Happy Belated Birthday, B.F. Skinner! Here's Your Gift

Celebrating by addressing misinformation and providing resources for the behavior curious

They say that if you have haters, you’ve made it.

Judging by the amount of misinformation about B.F. Skinner as person, scientist, and philosopher — during his lifetime and 36 years after his death — he definitely made it.

This post includes resources for finding credible information about the most eminent psychologist of the 20th century, B.F. Skinner, his philosophy of science, radical behaviorism, and the field his work produced, behavior analysis. It’s not a cumulative record, but it’s a start.

Thanks for reading Everyday Behaviorist, where I write memoir, fiction, poetry, and prose, from my radical behaviorist lens. This is a rare post that lands outside creative writing, but I hope you read and save it for later, as there are lots of resources here.

Skinner, happy to celebrate. Credit: Copilot, Getty Images.

Self-compassion, Skinner’s gift to me

Skinner’s biggest contributions to the world can be argued elsewhere, but his biggest gift to me has been self-compassion, or the ability to expand the locus of control around self, to include that of other, at any given time. I talk about this often; here, I’ll illustrate with today’s example:

Friday, March 20, 2026, was B.F. Skinner’s 122nd birthday and the 6th annual World Behavior Analysis Day. Nearly 100,000 Behavior Analysts worldwide celebrated, along with our friends, family, clients, and subscribers. ;)

Annnd, despite starting this post and working on it for hours, across days, I missed it — not only that day, but the next day and the one after it, too. Very on-brand of me.

“Jennifer, with the ADHD and the time-blindness and the bad habits and the disorganization. Jennifer, with the fight-or-flight brain and dysregulated nervous system and the ENFP personality. Isn’t it that empaths are always late — especially when Mercury is in retrograde or the 9th house of their sun rising signs?”

Yes, it’s easy to look to faulty insides (or astrological fate) for reasons why — those explanations are differentially available and differentially reinforced by our verbal communities.

But this man — this compassionate, brilliant, and oft-misrepresented man, B.F. Skinner — would have been the very first to say,

“Thank you for the thoughtfulness, Jennifer. No worries on timing — no constructs inside you are to blame. You are not to blame.¹ You’re doing the best you can, given everything. And my, how we know very little of anyone’s everything! This is merely fixed-interval responding with a 3-day limited hold. You’re right on time. Besides, I saw you writing and re-writing, unsure where to post this. All those choices and no will to find the way!” [Wink, wink.]

At least, that’s the kind of grace he gives me when he visits me in meditations. And, of course, that version of him is merely me, or what I know of him, based on what he’s said and how deeply I’ve learned it.

Skinner visiting me in meditation, lol! (image: copilot)

That is, we get to know people, living or dead, from their behavior: observable words and actions, across time. We also get to know ourselves from our behavior — verbal behavior, mostly — which also comes from other people, but let’s not skip ahead.

Of course, if someone’s dead, there is no behavior — no person being, moving, thinking, feeling — so we can’t get to know them directly.

Where do we turn?

B.F. Skinner and pigeon, Getty Images

How NOT to learn about behaviorism

Surely, we do not get our information about the most influential psychologist of the 20th century from neuroscientists like Robert Sapolsky whose descriptions of behaviorism suggest he has never encountered a lick of behaviorism beyond PSYC 101. We all know Intro Pych textbooks are often mistaken² about behaviorism. (Have you done the math on that, by the way? I did. It’s discouraging.³ )

And we do not get our information about B.F. Skinner or Radical Behaviorism from, say, linguists like Noam Chomsky, who, early on, with the future of his career at stake, took a handful of Skinner’s words at lay value and misinterpreted the rest, for decades.⁴ Too bad, too. Some think we could have done great things together — and we still can, there’s just some history to overcome.

And we do not get our information about behaviorism from comedians like John Cleese — or anyone who thinks Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner were a lineage, or that Ivar Lovaas started applied behavior analysis, or that school professionals using token boards and star charts without expert guidance know anything about the principles of behavior that make those systems effective (or not).⁵

These people may be experts, but not on behaviorism. Not on Skinner. Do not confuse entertainment with expertise.

No, we do not get our information about the most influential psychologist of the 20th century — or the intricacies of the field and practice his science and philosophy generated, behavior analysis — from people who’ve spent very little of their lives getting to know them.

That just doesn’t make sense, does it?

Yet, it’s what’s happening. Lots of people are listening to non-behavior analysts talk about behaviorism or behavior analysis. It’s everywhere.

From sitcoms to legislatures, from education to healthcare, from comedians to linguists and neuroscientists, misinformation about behaviorism has spread far and wide. Countering misinformation as an individual is tantamount to windmill tilting.

… here I am, tilting.

Pigeons playing ball, Getty Images

How to learn about behaviorism, legitimately

The best way to get to know Skinner or learn about radical behaviorism/behavior analysis is through primary source material. Like Marcus Aurelius astutely observed, verbal products are only as lasting as the forms in which they’re preserved.

Luckily, B.F. Skinner wrote a lot — and many of his essays are more accessible than you’d think. One of my favorites that might interest fellow writers is his Lecture on ‘Having’ a Poem.⁶

Also luckily, the B.F. Skinner Foundation is intent on preserving Skinner’s legacy, so if you want primary source material, that’s the first place to start. ⁷

We can also glean information about behaviorism or Skinner from people who’ve made his science and philosophy — and variations thereof — their entire careers. These include his contemporaries, students, their students’ students, or anyone who has otherwise devoted considerable time to learning, reading, and interpreting — with expert feedback — his research and writing. Luckily, we have lots of these people, too— myself included. More listed below.

Credible Sources: A Short List

• The B. F. Skinner Foundation — for primary source material, archives, videos, and ongoing efforts to preserve and disseminate Skinner’s work

• B.F. Skinner himself — he wrote extensively, and we can learn directly from him. About Behaviorism is a great place to start, as are these PDF articles

• Journals and magazines

  • Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior or the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis — if you’re feeling ambitious or academically curious

  • The journal Perspectives on Behavior Science is an interesting place to read our thoughts on our own field

  • Operants Magazine offers contemporary issues, accessibly

• Professional Associations for Behavior Analysis — all have excellent resources

  • The Association for Behavior Analysis International

  • The Association of Professional Behavior Analysts

  • Division 25 of The American Psychological Association

• Behavior Analysts’ National Accrediting Body (USA)

  • The Behavior Analyst Certification Board

Contributions of Behavior Analysis

• If you want a quick overview of the many populations we’ve impacted, this paper is an excellent resource, an A to Z list⁸

Book Clubs

• Here is an upcoming book club, for reading About Behaviorism with Kiki Yablon

• From me?? Floating the idea of a book or article club, as I love teaching, and I’ve taught and taken a considerable amount of coursework, practiced it, etc. Putting out feelers. LMK if interested.

Behaviorist Content Creators

• Selectionist, Behavior Scientists on Science , Annie Grossman , Eric Zeissig , Matt Normand , Faris R. Kronfli , Paul Coyne, Francesca degli Espinosa, Samantha Parnham, Fred, , Diary Of Alyssa, Karissa Knows Behavior, Special Education Today with John Wills Lloyd, Brandon Herscovitch PhD , Kevin Luczynski, Dr.Hank Schlinger — all of these accounts are run by behavior analysts (or adjacent) who write and generate educational content here on Substack. (I’ll uodate this resource as new behaviorists join this space. Overlapping communities, larger audiences, broader reach!)

• One of my favorite short-form behavior science creators, Jared Van, is not yet on Substack, but catch him elsewhere. I’d be happy to attempt a more complete list of creators across platforms another time, if anyone is interested.

Lil’ Ol’ Me!

• I have this publication, Everyday Behaviorist, but I also have Behavior Curious and Operant Spirituality — and about a million ideas for video content and a podcast. (I would love to collaborate with behaviorists.) I also have a Facebook account, Instagram, and website — and I recently started a YouTube account! I’m sharing a fraction of what I want to share, in ways my tech limitations and total environment allows. Thanks for being here for what I can share, given everything. You’re kind and patient, and I appreciate you SO MUCH.

B.F. Skinner, Getty Images

Your Gift to B.F. Skinner

Misinformation about behaviorism and B.F. Skinner abounds. You will likely encounter it at some point. When you hear something negative, please do two things:

Look to the source. Ask yourself,

How much do they actually know about behaviorism? Are they an expert of a different ilk? Are they saying these things because it’s important or because it’s an easy way to get audience buy-in, insert a joke, or better make their point? How much time with primary source material have they truly spent? Have they studied behaviorism formally, or did they take more general psychology classes and call it a day? Have they ever conducted operant research or application? Do they even know what that means?

When you encounter misinformation or dismissal of behaviorism, consider replying, “That’s one perspective, but you should meet my friend, Jennifer, and her broader community. I think it’s more complicated than most understand.”

---

Twinkle, Twinkle: A Parting Story

I leave you with a personal communication with one of my former colleagues and historian of behavior analysis, Ed Morris, who, when I asked what he’d say to someone like John Cleese, who brazenly bashed behavorism for no apparent reason, quoted me this:

Misrepresentation, of course, is nothing new. Indeed, only a tart tongue and a little cynicism are required, as the following not entirely original story illustrates:

Two people are sitting next to each other on an airplane. The first passenger asked what the second one did for a living.

The second replied, “I’m a behavioral psychologist.”

“Ah,” quipped the first, “I’m ok, you’re ok, huh?”

“No,” said the second, this time with emphasis, “I’m a behavioral psychologist.”

“Oh, I see,” said the first, “All M&Ms and shock therapy.”

The second passenger paused a little dejectedly and asked what the first passenger did.

The first replied, “Oh, I’m an astrophysicist.”

“Ah,” said the second, seizing the opportunity, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”⁹

B.F. Skinner, Getty Images

More on misconceptions of radical behaviorism and behavior analysis another day, in my publication Behavior Curious. Please subscribe! If you’d like to check out my Instagram in the meantime, a good deal of my content is devoted to misinformation.

Thanks for reading. Happy Belated Birthday, Skinner.

Peace, love, and stimulus control,

Jennifer

AI disclosure

Here, an LLM was used to clarify my ramblings and reorder topics, but it did not generate any of my verbal units. Images generated by Copilot using publicly available images. Future me might make a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale of AI influence because I think it’s tragic we increasingly cannot tell the difference between human and non-human work, especially when it comes to creative products.

1. Skinner, B. F. (1955). Freedom and the control of men. The American Scholar, 47-65.

2. Todd, J. T., & Morris, E. K. (1983). Misconception and miseducation: Presentations of radical behaviorism in psychology textbooks. The Behavior Analyst, 6(2), 153-160.

3. https://instagram.com/p/C8Ucs-YRL5h

4. The go-to essay on Chomsky’s misinterpretation: MacCorquodale, K. (1970). On Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s Verbal behavior. Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 13(1), 83. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1333660/pdf/jeabehav00145-0085.pdf

5. For a few years, I tackled misinformation on Instagram. One video is linked above. The videos and resources filed under this highlight section (misconceptions) cover most everything I mentioned in this paragraph. I didn’t want to bombard you with links and footnotes, but if you’re truly curious, my IG might be is a fun rabbit hole. One day, I will be able to pull all this together more cohesively. Right now, you get eclectic creativity. :)

6. Skinner, B. F. (1972). A lecture on “having a poem” Em BF Skinner (Ed.), Cumulative record.

7. Incidentally, a fictional series of mine, A Rat Walks into a Chamber, about an experimental rat named Gladys experiencing burnout, is currently running a 5-part series in Operants Magazine. It’s free to subscribe!

8. Heward, W. L., Critchfield, T. S., Reed, D. D., Detrich, R., & Kimball, J. W. (2022). ABA from A to Z: Behavior science applied to 350 domains of socially significant behavior. Perspectives on behavior science, 45(2), 327-359.

9. Morris E. K. (1992). The aim, progress, and evolution of behavior analysis. The Behavior Analyst, 15(1), 3-29.