People get touchy when it comes to the brain. Political psychology is getting into zones now where it borders on or ventures well into non-coercive manipulation. Skinner started some of those thought streams in his work on behaviour, but that doesn’t mean he created or planned for people like Karl Rove to exploit them.
tldr: grad school ruined me. Can’t read a news article or worse watch TV News without getting grumpy at the shameless manipulation by all parties - particularly the media outlet. Help me BoingBoing, you’re my only hope.
I spent a few months doing research for my dissertation at the University of Akron’s Center for the History of Psychology. They specialize in collecting the physical apparatuses used, and as a result I was able to take my notes with Skinner’s Baby Box on one side and the Milgram “shock generator” on the other.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in when Deborah stopped by to see the box and reminisce about her (positive) memories…
While a foreign grad student in engineering in the US in 1971, I came across Beyond Freedom and Dignity. I hated Skinner initially (because I did not understand him) but have been a fervent Skinnerian for the last several decades. His (much misunderstood) ideas (for instance and especially his theory of verbal behavior) are breakthrough ones and are major steps forward in the history of human thought.
There are several replies to Chomsky’s criticism of Skinner. My favorite is the following:
