ABA (May, 26, 1983). Interview with B. F. Skinner

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Interview with B.F. Skinner 
May 26, 1983 
The ABA Convention, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA 
Note: The two mentors I had at Eastern Michigan University (Prof. Dennis Delprato and Prof. 
Peter Holmes) were staunch behaviorists and back in 1982, they developed my interest in 
Behaviorism. Well, Delprato called himself an inter-behaviorist! I accompanied Peter from 
Ypsilanti to Milwaukee on his car to attend the Applied Behavior Analysis Convention and 
already had a promise from B.F. Skinner that he will see me for a short interview on some issues 
regarding psychology and religion. I had arrived to the US from India in 1981 and had the 
courage to write to Skinner and he had replied! My professors were happy about this whole thing 
and Dennis played the taped interview in his graduate course for discussions. Dr. Jack Michael, 
my professor at Western Michigan University and an avid fan and colleague of Skinner was also 
happy to read this interview. This is a historic (and unpublished) piece so I am posting it on my 
website! Reader‘s comments are welcome! Skinner‘s two letters are appended in the end. Also 
see my second note after the interview. 
AH: Radical behaviorism has attracted the attention of scholars and others throughout the world 
who are attempting to understand human behavior. What do you think is the reason for this? 
BFS: Because I think it is entirely a new way of talking about human behavior and a way we 
have got eventually to face. The whole issue is not really dualism; that was a great mistake, I 
assume we are all monistic when we get right down to it, the serious people are anyway! But it is 
a question of whether behavior originates inside the individual or is retraceable to prior events of 
individual; history of the species, in the personal experiences of the individual; in the culture 
which has made possible for the individual to so much more than any person could ever do in a 
lifetime by utilizing what others have learned in the past. I think that the whole question of the 
origination of behavior, the creation of behavior is parallel with Darwin‘s problem of the 
creation of the worlds, and the early version was the Cartesian mechanistic version; somebody 
made it and Darwin and his descendants are still having trouble making the case for variation and 
selection as the explanation of novelty and origination, and Darwin‘s key title was ―origin‖. And 
I am concerned with the origin of behavior. And it is exactly parallel with the origination of 
species, and to account for behavior one must look at what has happened to the individual. It just 
not originates ―in anything‖. 
AH: What do you say to those who insist that human behavior cannot be understood 
scientifically; instead they attribute factors to non-observable mentalistic and/or spiritual? 
BFS: Well, I just say that it‘s up to them to show that! I don‘t attempt to account for the various 
explanations of behavior that have been offered throughout the time. All kinds of explanations as 
you know, every religion has its own explanation, all types of philosophical explanation have 
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been offered for two or three thousand years. I wouldn‘t try to explain those. I feel that science 
has evolved to the point at which we can talk about phenomena in terms of centimeters, grams, 
and seconds; and the dimensional space, and that is why we do, we have termed behavior and 
investigate its causes in the old fashion sense and find no need for assuming some other kind of 
cause. 
AH: Numerous thinkers have offered what they consider to be scientific approaches to human 
behavior. Yet, these approaches appear to differ widely. How can this be? 
BFS: The approaches differ because of the background of those who approach and it all depends 
upon where you come from and what you do! 
AH: Development interactions, you mean? 
BFS: I don‘t like the work development myself; it‘s the world that develops, and of course, 
individuals follow suit of developing too. I am not a structuralist! The structuralist watches 
behavior developing without looking at the reasons why it changes. It doesn‘t simply grow as an 
embryo grows; it changes as the world around changes. 
AH: Do you find any common core of impediments to the understanding or acceptance of radical 
behaviorism? 
BFS: Well, only all the other competing versions of human behavior are impediments! The 
English language is full of terms which imply on scientific explanations of behavior and that are 
an impediment to all of us, to myself, as anyone else. It is very hard to continue to speak 
carefully about human behavior. And many people have vested interests, they have reasons for 
holding to some other kind of explanation very important to them. In that case, they will incline 
to continue that way. 
AH: Radical behaviorism limits its emphasis on functional relations between antecedent stimulus 
conditions and organism’s subsequent response. Why does it ignore the organism as a partial 
factor in itself and the broader field or context in which it interacts with the environment, with its 
history and setting events? Why doesn’t it consider the global historical inter-behaviors or 
complex behavioral transactions into account? 
BFS: Well, I think it does, but does it in a different way. You are quite wrong that we are only 
concerned with responses to stimuli; that is old-fashioned, that is fifty years out-of-date now. I 
think selection by consequence is the important thing. Environment doesn‘t triggers behavior; 
that is an old-fashioned stuff; the environment selects behavior and strengthens it according to 
the consequences and that is transaction if you want to call it that way, its developmental if you 
want to say that. But you can say it more precisely by sticking to the facts. Something 
reinforcing happens and you are likely to do it again. And something very complex arrangements 
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of variables lead to very complex behaviors including the behavior which has been attributed to 
higher mental processes, all the transactions and so on. 
AH: Even though rejecting the concept of “mind”, behaviorists seem to still retain the 
traditional view of “body”, which would imply a mindless body! How do we go about rejecting 
this dualism? 
BFS: I don‘t understand what you are saying actually. I don‘t reject the concept of mind. I try to 
describe what has been going on when people have used that term. I myself would tell you what 
has been passing my mind without bluffing. But I don‘t believe it is any different kind of stuff; 
nor do I believe it has any function in originating my behavior. I look into how people come to 
see things, how they learn to see, and how they can see when nothing is there to be seen. We can 
do this without assuming that there are copies of the environment inside the form of perceptions, 
images, memories, and so on. We deal with all of the observable facts without postulating any 
different kind of stuff and that‘s all there is to it. 
AH: How do you define mind? 
BFS: I would define it as a concept which people have created in order to deal with some other 
complicated facts of human behavior until they have found a better way to deal with it. You take 
any expression that passes through your mind. What does that mean? It means that you are 
engaging in perceptual behavior which you had to acquire; you weren‘t born with it – as result of 
the contingencies which you have experienced in the past and which in the presence of certain 
stimuli are certain consequences that follow. Take another one – I have a mind to do it, what 
does this mean? It means that you are inclined to do it, you have a probability of doing it. The 
words are used in dozensof different ways, and in each case it would be reduced to something 
about probable behavior. And I would reduce the word ‗thinking‘ the same way. To think is to 
behave! 
AH: So, can we say that mind or thought is observable or measurable? 
BFS: It‘s not measureable in CGS Units. It‘s a concept that derives from facts. Phlogistan, for 
example! You need not believe in phlogistan to accept the concept to see how it originated and to 
look at the facts it was intended to explain. You can‘t just dismiss it. Later on better explanation 
of the phenomena might come forward. 
AH: I think radical behaviorism neglects rather subtle but very crucial events like reasoning, 
attention, memory, motivation, dreams, etc. We don’t find satisfactory behavioral literature on 
these private events. Why? 
BFS: They don‘t look for it! It‘s amazing how little, what is going on in behaviorism is looked at 
by the people who criticize it. They repeat each other, they talk to each other. They don‘t talk to 
us and don‘t look at us. 
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AH: Can you explain why? 
BFS: Well, because they have their own interests and we are a threat, because if we are right then 
they are wrong, it is as simple as that. I am working with a colleague, Pierre Julia, whose book 
Explanatory Models in Linguistics has just been published by Princeton Press. He and I have 
been writing for two years on a book on epistemology from a radical behavioral point of view 
that will surprise many cognitive psychologists when it appears except that very few of them will 
look at it. And I know, they would wonder we are not dealing with epistemology. 
AH: What do you think should be done to make applied psychology, especially in clinical 
settings, more effective, and the overall public image of psychology more accepting, prestigious, 
and trustworthy? What message do you have for practicing psychologists and also for 
researchers, both beginners and those in the profession for some time? 
BFS: I have no cook book with which you can find the recipe for thousands of political or 
personal problems. You have to know something about the basic analysis and then design your 
own. If I were a physicist, I could not tell you how to build the Brooklyn Bridge. You have to 
look at Brooklyn and kind of traffic that goes over it and so and so on; and to solve a personal 
problem you have got to know the person. But you must issue knowledge of the science of 
behavior. You are most likely to stop what is wrong and see how it can be remedied. I would ask 
to making this kind of thing more acceptable in a public way, that is a problem. We have not 
been very successful in that. I think this is because we are asking the people to make an 
extraordinary change in the way they think about human behavior—it is just as extraordinary as 
the change Darwin was asking, as its going to cause some kind of problems as many years, I 
suppose. I take a given problem and suggest things to be done after one has looked at the 
situations. I have done that with program instruction for example, I have done a bit of behavior 
therapy, a bit of incentive systems; each of these require analysis of the situation and what can be 
done about it knowing something about behavior. The method follows from the knowledge of 
the science as it relates to a specific situation. 
AH: What is your assessment of psychotherapy and other traditional and non-behavioral 
research and treatment strategies in human psychology? 
BFS: I don‘t really know because it is not my field. I am quite impressed by the way in which 
behavior therapy is now pretty widely accepted without much controversy. The American 
Psychiatric Association published a very good report on it and you see it mentioned with the 
New York Times on Tuesday and something on the psychological aspects of resistance to 
disease and so on. Behavior therapy has been mentioned very prominently there. I think it is 
accepted, in general it points to very specific results more easily than other forms of therapy. 
AH: Please describe ways to lessen the arms race among countries and the growing dependency 
of Third World nations on the super powers. 
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BFS: Well, I if could do it, I wouldn‘t be sitting here and talking to you! I think Charles Osgood 
had a very good suggestion something like thirty years ago, and Reagan has just violated it with 
the MX, because the notion that you must be stronger in order to negotiate is just the wrong thing 
to so. If I could have done what Osgood had said – get together and say to Russia – look, we are 
not going to develop MX missile, now what are you going to do? What concessions will you 
make? We have to make a concession before they make a concession. As soon as you do this, 
they will do something else now. They‘ll strengthen their system for bargaining purposes; there 
is no end to it. 
AH: What happened to those bargains in SALT I and II? Why do you think there is no 
achievement, no success? 
BFS: It has been tried for three, four thousand years. You strengthen your side for bargaining 
purposes as the way Reagan sold it to Congress, but if you want other people to pull back, you 
pull back. It was done actually at the time of the Berlin War, and so on. We tried pulling tanks a 
few miles, and Russia pulled back a few miles. That was too much, too hard to accept, but it 
could be done now. 
AH: Any comments on Arab-Israeli War? 
BFS: Only, that it is a religious war and we must recognize that religion is not doing us peace. 
AH: In the present world, how should we behave us behavioral scientist. What is our duty? 
BFS: Well, I don‘t think we should be trying to run the world. Wes should be advising those who 
are trying to run the world. And they should be listening to us a little more closely than they are 
listening us is all I can say – and just to give you an example, you have to look at all the 
consequences of the action you take. And it may very well be that we have someone in a better 
position to bargain. What else could be done? How much more we have scared the Russians and 
so on? 
AH: Would you agree to Freud’s idea that the concept of God is a man-made delusion who 
mankind still worships and which they created out of their childhood needs? Freud defined 
religion as an illusion… a universal neurosis, a kind of neurosis that hampers the free exercise 
of intelligence and something man will have to give up? 
BFS: Well, I hope they give up but not for all those reasons! It is important for adult reasons as it 
is for a child. I think all cultures have invented Gods as someone usually as a father, or as a ruler, 
a king, for various reasons, someone to appeal to for help, someone to thank for good fortune, 
someone to argue; step in to make reasonable social arrangements and punish wrong doings and 
so on, as an auxiliary to the government. 
AH: So you are saying it is not a good idea to be religious? 
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BFS: Yes, I find it better not to be! My wife and I have raised our children in a non-religious 
way and as far as I know, they are highly moral people doing good to the world. 
AH: Would you then say that religious people are not very intelligent? 
BFS: No, I think that would be a great mistake because some of the most intelligent scientists 
and mathematicians are deeply religious; they are simply not intelligent about that! 
AH: Let me ask why you think are some people extremely religious? 
BFS: Oh, there are all sorts of reasons for that! You have been told you are to be punished; the 
most awful punishment conceived by anybody, eternal damnation and have been scared to death. 
Obviously it is going to be very important to you to feel how you can be saved and if it worksthat way nothing could be more important. 
AH: How do you define God? 
BFS: I wouldn‘t agree with Freud there. It‘s an invention! 
AH: Who was Christ? He was not an invention, was he? 
BFS: Well, I am not even sure of the historical existence of Christ. But probably, there is some 
grain of historical evidence, but very little. I think modern Biblical criticisms beginning with the 
German theologians is pretty clear that the four gospels; Mark was the only one who had any 
kind of direct evidence. The rest were elaborations designed to promote church. 
AH: Did you ever read any book on religion? 
BFS: Bible. I read the Bible just the other day! I happened to be in a hotel with no reading 
material. I read the book with interest. 
AH: How did you find it? 
BFS: I think it is very fascinating as a culture‘s production! It‘s amazing what you find there. 
AH: Any comments on communism? 
BFS: Communism? I don‘t think it works; hasn‘t been shown to work. I am not a Marxist, I am 
far from it. And, communism isn‘t exactly Marxist, but. I don‘t think it‘s a very good version. I 
should not want to live in Russia! 
AH: You would rather live in the United States. 
BFS: Well, yes! But this doesn‘t approve that this is a good world either. It happened to be we 
made to our liking. 
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AH: Professor Skinner, I am very much obliged that you gave me so much of your precious time 
and I know you have multiple commitments today! Thank you very much, Sir! Thank you. 
BFS: You‘re welcome! 
Second Note: Professor Skinner opened the hotel room door for me and I came down to the 
lobby area where delegates were pouring in to register for the convention taking place next 
morning. When Skinner arrived to give his inaugural address, he wore a bishop‘s collar that 
made everyone laugh and Peter said, Amber, this is because of your interview with him, last 
night! I was much impressed by Skinner‘s politeness and willingness to talk a young student 
from India! We spoke for more than an hour. 
I had about two more letter conversations (have copy of just one post-interview letter) with him 
on issues of religion and he almost wrote a paper for me and then gave up due to other 
commitments! My interest in religion was due to my conservative upbringing back home and the 
conflict I faced with behaviorism. I had serious discussions with staunch behaviorists (students 
and professors) at my alma mater but thank God, I managed to graduate in 1993 from Western 
Michigan University. In a long article on the role of spirituality in psychotherapy (2007) I did 
allude to my conversations with Skinner and his life history that made him what he was! 
Amber Haque. PhD 
Al Ain (UAE), 2011 
 
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