Skinner, B. F. (1963). Reply to Thouless

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Australian Journal of Psychology 
Vol. 15, No. 2, 1963 
REPLY TO THOULESS 
B. F. SKINNER 
H m m d University 
A valuable characteristic of a teach- 
ing machine programme is that it 
can be tested and improved quanti- 
tatively. Thouless has revealed an- 
other advantage; it can be quantita- 
tively criticized. 
He finds our use of terms like 
“response,” “reinforcement,” and 
“extinction” unclear. The point 
would be more appropriately raised 
with respect to technical wdrks, be- 
cause the text conforms to fairly 
common usage. The terms he men- 
tions are discussed at some length 
in my Science and Human Be- 
havior. The glossary in Schedules 
of Reinforcement by Ferster and 
Skinner carefully distinguishes be- 
tween operations performed on the 
animal and the resulting behavioral 
changes called by the same names. 
Extinction is one of these. The ex- 
pression “reinforcing the pigeon” is 
elliptical for “reinforcing the 
pigeon’s response” but scarcely mis- 
leading. No doubt improvements 
are possible, but an introductory 
text is not the place to debate them. 
The Analysis of Behavior is not 
really a form of drill. There is very 
little actual repetition in it. It is 
redundant, but for a very good 
reason: we develop a concept by 
presenting a term in many syntacti- 
cal forms. It is less important to do 
this in the teaching of facts, though 
it may still be helpful. 
I agree that the book does not in 
general teach a broader understand- 
ing of the subject. It was not meant 
to do so. It was written as a small 
part of an introductory course in 
human behavior, and is obviously 
not a complete textbook in that sub- 
ject. Its principal function is to 
make students reasonably expert in 
using selected technical terms and 
famjliar with selected experimental 
facts. I believe it does this effect- 
tively. I have used the material with 
perhaps a thousand Harvard 
students and would certainly not 
want to teach my course without it. 
I can assure your readers that the 
programme does lead students to 
argue and question. I still have an 
important place in the course. 
The book is also designed to give 
the student some practice in apply- 
ing what he has learned to selected 
episodes in everyday life. Some of 
these are the anecdotes which Thou- 
less calls “fantastic.” I hasten to say 
that the anecdote about Mrs 
Frazier’s dog is authentic. For 
Frazier, read Skinner. To present 
this episode “scientifically,” giving 
a floor plan of the house, tallying 
number of trials and plotting learn- 
ing curves, and comparing different 
breeds of dogs (the dog was actually 
a beagle) would seem to miss the 
point. The episode merely described 
a practical application of some of 
the principles which the student 
had already learned, with the inten- 
tion of calling his attention to com- 
parable episodes in his own life. 
This was also the function of the 
other anecdotes. They are not pre- 
Reply to Thouless 93 
sented as inevitably reproducible 
facts. No doubt every instance of 
appeasement does not reinforce the 
undesirable behavior which led to 
it, but that it may do so is a possi- 
bility to be considered. In that ex- 
ample the word “may” does serve a 
function. Similarly, “whipping a 
horse until it gallops” is an accept- 
able example of negative reinforce- 
ment. The text does not say that 
this is how one trains a horse to 
gallop. And I still feel that a “tear- 
jerker” is so-called because the 
reader reads, continues to read, and 
reads similar books because he “en- 
joys a good cry”-in other words, is 
reinforced by his emotional re- 
sponses. 
A book now in preparation to be 
called T h e Technology of Teaching 
will clarify the theory of education 
underlying teaching machines and 
programmed instruction, though it 
is not primarily designed to do so. 
There will be little in it which 
resembles Thouless’ paraphrase of 
the position he has inferred from 
T h e Analysis of Behavior. It is 
obvious he does not like our book, 
but I do not think he has dis- 
covered why. If he is reacting to the 
general “Skinnerian system of 
thought,” I can only ask that he 
look at it more closely. No one who 
has read other books of mine will, 
I believe, say that whipping a horse 
until it runs would be the “method 
of training in a world created in ac- 
cordance with the principles of Pro- 
fessor Skinner.” Indeed, some of my 
colleagues have spent considerable 
time trying to explain why I am 
so violently opposed bo aversive 
control. 
(Manuscript received I I ApriE 1963)