Operant conditioning is B.F. Skinner’s name for instrumental learning: learning by consequences. Not a new idea, of course. Humanity has always known how to teach children and animals by means of ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American While second nature to many of us, driving a ...

B.F. Skinner was one of those intellectual supernovae who shine brilliantly in the academic heavens, then vanish, seemingly without a trace. Scarcely three years after the famed Harvard professor’s ...