We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SkinnerRead
The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior - verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Thought is not a mysterious process but rather a form of behavior itself.
This quote by B. F. Skinner highlights the idea that thought should be understood as a behavior rather than as a separate or mysterious entity that drives behavior. It suggests that our thoughts, whether expressed verbally or nonverbally, are intrinsically linked to our actions and reactions, emphasizing the complexity and interrelationship of behavior and thought within a broader context.
Themes
ThoughtBehaviorPsychologyComplexityCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
During a psychology class, to illustrate the connection between thought and behavior.
More from B. F. Skinner
All quotes →Each 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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