The author of that book has been writing about behavior for years. And yet when I once sent him a picture of B. F. Skinner, he didn’t know who that was.
If you really think you need to optimize yourself, I’d recommend to skip the millennial bestseller lists and to closer to the source.
A few recommendations:
Self Help Without the Hype (R. Epstein)
Tiny Habits (BJ Fogg)
Self-Directed Behavior: Self-Modification for Personal Adjustment (Watson/Tharp)
Don't Shoot the Dog (Pryor)
> And yet when I once sent him a picture of B. F. Skinner, he didn’t know who that was
I am familiar with Skinner and his work and I would also not recognize him from a photo. I also wouldn't recognize Freud, Jung, Pavlov, or Zimbardo from their pictures either. Am I missing something?
What does "am familiar" mean? You have heard "of" them, or you have read their work?
With Skinner, even if you just read a biography, I would imagine that it's hard that one would not want to Google more about his stuff... his "Baby In A Box" thing, pigeons playing ping-ping, 1960s learning machines, etc.. And there are several very interesting YouTube videos about these things, many originals from the 1950s-1980s. If one is even just mildly interested in learning more about the kind of behavior modification that Skinner popularized, it seems really odd to me how one could not look at the man himself.
Besides, there are photos in most biographies. [1]
I don't expect the person on the street to know who Skinner is. But if someone makes their living writing blog posts and books about Skinnerian ideas, I do expect them to have done their homework.
When I was interested in Jung, I actually went to Küsnacht. Even met his grandson. Watched all the video interviews with him that still exist. And I'm not a journalist at all. Just deeply curious when I encounter someone with ideas that interest me.
But perhaps that's exactly my point:
Being successful in writing and marketing books about behavior modification and actually modifying behavior are two completely different sets of skills.
OG Skinner one the one hand and these popular books based on his ideas on the other hand are, to me, polar opposites:
Skinner did the experiments and found the things that worked. But he was terrible at anything one could consider marketing or self-promotion. The Aircrib story is the best example. Good stuff; terrible packaging.
A book on today's bestseller list about behavior modification that's written by an author who, apparently, has never even read a biography of Skinner, or watched a single interview with him, is the very opposite. Great packaging; zero original work.
Skinner, to me, is Zero to One. Self-Help books repackaging his ideas are One to Many. It's totally fine that this second category exists. Yet if people struggle with the second category of material, I want to encourage them to go looking closer to the source.
Like in programming, where you may go from using someone else's paid API to using an open source library. It increases your understanding of the problem space, makes you feel more confident in your abilities, and, most important of all, makes you appreciate the work of all those that came before you.
[1] B.F. Skinner: A Life, by Daniel W. Bjork is amazing. I think it would be a fun read even to someone not interested in psychology per se, given the "hacker mindset", natural curiosity and "make do" mentality that Skinner exemplified.
> What does "am familiar" mean? You have heard "of" them, or you have read their work?
Somewhere in between. I read about his concepts from secondary sources. In college, as a part of a project, we built a crude conditioning chamber. The thing I remembered the most was that handling lab animals is difficult, especially if you're not trained to do it.
Which of Skinner's experiments have you tried to replicate?
> With Skinner, even if you just read a biography, I would imagine that it's hard that one would not want to Google more about his stuff.
I'm not a big fan of biographies. One of the few I enjoyed was Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, but it's more of a collection of anecdotes. And even then I was more interested in the environment the stories took place in rather than Mr. Feynman himself. (As an aside, I'm going to read the biography you recommended.)
I'm more of a "separate art from the artist" kind of person. Or rather "ideas should stand on their own". Sure, I lose a lot of context by discarding the person behind it. But if it's necessary, then it means the original idea wasn't explained clearly enough.
Because you talked a lot about Skinner's photo, I looked it up. He looks unremarkable. I don't know what to make of it. If you show me his photo again in six months, I won't remember it. His ideas would be the same if he was bald, wore a monocle, had a beard, or if I've seen his picture taken 20 years earlier. It has no effect on his body of work.
We don't have photos of ancient philosophers. It doesn't make their ideas inferior or incomplete.
> Like in programming, where you may go from using someone else's paid API to using an open source library. It increases your understanding of the problem space, makes you feel more confident in your abilities, and, most important of all, makes you appreciate the work of all those that came before you.
I haven't thought about it, but it sounds reasonable. It still doesn't push me to learn about their personal lives or find their photos.
There are people in my life that I'm interested about on a personal level. My family. My friends. My neighbors. They are important to me. I'm happy to see their photos.
> A book on today's bestseller list about behavior modification that's written by an author who, apparently, has never even read a biography of Skinner, or watched a single interview with him, is the very opposite. Great packaging; zero original work.
> Skinner, to me, is Zero to One. Self-Help books repackaging his ideas are One to Many. It's totally fine that this second category exists. Yet if people struggle with the second category of material, I want to encourage them to go looking closer to the source.
This is interesting and it's worth exploring. You seem knowledgeable about it. Have you thought about writing more about this gap? Perhaps even bridging it yourself. It would do a lot of service to the OGs of the field.
That is the mainstream view. I know. And yet books like Atomic Habits rank way up there in the bestseller lists.
Skinner is probably the most underestimated figure in 20th century science. His ideas are generating billions in value to this day. And yet the sentiment most people hold about him is the one you just shared.
I’m on my phone and can’t go into details. But the whole aspect of gamification - in games, social media, TikTok, productivity apps, learning apps - is very much OG Skinner. And ChatGPT reinforcement learning? Behaviorism applied to virtual agents.
Is there any way to get the first book in e-book format? I only see options to buy a used physical copy, and international shipments to my country are... untrustworthy, at best.
If you really think you need to optimize yourself, I’d recommend to skip the millennial bestseller lists and to closer to the source.
A few recommendations:
Self Help Without the Hype (R. Epstein) Tiny Habits (BJ Fogg) Self-Directed Behavior: Self-Modification for Personal Adjustment (Watson/Tharp) Don't Shoot the Dog (Pryor)
Really, just the first one will likely be enough.