We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SkinnerRead
An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Communication deeply influences our interactions, often blurring the lines between speaker and listener.
B.F. Skinner's quote highlights the intricate relationship between communication and understanding in human interactions. It suggests that the roles of speaker and listener can be intertwined, emphasizing the complexity of verbal behavior and how individuals can simultaneously participate in both roles, influencing one another even when they are physically the same person.
Themes
CommunicationBehaviorInteractionUnderstandingVerbal
In practice
Example use cases
In a communication workshop to discuss the nuances of dialogue.
More from B. F. Skinner
All quotes βEach of us has interests which conflict the interests of everybody else... 'everybody else' we call 'society'. It's a powerful opponent and it always wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it to his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage of numbers and of age.
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No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been.
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I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
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The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone.
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Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
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