Word: skinner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Skinner's most important discovery while writing Walden Two is expressed through Frazier: "I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, 'Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought!' Eventually I realized that the subjects were always right. They always behaved as they should have behaved. It was I who was wrong. I had made a bad prediction...What a strange discovery for a would-be dictator that the only effective methods of control are positively reinforcing...
...Skinner himself has adopted his behavior to his psychological theories. "I've learned a few tricks at self-management" he explains. "I apply my own analysis to my own behavior. I never assumed that I was not like my pigeons. I'm sure I am-- and very much more complicated, I hope. But as I designed an environment to get some behavior 0ut of my experimental organisms, so I work on the environment to get my own behavior out in ways that are reinforcing to me. That's all there...
...where you write. Never do anything else there except write. Never do anything else there except write. Write at the same time of the day. "It gets so you can't do anything except think and write in that place," he says. "It has complete control over you." Essentially, Skinner controls himself by living "according to routine. It's easier for me than to be making decisions all the time...
...James Hall, the stink of pigeon droppings consume the air. To your right is a laboratory filled with behavioral science's elite corps of experimental organisms. There they coo and peek in their numbered lofts, the proud and nameless pigeon menagerie that once controlled and were controlled by B.F. Skinner. At one time, some of these birds played ping pong in Skinner boxes. Some spend time dancing together--also in boxes. Some were conditioned to hobble around in figure eights. Others were lucky enough to get out of the smelly lab and travel in what seemed to be outer space...
Across the hall from these unusually accomplished birds, some of whom are older than most Harvard undergraduates, is Skinner's office. What was once the headquarters of behavioristic efficiency, busy with the chatter of graduate students and colleagues, now remains quiet most of the day. The phone doesn't ring as often as it used to. And the incessant clatter of typewriter keys from the adjoining secretary's office has dwindled to ten hours a week. Pictures of smiling grand-children that adorn the filing cabinet are heavy with dust. Even the crusted rug in his office looks...