The Behavior of Organisms

✍ Scribed by B. F. Skinner

• Publisher: B. F. Skinner Foundation
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 494
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

With the publication of his first book, The Behavior of Organisms (1938), B. F. Skinner launched a new science based on selection by consequences as the mechanism through which behavior changes during the lifetime of the individual. The book summarizes nearly ten years of research, spanning the years of Skinner’s graduate school days at Harvard through his three years as a member of the Society of Fellows. In the book, Skinner defines his basic unit of behavior, which he named the operant, proposes rate as the basic datum, and describes his research program–to identify the variables of which behavior is a function.

✦ Table of Contents

Half Title Page......Page 2
Title Page......Page 3
Copyright......Page 4
Dedication......Page 5
Acknowledgments for this e-book version......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 7
Acknowledgments......Page 8
Foreword......Page 9
Preface to the Seventh Printing......Page 12
Contents......Page 18
I. A System of Behavior......Page 20
II. Scope and Method......Page 60
III. Conditioning and Extinction......Page 77
IV. Periodic Reconditioning......Page 132
V. The Discrimination of a Stimulus......Page 186
VI. Some Functions of Stimuli......Page 253
VII. Temporal Discrimination of the Stimulus......Page 285
VIII. The Differentiation of a Response......Page 334
IX. Drive......Page 369
X. Drive and Conditioning: The Interaction of Two Variables......Page 407
XI. Other Variables Affecting Reflex Strength......Page 437
XII. Behavior and the Nervous System......Page 450
XIII. Conclusion......Page 465
References......Page 476
Index......Page 481