Burroughs Frederick Skinner
For more than three decades, from 1945 to 1975, Skinner was the world's most famous psychologist.
In 1970, a random selection of 1,000 members from the APA listed Skinner as the most important figure in contemporary psychology. That same year, another poll listed Skinner as one of the "100 Most Important People in the World today."
A 1971 survey of psychology faculty and graduate students at Johns Hopkins University found skinner to be the most respected social scientist they respected. Hilgard writes, "There is no doubt that Skinner, or Fred, as his friends who know him well, became the most influential, and certainly the most prestigious, American psychologist of his generation."
Ray Goodell surveys college students' recognition of scientists' names: 82 percent of students correctly recognize Skinner, the highest of all scientists, and stand out from celebrities like Margaret Mead (81 percent), Jonas Salk (78 percent), Linus Pauling (50 percent), James Watson (15 percent)5.
Eugene Garfield found skinner to be one of the most frequently cited authors in the social sciences. In addition to Skinner's own voluminous writings—twelve major works, a large number of treatises, and a multi-volume autobiography—there is a great deal of work about him, some in favor of him, some disapproving of him, and some in between.
Finally, there are three journals dedicated to skinner-style approaches to psychology: the Journal of Behavioral Experimental Analysis, founded in 1958 and the most widely circulated of all journals devoted to learning research; the Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, first published in 1968 and the second most widely read journal devoted to the application of psychology; and The Behavioral Analyst, the journal of the Association of Behavioral Analysts. As a modern spokesperson for radical behaviorism, Skinner became a household name through his popular books and works, making appearances, public speeches, debates, and discussions on television talk shows and programs like Nova. He was able to defend his views clearly, effectively, and sometimes with great humor. Skinner was labeled a "moderate anarchist" by one of his biographers for his stubbornness and love of debate, and in the late 1940s, a Harvard professor introduced Skinner to his class as a guest speaker, saying, "I'll introduce Satan now."
When he first appeared on television, the interviewer posed to Skinner Montaigne's dilemma of hypothetical reasoning: "If you had to choose, would you burn your children or your writings?" His answer was to burn his children because he believed that "he would contribute far more to the future through his research than his descendants."
The response provoked an expected outrage, a great deal of controversy, and many televised invitations. It also provoked the ironic comment of one of her two daughters, Julie Vargas, who is a psychologist herself: "Skinner is the father of behavioral analysis and my father." I'm not sure which of the bigger contributions he thinks is."
After the publication of his book Beyond Liberty and Dignity in 1971, Skinner was described by then-U.S. Vice President Spillo Agnew as an "extremist activist who attacked the basic rules of American society and an advocate of radical surgery on the national psyche." Theologian Richard Rubenstein described the book as "not so much a blueprint for a golden age as it could be a blueprint for hell theory and practice." Skinner estimates that 80 percent of the comments on Beyond Liberty and Dignity disagree.
When Skinner appeared on the cover of Time magazine in September 1971, his momentum as a media personality reached its peak. Time intended to stir up controversy with headlines like "Skinner says we can't afford freedom," and it did. Luckily, Skinner withstood notorious and infamous comments; as he put it in a 1972 interview: "My hat still fits."
This article is excerpted from: The Psychologist's Story