Over half a century after its initial publication in 1957, Verbal Behavior has remained in high demand and continues to contribute to science and society. The documented efficacy of Skinner's practices has maintained the popularity of Verbal Behavior despite the initial criticism from Noam Chomsky's allegedly fatal review. In fact, his research has inspired techniques that have proven increasingly successful with aberrant behavior disorders, such as autism and delayed speech. In this brill...

In 1934, at the age of 30, B. F. Skinner found himself at a dinner sitting next to Professor Alfred North Whitehead. Never one to lose an opportunity to promote behaviorism, Skinner expounded its main tenets to the distinguished philosopher. Whitehead acknowledged that science might account for most of human behavior but he would not include verbal behavior. He ended the discussion with a challenge: "Let me see you," he said, "account for my behavior as I sit here saying, 'No black scorpio...

A seminal work that delves into the depths of one of psychology's most influential and controversial philosophies.Written by a leading proponent of behaviorism, this comprehensive book offers an exploration of the principles and arguments that underpin this groundbreaking approach to understanding human behavior."About Behaviorism is an opportunity to match wits with one of the great men of psychology and to participate in some of its great...

The contingent relationship between actions and their consequences lies at the heart of Skinner’s experimental analysis of behavior. Particular patterns of behavior emerge depending upon the contingencies established. Ferster and Skinner examined the effects of different schedules of reinforcement on behavior.An extraordinary work, Schedules of Reinforcement represents over 70,000 hours of research primarily with pigeons, though the principles have now been experimentally ...

B. F. Skinner titled this book, Contingencies of Reinforcement, after the heart of his science of behavior. Contingencies relate classes of actions to postcedent events and to the contexts in which those action-postcedent relations occur. The basic processes seem straightforward, but many people do not know or understand the underlying theory. Skinner believed that ‘a theory is essential to the scientific understanding of behavior as a subject matter”. This book presents some of S...

On Parent's Day, in 1952, B. F. Skinner visited his daughter's fourth grade math class. As he watched the lesson, he became increasingly uncomfortable. Almost every principle of effective teaching that he had studied for more than 20 years was being violated in that classroom. Yet it was a typical class. The teacher showed how to solve the day's problems, then gave the students a worksheet to do. Some children began to work readily while others shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, or rai...

With the publication of his first book, The Behavior of Organisms (1938), B. F. Skinner launched a new science based on selection by consequences as the mechanism through which behavior changes during the lifetime of the individual. The book summarizes nearly ten years of research, spanning the years of Skinner's graduate school days at Harvard through his three years as a member of the Society of Fellows. In the book, Skinner defines his basic unit of behavior, which he named the operant,...

B.F. Skinner (March 20, 1904 - August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. 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 ...

As the title suggests, this book contains articles that Skinner first published elsewhere. The articles range widely in content, from the famous “A Case History in Scientific Method” to “Has Gertrude Stein a Secret.” The book is divided into the following sections: PART I: The Implications of a Science of Behavior for Human Affairs, Especially for the Concept of Freedom PART II: A Method for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior–Its Theory and Practice, Its History, and a Glimp...

From author and psychologist B. F. Skinner, regarded by many as the most important and influential psychologist since Freud, comes "Walden Two". This fictional outline of a modern utopia has been a center of controversy ever since its publication in 1948. Set in the United States, it pictures a society in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of human conduct. The novel describes an experimental community called "Walden Two", whose members are happy, productive, and cr...

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.

Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens.