Verbal Behavior: Skinner’s great extrapolation

In his 1938 book The Behavior of Organisms Skinner barely mentions human behavior, saying “Let him extrapolate who will.” Skinner himself was already extrapolating. This talk has two parts: The first part traces the development of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior from the 1930s to his 1957 book. The second part discusses Skinner’s basic classification of sources of control, including why a tantrum is not a mand, why a description of a past event is not a tact, and why a tact differs from a referent. Educational implications of the contingencies involved will illustrate Skinner’s analysis.