Will Success Spoi B.F. Skinner? The celebrated psychologist talks about who keeps the controllers benevolent and how to free prisoners and abolish military heroes. He also discusses his work, his admirers, his detractors, and critics inthe aftermath of Beyond Freedom & Dignity. by Elizabeth Hall Wf Elizabeth Hall: Dr | Skinner, Beyond Free dom and Dignity bas made you a center of B controversy. You've Deen attacked hy poli ticians by journalist, by theologians. Your same has been beard from many pulpits fon many Sundays. The Vice President of ‘he United States said thae you're attack ing the very precepts upon which our society is based and that you're advocat ing radical surgery psyche thae B. F, Skinner: I doubt that Agnew has read my book, I'm not attacking a sense ‘on the national ‘What do you have to say to of freedom or dignity, I'm not attacking any principle on which a successful gov fernment could conceivably be based, | want people to feel freer than they do now, and I don't want to deprive them ff the chance to do the things for which ‘we give them credit. But we must under stand what we mean by freedom and dignity Hall: Perhaps Richard L. Rubenstein also misunderstood you, He's the theolo: sian who says that yes, indeed, what you say may he true, but you've given us a blucprine for hell [see book review of Beyond Freedom and Dignity, rt, Sep tember 1971]. Skinner: I don't know what Ruben stein’s definition of hell is. 'm sure he doesn’t mean Dante's Inferno. I think we cean avoid a hell on earth Hall olden Pethaps we may reach a new ge, then. Skinner: I'm an optimist. I chink we have only to understand ourselves 10 reach a golden age. At the moment our ‘outmoded conception of man keeps us from being effective Hall familiar phrase for survival How do you feel about the ‘man’s instinetive drive Skinner: What docs it mean? Instinct ‘and drive are fictions—things put inside 4 person to explain his behavior, What ‘we observe is that a person beh ain ways that usually get him out of trouble and often get him things he needs in order to survive. Don’t look for something inside that person, Look at his genetic endowment and his personal his tory. If food 4s reinforcing, ws not be sause food reduces a drive but because it has been cies that food has reinforced the behav ior of hungry people. That fact has made it mote likely that they would ge food they needed Hall: Perhaps we'd better talk about some of your terms so that we'll have very good thing for the spe no misunderstanding, Tell me, what is Inehaviorism? Skinner: The word hecame eurtent in John i Watsons day, more than 50 years ago. Vroperly speaking it should refer to the philosophy of a science of behavior Watson had very litle science t0 go on Today we know much more about the intimate relation between behavior and. the organism’s present environment, its environmental history, and—through its genetic endowment—the environment in, which the species evolved. Instead of at tributing behavior to states of mind or feelings, we attribute it to the environ mental history. That's the essence of a science of behavior and the philo sophical discussion of is implications is Dbebaviorism, Hall: Would you plea conditioning! Skinner: Operant conditioning is very different from the conditioning of re flexes. In Pavlov's experiment the animal does nothing to change its environment. ‘The study of operant conditioning goes back to Edward L. Thorndike, who made some important discoveries about what he called the law of effect. The operant people have simply taken that law seriously. They have arranged very com plex effects and studied their conse quences. When you make a reinforcer contingent upon what an animal is doing, it will end co do it again. In the laboratory you use simple reinforcers Tike food with a hungry organism oF water with a thirsty one, but in daily life lene operant revoir ton Nant 1872 65many other kinds of things are impor tant reinforcers, Onee in a lecture at the Guggenheim Museum, [argued that the word bedutifial means reinforcing, Pic tures may reinforce you when you look at them, and if they do, you look at them again. If they don't, you look at some thing else Hall reinforcing co describe just anything that Is it accurate to use the term causes you to repeat a behavior! Skinner: Not causes 0 repeat, Makes it more probable that you will repeat the behavior, yes Hall behavior Skinner: Operant behavior is behav. Would you describe operant for that operates upon the environment to produce effects. In Favlov’s formula tion, the dinner bell and the food both ‘occur before the dog does anything, but {n operant behavior something very im- portant happens after the organism acts ‘The experimental analysis of behavior covers a great deal more than that, how. Pr ate} rut) but defend the Godlike eee ur ied POO cs ever. The apparatus in an operant labora tory consists of relays, clocks, counters— perhaps even an on-line computer—with which various contingencies of rein forcement are arranged. When you look at the effcets of such contingencies, you can begin to make sense of those which prevail in the world at large and you fften gain an extraordinary degree of Hall: Then the contingencies of rein: forcement are the conditions under which an organism is reinforced, Skinner: Yes. Stimulus/response psy chology talked about the setting and the behavior. An operant analysis always considers the setting, the behavior, and the consequences Hall: Do your critics understand this! Skinner: Many of them dismiss a science of this sort as if it didn't exist Calis Its quite surprising how little che world in genetal knows about operant coi tioning, and that world includes many psychologists. The experimental analysis of behavior is an extremely advanced, rigorous practiced in hundreds of laboratories throughout the world Hall: How would you explain the in dividual’s development in operant conditioning? Skinner: Opetant conditioning is in science. It is many ways like Darwin's natural selee tion, Before Darwin the millions of spe cies on the surface of the earth were sup. posed to he the result of a creative Darwin and those who followed him showed how diversity could come about through random mutation and selection. ‘What we might call contingencies of sur. vival shaped novel forms. The study of ‘operant behavior is replacing another creative mind, spelled this time with a small m, ‘And isn’t i¢ curious that most intelli ‘gent people today have abandoned the capital M mind but defend the Godlike in themselves with all the power at their command, Hall: [tthe case that novel behavior appears accidentally, and then the con sequences of that behavior cause it to happen aguin? Skinner: Novel behavior occurs in bits and pieces. Take the artist painting «a pieture, His daubs go on the canvas for many, often trivial reasons. Some stay some get scraped off, some ate painted over. It is the sclective effect that pro: duces the painting. Hall; Then the artist painting @ pic tare would be an example of shaping behavior! Skinner: The behavior of the artist like that of everyone els, is shaped and maintained by its consequences. When something reinforces the artis, he lets it stand on the canvas. Hall: And what he puts in one comer of the canvas affects what he puts in the fother comer? Skinner: It becomes part of anim mensely complex situation that deter mines his subsequent behavior. Then, of must not overlook many things he does before he gets to the canvas, such as selecting pigments, lights subject matters, and so on. All of this has in qm been shaped by prior com: sequenees or is random Hall: If positive reinforcement makes you more likely to repeat a behavior, would negative reinforcement make you less likely? Skinner: No, that’s ¢ common mis take, The word reinforce means to strengthen, not to weaken, A positive reinforcer strengthens when you make it contingent upon behavior. A negative reinforcer strengthens when the behav for weakens or removes it Hall: So if I move to escape an clectrie shoek Skinner: Yes, ¢ at isa kind of operant behavior. The shock is a negative rein forcer, and sf a response terminates it ‘you will be more likely to repeat the re sponse the next time you are shocked Bat if I shock you or take away a postive reinforcer when you do something, that is punishment. Most people feel that it is simply the opposite of reward, but it has a much more complex effect than simply weakening behavior Hall: Could punishment for one pet son not be punishment for another Skinner: Of course, And what rein forees one person may not reinforce an- other, There's no way to predict what will be reinforcing, If you've just overeat: en or are sick, the sight of food may be negative reinforeer. You will be tein: forced if you do anything which termt nates it, such as looking away. But if you're hungry, food is reinforcing Hall: Just how free is man’ Skinner: That depends on what you mean by freedom. Ithink the traditional struggle for freedom has heen a matter ‘of freeing people from what we call aver: sive control. To free the individual from despots who control through punitive methods, it has been necessary to con vince the individual thae he ean be free that the power that is being used against him derives from him. hut, unfortu nately, we have come c the conclusion that all control is wrong, that it is some: thing we should escape from. We don’t recognize the fact that we are also com:“My Hat Still Fits’ With the publication of Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Ite changed for B. F. Skinner, who is Edgar Pierce professor of psychology at Harvard University. Events moved swiftly. First ‘came the condensation of the book in Peyohology Today [August 1971] and its choice as a major selection of the Psychology Today Book Club, then a cover story in Time magazine, and a host of reviews—most of them critical Television talk shows clamored tor Skinner. He appeared on ‘Today,’ \willam F, Buckley's “Firing Line, Dick Cavett's show, and David Frost's show. Persons who had never heard of ‘operant conditioning began to recognize him—heads turned as we walked together down a Cambridge street, Skinner has learned that when a public figure eats in a New York restaurant, strangers come over 10 shake his hand, For pertiaps the first time in American history, a protessor of psychology has acquired the celebrity of a movie or TV star. ‘Skinner recalls that his work was slow to catch on. For about 10 years after he published the trail-blazing Behavior of Organisms (1938), no one seemed to read his papers or to ask for reprints, and he worked in relative ‘obscurity until ater World War Il He accepts fame—and notoriety-with some difidence. "My hat sil fis," ne says with a wry smile Indeed, in the bombardment that has followed publication of Beyond Freedom and Dignity, he has been wise to wear a hat; @ helmet might be ‘even more prudent. Many of the bombs were more bombast than otherwise. Biophysicist John Piatt, who sees Skinner's proposal as our only hope for Testructuring obsolete and dangerous social institutions, says, “Skinner may have had the worst press of any great scientist since Darwin.” In the get-Skinner movement are historians, philosophers, poets, theologians, linguists, psychologists, cries, and, of course, the Vice President of the United States, Noam Chomsky, a charter member of the movernent, wrote of “irresponsible claims" that “aissolve into triviality or incoherence," and "speculations devoid of scientific content.” Post ‘Stephen Spender called the book fascism without tears." ‘The traditionally unsigned front-page review in the lordly London Times Literary Supplement, while finding ‘some fault with the book, saw Beyond Freedom and Oigolty as a serious Contribution to modern thought “well-witten, provocative and thoughtful.” and saw Skinner as “an enemy only to empty and spineless humanism, with its endless repetition of well-meaning precepts without any thought as 10 their translation into practice.” ressed for an estimate, Skinner rates his reviews as 80 percent Unfavorable. Some stick in his mind more than others—tor example, one in the Chicago Tribune; with it was a picture of a rat with 8. F. Skinner's features Success has not spoiled Fred ‘Skinner, nar has it changed the policy that Skinner set for himselt in the days when the response to his work was ‘more modest, if no less grating: he refuses fo reply to detractors; he feels that they first misunderstand him and then indulge themselves in vituperation. While he may judge his oniies harshly, he does not raise his voice when he speaks of them, nor does he lose his temper. Atte all, their acceptance or dismissal of his work depends upon their genetic endowment and previous conditioning Skinner is an unlikely person to soar to star status in this society. While he is not a cold man, he is quiet, and slow to intimacy, One does not call him Fred immediately. The image of the clockwork man, interested only in the number of times a pigeon pecks a key, is a wrong one. Skinner speaks with feeling about babies—he is a ‘grandtather—and about the hidden danger of picking up an infant oniy ‘when he cries. Skinner's passionate concern for his fellow man led him directly to Freedom and Bignity—10 engineering change in the society. After a day at work in his office in \iliam James Hall, Skinner heads for home and harpsichord. When he ventures away from hearth and ‘swimming pool, it often is for an evening of chamber music. His closest fiends tend to be logicians like W. O. ‘Quine and literary critics like Harry Levin, At one time he spent his summers on an island off the coast of Maine. It was there that many of his major essays were put onto paper. When the utopian novel Walden Two ‘came out in paperback in 1960, sales ‘moved to more than a million. (The hardcover sold several thousand each year. When paperback sales soared, Macmillan last year responded with a 25th-anniversary hardcover edition, for Which Skinner wrote & new Introduction.) Bantam has just brought out a paperback edition of Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Which has sold more than 180,000 copies in hardcovers. Even venerable universities respond to Beyond Freedom and Dignity’s runaway sale. For years laboratories have studied operant behavior and psychologists have argued Skinner's ideas, but only after Skinner achieved best-sellerdom did Yale schedule its “Gonterence on the Work of 8. F ‘Skinner. In April academicians from all disciplines gathered at tne Yale Law ‘School to debate with Skinner for two days. ‘When we were talking about his ‘earlier work, Skinner told me that two chapters of Walden Two never reached the public. One chapter described how Frazier set up Walden Two, the other described haw the community solved facial problems. But none of us will ‘ever know how either situation was handled. After Walden Two was published, Skinner cleared out old papers and duplicate manuscripts. By mistake, the only copies of the two deleted chapters wound up in the incinerator. Skinner is at work on his autobiography (he thinks "scientific memoir" is a better description). When he comes to recount the excitement of the last year, he can list a laurel that will confound many of his ofits. The ‘American Humanist Association has civen him is Humanist of the Year ‘Award for 1972, Elizabeth Hall