Douglas Cooper and George O’Brien visit B. F. Skinner, the behavioral
psychologist, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They discuss
Skinner’s youth, his views on the future of the United States, and the
implications of his psychological work.
When Skinner was young,
he originally pursued writing. At Harvard, he received a great deal of
encouragement from a number of mentors. There was not much work being
done in behavioral psychology then, in the 1930s, but Skinner and his
contemporaries pursued the field and it grew.
They discuss
technologies of behavior, the workings of reinforcement, and the
difficulty of predicting the future, as well as problems with the
strategies developed by the environmental movement. Skinner believes
that people are inclined to forget things that scare them, or to push
them aside. They also discuss the problem of disengaged youth.
The
Douglas P. Cooper Distinguished Contemporaries Collection (1967-1974)
contains rare interviews with influential writers, statesmen, artists,
songwriters, journalists and others who have left their mark on our
culture.
