B. F. Skinner
Skinner, 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.
Alma mater	Hamilton College (AB) Harvard University (PhD)
Known for	Behavior analysis Operant conditioning Radical behaviorism Verbal Behavior (1957)
Spouse	Yvonne (Eve) Blue (m. 1936) ^[1]
Children	Julie and Deborah
Awards	National Medal of Science (1968) Ig Nobel Peace Prize (2024)
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology, linguistics, philosophy
Institutions	University of Minnesota Indiana University Harvard University

Signature

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

Skinner developed behavior analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviorism,^[7] 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),^[8] 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 1957 book Schedules of Reinforcement.^[9]^[10]

Skinner was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles.^[11] He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his 1948 utopian novel, Walden Two,^[3] while his analysis of human behavior culminated in his 1958 work, Verbal Behavior.^[12]

Skinner, John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, are considered to be the pioneers of modern behaviorism. Accordingly, a June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.^[13]

Early life

[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.^[14] His brother Edward, two and a half years younger, died at age 16 of a cerebral hemorrhage.^[15]

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.^[16]

Education

[edit]

Skinner attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, with the intention of becoming a writer. He found himself at a social disadvantage at the college because of his intellectual attitude.^{[further explanation needed]}^[17] He was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.^[16]

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 and teach. While attending Harvard, a fellow student, Fred S. Keller, convinced Skinner that he could make an experimental science of 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.^[17]

After graduation, Skinner unsuccessfully tried to write a novel while he lived with his parents, a period that he later called the "Dark Years".^[17] He became disillusioned with his literary skills despite encouragement from the 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.^[17]

Career

[edit]

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.^[18] In 1945, he moved to Indiana University,^[19] where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946 to 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.^[20]

Personal life

[edit]

In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne "Eve" Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (later Vargas) and Deborah (later Buzan; married Barry Buzan).^[21]^[22] Yvonne died in 1997,^[23] and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.^[17]

Death

[edit]

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 concerning his work.^[24]

Contributions to psychology

[edit]

Behaviorism

[edit]

Skinner referred to his approach to the study of behavior as radical behaviorism,^[25] which originated in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested experimentally. 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.^[25]

Foundations of Skinner's behaviorism

[edit]

Skinner's ideas about behaviorism were largely set forth in his first book, The 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;^[26] and operants, by Edward Thorndike.^[27] Skinner's account differed in some ways from earlier ones,^[28] 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 commonly asked are these:

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 or sound) 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.^[28]

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.^[29] 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.^[29]

Reinforcement

[edit]

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.^[30] 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.^[31]

Schedules of reinforcement

[edit]

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.^[32]
Interval schedule: based on the time intervals between reinforcements.^[8]
- 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.^[8]
- Fixed ratio schedule (FR): A procedure in which reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made.
- Variable ratio schedule (VR):^[8] 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.^[33]

Verbal Behavior

[edit]

Challenged by Alfred North Whitehead during a casual discussion while at Harvard to provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal behavior,^[34] Skinner set about attempting to extend his then-new functional, inductive approach to the complexity of human verbal behavior.^[35] 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.^[36] Behavior analysts reject Chomsky's appraisal of Skinner's work as merely "stimulus-response psychology," and some have argued that this mischaracterization highlights a poor understanding of Skinner's work and the field of behavior analysis as a whole.^[36]^[37]

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.^[38] 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.^[39]

Scientific inventions

[edit]

Operant conditioning chamber

[edit]

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.^[28]

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.^[40] 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. After raising one baby, Skinner felt that he could simplify the process for parents and improve the experience for children. He primarily thought of the idea to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing. Skinner had some specific concerns about raising a baby in the rough environment where he lived in Minnesota. Keeping the child warm was a central priority (Faye, 2010).^[41] Though this was the main goal, it also was designed to reduce laundry, diaper rash, and cradle cap, while still allowing the baby to be more mobile and comfortable. Reportedly it had some success in these goals as it was advertised commercially with an estimate of 300 children who were raised in the air crib. Psychology Today tracked down 50 children and ran a short piece on the effects of the air crib. The reports came back positive and that these children and parents enjoyed using the crib (Epstein, 2005).^[42] One of these air cribs resides in the gallery at the Center for the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio (Faye, 2010).^[41]

The air crib was designed with three solid walls and a safety-glass panel at the front which could be lowered to move the baby in and out of the crib. The floor was stretched canvas. Sheets were intended to be used over the canvas and were easily rolled off when soiled. Addressing Skinners' concern for temperature, a control box on top of the crib regulated temperature and humidity. Filtered air flowed through the crib from below. This crib was higher than most standard cribs, allowing easier access to the child without the need to bend over (Faye, 2010).^[41]

The air crib was a controversial invention. It was popularly characterized as a cruel pen, and it was often compared to Skinner's operant conditioning chamber (or "Skinner box"). Skinner's article in Ladies Home Journal, titled "Baby in a Box", caught the eye of many and contributed to skepticism about the device (Bjork, 1997).^[43] A picture published with the article showed the Skinners' daughter, Deborah, peering out of the crib with her hands and face pressed upon the glass. Skinner also used the term "experiment" when describing the crib, and this association with laboratory animal experimentation discouraged the crib's commercial success, although several companies attempted to produce and sell it.

In 2004, therapist Lauren Slater repeated a claim that Skinner may have used his baby daughter in some of his experiments. His outraged daughter publicly accused Slater of not making a good-faith effort to check her facts before publishing. Debora was quoted by the Guardian saying "According to Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, my father, who was a psychologist based at Harvard from the 1950s to the 90s, "used his infant daughter, Deborah, to prove his theories by putting her for a few hours a day in a laboratory box . . . in which all her needs were controlled and shaped". But it's not true. My father did nothing of the sort."^[44]

Teaching machine

[edit]

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.^[45]

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.^[46]

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:^[47]

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."^[48]

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.^[49]

Pigeon-guided missile

[edit]

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, which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system. Skinner trained pigeons through operant conditioning to peck a camera obscura screen showing incoming targets on individual screens (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019).^[50] This system divided the nose cone of a missile into three compartments, with a pigeon placed in each. Within the ship, the three 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, which connected the screens to the bomb's guidance system. This was done through four small rubber pneumatic tubes that were attached to each side of the frame, which directed a constant airflow to a pneumatic pickup system that controlled the thrusters of the bomb. Resulting in the missile being guided towards the targeted ship, through just the peck coming from the pigeon (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019).^[50]

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." Before the project was completely abandoned it was tested extensively in the laboratory. After the United States Army ultimately denied it the United States Naval Research Laboratory picked up Skinner's Research and renamed it Project ORCON, which was a contraction of "organic" and "control". Skinner worked closely with the US Naval Research Laboratory continuously testing the pigeon's tracking capacity for guiding missiles to their intended targets. In the end, the pigeons' performance and accuracy relied on so many uncontrollable factors that Project ORCON, like Project Pigeon before it, was again discontinued. It was never used in the field.^[50]

Verbal summator

[edit]

Early in his career Skinner became interested in "latent speech" and experimented with a device he called the verbal summator.^[51] This device can be thought of as an auditory version of the Rorschach inkblots.^[51] 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.^[52]

Influence on teaching

[edit]

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.^[45]^: 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 develops feelings of dreadfulness and wishes to 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.^[53]

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:^[54]^: 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.");^[54]^: 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).^[55] The former describes a fictional "experimental community"^[56] 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.^[57] 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.^[58]

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.^[59] 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.^[60]) 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.^[61]

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."^[62] 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.^[62]

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:^[62]

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).^[63]

Criticism

[edit]

Noam Chomsky

[edit]

American linguist Noam Chomsky published a review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior in the linguistics journal Language in 1959.^[64] 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, but endorsed Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1972 reply.^[65]

I read half a dozen pages, saw that it missed the point of my book, and went no further. [...] My reasons, I am afraid, show a lack of character. In the first place I should have had to read the review, and I found its tone distasteful. It was not really a review of my book but of what Chomsky took, erroneously, to be my position.^[66]

Many academics in the 1960s believed that Skinner's silence on the question meant Chomsky's criticism had been justified. But MacCorquodale wrote that Chomsky's criticism did not focus on Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but rather attacked a confusion of ideas from behavioral psychology. MacCorquodale also regretted Chomsky's aggressive tone.^[65] Furthermore, Chomsky had aimed at delivering a definitive refutation of Skinner by citing dozens of animal instinct and animal learning studies. On the one hand, he argued that the studies on animal instinct proved that animal behavior is innate, and therefore Skinner was mistaken. On the other, Chomsky's opinion of the studies on learning was that one cannot draw an analogy from animal studies to human behavior—or, that research on animal instinct refutes research on animal learning.^[64]^[67]

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.^[68]

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.^[69]^[70] To study such phenomena, Skinner even designed his own projective test, the "verbal summator" described above.^[71]

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;^[72] Skinner's determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and punishment, as he believed.^[73]^[74]

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
1958–1974 Professor of Psychology, 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 Psychological 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^[75]
2024 Ig Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the pigeon-guided bomb project.^[76]

Honorary degrees

[edit]

Skinner received honorary degrees from:

Honorary societies

[edit]

Skinner was inducted to the following honorary societies:

PSI CHI International Honor Society in Psychology
American Philosophical Society^[77]
American Academy of Arts and Sciences^[78]
United States National Academy of Sciences^[79]

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 0-394-71618-3.
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]

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. Archived from the original on August 6, 2010. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
^ Smith, L. D.; Woodward, W. R. (1996). B. F. Skinner and Behaviorism in American Culture. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Lehigh University Press. ISBN 978-0-934223-40-9.
^ ^a ^b ^c Skinner, B. F. (1948). Walden Two. New York: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-87220-779-X. 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. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^ Skinner, B. F. (1972). Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-553-14372-0. OCLC 34263003.
^ "Skinner, Burrhus Frederic". History of Behavior Analysis. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
^ Swenson, Christa (May 1999). "Burrhus Frederick Skinner". History of Psychology Archives. Archived from the original on April 4, 2007.
^ Skinner, B. F. (1974). About Behaviorism. Random House. ISBN 0-394-71618-3.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Schacter, Daniel L.; Gilbert, Daniel T.; Wagner, Daniel M. (2011). Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Worth Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4292-3719-2.
^ ^a ^b Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behavior of Organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. ISBN 1-58390-007-1. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^ ^a ^b ^c Ferster, Charles B.; Skinner, B. F. (1957). Schedules of Reinforcement. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. ISBN 0-13-792309-0. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^ Smith, Nathaniel G.; Morris, Edward K. (2021). "Full Bibliography". B. F. Skinner Foundation. Retrieved July 29, 2021. Also available as a PDF.
^ Skinner, B. F. (1958). Verbal Behavior. Acton, Massachusetts: Copley Publishing Group. ISBN 1-58390-021-7. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^ Haggbloom, Steven J.; Warnick, Renee; Warnick, Jason E.; Jones, Vinessa K.; et al. (June 1, 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". In Boring, E. G.; Lindzey, G. (eds.). A History of Psychology in Autobiography. Vol. 5. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. pp. 387–413. doi:10.1037/11579-014. 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 J. (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. ISBN 978-0-394-40071-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Bjork, Daniel W. (2013). B. F. Skinner: A Life. American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-55798-416-6.
^ "Establishment History". University of Minnesota. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
^ Vargas, Julie (February 6, 2014). "Biographical Information". B. F. Skinner Foundation. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
^ "Humanist Manifesto II". American Humanist Association. Archived from the original on October 20, 2012. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
^ Skinner, Deborah. "About Skinner". Horses by Skinner. Archived from the original on May 30, 2015. 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 Library. Archived from the original on July 3, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
^ The Famous People. (2017). B. F. Skinner biography
^ ^a ^b Skinner, B. F. 1974. "Causes of Behavior." Pp. 16–18 in About Behaviorism. ISBN 0-394-71618-3. section 3, "Radical Behaviorism." https://archive.org/stream/aboutbehaviorism00skin#page/16/mode/2up
^ 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 & 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. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
^ Hergenhahn, B. R. (2009). An Introduction to the History of Psychology. United States: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. p. 449. ISBN 978-0-495-50621-8.
^ B. F. Skinner, (1957) Verbal Behavior. The account in the appendix is that he asked Skinner to explain why he said "No black scorpion is falling upon this table."
^ "Skinner, Burrhus Frederick(1904–1990)". Credo Reference, Gale. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
^ ^a ^b Chomsky, Noam (1967). "A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior" (PDF). In Jakobovits, L. A.; Miron, M. S. (eds.). Readings in the Psychology of Language. Prentice-Hall. pp. 48–63. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
^ Palmer, David C. (October 2006). "On Chomsky's appraisal of Skinner's Verbal Behavior: A half century of misunderstanding". The Behavior Analyst. 29 (2): 253–267. doi:10.1007/BF03392134. PMC 2223153. PMID 22478467.
^ 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.
^ ^a ^b ^c Joyce, Nick & Faye, Cathy (September 1, 2010). "Skinner Air Crib". Aps Observer. 23.
^ Epstein, Robert (November 1, 1995). "Babies in Boxes". Psychology Today.
^ Bjork. "B. F. Skinner: A life". Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
^ Buzan, Deborah Skinner (March 12, 2004). "I was not a lab rat". the Guardian. Retrieved January 21, 2023.
^ ^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. Archived from the original on June 1, 2019. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
^ 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". Philip McRae, Ph.D. April 14, 2013.
^ ^a ^b ^c Schultz-Figueroa. "Project Pigeon: Rendering the War Animal through Optical Technology". JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.
^ ^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. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007.
^ 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. (1948). "'Superstition' in the Pigeon". Journal of Experimental Psychology. 38 (2): 168–172. doi:10.1037/h0055873. PMID 18913665. S2CID 22577459.
^ 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.
^ ^a ^b Chomsky, Noam (1959). "Reviews: Verbal Behavior by B. F. Skinner". Language. 35 (1): 26–58. doi:10.2307/411334. JSTOR 411334. Archived from the original on September 29, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2007.
^ ^a ^b 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.
^ Skinner, B. F. (1972). "A Lecture on 'Having' a Poem". In Skinner, B. F. (ed.). Cumulative Record (PDF) (3rd ed.). Appleton-Century-Crofts. pp. 345–355. ISBN 978-0-9899839-9-0. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 7, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
^ Palmer, David C. (2006). "On Chomsky's appraisal of Skinner's Verbal Behavior: a half century of misunderstanding". The Behavior Analyst. 29 (2): 253–267. doi:10.1007/BF03392134. PMC 2223153. PMID 22478467.
^ Chomsky, Noam (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.
^ "The winners of the 2024 Ig Nobel awards". The Tartan. September 30, 2024. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
^ "Burrhus Frederic Skinner". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. February 9, 2023. Retrieved February 27, 2023.
^ "B. F. Skinner". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved February 27, 2023.

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

By B. F. Skinner

B. F. Skinner Foundation homepage
National Academy of Sciences biography
Works by or about B. F. Skinner at the 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
Skinner and Teaching Machine on YouTube
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 neuroscience Affective science 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 Psycholinguistics Psychophysiology Quantitative Social Theoretical
Applied psychology	Anomalistic Applied behavior analysis Art Assessment Aviation Biography of famous people Clinical Coaching Color Community Consumer Counseling Critical Educational Ergonomics Fashion Feminist Food Forensic Health History Humanistic Industrial and organizational Legal Media Medical Military Music Occupational health Pastoral Peace and war Political Positive Photography Psychometrics Psychotherapy Religion School Sex differences Sport and exercise Suicidology Systems Trading 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
Concepts	Behavior Behavioral engineering Behavioral genetics Behavioral neuroscience Cognition Competence Consciousness Consumer behavior Emotions Ego death Feelings Human factors and ergonomics Id, ego and superego Intelligence Maslow's hierarchy of needs Mental state Mind Psychology of religion Psychometrics Sex differences Terror management theory
Psychologists	Wilhelm Wundt William James Ivan Pavlov Sigmund Freud Edward Thorndike Carl Jung John B. Watson Clark L. Hull Kurt Lewin Jean Piaget Gordon Allport J. P. Guilford Carl Rogers Erik Erikson B. F. Skinner Donald O. Hebb Ernest Hilgard Harry Harlow Raymond Cattell Abraham Maslow Neal E. Miller Jerome Bruner Donald T. Campbell Hans Eysenck Herbert A. Simon David McClelland Leon Festinger George A. Miller Richard Lazarus Stanley Schachter Robert Zajonc Albert Bandura Roger Brown Endel Tulving Lawrence Kohlberg Noam Chomsky Ulric Neisser Jerome Kagan Walter Mischel Elliot Aronson Daniel Kahneman Paul Ekman Michael Posner Amos Tversky Bruce McEwen Larry Squire Richard E. Nisbett Martin Seligman Ed Diener Shelley E. Taylor John Anderson Ronald C. Kessler Joseph E. LeDoux Richard Davidson Susan Fiske Roy Baumeister
Lists	Counseling topics Disciplines Organizations Outline Psychologists Psychotherapies Research methods Schools of thought Timeline Topics
Category Wiktionary definition Wiktionary category Wikisource Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikinews Wikibooks

United States National Medal of Science laureates

Behavioral and social science

1960s	1964 Neal Elgar Miller
1980s	1986 Herbert A. Simon 1987 Anne Anastasi George J. Stigler 1988 Milton Friedman
1990s	1990 Leonid Hurwicz Patrick Suppes 1991 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 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
2020s	2023 Huda Akil Shelley E. Taylor 2025 Larry Bartels

Biological sciences

1960s	1963 C. B. van Niel 1964 Theodosius Dobzhansky 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 Robert W. Kates 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 George F. Bass 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 Rudolf Jaenisch 2011 Lucy Shapiro Leroy Hood Sallie Chisholm 2012 May Berenbaum Bruce Alberts 2013 Rakesh K. Jain 2014 Stanley Falkow Mary-Claire King Simon Levin
2020s	2023 Gebisa Ejeta Eve Marder Gregory Petsko Sheldon Weinbaum 2025 Bonnie Bassler Angela Belcher Helen Blau Emery N. Brown G. David Tilman Teresa Woodruff

Chemistry

1960s	1964 Roger Adams
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 2005 Tobin J. Marks 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 2025 R. Lawrence Edwards

Engineering sciences

1960s	1962 Theodore von Kármán 1963 Vannevar Bush John Robinson Pierce 1964 Charles S. Draper Othmar H. Ammann 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 2006 Robert S. Langer 2007 David J. Wineland 2008 Rudolf E. Kálmán 2009 Amnon Yariv
2010s	2010 Shu Chien 2011 John B. Goodenough 2012 Thomas Kailath
2020s	2023 Subra Suresh 2025 John Dabiri

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 H. 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 2012 Alexandre Chorin David Blackwell 2013 Michael Artin
2020s	2025 Ingrid Daubechies Cynthia Dwork

Physical sciences

1960s	1963 Luis W. Alvarez 1964 Julian Schwinger Harold 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 Foster Ramsey Jr. 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
2020s	2023 Barry Barish Myriam Sarachik 2025 Richard Alley Wendy Freedman Keivan Stassun

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 H. 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
2020s	2020: Thomas L. Good 2021: Daniel L. Schwartz

Social philosophy

Concepts

Schools

Philosophers

Ancient	Augustine Cicero Confucius Lactantius Laozi Mencius Mozi Origen Philo Plato Polybius Tertullian Thucydides Xunzi
Medieval	Alpharabius Aquinas Avempace Bruni Dante Gelasius Ibn Khaldun Maimonides Muhammad Photios Plethon Ibn Tufayl
Early modern	Calvin Erasmus Guicciardini Locke Luther Milton Montaigne Müntzer
18th and 19th centuries	Arnold Bentham Bonald Burke Carlyle Comte Condorcet Emerson Engels Fichte Fourier Franklin Hegel Helvétius Herder Hume Jefferson Kant Kierkegaard Le Bon Le Play Marx Mill Nietzsche Owen Renan Rousseau Royce Ruskin Smith Spencer de Staël Stirner Taine Thoreau Tocqueville Vico Vivekananda Voltaire
20th and 21st centuries	Adorno Agamben Arendt Aron Badiou Baudrillard Bauman Benoist Berlin Butler Camus de Beauvoir Debord Deleuze Dewey Du Bois Durkheim Eco Evola Foucault Fromm Gandhi Gehlen Gentile Gramsci Guénon Habermas Han Heidegger Hoppe Irigaray Kirk Kołakowski Kropotkin Land Lasch MacIntyre Marcuse Maritain Negri Niebuhr Nussbaum Oakeshott Ortega Pareto Polanyi Radhakrishnan Röpke Santayana Scruton Shariati Simmel Skinner Sombart Sowell Spengler Taylor Voegelin Walzer Weber Weil Zinn Žižek

Works

De Officiis (44 BC)
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Democracy in America (1835–1840)
Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)
The Second Sex (1949)
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
The Society of the Spectacle (1967)
The History of Sexuality (1976)
The Culture of Narcissism (1979)
A Conflict of Visions (1987)
The Closing of the American Mind (1987)
Gender Trouble (1990)
The Malaise of Modernity (1991)
Intellectuals and Society (2010)

See also

Category

v t e Parenting
Kinship terminology	Parent Mother Father Adoptive Alloparenting Coparenting Extended family Foster care 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 Identity formation Introjection Love Maternal bond Nature versus nurture Parental investment Paternal bond Pediatrics Social emotional development Socialization Social psychology
Styles	Achievement ideology Atlas personality Attachment parenting Baby talk Buddha-like parenting Concerted cultivation Enmeshment Free-range parenting Gatekeeper parent Helicopter parent Nurturant parenting Reflective parenting Slow parenting Soccer mom Strict father model Taking Children Seriously Theybie Tiger parenting Work at home parent
Techniques	After-school activity Allowance Bedtime Child care Co-sleeping Dishabituation Education Habituation Homeschooling Identification (psychology) Introjection Kommune 1 Latchkey kid Moral development Normative social influence Parent management training Play (date) Role model Social integration Television The talk (race) The talk (sex education) Toy (educational) Positive Parenting Program
Child discipline	Blanket training Corporal punishment in the home Curfew Grounding Positive discipline Tactical ignoring Time-out
Abuse	Adverse childhood experiences Child abandonment Child abuse Child labour Child neglect Cinderella effect Codependency Dysfunctional family Effects of domestic violence Incest Narcissistic parent Parental abuse by children Stress in early childhood
Legal and social aspects	Child custody Child support Cost of raising a child Deadbeat parent Disownment Family disruption Right to family life Management of domestic violence Marriage Parental alienation Parental responsibility Parents' rights Paternity Shared parenting
Experts	Mary Ainsworth John Bowlby T. Berry Brazelton Rudolf Dreikurs David Elkind Jo Frost Haim Ginott Thomas Gordon Alan E. Kazdin Truby King Annette Lareau Penelope Leach Matthew Sanders William Sears B. F. Skinner Benjamin Spock
Organizations	Families Need Fathers Mothers Apart from Their Children Mothers' Union National Childbirth Trust National Fatherhood Initiative National Parents Organization Parent–teacher association Parents Against Child Exploitation

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Japan Italy Australia Czech Republic Spain Portugal Netherlands Norway Latvia Croatia Greece Korea Sweden Poland Vatican Israel Catalonia Belgium
Academics	CiNii Mathematics Genealogy Project
Artists	MusicBrainz
People	Trove Deutsche Biographie DDB
Other	IdRef SNAC