Customer Reviews

Science And Human Behavior

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This is agreat book for anyone who has a good understanding of behavioral psychology. If you do, this book will help explain the concepts employed by psychologists today. It also gives the reader a good feel for the attitudes that prevailed in psychology in the 1950's. If you do not have a strong background in this area, I would suggest reading one of Skinner's later books first.

1/3 of this book covers basic conditioning as seen in all animals, including humans. Much of this was established experimentally with rats and pigeons but the discussion here is in terms of humans. There are no diagrams or pictures in this section, which can get rather dry.

The remaining 2/3 of the book covers topics associated more with humans such as thinking, private events, the self, institutions and culture. Skinner refers to institutions such as the government, religions, psychotherapy, economic groups and education as "controlling agencies". His scientific approach of these agencies overlaps the artistic rendering of addictive systems by the very different William Burroughs in "Naked Lunch", but between the two of them one can get a good sense of how one's actions are conditioned.

For millenia, for lack of scientific application, speculative systems have been dominate. The Greeks were masters of such systemization, which culminated in "The Enneads" by Plotinus, an amazingly unified and satisfying work consisting almost exclusively of explanatory fictions. Such comfort systems seem to have a strong hold on people. Much of modern psychology is not an advance on "The Enneads". Look at how much of cognitive psychology is speculative, lacking in any experimental confirmation.

There is a great opportunity here for you. At this time, half a century after this book's publication, behaviorism is not well supported. To be sure, there are practicing behaviorists and some excellent progress in the application of behavioral analysis. But behaviorism seems to be heavily resisted, as Skinner himself recognized. This book has excited me. Read it and if it indeed excites you, even as a layperson, see what you can do to apply it and to educate others about it. The opportunity is that there is still a lot to learn about how to apply it in our everyday life. This stuff is too important not to embrace...well, see what you think.

Harsh criticism of Skinner has typically come from arm chair philosophers more concerned with sounding progressive than with helping or understanding people. Science and Human Behavior has contributed and continues to contribute to valuable application and research in Psychology. A standing challenge to any critic would be to find a book that can match Science and Human Behavior's contributions to the application of science for the welfare of humanity.

I read this book when I was in junior high school and it changed me from a controllee to a controller. I started applying behaviorism to my superstitious teachers and I got them under my control. My grades went up and my school workload went down. It's been over 40 years since I became a behavioral scientist and it's been such a good life. The knowledge I gained from this one book probably saved my life many times. I stayed out of the Vietnam War because of my controller status. I survived years of working with dangerous animals and people by putting them under control. I gained financial independence and a high standard of living by applying behaviorism. The benefits I have received from Skinner and his science of behaviorism are endless.

Once you read and understand behaviorism you too will become a scientific controller rather than a superstitious controllee. You will begin to practice the art of behaviorism on yourself and others. You will see amazing results in being able to control the behavior of yourself and others. Skinner was honest enough to admit that we're all about control and proceeds to explain how control is accomplished; it's that simple and powerful. I use behaviorism to control animals as well as people and it's so effective. Being in control is the most fun I've ever had. I've controlled teachers, Freudian psychologists, girlfriends, supervisors, police, kids and just about everybody I come into contact with for any amount of time to behave the way I want them to behave. I don't care who they are I can put them under my control. The longer I train them the better control I have over them and the most amazing thing is that they love my control. It's legal power over people and animals and way more powerful than drugs or guns. I'm amazed that the government controllers haven't banned this book, but the superstition and lies about Skinner seem to help keep most "educated" (controlled) people from gaining this awesome power. It's too bad that more people are not aware of this power for the world could be a much better place if we all were behavioral scientists, but the world is mostly full of superstitious controllees. Somebody's going to control these controllees; it might as well be me. You are going to read this book.

I am a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) so I am probably biased. Now that that is spelled out, I will write this message: "Science and Human Behavior" is an awesome and enlightening read!

Behaviorism (Behavior Analysis) is a growing field. As more people get comfortable with the idea of a true science of human behavior, we will make strides in predicting and controlling human behavior. In the future, the controllers or nurturers (parents, teachers, coaches, military leaders, politicians, bosses, etc.) will have an evidenced-based science of human behavior to change people in positive ways. Effective checks can also be developed to control the new science of human behavior as B.F. Skinner recommends. This science and knowledge sure beats the haphazard techniques politicians, bosses, etc. use to influence people to do the right behaviors in order to achieve a common goal.

Perhaps some day the nurtured (controlled) and nurturers (controllers) will work together to make the world a better place. People surrender themselves to the controllers with employment, military service, sports team participation and so forth. Why not study those controls scientifically?

(Note: For a historical perspective on Skinner (and Behavior Analysis), I would recommend "Beyond the Box: B.F. Skinner's Technology of Behavior from Laboratory to Life, 1950s-1970s".)

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

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"To what extent is it helpful to be told, 'He drinks because he is thirsty'? If to be thirsty means nothing more than to have a tendency to drink, this is mere redundancy. If it means that he drinks because of a state of thirst, an inner causal event is invoked. If this state is purely inferential ... it cannot serve as an explanation." (Pg. 33)
"Trait-names begin as adjectives--'intelligent,' 'aggressive,' 'disorganized,'... and so on... But at no point in such a series do we make contact with any event outside the behavior itself which justifies the claim of a causal connection." (Pg. 202)
"We cannot account for suicide as a simple response... No one jumps into a brook to bring his life to an end because the same behavior had a similar consequence in the past... Fortunately we need not decide this issue to make the present point." (Pg. 223)
(Assumption of mind and consciousness) "obviously stands in the way of a unified account of nature. The contribution which a science of behavior can make in suggesting an alternative point of view is perhaps one of its most important achievements." (Pg. 258)
"A world of experience which is by definition available only to the individual, wholly without public accompaniment, could never become the discriminative occasion for self-description." (Pg. 280)
"One proposed solution is to insist that man is a free agent and forever beyond the reach of controlling techniques. It is apparently no longer possible to seek refuge in that belief." (Pg. 438)

BF's Skinner's early work in operant conditioning through laboratory research on animals is generally regarded as a lasting and significant contribution to science and psychology. However, Skinner's works on human behavior, including this one, attempt to generalize to all human behavior the model he developed and used to predict and control animal behavior under highly controlled conditions.

In Science and Human Behavior, Skinner repeatedly offers, as the reason for a given behavior's occurrence, the explanation that it is "reinforced," and advocates that we abandon the traditional discourse used to explain human behavior through reference to intention, desire, will, thoughts, and feelings. Instead, Skinner argues that a science of behavior can improve upon such explanations by using the jargon of operant conditioning theory.

In operant conditioning theory, "reinforcement" is the process whereby a behavior is strengthened by the process of associating it with a consequence, and Skinner shows little regard for the precise technical meaning of this word when he makes many uses of this term and its derivations (reinforce, reinforcer, reinforcing). For example, he writes the following: "Education is a profession, the members of which engage in education primarily because of economic reinforcement." It is hard to see what this assertion means, as the behavioral antecedents to "economic reinforcement" that constitute the "profession" of "education" remain undefined. Furthermore, such an assertion is comically out of touch with the reality that many teachers, who could make much more money in other professions, might object to having their primary motive for teaching characterized this way. Perhaps what is meant here is that "economic reinforcement" (money) strengthens the "behavior" of teaching more efficiently than any other reinforcer, in which case it seems that Skinner is applying a truism-that people work when they get paid for it, and stop working when they don't. Whatever the case, such statements as this one, which litter this book, seem remarkably short of any scientific authority or interest.

One might argue that since virtually all of the haphazardly placed illustrative applications of his jargon to actual human behavior are as brief and platitudinous as the one mentioned, they shouldn't be taken literally, but seen as rhetorical devices in service of explaining his conceptual model. But some might wish that Skinner took seriously the burden of demonstrating that what he asserts is both verified by the scientific method, and a non-trivial improvement on what is already known. In absence of either, this book is mostly an amusing glimpse at an outdated approach to psychology that simply has not delivered on its promise to find mechanisms for the effective control of human behavior, unless you count its contribution to the management of prisons, mental hospitals, and other highly controlled environments that approximate the inhumane conditions under which Skinner's lab rats lived.

Therefore, if you are interested, like me, in understanding the roots of Skinner's influence and an introduction to how he applies his basic concepts to human behavior, this book is a very profitable read. If you are looking for a work of actual scientific merit, this book has little to recommend.