punishment, and so on. By channeling research in these directions, the operant conditioning chamber has had a huge influence on course of research in animal learning and its applications. It enabled great progress on problems that could be studied by measuring the rate, probability, or force of a simple, repeatable response. However, it discouraged the study of behavioral processes not easily conceptualized in such terms—spatial learning, in particular, which is now studied in quite different ways, for example, by the use of the water maze.[30]


Cumulative recorder[edit]

The cumulative recorder makes a pen-and-ink record of simple repeated responses. Skinner designed it for use with the operant chamber as a convenient way to record and view the rate of responses such as a lever press or a key peck. In this device, a sheet of paper gradually unrolls over a cylinder.  Each response steps a small pen across the paper, starting at one edge; when the pen reaches the other edge, it quickly resets to the initial side. The slope of the resulting ink line graphically displays the rate of the response; for example, rapid responses yield a steeply sloping line on the paper, slow responding yields a line of low slope. The cumulative recorder was a key tool used by Skinner in his analysis of behavior, and it was very widely adopted by other experimenters, gradually falling out of use with the advent of the laboratory computer and use of line graphs.[41] Skinner's major experimental exploration of response rates, presented in his book with Charles Ferster, Schedules of Reinforcement, is full of cumulative records produced by this device.[10]


Air crib[edit]

The air crib is an easily cleaned, temperature- and humidity-controlled box-bed intended to replace the standard infant crib.[42] Skinner invented the device to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing. It was designed to make early childcare simpler (by reducing laundry, diaper rash, cradle cap, etc.), while allowing the baby to be more mobile and comfortable, and less prone to cry. Reportedly it had some success in these goals.[43]

The air crib was a controversial invention. It was popularly mischaracterized as a cruel pen, and it was often compared to Skinner's operant conditioning chamber (aka the 'Skinner Box'). This association with laboratory animal experimentation discouraged its commercial success, though several companies attempted production.[43][44]

Psychologist Lauren Slater's 2004 book, Opening Skinner's Box,[45] caused a stir by mentioning the rumors that Skinner had used his baby daughter, Deborah, in some of his experiments, and that she had subsequently committed suicide. Although Slater's book rejected such rumors as false, a reviewer in The Observer in March 2004 misquoted Slater's book as supporting the rumors. This review was read by Deborah Skinner (now Deborah Buzan), who wrote a vehement riposte in The Guardian.[46]


Teaching machine[edit]

  
The teaching machine, a mechanical invention to automate the task of programmed learning



The teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to administer a curriculum of programmed learning. The machine embodies key elements of Skinner's theory of learning and had important implications for education in general and classroom instruction in particular.[47]

In one incarnation, the machine was a box that housed a list of questions that could be viewed one at a time through a small window. (see picture.) There was also a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each question. Upon delivering a correct answer, the learner would be rewarded.[48]


Skinner advocated the use of teaching machines for a broad range of students (e.g., preschool aged to adult) and instructional purposes (e.g., reading and music). For example, one machine that he envisioned could teach rhythm. He wrote:[49]
A relatively simple device supplies the necessary contingencies. The student taps a rhythmic pattern in unison with the device. "Unison" is specified very loosely at first (the student can be a little early or late at each tap) but the specifications are slowly sharpened. The process is repeated for various speeds and patterns. In another arrangement, the student echoes rhythmic patterns sounded by the machine, though not in unison, and again the specifications for an accurate reproduction are progressively sharpened. Rhythmic patterns can also be brought under the control of a printed score.

The instructional potential of the teaching machine stemmed from several factors: it provided automatic, immediate and regular reinforcement without the use of aversive control; the material presented was coherent, yet varied and novel; the pace of learning could be adjusted to suit the individual. As a result, students were interested, attentive, and learned efficiently by producing the desired behavior, "learning by doing."[50]

Teaching machines, though perhaps rudimentary, were not rigid instruments of instruction. They could be adjusted and improved based upon the students' performance. For example, if a student made many incorrect responses, the machine could be reprogrammed to provide less advanced prompts or questions—the idea being that students acquire behaviors most efficiently if they make few errors. Multiple-choice formats were not well-suited for teaching machines because they tended to increase student mistakes, and the contingencies of reinforcement were relatively uncontrolled.

Not only useful in teaching explicit skills, machines could also promote the development of a repertoire of behaviors that Skinner called self-management. Effective self-management means attending to stimuli appropriate to a task, avoiding distractions, reducing the opportunity of reward for competing behaviors, and so on. For example, machines encourage students to pay attention before receiving a reward. Skinner contrasted this with the common classroom practice of initially capturing students’ attention (e.g., with a lively video) and delivering a reward (e.g., entertainment) before the students have actually performed any relevant behavior. This practice fails to reinforce correct behavior and actually counters the development of self-management.

Skinner pioneered the use of teaching machines in the classroom, especially at the primary level. Today computers run software that performs similar teaching tasks, and there has been a resurgence of interest in the topic related to the development of adaptive learning systems.[51]


Pigeon-guided missile[edit]

Main article: Project Pigeon

During World War II, the US Navy required a weapon effective against surface ships, such as the German Bismarck class battleships. Although missile and TV technology existed, the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered automatic guidance impractical. To solve this problem, Skinner initiated Project Pigeon,[52][53] which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system. This system divided the nose cone of a missile into three compartments, with a pigeon placed in each. Lenses projected an image of distant objects onto a screen in front of each bird. Thus, when the missile was launched from an aircraft within sight of an enemy ship, an image of the ship would appear on the screen. The screen was hinged, such that pecks at the image of the ship would guide the missile toward the ship.[54]

Despite an effective demonstration, the project was abandoned, and eventually more conventional solutions, such as those based on radar, became available. Skinner complained that "our problem was no one would take us seriously."[55]


Verbal summator[edit]

Early in his career Skinner became interested in "latent speech" and experimented with a device he called the verbal summator.[56] This device can be thought of as an auditory version of the Rorschach inkblots.[56] When using the device, human participants listened to incomprehensible auditory "garbage" but often read meaning into what they heard. Thus, as with the Rorschach blots, the device was intended to yield overt behavior that projected subconscious thoughts. Skinner's interest in projective testing was brief, but he later used observations with the summator in creating his theory of verbal behavior. The device also led other researchers to invent new tests such as the tautophone test, the auditory apperception test, and the Azzageddi[when defined as?] test.[57]


Influence on teaching[edit]

	
	This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "B. F. Skinner" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR  (December 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)



Along with psychology, education has also been influenced by Skinner's views, which are extensively presented in his book The Technology of Teaching, as well as reflected in Fred S. Keller's Personalized System of Instruction and Ogden R. Lindsley's Precision Teaching.

Skinner argued that education has two major purposes:


	to teach repertoires of both verbal and nonverbal behavior; and
	to interest students in learning.


He recommended bringing students’ behavior under appropriate control by providing reinforcement only in the presence of stimuli relevant to the learning task. Because he believed that human behavior can be affected by small consequences, something as simple as "the opportunity to move forward after completing one stage of an activity" can be an effective reinforcer.  Skinner was convinced that, to learn, a student must engage in behavior, and not just passively receive information.[47]:389

Skinner believed that effective teaching must be based on positive reinforcement which is, he argued, more effective at changing and establishing behavior than punishment. He suggested that the main thing people learn from being punished is how to avoid punishment. For example, if a child is forced to practice playing an instrument, the child comes to associate practicing with punishment and thus learns to hate and avoid practicing the instrument. This view had obvious implications for the then widespread practice of rote learning and punitive discipline in education. The use of educational activities as punishment may induce rebellious behavior such as vandalism or absence.[58]

Because teachers are primarily responsible for modifying student behavior, Skinner argued that teachers must learn effective ways of teaching. In The Technology of Teaching (1968), Skinner has a chapter on why teachers fail:[59]:93–113 He says that teachers have not been given an in-depth understanding of teaching and learning. Without knowing the science underpinning teaching, teachers fall back on procedures that work poorly or not at all, such as:


	using aversive techniques (which produce escape and avoidance and undesirable emotional effects);
	relying on telling and explaining ("Unfortunately, a student does not learn simply when he is shown or told.");[59]:103
	failing to adapt learning tasks to the student's current level; and
	failing to provide positive reinforcement frequently enough.


Skinner suggests that any age-appropriate skill can be taught. The steps are


	Clearly specify the action or performance the student is to learn.
	Break down the task into small achievable steps, going from simple to complex.
	Let the student perform each step, reinforcing correct actions.
	Adjust so that the student is always successful until finally the goal is reached.
	Shift to intermittent reinforcement to maintain the student's performance.


Contributions to social theory[edit]

Skinner is popularly known mainly for his books Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity, (for which he made the cover of TIME Magazine).[60] The former describes a fictional "experimental community"[61] in 1940s United States. The productivity and happiness of citizens in this community is far greater than in the outside world because the residents practice scientific social planning and use operant conditioning in raising their children.

Walden Two, like Thoreau's Walden, champions a lifestyle that does not support war, or foster competition and social strife. It encourages a lifestyle of minimal consumption, rich social relationships, personal happiness, satisfying work, and leisure.[62] In 1967, Kat Kinkade and others founded the Twin Oaks Community, using Walden Two as a blueprint. The community still exists and continues to use the Planner-Manager system and other aspects of the community described in Skinner's book, though behavior modification is not a community practice.[63]

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner suggests that a technology of behavior could help to make a better society. We would, however, have to accept that an autonomous agent is not the driving force of our actions. Skinner offers alternatives to punishment, and challenges his readers to use science and modern technology to construct a better society.


Political views[edit]

Skinner's political writings emphasized his hopes that an effective and human science of behavioral control – a technology of human behavior – could help with problems as yet unsolved and often aggravated by advances in technology such as the atomic bomb. Indeed, one of Skinner's goals was to prevent humanity from destroying itself.[64] He saw political activity as the use of aversive or non-aversive means to control a population. Skinner favored the use of positive reinforcement as a means of control, citing Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Emile: or, On Education as an example of literature that "did not fear the power of positive reinforcement."[3]

Skinner's book, Walden Two, presents a vision of a decentralized, localized society, which applies a practical, scientific approach and behavioral expertise to deal peacefully with social problems. (For example, his views led him to oppose corporal punishment in schools, and he wrote a letter to the California Senate that helped lead it to a ban on spanking.[65]) Skinner's utopia is both a thought experiment and a rhetorical piece. In Walden Two, Skinner answers the problem that exists in many utopian novels – "What is the Good Life?" The book's answer is a life of friendship, health, art, a healthy balance between work and leisure, a minimum of unpleasantness, and a feeling that one has made worthwhile contributions to a society in which resources are ensured, in part, by minimizing consumption. 


If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
— B. F. Skinner, Walden Two (1948), p. xi


Skinner described his novel as "my New Atlantis", in reference to Bacon's utopia.[66] 

When Milton's Satan falls from heaven, he ends in hell. And what does he say to reassure himself? 'Here, at least, we shall be free.' And that, I think, is the fate of the old-fashioned liberal. He's going to be free, but he's going to find himself in hell.
— B. F. Skinner, from William F. Buckley Jr, On the Firing Line, p. 87.


'Superstition in the pigeon' experiment[edit]

One of Skinner's experiments examined the formation of superstition in one of his favorite experimental animals, the pigeon. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior."[67] He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions.[67]
One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.

Skinner suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals", and that this experiment shed light on human behavior:[67]
The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing—or, more strictly speaking, did something else.

Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (e.g. Staddon and Simmelhag, 1971), while finding similar behavior, failed to find support for Skinner's "adventitious reinforcement" explanation for it. By looking at the timing of different behaviors within the interval, Staddon and Simmelhag were able to distinguish two classes of behavior: the terminal response, which occurred in anticipation of food, and interim responses, that occurred earlier in the interfood interval and were rarely contiguous with food. Terminal responses seem to reflect classical (as opposed to operant) conditioning, rather than adventitious reinforcement, guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and Jenkins in their "autoshaping" procedures. The causation of interim activities (such as the schedule-induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats) also cannot be traced to adventitious reinforcement and its details are still obscure (Staddon, 1977).[68]

Criticism[edit]

Noam Chomsky[edit]

Noam Chomsky, a prominent critic of Skinner, published a review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior two years after it was published.[69] Chomsky argued that Skinner's attempt to use behaviorism to explain human language amounted to little more than word games. Conditioned responses could not account for a child's ability to create or understand an infinite variety of novel sentences. Chomsky's review has been credited with launching the cognitive revolution in psychology and other disciplines. Skinner, who rarely responded directly to critics, never formally replied to Chomsky's critique. Many years later, Kenneth MacCorquodale's reply was endorsed by Skinner.[70]

Chomsky also reviewed Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity, using the same basic motives as his Verbal Behavior review. Among Chomsky's criticisms were that Skinner's laboratory work could not be extended to humans, that when it was extended to humans it represented 'scientistic' behavior attempting to emulate science but which was not scientific, that Skinner was not a scientist because he rejected the hypothetico-deductive model of theory testing, and that Skinner had no science of behavior.[71]


Psychodynamic psychology[edit]

Skinner has been repeatedly criticized for his supposed animosity towards Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis, and psychodynamic psychology. Some have argued, however, that Skinner shared several of Freud's assumptions, and that he was influenced by Freudian points of view in more than one field, among them the analysis of defense mechanisms, such as repression.[72][73] To study such phenomena, Skinner even designed his own projective test, the "verbal summator" described above.[74]


J. E. R. Staddon[edit]

As understood by Skinner, ascribing dignity to individuals involves giving them credit for their actions. To say "Skinner is brilliant" means that Skinner is an originating force. If Skinner's determinist theory is right, he is merely the focus of his environment. He is not an originating force and he had no choice in saying the things he said or doing the things he did. Skinner's environment and genetics both allowed and compelled him to write his book. Similarly, the environment and genetic potentials of the advocates of freedom and dignity cause them to resist the reality that their own activities are deterministically grounded. J. E. R. Staddon has argued the compatibilist position;[75] Skinner's determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and punishment, as he believed.[76][77]


Professional career[edit]

Roles[edit]

	1936-1937 Instructor, University of Minnesota
	1937−1939 Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota
	1939−1945 Associate Professor, University of Minnesota
	1945−1948 Professor and Chair, Indiana University
	1947−1948 William James Lecturer, Harvard University
	1948−1958 Professor, Harvard University
	1949−1950 President, Midwestern Psychological Association
	1954−1955 President, Eastern Psychological Association
	1966−1967 President, Pavlovian Society of North America
	1974−1990 Professor of Psychology and Social Relations Emeritus, Harvard University


Awards[edit]

	1926 AB, Hamilton College
	1930 MA, Harvard University
	1930−1931 Thayer Fellowship
	1931 PhD, Harvard University
	1931−1932 Walker Fellowship
	1931−1933 National Research Council Fellowship
	1933−1936 Junior Fellowship, Harvard Society of Fellows
	1942 Guggenheim Fellowship (postponed until 1944–1945)
	1942 Howard Crosby Warren Medal, Society of Experimental Psychologists
	1958 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological Association
	1958−1974 Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
	1964−1974 Career Award, National Institute of Mental Health
	1966 Edward Lee Thorndike Award, American Psychological Association
	1968 National Medal of Science, National Science Foundation
	1969 Overseas Fellow in Churchill College, Cambridge
	1971 Gold Medal Award, American Psychological Foundation
	1971 Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Foundation for Mental Retardation International award
	1972 Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association
	1972 Creative Leadership in Education Award, New York University
	1972 Career Contribution Award, Massachusetts Psychological Association
	1978 Distinguished Contributions to Educational Research Award and Development, American Educational Research Association
	1978 National Association for Retarded Citizens Award
	1985 Award for Excellence in Psychiatry, Albert Einstein School of Medicine
	1985 President's Award, New York Academy of Science
	1990 William James Fellow Award, American Psychological Society
	1990 Lifetime Achievement Award, American Psychology Association
	1991 Outstanding Member and Distinguished Professional Achievement Award, Society for Performance Improvement
	1997 Scholar Hall of Fame Award, Academy of Resource and Development
	2011 Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Pantheon of Skeptics—Inducted[78]


Honorary degrees[edit]

Skinner received honorary degrees from:


	Alfred University
	Ball State University
	Dickinson College
	Hamilton College
	Harvard University
	Hobart and William Smith Colleges
	Johns Hopkins University
	Keio University
	Long Island University C. W. Post Campus
	McGill University
	North Carolina State University
	Ohio Wesleyan University
	Ripon College
	Rockford College
	Tufts University
	University of Chicago
	University of Exeter
	University of Missouri
	University of North Texas
	Western Michigan University
	University of Maryland, Baltimore County.


Honorary Societies[edit]

Skinner was inducted to the following honorary society:


	PSI CHI International Honor Society in Psychology


Bibliography[edit]

	1938. The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis, 1938. ISBN 1-58390-007-1, 
ISBN 0-87411-487-X.
	1948. Walden Two. 
ISBN 0-87220-779-X (revised 1976 ed.).
	1953. Science and Human Behavior. 
ISBN 0-02-929040-6.[i]
	1957. Schedules of Reinforcement, with C. B. Ferster. 
ISBN 0-13-792309-0.
	1957. Verbal Behavior. 
ISBN 1-58390-021-7.
	1961. The Analysis of Behavior: A Program for Self Instruction, with James G. Holland. 
ISBN 0-07-029565-4.
	1968.The Technology of Teaching. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. LCCN 68--12340 
ISBN 0-13-902163-9.
	1969. Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis. 
ISBN 0-390-81280-3.
	1971. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. 
ISBN 0-394-42555-3.
	1974. About Behaviorism. 
ISBN 0-394-49201-3, 
ISBN 0-394-71618-3.
	1976. Particulars of My Life: Part One of an Autobiography. 
ISBN 0-394-40071-2.
	1978. Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. 
ISBN 0-13-770057-1.
	1979. The Shaping of a Behaviorist: Part Two of an Autobiography. 
ISBN 0-394-50581-6.
	1980. Notebooks, edited by Robert Epstein. 
ISBN 0-13-624106-9.
	1982. Skinner for the Classroom, edited by R. Epstein. 
ISBN 0-87822-261-8.
	1983. Enjoy Old Age: A Program of Self-Management, with M. E. Vaughan. 
ISBN 0-393-01805-9.
	1983. A Matter of Consequences: Part Three of an Autobiography. 
ISBN 0-394-53226-0, 
ISBN 0-8147-7845-3.
	1987. Upon Further Reflection. 
ISBN 0-13-938986-5.
	1989. Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior. 
ISBN 0-675-20674-X.






	Cumulative Record: A Selection of Papers, 1959, 1961, 1972 and 1999 as Cumulative Record: Definitive Edition. 
ISBN 0-87411-969-3 (paperback)
	Includes reprint: Skinner, B. F. 1945. "Baby in a Box." Ladies' Home Journal. — Skinner's original, personal account of the much-misrepresented "Baby in a box" device.




See also[edit]

	Applied behavior analysis
	Back to Freedom and Dignity


References[edit]

Notes[edit]


	^ A free copy of this book (in a 1.6 MB .pdf file) may be downloaded at the B. F. Skinner Foundation web site BFSkinner.org.




Citations[edit]


	^ 
Sobel, Dava (August 20, 1990). "B. F. Skinner, the Champion Of Behaviorism, Is Dead at 86". The New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2015.

	^ 
Smith, L. D.; Woodward, W. R. (1996). B. F. Skinner and behaviorism in American culture. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press. ISBN 978-0-934223-40-9.

	^ a b 
Skinner, B. F. (1948). Walden Two. New York, Macmillan Co. The science of human behavior is used to eliminate poverty, sexual expression, government as we know it, create a lifestyle without that such as war.

	^ 
Skinner, B. F. (1972). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-553-14372-0. OCLC 34263003.

	^ 
"Skinner, Burrhus Frederic". behavioranalysishistory.pbworks.com.

	^ 
"Psychology History". Archived from the original on April 4, 2007.

	^ a b c d e Schacter, Daniel L., Daniel T. Gilbert, and Daniel M. Wagner. 2011 [2009]. Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Worth Publishers. Retrieved 18 May 2020.

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1974. About Behaviorism. 
ISBN 0-394-71618-3

	^ a b Skinner, B. F. 1938. The Behavior of Organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

	^ a b c Ferster, Charles B., and B. F. Skinner. 1957. Schedules of Reinforcement. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

	^ Smith, Nathaniel G., and Edward K. Morris. 2019 [1993]. "Full Bibliography." B. F. Skinner Foundation. Available as a "PDF."

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1948. Walden Two. Indianapolis: Hackett. 
ISBN 0-87220-779-X.

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1958. Verbal Behavior. Acton, MA: Copley Publishing Group. 
ISBN 1-58390-021-7.

	^ 
Haggbloom, Steven J.; Warnick, Renee; Warnick, Jason E.; Jones, Vinessa K.;  et al. (2002). "The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century". Review of General Psychology. 6 (2): 139–52. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.586.1913. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.6.2.139. S2CID 145668721.

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1967. "B. F. Skinner" (autobiography). Pp. 387–413 in A History of Psychology in Autobiography 5, edited by E. G. Boring and G. Lindzey. New York: Appleton Century-Crofts. "Within a year I had gone to Miss Graves to tell her that I no longer believed in God. 'I know,' she said, 'I have been through that myself.' But her strategy misfired: I never went through it."

	^ 
Mahoney, Michael (October 1991). "B.F. Skinner: A Collective Tribute". Canadian Psychology. 32 (4): 628–635. doi:10.1037/h0084641.

	^ a b Skinner, B. F. 1976. Particulars of My Life (1st ed.). New York: Knopf.

	^ a b c d Bjork, Daniel W. 2013. B. F. Skinner: A Life. 
ISBN 9781557984166.

	^ 
"Establishment History". Retrieved December 16, 2020.

	^ 
"Biographical Information". Retrieved December 16, 2020.

	^ 
"Humanist Manifesto II". American Humanist Association. Retrieved October 9, 2012.

	^ 
Skinner, Deborah. "About". Horses by Skinner. Retrieved September 4, 2014.

	^ 
Buzan, Deborah Skinner (March 12, 2004). "I was not a lab rat". The Guardian. Retrieved September 4, 2014.

	^ 
"Skinner, Yvonne, 1911-1997. Papers of Yvonne Skinner, ca.1916-1977: A Finding Aid". Harvard University. Archived from the original on July 3, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2016.

	^ Bjork, D.W. (1993). B.F. Skinner, A Life. New York: Basic Books.

	^ The Famous People. (2017). B. F. Skinner biography

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1974. "Causes of Behavior." Pp. 18−20 in About Behaviorism. 
ISBN 0-394-71618-3. section 3, "Radical Behaviorism."

	^ 
Pavlov, Ivan (1927). Conditioned Reflexes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

	^ 
Thorndike, Edward L. (1911). Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies. New York: Macmillan.

	^ a b c Jenkins, H. M. 1979. "Animal Learning and Behavior." Ch. 5 in The First Century of Experimental Psychology, edited by E. Hearst. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

	^ a b Skinner, B. F. 1966. Contingencies of Reinforcement. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1953. Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan.

	^ 
Skinner, B. F. (1981). "Selection by Consequences" (PDF). Science. 213 (4507): 501–04. Bibcode:1981Sci...213..501S. doi:10.1126/science.7244649. PMID 7244649. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 2, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2010.

	^ 
"Different Types of Reinforcement Schedules" (PDF). autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu. National Professional Development Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Retrieved February 14, 2015.

	^ 
Hergenhahn, B. R. (2009). An Introduction to the History of Psychology. United States: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. p. 449. ISBN 9780495506218.

	^ B. F. Skinner, (1957) Verbal Behavior. The account in the appendix is that he asked Skinner to explain why he said "No black scorpion, Carter is falling upon this table."

	^ 
"Skinner, Burrhus Frederick(1904 - 1990)". Credo Reference, Gale. Credo Reference, Gale. Retrieved October 1, 2013.

	^ a b Chomsky, Noam. 1967 [1957]. "A Review of BF Skinner's Verbal Behavior." Pp. 142–43 in Readings in the Psychology of Language, edited by L. A. Jakobovits and M. S. Miron. Prentice-Hall. para. 2.

	^ Richelle, M. 1993. B. F. Skinner: A Reappraisal. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

	^ 
Michael, J. (1984). "Verbal behavior". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 42 (3): 363–376. doi:10.1901/jeab.1984.42-363. PMC 1348108. PMID 16812395.

	^ 
Kubina, Richard M.; Kostewicz, Douglas E.; Brennan, Kaitlyn M.; King, Seth A. (September 2017). "A Critical Review of Line Graphs in Behavior Analytic Journals". Educational Psychology Review. 29 (3): 583–598. doi:10.1007/s10648-015-9339-x. ISSN 1040-726X. S2CID 142317036.

	^ Bennet, James. June 2012. "What Man Can Make of Man." The Atlantic. air-crib photograph.

	^ a b Mikkelson, David. 2000. "B.F. Skinner Raised His Daughter in a Skinner Box?." Snopes. Snopes Media Group Inc. Retrieved 18 May 2020.

	^ 
"Burrhus Fredrick Skinner". Skinner, Burrhus Frederic (1904 - 1990). Gale, Credo Reference. Retrieved October 1, 2013.

	^ Slater, Lauren. 2004. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. London: Bloomsbury.

	^ 
Buzan, Deborah Skinner (March 12, 2004). "I was not a lab rat". The Guardian. Retrieved May 29, 2012.

	^ a b 
Skinner, B. F. (1961). "Why we need teaching machines". Harvard Educational Review. 31: 377–398.

	^ 
"Programmed Instruction and Task Analysis". College of Education, University of Houston.

	^ 
Skinner, B.F. (1961). "Teaching machines". Scientific American. 205 (3): 90–112. doi:10.2307/1926170. JSTOR 1926170. PMID 13913636.

	^ Skinner, B. F., and J. Holland. 1961. The Analysis of Behavior: A Program for Self Instruction. p. 387.

	^ 
"Rebirth of the Teaching Machine through the Seduction of Data Analytics: This Time It's Personal".

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1960. "Pigeons in a pelican." American Psychologist 15:28–37. doi:10.1037/h0045345. S2CID 19945465.

reprint: 1972 [1960]. "Pigeons in a pelican." Pp. 574−91 in Cumulative Record (3rd ed.). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1979. The Shaping of a Behaviorist: Part Two of an Autobiography. New York: Knopf.

	^ 
"Nose Cone, Pigeon-Guided Missile". National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved June 10, 2008.

	^ 
"Skinner's Utopia: Panacea, or Path to Hell?". TIME. September 20, 1971.

	^ a b 
Skinner, B. F. (1936). "The Verbal Summator and a Method for the Study of Latent Speech". Journal of Psychology. 2 (1): 71–107. doi:10.1080/00223980.1936.9917445. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-002D-7E05-E. S2CID 144303708.

	^ Rutherford, A. 2003. "B. F. Skinner and the auditory inkblot: The rise and fall of the verbal summator as a projective technique." History of Psychology 4:362–78.

	^ Holland, J. 1992. "B. F Skinner." American Psychologist.

	^ a b Skinner, B. F. 1968. The Technology of Teaching. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. LCCN 68--12340.

	^ 
"B.F. Skinner Sep. 20, 1971". Time.

	^ Skinner, B. F. 1968. "The Design of Experimental Communities." Pp. 271-75 in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 16, edited by S. Darity. New York.

	^ Ramsey, Richard David. 1979. "Morning Star: The Values-Communication of Skinner's 'Walden Two'" (Ph.D. dissertation). Troy, NY: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. – via University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI.

[Ramsey attempts to analyze Walden Two, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, and other Skinner works in the context of Skinner's life; lists over 500 sources.]

	^ 
Kuhlman, Hilke (October 1, 2010). Living Walden Two: B. F. Skinner's Behaviorist Utopia and Experimental Communities. University of Illinois Press. p. 87.

	^ see Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1974 for example

	^ 
Asimov, Nanette (January 30, 1996). "Spanking Debate Hits Assembly". SFGate. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved March 2, 2008.

	^ A matter of Consequences, p. 412.

	^ a b c Skinner, B. F. 1947. "'Superstition' in the Pigeon." Journal of Experimental Psychology 38:168–72.

	^ 
Timberlake, W; Lucas, G A (November 1, 1985). "The basis of superstitious behavior: chance contingency, stimulus substitution, or appetitive behavior?". J Exp Anal Behav. 44 (3): 279–299. doi:10.1901/jeab.1985.44-279. PMC 1348192. PMID 4086972.

	^ 
Chomsky, Noam (1959). "Reviews: Verbal behavior by B. F. Skinner". Language. 35 (1): 26–58. doi:10.2307/411334. JSTOR 411334.

	^ 
MacCorquodale, Kenneth (January 1, 1970). "On Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 13 (1): 83–99. doi:10.1901/jeab.1970.13-83. ISSN 1938-3711. PMC 1333660.

	^ Noam Chomsky, (1971) "The Case Against B. F. Skinner," New York Review of Books.

	^ 
Toates, F. (2009). Burrhus F. Skinner: The shaping of behavior. Houndmills, Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

	^ 
Overskeid, Geir (September 2007). "Looking for Skinner and Finding Freud". American Psychologist. 62 (6): 590–595. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.321.6288. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.62.6.590. PMID 17874899. S2CID 4610708.

	^ 
Rutherford, A. (2003). "B. F. Skinner and the auditory inkblot: The rise and fall of the verbal summator as a projective technique". History of Psychology. 6 (4): 362–378. doi:10.1037/1093-4510.6.4.362. PMID 14735913.

	^ Staddon, J. E. R. 2014. The New Behaviorism (2nd ed.).

	^ Staddon, J. E. R. 1995. "On Responsibility and Punishment." The Atlantic Monthly 1995(2):88−94.

	^ Staddon, J. E. R. 1999. "On Responsibility in Science and Law." Social Philosophy and Policy 16:146−74.

reprint: 1999. Pp. 146−74 in Responsibility, edited by E. F. Paul, F. D. Miller, and J. Paul.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

	^ 
"The Pantheon of Skeptics". CSI. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Archived from the original on January 31, 2017. Retrieved April 30, 2017.




Further reading[edit]

	Chiesa, M. (2004). Radical Behaviorism: The Philosophy and the Science.
	Epstein, Robert (1997). "Skinner as self-manager." Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 30:545–69. Retrieved 2 June 2005 – via ENVMED.rochester.edu
	
Pauly, Philip Joseph (1987). Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering Ideal in Biology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504244-3. Retrieved August 14, 2010.
	Sundberg, M. L. (2008) The VB-MAPP: The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program
	Basil-Curzon, L. (2004) Teaching in Further Education: A outline of Principles and Practice
	Hardin, C.J. (2004) Effective Classroom Management
	Kaufhold, J. A. (2002) The Psychology of Learning and the Art of Teaching
	Bjork, D. W. (1993) B. F. Skinner: A Life
	Dews, P. B., ed. (1970) Festschrift For B. F. Skinner.New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
	Evans, R. I. (1968) B. F. Skinner: the man and his ideas
	Nye, Robert D. (1979) What Is B. F. Skinner Really Saying? Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
	Rutherford, A. (2009) Beyond the box: B. F. Skinner's technology of behavior from laboratory to life, 1950s-1970s.. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
	Sagal, P. T. (1981) Skinner's Philosophy. Washington, DC: University Press of America.
	Smith, D. L. (2002). On Prediction and Control. B. F. Skinner and the Technological Ideal of Science. In W. E. Pickren & D. A. Dewsbury, (Eds.), Evolving Perspectives on the History of Psychology, Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
	Swirski, Peter (2011) "How I Stopped Worrying and Loved Behavioural Engineering or Communal Life, Adaptations, and B.F. Skinner's Walden Two". American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History. New York, Routledge.
	Wiener, D. N. (1996) B. F. Skinner: benign anarchist
	Wolfgang, C.H. and Glickman, Carl D. (1986) Solving Discipline Problems Allyn and Bacon, Inc


External links[edit]

		Wikiquote has quotations related to: B. F. Skinner


		Wikimedia Commons has media related to B. F. Skinner.


	Library resources about 
 B. F. Skinner 

	
	Resources in your library
	Resources in other libraries


	
By B. F. Skinner
	
	Resources in your library
	Resources in other libraries




	B. F. Skinner Foundation homepage
	National Academy of Sciences biography
	Works by or about B. F. Skinner at Internet Archive
	Works by B. F. Skinner at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) 
	I was not a lab rat, response by Skinner's daughter about the "baby box"
	Audio Recordings Society for Experimental Analysis of Behavior
	Youtube Video Skinner and Teaching Machine
	Superstition in the Pigeon by B.F. Skinner (Full Text)
	Reprint of "the Minotaur of the Behaviorist Maze: Surviving Stanford's Learning House in the 1970s: Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 51, Number 3, July 2011. 266–272.


		v
	t
	e


Psychology

	
	History
	Philosophy
	Portal
	Psychologist




	Basic 
psychology	
	Abnormal
	Affective science
	Affective neuroscience
	Behavioral genetics
	Behavioral neuroscience
	Behaviorism
	Cognitive/Cognitivism
	Cognitive neuroscience
	Social


	Comparative
	Cross-cultural
	Cultural
	Developmental
	Differential
	Ecological
	Evolutionary
	Experimental
	Gestalt
	Intelligence
	Mathematical
	Moral
	Neuropsychology
	Perception
	Personality
	Positive
	Psycholinguistics
	Psychophysiology
	Quantitative
	Social
	Theoretical




	Applied 
psychology	
	Anomalistic
	Applied behavior analysis
	Assessment
	Clinical
	Coaching
	Community
	Consumer
	Counseling
	Critical
	Educational
	Ergonomics
	Feminist
	Forensic
	Health
	Industrial and organizational
	Legal
	Media
	Medical
	Military
	Music
	Occupational health
	Pastoral
	Political
	Psychometrics
	Psychotherapy
	Religion
	School
	Sport and exercise
	Suicidology
	Systems
	Traffic




	Methodologies	
	Animal testing
	Archival research
	Behavior epigenetics
	Case study
	Content analysis
	Experiments
	Human subject research
	Interviews
	Neuroimaging
	Observation
	Psychophysics
	Qualitative research
	Quantitative research
	Self-report inventory
	Statistical surveys




	Psychologists
	
	Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920)
	William James (1842–1910)
	Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936)
	Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
	Edward Thorndike (1874–1949)
	Carl Jung (1875–1961)
	John B. Watson (1878–1958)
	Clark L. Hull (1884–1952)
	Kurt Lewin (1890–1947)
	Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
	Gordon Allport (1897–1967)
	J. P. Guilford (1897–1987)
	Carl Rogers (1902–1987)
	Erik Erikson (1902–1994)
	B. F. Skinner (1904–1990)
	Donald O. Hebb (1904–1985)
	Ernest Hilgard (1904–2001)
	Harry Harlow (1905–1981)
	Raymond Cattell (1905–1998)
	Abraham Maslow (1908–1970)
	Neal E. Miller (1909–2002)
	Jerome Bruner (1915–2016)
	Donald T. Campbell (1916–1996)
	Hans Eysenck (1916–1997)
	Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001)
	David McClelland (1917–1998)
	Leon Festinger (1919–1989)
	George A. Miller (1920–2012)
	Richard Lazarus (1922–2002)
	Stanley Schachter (1922–1997)
	Robert Zajonc (1923–2008)
	Albert Bandura (b. 1925)
	Roger Brown (1925–1997)
	Endel Tulving (b. 1927)
	Lawrence Kohlberg (1927–1987)
	Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
	Ulric Neisser (1928–2012)
	Jerome Kagan (b. 1929)
	Walter Mischel (1930–2018)
	Elliot Aronson (b. 1932)
	Daniel Kahneman (b. 1934)
	Paul Ekman (b. 1934)
	Michael Posner (b. 1936)
	Amos Tversky (1937–1996)
	Bruce McEwen (b. 1938)
	Larry Squire (b. 1941)
	Richard E. Nisbett (b. 1941)
	Martin Seligman (b. 1942)
	Ed Diener (b. 1946)
	Shelley E. Taylor (b. 1946)
	John Anderson (b. 1947)
	Ronald C. Kessler (b. 1947)
	Joseph E. LeDoux (b. 1949)
	Richard Davidson (b. 1951)
	Susan Fiske (b. 1952)
	Roy Baumeister (b. 1953)




	Lists	
	Counseling topics
	Disciplines
	Important publications
	Organizations
	Outline
	Psychologists
	Psychotherapies
	Research methods
	Schools of thought
	Timeline
	Topics




	
	Wiktionary definition
	Wiktionary category
	Wikisource
	Wikimedia Commons
	Wikiquote
	Wikinews
	Wikibooks







	
	v
	t
	e


United States National Medal of Science laureates

	
	Behavioral and social science

	
	1960s	
	1964
	Roger Adams
	Othmar H. Ammann
	Theodosius Dobzhansky
	Neal Elgar Miller




	1980s	
	1986
	Herbert A. Simon
	1987
	Anne Anastasi
	George J. Stigler
	1988
	Milton Friedman




	1990s	
	1990
	Leonid Hurwicz
	Patrick Suppes
	1991
	Robert W. Kates
	George A. Miller
	1992
	Eleanor J. Gibson
	1994
	Robert K. Merton
	1995
	Roger N. Shepard
	1996
	Paul Samuelson
	1997
	William K. Estes
	1998
	William Julius Wilson
	1999
	Robert M. Solow




	2000s	
	2000
	Gary Becker
	2001
	George Bass
	2003
	R. Duncan Luce
	2004
	Kenneth Arrow
	2005
	Gordon H. Bower
	2008
	Michael I. Posner
	2009
	Mortimer Mishkin




	2010s	
	2011
	Anne Treisman
	2014
	Robert Axelrod
	2015
	Albert Bandura










	
	Biological sciences

	
	1960s	
	1963
	C. B. van Niel
	1964
	Marshall W. Nirenberg
	1965
	Francis P. Rous
	George G. Simpson
	Donald D. Van Slyke
	1966
	Edward F. Knipling
	Fritz Albert Lipmann
	William C. Rose
	Sewall Wright
	1967
	Kenneth S. Cole
	Harry F. Harlow
	Michael Heidelberger
	Alfred H. Sturtevant
	1968
	Horace Barker
	Bernard B. Brodie
	Detlev W. Bronk
	Jay Lush
	Burrhus Frederic Skinner
	1969
	Robert Huebner
	Ernst Mayr




	1970s	
	1970
	Barbara McClintock
	Albert B. Sabin
	1973
	Daniel I. Arnon
	Earl W. Sutherland Jr.
	1974
	Britton Chance
	Erwin Chargaff
	James V. Neel
	James Augustine Shannon
	1975
	Hallowell Davis
	Paul Gyorgy
	Sterling B. Hendricks
	Orville Alvin Vogel
	1976
	Roger Guillemin
	Keith Roberts Porter
	Efraim Racker
	E. O. Wilson
	1979
	Robert H. Burris
	Elizabeth C. Crosby
	Arthur Kornberg
	Severo Ochoa
	Earl Reece Stadtman
	George Ledyard Stebbins
	Paul Alfred Weiss




	1980s	
	1981
	Philip Handler
	1982
	Seymour Benzer
	Glenn W. Burton
	Mildred Cohn
	1983
	Howard L. Bachrach
	Paul Berg
	Wendell L. Roelofs
	Berta Scharrer
	1986
	Stanley Cohen
	Donald A. Henderson
	Vernon B. Mountcastle
	George Emil Palade
	Joan A. Steitz
	1987
	Michael E. DeBakey
	Theodor O. Diener
	Harry Eagle
	Har Gobind Khorana
	Rita Levi-Montalcini
	1988
	Michael S. Brown
	Stanley Norman Cohen
	Joseph L. Goldstein
	Maurice R. Hilleman
	Eric R. Kandel
	Rosalyn Sussman Yalow
	1989
	Katherine Esau
	Viktor Hamburger
	Philip Leder
	Joshua Lederberg
	Roger W. Sperry
	Harland G. Wood




	1990s	
	1990
	Baruj Benacerraf
	Herbert W. Boyer
	Daniel E. Koshland Jr.
	Edward B. Lewis
	David G. Nathan
	E. Donnall Thomas
	1991
	Mary Ellen Avery
	G. Evelyn Hutchinson
	Elvin A. Kabat
	Salvador Luria
	Paul A. Marks
	Folke K. Skoog
	Paul C. Zamecnik
	1992
	Maxine Singer
	Howard Martin Temin
	1993
	Daniel Nathans
	Salome G. Waelsch
	1994
	Thomas Eisner
	Elizabeth F. Neufeld
	1995
	Alexander Rich
	1996
	Ruth Patrick
	1997
	James Watson
	Robert A. Weinberg
	1998
	Bruce Ames
	Janet Rowley
	1999
	David Baltimore
	Jared Diamond
	Lynn Margulis




	2000s	
	2000
	Nancy C. Andreasen
	Peter H. Raven
	Carl Woese
	2001
	Francisco J. Ayala
	Mario R. Capecchi
	Ann Graybiel
	Gene E. Likens
	Victor A. McKusick
	Harold Varmus
	2002
	James E. Darnell
	Evelyn M. Witkin
	2003
	J. Michael Bishop
	Solomon H. Snyder
	Charles Yanofsky
	2004
	Norman E. Borlaug
	Phillip A. Sharp
	Thomas E. Starzl
	2005
	Anthony Fauci
	Torsten N. Wiesel
	2006
	Rita R. Colwell
	Nina Fedoroff
	Lubert Stryer
	2007
	Robert J. Lefkowitz
	Bert W. O'Malley
	2008
	Francis S. Collins
	Elaine Fuchs
	J. Craig Venter
	2009
	Susan L. Lindquist
	Stanley B. Prusiner




	2010s	
	2010
	Ralph L. Brinster
	Shu Chien
	Rudolf Jaenisch
	2011
	Lucy Shapiro
	Leroy Hood
	Sallie Chisholm
	2014
	May Berenbaum
	Bruce Alberts
	2015
	Stanley Falkow
	Rakesh K. Jain
	Mary-Claire King
	Simon Levin










	
	Chemistry

	
	1980s	
	1982
	F. Albert Cotton
	Gilbert Stork
	1983
	Roald Hoffmann
	George C. Pimentel
	Richard N. Zare
	1986
	Harry B. Gray
	Yuan Tseh Lee
	Carl S. Marvel
	Frank H. Westheimer
	1987
	William S. Johnson
	Walter H. Stockmayer
	Max Tishler
	1988
	William O. Baker
	Konrad E. Bloch
	Elias J. Corey
	1989
	Richard B. Bernstein
	Melvin Calvin
	Rudolph A. Marcus
	Harden M. McConnell




	1990s	
	1990
	Elkan Blout
	Karl Folkers
	John D. Roberts
	1991
	Ronald Breslow
	Gertrude B. Elion
	Dudley R. Herschbach
	Glenn T. Seaborg
	1992
	Howard E. Simmons Jr.
	1993
	Donald J. Cram
	Norman Hackerman
	1994
	George S. Hammond
	1995
	Thomas Cech
	Isabella L. Karle
	1996
	Norman Davidson
	1997
	Darleane C. Hoffman
	Harold S. Johnston
	1998
	John W. Cahn
	George M. Whitesides
	1999
	Stuart A. Rice
	John Ross
	Susan Solomon




	2000s	
	2000
	John D. Baldeschwieler
	Ralph F. Hirschmann
	2001
	Ernest R. Davidson
	Gábor A. Somorjai
	2002
	John I. Brauman
	2004
	Stephen J. Lippard
	2006
	Marvin H. Caruthers
	Peter B. Dervan
	2007
	Mostafa A. El-Sayed
	2008
	Joanna Fowler
	JoAnne Stubbe
	2009
	Stephen J. Benkovic
	Marye Anne Fox




	2010s	
	2010
	Jacqueline K. Barton
	Peter J. Stang
	2011
	Allen J. Bard
	M. Frederick Hawthorne
	2012
	Judith P. Klinman
	Jerrold Meinwald
	2013
	Geraldine L. Richmond
	2014
	A. Paul Alivisatos










	
	Engineering sciences

	
	1960s	
	1962
	Theodore von Kármán
	1963
	Vannevar Bush
	John Robinson Pierce
	1964
	Charles S. Draper
	1965
	Hugh L. Dryden
	Clarence L. Johnson
	Warren K. Lewis
	1966
	Claude E. Shannon
	1967
	Edwin H. Land
	Igor I. Sikorsky
	1968
	J. Presper Eckert
	Nathan M. Newmark
	1969
	Jack St. Clair Kilby




	1970s	
	1970
	George E. Mueller
	1973
	Harold E. Edgerton
	Richard T. Whitcomb
	1974
	Rudolf Kompfner
	Ralph Brazelton Peck
	Abel Wolman
	1975
	Manson Benedict
	William Hayward Pickering
	Frederick E. Terman
	Wernher von Braun
	1976
	Morris Cohen
	Peter C. Goldmark
	Erwin Wilhelm Müller
	1979
	Emmett N. Leith
	Raymond D. Mindlin
	Robert N. Noyce
	Earl R. Parker
	Simon Ramo




	1980s	
	1982
	Edward H. Heinemann
	Donald L. Katz
	1983
	Bill Hewlett
	George Low
	John G. Trump
	1986
	Hans Wolfgang Liepmann
	Tung-Yen Lin
	Bernard M. Oliver
	1987
	Robert Byron Bird
	H. Bolton Seed
	Ernst Weber
	1988
	Daniel C. Drucker
	Willis M. Hawkins
	George W. Housner
	1989
	Harry George Drickamer
	Herbert E. Grier




	1990s	
	1990
	Mildred Dresselhaus
	Nick Holonyak Jr.
	1991
	George H. Heilmeier
	Luna B. Leopold
	H. Guyford Stever
	1992
	Calvin F. Quate
	John Roy Whinnery
	1993
	Alfred Y. Cho
	1994
	Ray W. Clough
	1995
	Hermann A. Haus
	1996
	James L. Flanagan
	C. Kumar N. Patel
	1998
	Eli Ruckenstein
	1999
	Kenneth N. Stevens




	2000s	
	2000
	Yuan-Cheng B. Fung
	2001
	Andreas Acrivos
	2002
	Leo Beranek
	2003
	John M. Prausnitz
	2004
	Edwin N. Lightfoot
	2005
	Jan D. Achenbach
	Tobin J. Marks
	2006
	Robert S. Langer
	2007
	David J. Wineland
	2008
	Rudolf E. Kálmán
	2009
	Amnon Yariv




	2010s	
	2010
	Shu Chien
	2011
	John B. Goodenough
	2014
	Thomas Kailath










	
	Mathematical, statistical, and computer sciences

	
	1960s	
	1963
	Norbert Wiener
	1964
	Solomon Lefschetz
	H. Marston Morse
	1965
	Oscar Zariski
	1966
	John Milnor
	1967
	Paul Cohen
	1968
	Jerzy Neyman
	1969
	William Feller




	1970s	
	1970
	Richard Brauer
	1973
	John Tukey
	1974
	Kurt Gödel
	1975
	John W. Backus
	Shiing-Shen Chern
	George Dantzig
	1976
	Kurt Otto Friedrichs
	Hassler Whitney
	1979
	Joseph L. Doob
	Donald E. Knuth




	1980s	
	1982
	Marshall Harvey Stone
	1983
	Herman Goldstine
	Isadore Singer
	1986
	Peter Lax
	Antoni Zygmund
	1987
	Raoul Bott
	Michael Freedman
	1988
	Ralph E. Gomory
	Joseph B. Keller
	1989
	Samuel Karlin
	Saunders Mac Lane
	Donald C. Spencer




	1990s	
	1990
	George F. Carrier
	Stephen Cole Kleene
	John McCarthy
	1991
	Alberto Calderón
	1992
	Allen Newell
	1993
	Martin David Kruskal
	1994
	John Cocke
	1995
	Louis Nirenberg
	1996
	Richard Karp
	Stephen Smale
	1997
	Shing-Tung Yau
	1998
	Cathleen Synge Morawetz
	1999
	Felix Browder
	Ronald R. Coifman




	2000s	
	2000
	John Griggs Thompson
	Karen Uhlenbeck
	2001
	Calyampudi R. Rao
	Elias M. Stein
	2002
	James G. Glimm
	2003
	Carl R. de Boor
	2004
	Dennis P. Sullivan
	2005
	Bradley Efron
	2006
	Hyman Bass
	2007
	Leonard Kleinrock
	Andrew J. Viterbi
	2009
	David B. Mumford




	2010s	
	2010
	Richard A. Tapia
	S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan
	2011
	Solomon W. Golomb
	Barry Mazur
	2014
	Alexandre Chorin
	David Blackwell
	2015
	Michael Artin










	
	Physical sciences

	
	1960s	
	1963
	Luis W. Alvarez
	1964
	Julian Schwinger
	Harold Clayton Urey
	Robert Burns Woodward
	1965
	John Bardeen
	Peter Debye
	Leon M. Lederman
	William Rubey
	1966
	Jacob Bjerknes
	Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
	Henry Eyring
	John H. Van Vleck
	Vladimir K. Zworykin
	1967
	Jesse Beams
	Francis Birch
	Gregory Breit
	Louis Hammett
	George Kistiakowsky
	1968
	Paul Bartlett
	Herbert Friedman
	Lars Onsager
	Eugene Wigner
	1969
	Herbert C. Brown
	Wolfgang Panofsky




	1970s	
	1970
	Robert H. Dicke
	Allan R. Sandage
	John C. Slater
	John A. Wheeler
	Saul Winstein
	1973
	Carl Djerassi
	Maurice Ewing
	Arie Jan Haagen-Smit
	Vladimir Haensel
	Frederick Seitz
	Robert Rathbun Wilson
	1974
	Nicolaas Bloembergen
	Paul Flory
	William Alfred Fowler
	Linus Carl Pauling
	Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer
	1975
	Hans A. Bethe
	Joseph O. Hirschfelder
	Lewis Sarett
	Edgar Bright Wilson
	Chien-Shiung Wu
	1976
	Samuel Goudsmit
	Herbert S. Gutowsky
	Frederick Rossini
	Verner Suomi
	Henry Taube
	George Uhlenbeck
	1979
	Richard P. Feynman
	Herman Mark
	Edward M. Purcell
	John Sinfelt
	Lyman Spitzer
	Victor F. Weisskopf




	1980s	
	1982
	Philip W. Anderson
	Yoichiro Nambu
	Edward Teller
	Charles H. Townes
	1983
	E. Margaret Burbidge
	Maurice Goldhaber
	Helmut Landsberg
	Walter Munk
	Frederick Reines
	Bruno B. Rossi
	J. Robert Schrieffer
	1986
	Solomon J. Buchsbaum
	H. Richard Crane
	Herman Feshbach
	Robert Hofstadter
	Chen-Ning Yang
	1987
	Philip Abelson
	Walter Elsasser
	Paul C. Lauterbur
	George Pake
	James A. Van Allen
	1988
	D. Allan Bromley
	Paul Ching-Wu Chu
	Walter Kohn
	Norman F. Ramsey
	Jack Steinberger
	1989
	Arnold O. Beckman
	Eugene Parker
	Robert Sharp
	Henry Stommel




	1990s	
	1990
	Allan M. Cormack
	Edwin M. McMillan
	Robert Pound
	Roger Revelle
	1991
	Arthur L. Schawlow
	Ed Stone
	Steven Weinberg
	1992
	Eugene M. Shoemaker
	1993
	Val Fitch
	Vera Rubin
	1994
	Albert Overhauser
	Frank Press
	1995
	Hans Dehmelt
	Peter Goldreich
	1996
	Wallace S. Broecker
	1997
	Marshall Rosenbluth
	Martin Schwarzschild
	George Wetherill
	1998
	Don L. Anderson
	John N. Bahcall
	1999
	James Cronin
	Leo Kadanoff




	2000s	
	2000
	Willis E. Lamb
	Jeremiah P. Ostriker
	Gilbert F. White
	2001
	Marvin L. Cohen
	Raymond Davis Jr.
	Charles Keeling
	2002
	Richard Garwin
	W. Jason Morgan
	Edward Witten
	2003
	G. Brent Dalrymple
	Riccardo Giacconi
	2004
	Robert N. Clayton
	2005
	Ralph A. Alpher
	Lonnie Thompson
	2006
	Daniel Kleppner
	2007
	Fay Ajzenberg-Selove
	Charles P. Slichter
	2008
	Berni Alder
	James E. Gunn
	2009
	Yakir Aharonov
	Esther M. Conwell
	Warren M. Washington




	2010s	
	2011
	Sidney Drell
	Sandra Faber
	Sylvester James Gates
	2012
	Burton Richter
	Sean C. Solomon
	2014
	Shirley Ann Jackson













	
	v
	t
	e


E. L. Thorndike Award recipients

	1960s	
	1964: Sidney L. Pressey
	1965: William Brownell
	1966: B. F. Skinner
	1967: Lee Cronbach
	1968: Cyril Burt
	1969: Robert J. Havighurst




	1970s	
	1970: John Bissell Carroll
	1971: Robert L. Thorndike
	1972: John C. Flanagan
	1973: Benjamin Bloom
	1974: Robert M. Gagné
	1975: J. P. Guilford
	1976: Jean Piaget
	1977: David Ausubel
	1978: Julian Stanley
	1979: Patrick Suppes




	1980s	
	1980: Richard C. Atkinson
	1981: Jerome Bruner
	1982: Robert Glaser
	1983: Jeanne Chall
	1984: Anne Anastasi
	1985: Ernst Rothkopf
	1986: Nathaniel Gage
	1987: Merlin Wittrock
	1988: Wilbert J. McKeachie
	1989: Frank Farley




	1990s	
	1990: Richard E. Snow
	1991: Herbert Klausmeier
	1992: Robert L. Linn
	1993: Samuel Messick
	1994: James Greeno
	1995: Lee Shulman
	1996: David Berliner
	1997: Richard C. Anderson
	1998: Lauren Resnick
	1999: Albert Bandura




	2000s	
	2000: Richard E. Mayer
	2001: John D. Bransford
	2002: Joel Levin
	2003: Robert Sternberg
	2004: G. Michael Pressley
	2005: Jacquelynne Eccles
	2006: Patricia Alexander
	2007: Jere Brophy
	2008: Bernard Weiner
	2009: Carol Dweck




	2010s	
	2010: Richard Shavelson
	2011: Barry Zimmerman
	2012: Keith Stanovich
	2013: Sandra Graham
	2014: Stephen J. Ceci
	2015: Michelene Chi
	2016: Edward Haertel
	2017: Robert Slavin
	2018: Joanna P. Williams
	2019: Steve Graham
	2020: Thomas L. Good







	
	v
	t
	e


Social and political philosophy

	Ancient
philosophers	
	Aristotle
	Chanakya
	Cicero
	Confucius
	Han Fei
	Lactantius
	Laozi
	Mencius
	Mozi
	Origen
	Plato
	Polybius
	Shang
	Socrates
	Sun Tzu
	Tertullian
	Thucydides
	Valluvar
	Xenophon
	Xunzi




	Medieval
philosophers	
	Alpharabius
	Augustine
	Averroes
	Baldus
	Bartolus
	Bruni
	Dante
	Gelasius
	al-Ghazali
	Giles
	Hostiensis
	Ibn Khaldun
	John of Paris
	John of Salisbury
	Latini
	Maimonides
	Marsilius
	Nizam al-Mulk
	Photios
	Thomas Aquinas
	Wang
	William of Ockham




	Early modern
philosophers	
	Beza
	Bodin
	Bossuet
	Botero
	Buchanan
	Calvin
	Cumberland
	Duplessis-Mornay
	Erasmus
	Filmer
	Grotius
	Guicciardini
	Harrington
	Hayashi
	Hobbes
	Hotman
	Huang
	Leibniz
	Locke
	Luther
	Machiavelli
	Malebranche
	Mariana
	Milton
	Montaigne
	More
	Müntzer
	Naudé
	Pufendorf
	Rohan
	Sansovino
	Sidney
	Spinoza
	Suárez




	18th–19th-century
philosophers	
	Bakunin
	Bentham
	Bonald
	Bosanquet
	Burke
	Comte
	Constant
	Emerson
	Engels
	Fichte
	Fourier
	Franklin
	Godwin
	Hamann
	Hegel
	Herder
	Hume
	Jefferson
	Justi
	Kant
	political philosophy


	Kierkegaard
	Le Bon
	Le Play
	Madison
	Maistre
	Marx
	Mazzini
	Mill
	Montesquieu
	Möser
	Nietzsche
	Novalis
	Paine
	Renan
	Rousseau
	Royce
	Sade
	Schiller
	Smith
	Spencer
	Stirner
	Taine
	Thoreau
	Tocqueville
	Vico
	Vivekananda
	Voltaire




	20th–21st-century
philosophers	
	Adorno
	Ambedkar
	Arendt
	Aurobindo
	Aron
	Azurmendi
	Badiou
	Baudrillard
	Bauman
	Benoist
	Berlin
	Bernstein
	Butler
	Camus
	Chomsky
	De Beauvoir
	Debord
	Du Bois
	Durkheim
	Dworkin
	Foucault
	Gandhi
	Gauthier
	Gehlen
	Gentile
	Gramsci
	Habermas
	Hayek
	Heidegger
	Irigaray
	Kautsky
	Kirk
	Kropotkin
	Laclau
	Lenin
	Luxemburg
	Mao
	Mansfield
	Marcuse
	Maritain
	Michels
	Mises
	Mou
	Mouffe
	Negri
	Niebuhr
	Nozick
	Nursî
	Oakeshott
	Ortega
	Pareto
	Pettit
	Plamenatz
	Polanyi
	Popper
	Qutb
	Radhakrishnan
	Rand
	Rawls
	Rothbard
	Russell
	Santayana
	Sartre
	Scanlon
	Schmitt
	Searle
	Shariati
	Simmel
	Simonović
	Skinner
	Sombart
	Sorel
	Spann
	Spirito
	Strauss
	Sun
	Taylor
	Walzer
	Weber
	Žižek




	Social theories	
	Anarchism
	Authoritarianism
	Collectivism
	Communism
	Communitarianism
	Conflict theories
	Confucianism
	Consensus theory
	Conservatism
	Contractualism
	Cosmopolitanism
	Culturalism
	Fascism
	Feminist political theory
	Gandhism
	Individualism
	Islam
	Islamism
	Legalism
	Liberalism
	Libertarianism
	Mohism
	National liberalism
	Republicanism
	Social constructionism
	Social constructivism
	Social Darwinism
	Social determinism
	Socialism
	Utilitarianism




	Concepts	
	Civil disobedience
	Democracy
	Four occupations
	Justice
	Law
	Mandate of Heaven
	Peace
	Property
	Revolution
	Rights
	Social contract
	Society
	War
	more...




	Related articles	
	Jurisprudence
	Philosophy and economics
	Philosophy of education
	Philosophy of history
	Philosophy of love
	Philosophy of sex
	Philosophy of social science
	Political ethics
	Social epistemology




	
	Category







	
	v
	t
	e


Parenting

	Kinship terminology	
	Adoptive
	Alloparenting
	Coparenting
	Extended family
	Foster care
	Kommune 1
	Noncustodial
	Nuclear family
	Orphaned
	Shared parenting
	Single parent
	Blended family
	Surrogacy
	In loco parentis




	Theories · Areas	
	Attachment theory
	Applied behavior analysis
	Behaviorism
	Child development
	Cognitive development
	Developmental psychology
	Human development
	Love
	Maternal bond
	Nature versus nurture
	Parental investment
	Paternal bond
	Pediatrics
	Social psychology




	Styles	
	Attachment parenting
	Baby talk
	Concerted cultivation
	Gatekeeper parent
	Helicopter parent
	Nurturant parenting
	Slow parenting
	Soccer mom
	Strict father model
	Taking children seriously
	Tiger parenting
	Work at home parent




	Techniques	
	After-school activity
	Allowance
	Bedtime
	Child care
	Co-sleeping
	Homeschooling
	Latchkey kid
	Parent management training
	Play (date)
	Role model
	Spoiled child
	Television
	The talk
	Toy (educational)




	Child discipline	
	Blanket training
	Corporal punishment in the home
	Curfew
	Grounding
	Positive discipline
	Tactical ignoring
	Time-out




	Abuse	
	Child abandonment
	Child abuse
	Child labour
	Child neglect
	Cinderella effect
	Incest
	Narcissistic parent
	Parental abuse by children




	Legal and social
aspects	
	Child custody
	Child support
	Cost of raising a child
	Deadbeat parent
	Disownment
	Marriage
	Parental alienation
	Parental responsibility
	Paternity
	Shared parenting




	Experts	
	T. Berry Brazelton
	Rudolf Dreikurs
	David Elkind
	Jo Frost
	Haim Ginott
	Thomas Gordon
	Alan E. Kazdin
	Truby King
	Annette Lareau
	Penelope Leach
	William Sears
	B. F. Skinner
	Benjamin Spock




	Organizations	
	Families Need Fathers
	Mothers Apart from Their Children
	Mothers' Union
	National Childbirth Trust
	National Parents Organization
	Parent–teacher association
	Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation







	Authority control 	
	BIBSYS: 90088822
	BNE: XX939349
	BNF: cb11924970w (data)
	CANTIC: a10157827
	CiNii: DA00669092
	GND: 118614878
	ISNI: 0000 0000 8400 5968
	LCCN: n79023302
	LNB: 000002147
	MGP: 155510
	NDL: 00456770
	NKC: xx0008664
	NLA: 35503400
	NLG: 316502
	NLI: 000223951
	NLK: KAC199625504
	NLP: A11914002
	NSK: 000037515
	NTA: 068721080
	PLWABN: 9810607747605606
	SELIBR: 225919
	SNAC: w6ns1f0d
	SUDOC: 027140970
	Trove: 976819
	VcBA: 495/134044
	VIAF: 92601840
	 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n79023302














Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=B._F._Skinner&oldid=996761773"


		Categories: 	1904 births
	1990 deaths
	20th-century American inventors
	20th-century atheists
	20th-century American non-fiction writers
	20th-century philosophers
	20th-century psychologists
	Action theorists
	American atheists
	American philosophers
	American psychologists
	American skeptics
	Behaviorism
	Behaviourist psychologists
	Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
	Cultural critics
	Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts
	Deaths from leukemia
	Determinists
	Educational psychologists
	Ethologists
	Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
	Hamilton College (New York) alumni
	Harvard University alumni
	Harvard University faculty
	Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
	National Medal of Science laureates
	People from Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania
	Philosophers from Massachusetts
	Philosophers from Pennsylvania
	Philosophers from Minnesota
	Philosophers of culture
	Philosophers of education
	Philosophers of language
	Philosophers of mind
	Philosophers of psychology
	Philosophers of science
	Philosophers of technology
	Political philosophers
	American social commentators
	Social critics
	Social philosophers
	University of Minnesota faculty
	Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts
	20th-century zoologists


Hidden categories: 	Articles with short description
	Short description is different from Wikidata
	Use mdy dates from December 2017
	Marriage template deprecations
	Biography with signature
	Articles with hCards
	Wikipedia articles needing clarification from May 2016
	Articles needing additional references from December 2007
	All articles needing additional references
	Commons category link is on Wikidata
	Articles with Internet Archive links
	Articles with LibriVox links
	Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with MGP identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NLG identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NLP identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers
	Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers
	AC with 26 elements




	




	





	Navigation menu

	
		

	
		Personal tools
	

	
			Not logged in
	Talk
	Contributions
	Create account
	Log in


		
	



		
			

	
		Namespaces
	

	
			Article
	Talk


		
	



			

	
	
		Variants
	

	
		

		
	



		

		
			

	
		Views
	

	
			Read
	Edit
	View history


		
	



			

	
	
		More
	

	
		

		
	



			
	
		Search
	

	
		
			
			
			
			
		

	




		

	

	

	
		
	

	

	
		Navigation
	

	
			Main page
	Contents
	Current events
	Random article
	About Wikipedia
	Contact us
	Donate


		
	



	

	
		Contribute
	

	
			Help
	Learn to edit
	Community portal
	Recent changes
	Upload file


		
	




	
		Tools
	

	
			What links here
	Related changes
	Upload file
	Special pages
	Permanent link
	Page information
	Cite this page
	Wikidata item


		
	




	
		Print/export
	

	
			Download as PDF
	Printable version


		
	




	
		In other projects
	

	
			Wikimedia Commons
	Wikiquote


		
	



	

	
		Languages
	

	
			العربية
	Asturianu
	تۆرکجه
	Bân-lâm-gú
	Беларуская
	Български
	Català
	Čeština
	Dansk
	Deutsch
	Eesti
	Ελληνικά
	Español
	Esperanto
	Euskara
	فارسی
	Français
	Galego
	한국어
	हिन्दी
	Ido
	Bahasa Indonesia
	Interlingua
	Íslenska
	Italiano
	עברית
	Kabɩyɛ
	ಕನ್ನಡ
	Кыргызча
	Latviešu
	Magyar
	Malagasy
	മലയാളം
	مازِرونی
	Nederlands
	日本語
	Norsk bokmål
	ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
	Polski
	Português
	Русский
	Scots
	Shqip
	Simple English
	Slovenčina
	Slovenščina
	Српски / srpski
	Suomi
	Svenska
	தமிழ்
	తెలుగు
	Türkçe
	Українська
	Tiếng Việt
	Winaray
	吴语
	粵語
	中文


		Edit links

	









		 This page was last edited on 28 December 2020, at 13:45 (UTC).
	Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply.  By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



		Privacy policy
	About Wikipedia
	Disclaimers
	Contact Wikipedia
	Mobile view
	Developers
	Statistics
	Cookie statement