0872206270
B. F. Skinner
Notes
Operant conditioning – when a bit of behavior is followed by a certain kind of consequence, it is more likely to occur again, and a consequence having this effect is called a reinforcer.
Freedom is an issue raised by the aversive consequence of behavior, but dignity concerns positive reinforcement. When someone behaves in a way we find reinforcing, we make him more likely to do so again by praising or commending him.
What we may call the literature of dignity is concerned with preserving due credit. It may oppose advances in technology, including a technology of behavior, because they destroy chances to be admired and a basic analysis because it offers an alternative explanation of behavior for which the individual himself has previously been given credit.
It is the environment which is “responsible” for the objectionable behavior, and it is the environment, not some attribute of the individual, which must be changed.
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
The simple fact is that a culture which for any reason induces its members to work for its survival, or for the survival of some of its practices, is more likely to survive. Survival is the only value according to which a culture is eventually to be judged, and any practice that furthers survival has survival value by definition.
The caged lion in the zoo, well fed and safe, does not behave like the satiated lion in the field. Like the institutionalized human being, it faces the problem of leisure in its worst form: it has nothing to do. Leisure is a condition for which the human species has been badly prepared, because until very recently it was enjoyed by only a few, who contributed very little to the gene pool…Leisure is one of the great challenges to those who are concerned with the survival of a culture because any attempt to control what a person does when he does not need to do anything is particularly likely to be attacked as unwarranted meddling.
An experimental analysis shifts the determination of behavior from autonomous man to the environment – an environment responsible both for the evolution of the species and for the repertoire acquired by each member…He is indeed controlled by his environment, but we must remember that it is an environment largely of his own making. The evolution of a culture is a gigantic exercise in self-control.
Behavior Technology
Operant Conditioning
Aversive -> Loss of Freedom
Positive Reinforcement -> Dignity (Credit)
Freedom = Dignity
Aversion does not equal punishment
Aversion = Induce certain behavior
Punishment = Avoid certain behavior
Punishment leads to (false) perceived autonomy. What it really leads to is avoidance.
Environment, not the individual, is responsible for behavior.
Cultural designers accelerate behavior technology to bring consequences / contingencies into play.
Autonomous man is not adequate.
Environment controls man but the environment is of man’s own making.