I. Can Science Help?
1. To what does Skinner refer when he states "Science has developed unevenly", and
why does he believe this to be so?
NOTE: This and other sections show Skinner's interest in social concerns, and his use of
literary references.
2. What does Skinner see as the solution to misapplied scientific techniques?
3. What else is involved in science other than the description of facts?
NOTE: Make note of Skinner's goal of practical prediction and control. Also, that to do
so, we must assume that behavior can be predicted and controlled: "…we must assume
that behavior is lawful and determined."
4. What tradition stands in opposition to the assumption that behavior is lawful and
determined?
5. What are some ways of defending a free will doctrine without exactly saying so?
6. What is the practical issue?
II. A Science of Behavior
1. Skinner suggests that science itself should not be identified with common
characteristics of many scientific areas. What are these?
2. What are the essential characteristics of all sciences? How do these compare to the
characteristics of science as identified in the ABA Task List?
3. What features of behavior make it a challenging subject matter?
4. Be able to summarize the typical objections to science of behavior, and then discuss
Skinner's counter-arguments.
III. Why Organisms Behave
1. Why are there so many spurious causal accounts of behavior?
2. What principle does Skinner use to account for the emergence of astrology and body
type ("somatotype" by Sheldon) as causal factors for behavior?
3. What role does genetics play in a practical science of behavior?
4. Why does Skinner discount any particular interest in a search for physiological causes
of behavior?
NOTE: Notice how the argument against physiological psychology is a practical one, not
a philosophic one against the "empty" organism. It is not that he believed physiology
does not matter, or that we are essentially "tableau rosas."
5. Skinner's argument against psychic inner causes appears to take 2 forms. What are
they?
6. How does Skinner describe a "conceptual inner cause?"
7. Where are the independent variables of which behavior is a function (at least those
that are immediately available for study)? Note that this is somewhat out-of-date, as
the progress in genetics, gene splicing, etc. came a long time after this book was
written.
8. What are the links of a causal chain of behavior?
9. What are the essential features of Skinner's objections to inner states?
10. Be able to give Skinner's position on what constitutes the laws of a science of
behavior.
11. What does he mean by an analysis within the bounds of a natural science?
12. Discuss the various sources of data in a behavioral analysis.
13. What is Skinner's view on the "discontinuity" between humans and animals? (Note
that humans are a subset of animals. Alan Poling suggests humans and non-humans)
14. What are some of the advantages of studying nonhumans?
IV.
Reflexes and Conditioned Reflexes
1. Be able to give examples of the following terms: stimulus, response, reflex, and
reflex arc.
2. What is the range of the reflex action?
NOTE: Skinner defines a reflex response as one which is invariant to some stimulus.
This will be different from his description of operants.
3. What is "stimulus substitution?"
NOTE: some familiar terms are missing here, that is, CS and CR. Make sure you know
how these are used in current treatments of respondent conditioning. Note also that the
term "conditioned" is a mistranslation from the original Russian passages, and is more
correctly read as "conditional." Conditional meaning that the effect of a CS is
"conditional" upon continued correlation of the CS and US.
4. When can a scientist dispense with explanatory fictions as causal accounts for various
observations? (review what an explanatory fiction is if necessary)
5. What, according to Skinner, was NOT Pavlov's major contribution and why?
6. How can evolutionary theory provide an account for the existence of reflexes and
respondent conditioning?
7. Take a minute and think about how the above evolutionary process works. What is
the "selection" process therein? Also, how might this be similar to operant
conditioning? (i.e., is there a "selection" process at work in both?)
8. How might inherited susceptibility to respondent conditioning go awry?
9. What does Skinner see as a measure of the "range" of the conditioned reflex?
10. What are some ways that one uses a) the reflex and b) the respondent conditioning
process in the practical control of behavior?
11. How does one eliminate inappropriate CRs? Recall the difference between
respondent extinction and "uncorrelation" as described by Rescorla.
NOTE: There are couple of techniques in this section. One is sometimes called
"aversion therapy." The second is refers to the hierarchical presentation of disturbing
stimuli as in systematic desensitization.
V.
Operant behavior
1. What are some special characteristics of behavior which ahs an effect upon the
environment?
2. What was Thorndike's discovery as he described it?
3. How did Thorndike present his data?
4. What is Skinner's argument with this type of data?
5. How does Skinner interpret the consistency ("smoothness") and similarity of general
properties revealed by learning curves?
6. What form of data best provides a basis for the concept of "probability" of a
response?
7. How does Skinner solve the technical problem of providing for the experimental
observavation and interpretation of frequency of behavior?
8. Within this environment, how does one study the "stamping in" process?
9. How are the resultant data described?
10. What is an operant?
NOTE: Operants are defined by their "effects" on the environment, not their topography.
Thus, this concept gives rise to the operant class. To wit, an operant class is a collection
of responses, all with a common effect or outcome.
11. What is the difference between an operant and a respondent?
12. What, then, is operant conditioning? Respondent conditioning?
13. What is the difference between reinforcer and reinforcement?
14. What are some factors that determine the quantitative effect of reinforcement?
NOTE: Some of the latter material is relevant to a debate by earlier learning theorists.
That is, does learning occur incrementally over repeated presentation of trials, or is a
single reinforcement sufficient to produce a maximal increase in response probability?
Skinner puts a twist on an old controversy by stating that if learning in nonhumans is an
instantaneous shift from low to maximum probability, then the alleged superiority of
human learning must reflect something other than speed of conditioning.
15. Once conditioned by food reinforcement, what additional source of control is
obtained over the Ss behavior? Apply the concept of EO to this question.
16. What is operant extinction? Respondent extinction?
17. How can one observe the properties of extinction?
18. What process can interfere with orderly extinction?
19. How can this effect be eliminated?
20. What is the general relation between reinforcement and number of extinction
responses?
21. What is more important than the simple number of reinforcers given in determining
the number of responses in extinction?
22. What is the difference between extinction and forgetting?
23. What is the defining characteristic of a reinforcer?
24. Is the above a circular definition?
25. What two kinds of procedures are reinforcement?
NOTE: Please recall that stimulus onset and stimulus offset can joined by events
captured in the Premack Principle. What is this latter concept? Also, check out a concept
called "response deprivation." Be prepared to discuss this.
26. How do we identify and evaluate the strength of reinforcers in other peoples' lives?
27. Why can't we just ask other what their own reinforcers are? Note that this may be
part of a reinforcer survey, but it is not the acid test.
28. What is a conditioned reinforcer and how is it established?
29. What are some of the factors in #28?
NOTE: There are different theories of conditioned reinforcers. Some involve simple
pairing of a stimulus with a known reinforcer. Other involve an information hypothesis.
Another is the "Delay reduction hypothesis." If you are really energetic, and have the
time, look up this theory. It was offered by Ed Fantino.
30. How do natural conditions generate conditioned reinforcers?
31. What accounts for the delay between human behavior and the resultant reinforcers?
32. How are these events in #31 important in the practical control of behavior?
33. What is a generalized conditioned reinforcer?
34. Why is the gen cond reinforcer especially important in the control of behavior?
35. In next few pages. Skinner talks about 6 kinds of conditioned reinforcers. Identify
and describe how each is established. Another way of establishing a conditioned
reinforcer is by rules. Give an example of this.
36. What are some difficulties in the effective use of attention, approval, and affection?
37. What are some advantages of tokens?
38. What is Skinner skeptical about these GCRs being reinforcing without conditioning?
NOTE: The last pp of the section might strike you as odd. He makes a couple of points
that might conflict with your answer in #38. First, he suggests that perhaps some
generalized reinforcers have so many pairings for so long that they do not need to be
"backed up" by any other reinforcer. Second, perhaps a generalized reinforcer has such a
long history of pairing that its efficacy is unlikely to wane during the lifetime of the
person if it is unpaired. Whew!
39. What is Skinner's argument against defining reinforcers as "pleasant" or "satisfying"
events?
40. Why can't you just ask someone whether he finds an event satisfying or pleasant?
41. Can reinforcers be defined as those events that reduce deprivation?
42. What is the relation among deprivation, satiation, and reinforcement?
43. What are some disadvantages of biologically determined reinforcers?
44. What is the only property of a contingency required to produce operant conditioning?
NOTE: A contingency represents all of the conditions present when a response is
strengthened. This includes antecedents and consequences, and variables that establish
the efficacy of the reinforcer.
45. What is superstitious behavior?
46. In what sense does superstitious conditioning represent a miscarriage of the
conditioning process?
47. How do you rephrase a statement that implies a behavior is occurring because of what
will follow? Note that such explanations are termed "teleological."
48. Is purpose a property of behavior?
49. If a student explains that he is in school to obtain a degree, how might you translate
this teleological explanation?
VI.
Shaping and maintaining operant behavior
1. What is the comparison between operant conditioning and the behavior of the
sculptor?
2. How is the pigeon's key peck different from the usual operant behavioral objectives?
3. What kind of contingency improves "skill?"
NOTE: This section involves refining an already-established operant class by changing
some of the topographies so that they will be more effective.
4. How might a child by shaped to be "annoying?"
5. Classic learning theories fail to treat what fundamental issue?
6. How might one distinguish between responses that act on the physical environment
and those that act on the social environment?
7. What characteristics of behavior under intermittent reinforcement make them useful
in the social environment?
8. What are two ways of establishing various schedules of reinforcement? Take note of
the range of schedules. These would be ratios, intervals, and time schedules. Give
examples of each. There are also a plethora of combinations. What are some of
these?
9. How is the weekly wage more than a simple FI schedule? How are ratio schedules
related to the formation to unions?
10. If you are really interested in schedules of reinforcement, check out Skinner's book
(Ferster and Skinner) Schedules of Reinforcement (1957).
VII.
Operant Discrimination
1. Describe the 3-term contingency that produces discrimination.
Note that different terms for describing the SD and CS/US. Some have suggested the
term "evoke" for both. I would suggest that "emitted" is an odd way to describe operant
behavior, as it seems to be free of evocative control.
2. What form of behavioral control does discrimination provide?
3. Give examples of operants under discriminative control of the physical, social, and
verbal stimuli.
4. How do we use the discrimination process to control behavior? (in addition to directly
altering probabilities of behavior)
5. What are 3 historic criteria to distinguish respondents from other behavior?
6. Why can "who is in control" no longer be considered a distinguishing feature
respondents and operants?
7. Can the question of operant vs. Respondent be based upon the issue of "control" vs
"lack of control?"
8. Can operant and respondent behavior be distinguished by the kind of control?
9. Why has the concept of "will" survived longer in the analysis of operant than
respondent behavior?
10. Can the distinction be based on musculature? Consider crying (or at least, having
tears)
11. Can reflexes be operantly conditioned? More recent research has brought this
conclusion into question. See Miller and DiCara's research.
12. What is Skinner's analysis of the social role of the concept of personal responsibility?
13. How might such objectives be better obtained?
14. How is a skilled copyist's repertoire different from the unskilled drawer of lines?
15. What 2 sources of differential reinforcement are available to train the skilled copyist?
NOTE: The issue of automatic self reinforcement is tricky. His point is that if one has
been taught to discriminate between good and bad copying, then he/she may react to their
own copying, and deliver praise for good work and witholding praise for bad work.
Skinner's position is that who delivers the praise may not matter, given a history of
pairing of the praise with other reinforcers. Do you buy that? Is self administered praise
paired with other reinforcers?
16. Describe the repertoire of the singer with "poor pitch?"
17. Give an operant definition of imitation. How is this used in language development?
(think about this one)
18. What is an inverse imitative repertoire?
19. What is attention?
20. How can we tell if someone is paying attention? In what way is this a function
definition of attention?
21. What characteristics of the natural environment are responsible for a) respondent
conditioning b) operant conditioning and c) operant discrimination
22. What is the role of the temporal relations in each of the above?
23. What are the behavioral effects of waiting for a delayed reinforcer following an SD
(sometimes called an expectancy or anticipation)
VIII.
The Controlling Environment
1. How do we begin to study the effects of the physical environment?
2. What about physical events which are undetectable by the person?
3. Are all stimulus detection problems simply functions of receptor physiology?
4. What is stimulus generalization? Note that he uses the term "induction." This is an
old-style term, but you might hear it from time to time (maybe only in my class, as I
am old-style)
5. How does one account for this effect?
6. What are some human situations that demonstrate this process?
7. How does one empirically assess generalization? Indeed, there is a member of the
faculty who was one of the pioneers in this process. Who is it?
8. How does Skinner explain the process of generalization, both in terms of what it is
and what it is not?
9. How does one establish a discrimination?
10. What is an abstraction? How is it established?
11. In what sense is abstraction not a natural process? Be able to describe how an
abstraction might developed in human affairs (i.e., how we come to respond to a
single property of a complex stimulus)
12. What is cross modal induction?
13. What are some of the behavioral accounts for this phenomenon?
14. Why might a pigeon learn to peck a 5" disk when presented with a 5" and 3" disk, and
peck a 7" disk when presented with a 7" and 5" disk? How would you do this?
15. What is an "interpreted" stimulus?
16. Distinguish between "sensing" and "seeing." "Perceiving" and "knowing."
IX.
Deprivation and Satiation
1. What unwarranted extension of the concept of a stimulus followed the discovery that
stimuli controlled behavior?
2. What are the effects of water deprivation on the probability of drinking? Relate this
to Jack Michael's concept of the establishing operation.
3. What are some disadvantages of the concept of homeostasis?
4. Must deprivation concern itself with ingestion exclusively?
NOTE: the logic herein anticipates the Premack Principle.
5. Does deprivation affect only a single response?
6. Under what conditions do inner events such as needs or wants add nothing to the
functional account of behavior?
7. How is "drive" used legitimately in a science of behavior?
8. Why is a drive not a stimulus?
9. Why is a drive not a physiological state?
10. Is a drive a psychic state?
11. Is a drive a state of strength?
12. Be able to give practical examples of the use of deprivation and satiation to control
behavior.
13. How are the effects of operant reinforcement different from those described in #12?
14. What two questions are implied by the question "How many drives are there?"
15. What is the relation between the effect of operant reinforcement and deprivation?
16. What is the relation between deprivation and conditioned reinforcement?
17. What is necessary to demonstrate an autonomous drive associated with a generalized
conditioned reinforcer such as attention, affection, etc.?
18. In what way can chemical agents be called acquired drives?
19. How can questions involving "interrelated drives" be experimentally tested?
20. Is either the sex drive or the drive to dominate seen as primary in light of the above?
21. How can you experimentally assess the relative strength of drives?
22. What are some of the experimental difficulties in the above question?
23. In what way can time be an independent variable?
24. How can control be obtained over behavior that displays periodicity?
25. Is time alone the relevant independent variable in certain cases of annual cycles such
as migration?
26. How can predictions be made about behavior which reflects maturational processes?
27. What practical problems does this produce?
28. As an account for behavior, why is "instinct" described as an explanatory fiction?
X.
Emotion
1. Why is the usual way of using the term "emotion" an explanatory fiction?
2. What are some of problems in identifying emotion with 1) internal responses of the
smooth muscles and glands and 2) common expressions of facial and postural
muscles?
3. How does Skinner define emotion? One of the many criticisms of Skinner is that he
does not "believe in emotion." When you encounter that notion, be prepared to refer
the speaker to this chapter.
4. Does "frustration" produce "rage?"
5. In what sense do emotions and drives overlap?
6. How would one go about defining an emotion?
NOTE: In the last 3 sections, Skinner has provided behavioral interpretations of
loneliness, nostalgia, an employee angered by criticism, and several phobias. A
behavioral interpretation, which is not a functional analysis, is simply explaining a
behavior in terms of known independent variables. Interpretations await a functional
analysis.
7. What is the proper subject matter of emotion?
8. How can emotional responses that are primarily respondent in nature be controlled?
9. How can larger categories of behavior pre-dispositions be altered?
XI.
Aversion, Avoidance, and Anxiety
1. What is an aversive stimulus?
2. What are the physical characteristics of aversive stimuli?
3. What is escape behavior?
4. How do you study behavior under the control of aversive stimuli?
5. What are some of the practical advantages and disadvantages of the use of aversive
stimuli in the above manner?
NOTE: Some of these pre-dispositions are at the core of the debate between behavior
analysts who use aversive control and those who do not.
6. What is aversive behavior?
7. Is deprivation the same as presenting an aversive event?
NOTE: Note that Skinner argues for the evolutionary advantage of being "reinforceable"
by the termination of certain events. Same can be argued for being reinforced by the
presentation of certain events (e.g., food, drink)
8. What is a conditioned aversive stimulus?
9. List several ways that aversive stimuli may be used to control behavior.
NOTE: Skinner is essentially talking about a "two process" explanation of the
weakening of certain behaviors. What are the processes?
10. What is avoidance behavior?
11. What is the "reinforcer" in maintaining avoidance behavior?
12. What are the practical consequence of successful avoidance?
13. What is anxiety?
14. Is escape from anxiety the same as avoiding the event responsible for the conditioned
aversive stimuli that produces the anxiety?
15. What is anticipation?
16. How is anticipation behaviorally contrasted with anxiety?
17. How can one reduce the effects of anxiety?
NOTE: You should be familiar with Estes and Skinner's paper entitled "Some
quantitative properties of anxiety." In short, they established performance under an FI 4'
schedule of food delivery, and then superimposed a 3 minutes tone several times a
session. At end of the tone came a brief shock. Interestingly, responding under the FI 4'
schedule of food stopped during the tone. This effect was later called a "conditioned
emotional response" or CER, sometimes called "conditioned suppression." How could
one use a similar procedure to study anticipation?
XII.
Punishment
1. What is the objective of punishment?
2. Why is this a questionable technique?
3. What aspect of punishment causes the above disadvantage?
4. Why did Thorndike conclude that punishment did not "stamp out" behavior?
5. What is the effect of punishment on extinction responding in nonhuman research?
NOTE: Punishment that is given in just the initial part of an extinction has no lasting
effect on the extinction process. However, continued punishment will produce faster
extinction.
6. How are positive and negative reinforcers defined?
7. How is punishment defined?
NOTE: Azrin and Holz (1966) presented a view of punishment as a direct weakening of
the behavior. This view is widely held today. Be able to contrast the two positions.
8. According to Skinner, what is the first effect of punishment?
9. In what sense is this a temporary effect?
10. What is the 2nd effect of punishment?
11. Can this incompatible behavior be evoked by other events?
12. What is the 3rd effect of punishment?
13. What happens when you punish someone for not doing something he is supposed to
do?
14. What are some by-products of the use of punishment?
15. Be able to list some of the alternative ways of eliminating behavior.
XIII.
Function Versus Aspect
1. Are traits descriptive of specific responses?
2. What are traits in a functional analysis?
3. List with an original example each of the several behavioral differences resulting
from independent variables that can give rise to trait names:
4. What do these kinds of traits represent in a functional analysis?
5. How are such repertoires assessed?
6. What is a process difference?
7. Can these process differences be inventoried?
8. How are traits usually quantified?
9. What alternative method is more appropriate to a functional analysis?
10. Summarize the basic categories of behavioral differences that Skinner believes give
rise to traits.
11. What is the sense in which a test permits prediction?
12. How does this differ from prediction based upon a functional analysis?
13. Under what practical conditions are test results useful?
14. What is the disadvantage of prediction based upon trait description?
15. Why haven't trait descriptions been useful in a functional analysis?
16. Why are traits not causes?
17. Give an example of a trait beginning as an adjective and becoming used as a cause.
XIV. The Analysis of Complex Cases
1. What is a frequent criticism of behavioral principles that are based on lab research
with lower organisms?
2. What is a common misunderstanding concerning basic behavioral principles?
3. In what sense can a single variable have multiple effects? Give an example from the
field of punishment.
NOTE: Skinner uses the term "reinforcing" stimulus to refer to the US. This is the
original way the term was used, but is now outdated.
4. When can multiple effects be easily observed? Give an example.
5. In what sense does giving attention to a child who "needs" it weaken his demands?
6. Separate satiation effects from discriminative effects in the example of giving a child
a piece of candy when he has not asked for it.
7. What multiple effects are involved in the wavelike oscillation often observed in
extinction curves?
8. What is the effect of repeated exposure to extinction?
9. Is the emotional effect of "frustration" restricted to the response being extinguished?
How could your answer be demonstrated?
10. What is a second way in which important behavioral variables may interact? Give an
example.
11. How might emotional operations act in conjunction with reinforcement?
12. Give some examples of multiple strengthening that involves interacting SDs.
13. What is suggestion?
14. Define and give an example of the classes of suggestions that Skinner describes in
this section.
15. How would projective tests be categorized in terms of the above forms of suggestion?
16. What is the Freudian and behavioral interpretation of projection and interpretation?
17. What is the difference between projection and identification in terms of the relation
between the supplementary stimulus and the response?
NOTE: When Skinner says that the "behavior exists in some strength", he means that
some of the variables that control the behavior are present, even though the behavior has
not yet occurred. The addition of one or more variables may cause the behavior to be
evoked.
18. What is the role of multiple causation in the field of perception?
19. What is conflict?
20. What is algebraic summation?
21. What kinds of behavior can result in algebraic summation?
NOTE: Skinner often stresses the inadequacies of just relying on S-R kinds of relations.
He finds SDs are important, but also embraces consequence influences, as well as
histories, drives, and emotional operations.
22. What is prepotency?
NOTE: the section on "to do or not to do" is challenging. Suffice it to say that in
Skinner's view, punishment does not create a negative response probability. Instead, it
strengthens incompatible behavior. There are 2 kinds of incompatibilities: one is
between the punished response and the incompatible. The 2nd is among the various
possible avoidance behaviors that could be effective.
23. What is a chain of behavior?
XV.
Self control
1. Why is the concept of "control" implicit in a functional analysis of behavior?
2. What are the theoretical and practical implications of this possibility?
3. What is a typical objection to the behaving organism as it has been described so far?
4. What typical observations about behavior lead to a concept of "self control?"
5. What is the proper response of a functional analysis of behavior to these apparent
contradictions?
6. How can one distinguish between self control and creative thinking?
7. Why is the concept of private events relevant to the discussion of self control and
creative thinking?
NOTE: Skinners position on middle links that are private events is different from his
earlier discussion on psychic or physiological links. He rejects psychic links and is
uninterested in physiological ones. Nonetheless, private events, as middle links, are
merely more behavior to be explained.
8. What is self control?
9. What two classes of behaviors are involved in self control? How are they related?
How is the "controlling response" different from incompatible behavior produced by
punishment?
10. Give some examples of the 5 techniques of self control through restraint and aid.
Note how the controlling response is acquired and maintained.
11. Describe the techniques of self control involved in the manipulation of stimuli. Note
how they are maintained.
12. Give some examples of self control that involve deprivation and satiation.
13. Give examples of self control that involve emotional conditions.
14. Describe the various ways to use aversive stimulation in self control.
15. How can drugs be used in self control?
16. What is the role of self reinforcement and self extinction as self control procedures?
Do you think that self reinforcement is the same as standard forms of reinforcement?
Be prepared to discuss this issue.
17. What is the role of self punishment as a self control technique?
18. How is the concept of prepotency used in self control?
19. Who arranges for the behavior of self control?
20. What are the practical advantages of a functional analysis of self control in contrast to
traditional conceptions of self determination?
XVI. Thinking
1. How does making a decision differ from self control (as a form of self
determination)?
2. What is the role of private events in making a decision?
3. What are the similarities and differences in the techniques used to accomplish self
control and decision making?
4. What is meant by the term "deciding?"
5. Give some examples of behavior that terminates decision-making prior to the
execution of the decided upon behavior?
6. What are some of the consequences which reinforce decision-making?
7. Why are the above "defective" reinforcers?
8. Why do we see as much decision making as we do?
9. What special conditions in decision-making occasions the use of a self probe?
10. Describe some of the techniques that are available to aid in recall.
11. What is a problem?
12. How is the strength of this response usually revealed?
At this point in this section, Skinner defines the "solution" to a problem as simply a
response which alters the situation so that a strong response can be emitted (p. 247).
However, throughout the remainder of the chapter, he refers to this activity as "problem
solving" and refers to the emitted strong response as the solution. Lets adopt the latter.
13. What are the consequences of the emission of the behavioral solution?
14. How are problem solving and self control similar? Different? (something to think
about and sharpen your thinking)
15. Why is the appearance of a solution no guarantee that problem-solving behavior has
occurred?
16. Under what conditions does "trial and error" learning display some minimal problem
solving?
17. What are two problem solving techniques that involve the manipulation of stimuli?
18. What are two other commonly used procedures in addition to the manipulation of
stimuli for problem solving?
19. What constitutes a problem's difficulty?
20. What makes a problem insoluble?
21. What are some of the sources of "ideas" that do not occur as a result of deliberate
problem solving?
22. What is the problem for a functional analysis that is posed by the concept of
originality and creativity of thought or behavior?
23. How does Skinner suggest we account for original or novel ideas?
24. What are the practical advantages of a functional analysis of thinking?
XVII. Private events in a Natural Science
1. What is the "world within one's skin?"
NOTE: Private events are not necessarily unobserved by others. When they are,
however, the reaction is different than that of the person (e.g., a cavity is reacted to a very
different way by the person than by the dentist).
2. How is this realm of events distinguished from the external world?
3. What is the task of a functional analysis?
4. What is the problem in establishing private events as discriminative stimuli for verbal
responses?
5. How does the verbal community establish private events as SDs for verbal behavior
such as tacts?
6. What is the problem for the listener of someone's description of subjective events?
7. What is the result of this imprecision for the individual who acquires such a repertoire
of responses to private events?
8. What are three kinds of private stimulation and their sources?
9. To which of these does an individual respond when describing his own behavior?
10. How can the verbal community establish self descriptive behavior that includes
responses to private events?
11. What are the special advantages of covert verbal behavior?
12. Give an example of a response to discriminative behavior.
13. How does the verbal community teach the individual to respond to his own
discriminative behavior?
14. To what does the individual ultimately respond in these cases?
15. Under what conditions does this prove to be a problem for the analysis of behavior?
16. What are the major sources of such responding?
17. In what manner does respondent conditioning account for seeing something that is not
there?
18. What is the range of control exerted by external stimuli over discriminative
responding?
19. What are the sources of individual differences with respect to conditioned
discriminative responding?
20. What is an hallucination? (a question for anyone from the 1960s)
21. What is the practical importance of conditioned discriminative responding?
22. On to operant seeing. What are more evidences of strength for a discriminative
operant?
23. How is operant discriminative responding different from respondently conditioned
sensory processes?
24. What are the advantages and disadvantages of discriminative responding in the
absence of the external stimulus?
25. What are some sources of reinforcement for discriminative behavior?
26. Is private problem-solving wholly discriminative behavior?
27. What are some sources of individual differences in private behaviors used in problem
solving?
28. Why is it difficult to distinguish among particular private problem solving skills?
29. How does one account for the verbal behavior that describes discriminative behavior?
30. What accounts for the descriptive response in the absence of the relevant stimulus?
31. What is the traditional solution to private seeing?
32. Briefly describe the problems which have resulted in the traditional sensationperception distinction.
33. Are there wholly private events, events that are knowable only to the organism?
34. What other solutions to the problem of private events are available, and are they
compatible or incompatible with the present function analysis?
XX. Personal Control
1. What is the asymmetrical social relationship referred to when we say that someone is
"deliberately" controlling someone else?
2. What special advantage does personal control often have that is not sually available to
organized agencies of social control?
3. What is usually the first objective of the exercise of personal control?
4. How is this typically accomplished? Give an example.
5. List and describe the 9 basic techniques of control in this section. Which ones are
used in your work?
6. What are some disadvantages of physical force as a technique of control?
7. How can stimuli be manipulated?
8. What is one risk in social utilization of conditioned reinforcers?
9. What is the distinction between aversive stimulation and punishment?
10. What is required if "pointing up contingencies of reinforcement" is going to be
effective as a control technique?
11. When is the technique most likely to be used?
NOTE: Notice how Skinner describes the use of deprivation. It can be a control
procedure in which particular behavior may be evoked (see Eos). This is different from
just increasing the reinforcing efficacy of some consequence, although Eos do both.
12. What are behaviors that are described as "emotional?"
13. Why is deliberate control not a popular topic?
14. What is the effect of this?
15. What are the cultural consequences of such a history of the aversive use of control?
XXII. Government and Law
1. What is Skinner's objection to the various conceptions of the behaving individual as
encountered in law, economics, education, etc.
2. What is his alternative strategy?
3. What must one describe in the analysis of a social system? What must be known?
4. What defines a government?
5. Is the power of the ultimate agency within government always aversive?
6. What is necessary for a government to control "with the consent of the governed"?
7. Need that relation continue once the government has established its control over its
society?
8. What determines legal and illegal acts in a dictatorship? In a democracy?
9. What is the net effect of governmental control? Be able to describe the behavioral
processes that account for this outcome.
NOTE: Skinner's two process account of punishment is involved.
10. What is obedience? Why is obedience to a verbal command based upon a history of
aversive control?
11. What is the advantage of obedient citizens to the controlling agency?
12. What is a law?
13. How does it specify behavior?
14. How does the average citizen become law abiding?
15. What makes the effect of punishing others as a deterrent a relatively weak technique
of control?
NOTE; In the upcoming section, Skinner is providing behavioral interpretations so
society's typical ways of dealing with illegal behavior, while attacking traditional
justifications for such procedures.
16. Three reasons for punishment are revenge, rehabilitation, and deterrence. Which are
behaviorally justified and how?
17. What is the relation between the legal concept of "responsibility" and behavioral
controllability?
18. Provide examples of governmental control that are not based exclusively on the
power to punish.
19. Why is social system of the government and the governed inherently unstable?
20. What are some indicants of the limits of stability?
21. What is the effect of government "by law" regarding the stability of the system?
22. Why is a "just" government more likely to survive?
23. What is "freedom"? When do people feel free?
24. What is the "security" issue? What about "rights"?
XXIII. Religion
1. What is a superstitious response?
2. Who composes a religious controlling agency?
3. What is their claimed source of power?
4. Compare religious techniques of control with legal and ethical.
5. What process is necessary to establish the power of religious threats and promises?
Give examples of both the positive and negative consequences.
6. Describe some other procedures of control used by religious agencies, including those
that do not involve intervention in supernatural outcomes.
7. How are the behavioral goals of the religious agency distinguished from the ethical
objectives of the larger group?
8. What process underlies self control?
9. Why do politicians emphasize their religious affiliations?
10. Why do opponents of pornography sometimes have large collections of pornographic
materials themselves?
11. Why do you suppose that the Mormon Church is has grown so much? What are some
reasons why the Catholic Church might be losing members and priests?
12. Does the justification of religious control depend upon supernatural relationships?
XXIV. Psychotherapy
1. Why does the group control the individual?
NOTE: Also, the group shapes individuals to behave in ways that benefit the group.
2. Describe some of the behavioral by-products of excessive or inconsistent control.
3. Why are traditional controlling agency reactions to such outcomes of control usually
ineffective?
4. What causes fear, anxiety, anger, and depression?
5. How are they eliminated?
6. How can "self control" miscarry?
7. What is the social role of psychotherapy as an "agency" of control"
8. Why should therapy follow directly from diagnosis? (Skinner had functional analysis
figured out a long time ago!)
9. What source of control is initially available to the therapist?
10. How can this control be expanded?
11. Describe the 2 behavioral processes involved in successful psychoanalysis.
12. Does psychotherapy usually support or contradict other social agencies of control?
Be sure to consider both goals and methods.
13. What are the negative effects of considering the behaviors that necessitate therapy
only as symptoms?
14. What are the other behavioral conditions that require therapy in addition to, or instead
of, histories of excessive or aversive control?
15. Why does the non-analytic or client-centered therapist wait for the client to suggest a
solution rather than provide it?
16. Why did Bandura claim that behavior modification is only effective when the client
consents?
XXV. Economic Control
1. Distinguish between goods and wealth.
2. What is required if a contract is going to be effective in controlling behavior?
3. What features of FR lead to high rates of responding?
4. Why do human workers perform "throughout the interval" even when paid only at the
end?
5. What are the schedule parameters and effects of a salesperson receiving a salary plus
commissions?
6. How and why should bonuses be scheduled?
7. What determines the economic value of labor to both the employer and employee?
8. What is the advantage of money?
9. When is money a bribe?
10. What factors are relevant in determining the value of goods?
11. What can a professional gambler do that a slot machine can not?
12. What is the data base of the concept of the Economic Man? What are the limits?
13. What determines an economic agency as such?
14. What is the major source of countercontrol against the misuse of economic power?
XXVI. Education
1. What distinguishes an agency as educational, goals, or methods?
2. What maintains the professional educator?
3. What were the major sources of control available to educators?
4. Why does Skinner say these controls are now weakened or unavailable?
5. What is necessary for the acquisition of a skill? Make sure you can figure out
knowledge, understanding, instruction, and self instruction.
6. Who countercontrols the schools and why?
XXVII.
Culture and Control
1. Describe the process of induction as a basis for manners and customs.
2. Why are such patters of conformity self sustaining?
3. What determines a culture?
4. Are the sustaining controls for a culture always unified?
5. What factors led to change in some cultural practices regarding the control of sexual
behavior?
6. For each of the cited characteristics of individual behavior, describe to what extent
the resultant behavior depends upon physical or social variables or both.
7. What characteristics of the social environment must exist fi two cultures are to be
different?
8. What is necessary to establish a relation between cultural practices and cultural
modes of behavior? Why is it difficult to do so?
XXVIII.
Designing a Culture
1. List some factors which introduce cultural practices "by accident."
2. What is necessary for deliberate cultural design?
3. How can a future goal control current efforts to achieve it?
4. Provide a behavioral translation to "you ought to take this short cut."
5. What are the 3 kinds of selection?
6. In what sense does a cultural practice have survival value? Does it origin matter in
this regard?
7. Is a current culture by definition "better" than one that has perished?
8. Why does Skinner state that a culture is an "experiment."
9. Is survival value always comparable with traditional values?
10. Why does behavior usually lead to survival? Can a person who so behaves be said to
have chosen to survive as a value?
11. What is the relevance of science, and especially behavioral science, upon the cultural
values of survival?
12. What must the cultural designer be able to estimate in order to be maximally
effective?
13. What 4 practical ways does a science help in the selection of survival-oriented
cultural practices?
14. What is left to do when these scientific practices have been employed to their fullest
extent?
XXIX. The Problem of Control
1. Why is a doctrine of personal freedom an insufficient protection against a technology
of behavior?
2. What are the consequences of a refusal to control?
3. What are some of the advantages of diversified control?
4. What are some disadvantages of controlling control?
5. Where does the ultimate strength of a controller lie?
6. What is the role of traditional values, such as freedom, security, happiness, and
knowledge, regarding the ultimate sources of strength? Do these values guarantee
cultural survival?
7. What may be the role science in providing moral values for governments?
8. Why is Skinner optimistic regarding the future of a science of behavior?
9. What is the central conflict between Western philosophy and a science of behavior?
10. What is responsible for the Western tradition?
11. Who or what "really" is in control?