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Science of Behavior
B. F. SKINNER Harvard University
A Science of Behavior
I must begin by saying what I take a science of
behavior to be. It is, I assume, part of biology.
The organism that behaves is the organism that
breathes, digests, conceives, gestates, and so on.
As such, the behaving organism will eventually be
described and explained by the anatomist and
physiologist. As far as behavior is concerned, they
will give us an account of the genetic endowment
of the species and tell how that endowment changes
during the lifetime of the individual and why, as
a result, the individual then responds in a given
way on a given occasion. Despite remarkable
progress, we are still a long way from a satisfactory
account in such terms. We know something about
the chemical and electrical effects of the nervous
system and the location of many of its functions,
but the events that actually underlie a single instance of behavior>as a pigeon picks up a stick
to build a nest, or a child a block to complete a
tower, or a scientist a pen to write a paperare
still far out of reach.
Fortunately, we need not wait for further progress of that sort. We can analyze a given instance
of behavior in its relation to the current setting
and to antecedent events in the history of the
species and of the individual. Thus, we do not
need an explicit account of the anatomy and physiology of genetic endowment in order to describe
the behavior, or the behavioral processes, characteristic of a species, or to speculate about the
contingencies of survival under which they might
have evolved, as the ethologists have convincingly
demonstrated. Nor do we need to consider anatomy and physiology in order to see how the behavior of the individual is changed ,by his exposure
to contingencies of reinforcement during his life-
time and how as a result he behaves in a given may even try to establish an independent science of
way on a given occasion. I must confess to a feelings in the intrapsychic life of the mind or
predilection here for my own specialty, the experi- personality.
mental analysis of behavior, which is a quite exAnd do feelings not have some bearing on our
plicit investigation of the effects upon individual formulation of a science of behavior? Do we not
organisms of extremely complex and subtle con- strike because we are angry and play music betingencies of reinforcement.
cause we feel like listening? And if so, are our
There will be certain temporal gaps in such an feelings not to be added to those antecedent events
analysis, The behavior and the conditions of of which behavior is a function? This is not the
which it is a function do not occur in close temporal place to answer such questions in detail, but I
or spatial proximity, and we must wait for phys- must at least suggest the kind of answer that may
iology to make the connection. When it does so, be given. William James questioned the causal
it will not invalidate the behavioral account (in- order: Perhaps we do not strike because we are
deed, its assignment could be said to be specified angry but feel angry because we strike. That does
by that account), nor will it make its terms and not bring us back to the environment, however,
principles any the less useful. A science of be- although James and others were on the right track.
havior will be needed for both theoretical and What we feel are conditions of our bodies, most
practical purposes even when the behaving organ- of them closely associated with behavior and with
ism is fully understood at another level, just as the circumstances in which we behave. We both
much of chemistry remains useful even though a strike and feel angry for a common reason,, and
detailed account of a single instance may be given that reason lies in the environment. In short, the
at the level of molecular or atomic forces. Such, bodily conditions we feel are collateral products of
then, is the science of behavior from which I sug- our genetic and environmental histories. They have
gest we have been divertedby several kinds of no explanatory force; they are simply additional
facts to be taken into account.
dalliance to which I now turn.
Feelings enjoy an enormous advantage over
genetic and environmental histories. They are
Feelings and Their Relation to Behavior
warm, salient, and demanding, where facts about
Very little biology is handicapped by the fact that the environment are easily overlooked. Moreover,
the biologist is himself a specimen of the thing he they are immediately related to behavior, being
is studying, but that part of the science with which collateral products of the same causes, and have
we are here concerned has not been so fortunate. therefore commanded more attention than the
We seem to have a kind of inside information about causes .themselves, which are often rather remote.
our behavior. It may be true that the environ- In doing so, they have proved to be one of the
ment shapes and controls our behavior as it shapes most fascinating attractions along the path of
and controls the behavior of other speciesbut we dalliance.
have feelings about it. And what a diversion they
have proved to be. Our loves, our fears, our feel- Environment and Its Relation to Behavior
ings about war, crime, poverty, and Godthese A much more important diversion has, for more
are all basic, if not ultimate, concerns. And we than 2,000 years, made any move toward a science
are as much concerned about the feelings of others. of behavior particularly difficult. The environment
Many of the great themes of mythology have been acts upon an organism at the surface of its body,
about feelingsof the victim on his way to sacri- but when the body is our own, we seem to observe
fice or of the warrior going forth to battle. We its progress beyond that point; for example, we
read what poets tell us about their feelings, and seem to see the real world become experience, a
we share the feelings of characters in plays and physical presentation become a sensation or a pernovels. We follow regimens and take drugs to cept. ,Indeed, this second stage may be all we see.
alter our feelings. We become sophisticated about Reality may be merely an inference and, according
them in, say, the manner of La Rochefoucauld, to some authorities, a bad one. What is important
noting that jealousy thrives on doubt, or that the may not be the physical world on the far side of
clemency of a ruler is a mixture of vanity, laziness, the skin but what that world means to us on this
and fear. And along with some psychiatrists we side.
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST JANUARY 197S 43
An Inner Life
I have said that much of biology looks inside a
living system for an explanation of how it works.
But that is not true of all of biology. Sir Charles
Bell could write a book on the hand as evidence of
design. The hand was evidence; the design lay
elsewhere. Darwin found the design, too, but in
a different place. He could catalog the creatures
he discovered on the voyage of the Beagle in terms
of their form or structure, and he could classify
barnacles for years in the same way, but he looked
beyond structure for the principle of natural selection. It was the relation of the organism to the
environment that mattered in evolution. And it is
the relation to environment that is of primary concern in the analysis of behavior. Hence, it is not
enough to confine oneself to organization or structure, even of the most penetrating kind. That is
the mistake of most of phenomenology, existentialism, and the structuralism of anthropology and
linguistics. When the important thing is a relation to the environment, as in the phylogeriy and
ontogeny of behavior, the fascination with an inner
system becomes a simple digression.
We have not advanced more rapidly to the
methods and instruments needed in the study of
behavior precisely because of the diverting preoccupation with a supposed or real inner life. It
is true that the introspective psychologist and he
model builder have investigated environments, I lUt
they have done so only to throw some light on he
internal events in which they are interested. Tl ey
are no doubt well-intentioned helpmates, but tl ey
have often simply misled those who undertake he
study of the organism as a behaving system in its
own right. Even when helpful, an observed or
hypothetical inner determiner is no explanation of
behavior until it has itself been explained, and the
fascination with an inner life has allayed curiosity
about the further steps to be taken.
I can hear my critics: "Do you really mean to
say that all those who have inquired into the human mind, from Plato and Aristotle through the
46 JANUARY 1975 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST
is not dalliance; it is clearly an obstacle rather works, a tendency doubly powerful in the case of
than a diversion, for ancient fears are not easily behavior because of the apparent inside informaallayed. A shift in emphasis from the individual tion supplied by feelings and introspectively obto the environment, particularly to the social en- served states. Our only recourse is to leave that
vironment, is reminiscent of various forms of totali- subject to the physiologist, who has, or will have,
tarian statism. It is easy to turn from what may the only appropriate instruments and methods. We
seem like an inevitable movement in that direction have also been encouraged to move in a centripetal
and to take one's chances with libertarianism. But direction because the discovery of controlling forces
much remains to be analyzed in that position. For in the environment has seemed to reduce the credit
example, we may distinguish between liberty and due us for our achievements and to suggest that
license by holding to the right to do as we please the struggle for freedom has not been as fully
provided we do not infringe upon similar rights of successful as we had imagined. We are not yet
others, but in doing so we conceal or disguise the ready to accept the fact that the task is to change,
public sanctions represented by private rights. not people, but rather the world in which they live.
Rights and duties, like a moral or ethical sense,
are examples of hypothetical internalized environ- A Different Approach
mental sanctions.
We shall be less reluctant to abandon these diverIn the long run, the aggrandizement of the insions and to attack these obstacles, as we come to
dividual jeopardizes the future of the species and
understand the possibility of a different approach.
the culture. In effect, it infringes the so-called
The role of the environment in human affairs has
rights of billions of people still to be born, in whose
not, of course, gone unnoticed. Historians and
interests only the weakest of sanctions are now
biographers have acknowledged influences on humaintained. We are beginning to realize the magman conduct, and literature has made the same
nitude of the problem of bringing human behavior
point again and again. The Enlightenment adunder the control of a projected future, and we are
vanced the cause of the individual by improving
already suffering from the fact that we have come
the world in which he livedthe Encyclopedia of
very late to recognize that mankind will have a
Diderot and D'Alembert was designed to further
future only if it designs a viable way of life. I
changes of that sort, and by the nineteenth cenwish I could share the optimism of both Darwin
tury the controlling force of the environment was
and Herbert Spencer that the course of evolution clearly recognized. Bentham and Marx have been
is necessarily toward perfection. It appears, on
called behaviorists, although for them the enthe contrary, that that course must be corrected
vironment determined behavior only after first
from time to time. But if the intelligent behavior
determining consciousness, and this was an unthat corrects it is also a product of evolution, then
fortunate qualification because the assumption of
perhaps they were right after all. But it could be a
a mediating state clouded the relation between
near thing.
the terminal events.
The role of the environment has become clearer
Diversions and Obstacles
in the present century. Its selective action in
Perhaps it is now clear what I mean by diversions evolution has been examined by the ethologists,
and obstacles. The science I am discussing is the and a similar selective action during the life of the
investigation of the relation between behavior and individual is the subject of the experimental analythe environmenton the one hand, the environ- sis of behavior. In the current laboratory, very
ment in which the species evolved and which is complex environments are constructed and their
responsible for the facts investigated by the etholo- effects on behavior studied. I believe this work
gists and, on the other hand, the environment in offers consoling reassurance to those who are rewhich the individual lives and in response to which luctant to abandon traditional formulations. Unat any moment he behaves. We have been diverted fortunately, it is not well known outside the field.
from, and blocked in, our inquiries into the rela- Its practical uses are, however, beginning to attions between behavior and those environments by tract attention. Techniques derived from the
an absorbing interest in the organism itself. We analysis have proved useful in other parts of
have been misled by the almost instinctive ten- biologyfor example, physiology and psychodency to look inside any system to see how it pharmacologyand have already led to the im48 JANUARY 1975 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST
the environment is within reach and we are learning how to change it.
And so I return to the role that has been assigned to me as a kind of twentieth-century Calvin,
calling on you to forsake the primrose path of total
individualism, of self-actualization, self-adoration,
and self-love, and to turn instead to the construction of that heaven on earth which is, I believe,
within reach of the methods of science. I wish to
testify that, once you are used to it, the way is not
so steep or thorny after all.
REFERENCES
Onians, R. D. The origins of European thought. Cambridge, England: University Press, 1951.
Sherrington, C. S. Integrative action of the nervous system. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1906.
Skinner, B. F. Beyond freedom and dignity. New York:
Knopf, 1971.