We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SkinnerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Punishment can teach individuals to avoid undesirable behavior, but it doesnβt necessarily change their inclination to behave that way.
The quote by B. F. Skinner emphasizes that punishment may not effectively alter a person's behavior in the long term. Instead, it often teaches them merely ways to avoid being punished without addressing the underlying behavior itself. This perspective highlights a key insight in behavioral psychology about the limits of punishment as a means of instilling moral or ethical behavior.
Themes
PunishmentBehaviorLearningPsychologyAvoidance
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about discipline strategies for children, this quote can illustrate the importance of understanding the impact of punishment on learning.
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.
B. F. SkinnerRead
No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been.
B. F. SkinnerRead
I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
B. F. SkinnerRead
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.
B. F. SkinnerRead
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.
B. F. SkinnerRead
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