The Design of Cultures Author(s): B. F. Skinner Source: Daedalus, Vol. 90, No.

3, Evolution and Man's Progress (Summer, 1961), pp. 534-546 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20026672 . Accessed: 14/01/2011 07:43
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The

Design

of Cultures

Anyone

who

undertakes analysis

a scientific

involves provement and that he is exemplifying meddle in human often even themselves

to improve cultural practices by applying is likely to be told that im of human behavior a value the pale of his science judgment beyond

to values by proposing objectionable on human freedoms. affairs and infringe Scientists

of Western accept this standard contention philoso it implies that there is a kind of wisdom which is phy, though denied to them and even though the behavioral scien mysteriously tists among them would be hard pressed to give an empirical account or to discover its sources. of such wisdom The appears gains unwarranted proposition strength to champion the natural the against from the fact that it artificial. Man is a

of nature, the argument runs, but societies are contrived by product men. Man is the measure of all things, and our plans for him?our customs succeed and institutions?will only if they allow for his this it might be answered that man is more than an im he is a psychological mutable processes; entity, product of biological His cause may be as contrived as and as such also largely man-made. as weak. an individual, He and possibly is, nevertheless, society's nature. To are individuals, too, who may borrow zeal in his the one and from their own role in the great conflict between the individual the state, to take a To side with the many. against is reassuringly to defend one's own, even though it specific example, its battles only because that mankind has won be answered might and his defenders defense individual These with 534 men are have merely lost theirs. answers can no doubt be met in kind, which The disputing of values is not only possible,

plausible

rejoinders.

The Design
it is interminable.

of Cultures

To escape from it we must get outside the system. can do this an We by developing empirical account of the behavior to cultural design, of both protagonists. All objections like design are forms of human behavior and may be studied as such. It is itself, account of the that a plausible possible design of cultures will allay our traditional man's anxieties intelligence It is reasonable and prepare in the construction the way for the effective of his own future. use of

to hope that a scientific analysis will someday arise and are trans how cultural practices satisfactorily explain to in them, possibly mitted and how they affect those who engage further or at least to con themselves of the practices an Such tribute to their the fact analysis will embrace and sometimes them. their cultures that men talk about change the survival successors.

a culture is itself a cultural practice, and we must know as Changing it Under much as possible about it if we are to question intelligently. to use a discredited do men redesign?or, what circumstances term, in is the nature of their behavior way of life? What of a culture a threat to the so? Is the deliberate manipulation doing source very essence of man or, at the other extreme, an unf athomed reform?their it? of strength for the culture which encourages We need not go into the details of a scientific account of behavior be to see how it bears on this issue. Its contribution must, however, or from any help to be drawn from historical analogy distinguished trends or cycles, as well as from inter the extrapolation of historical or structures. Such an based on sociological principles pretations account must make contact with biology, on the one hand, but serve on the other. If it is to in an interpretation of social phenomena, yield a of social and implementation analysis of the design satisfactory practices, be free of a particular defect. Evolutionary theory, to the notion of survival, suffered for a long especially to argue that forms of It was not satisfying time from circularity. life which had survived must therefore have had survival value and itmust in its appeal survived because on of it. A similar weakness or is inherent It is not chologies based argue that a man gence in psy to satisfying of his intelli in terms of

had

adaptation. adjustment because to a new environment adapts if these are then defined and emotional stability It is true that organisms phylogenetically,

to adapt. capacities tions which maximize,

in direc usually develop the survival of the species 535

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the adjustment of the individual; but the mech and, ontogenetically, anisms for both kinds of responsible change need to be explained recourse to the selective without effect of their consequences. this is now being done. Genetics clarifies and supports so elimi with new kinds of facts, and in evolutionary theory doing nates the in the concept of survival. A circularity step comparable biology is to analyze the mechanisms of study of human behavior action apart from their contribution to and cultural personal It is not enough to point out that a adjustment. given form of behavior is advantageous to the individual or that a cultural practice strength ens the We must explain the origin and the perpetuation of group. both behavior and practice. human scientific analysis which to individual organisms interacting groups of organisms, itself Its basic datum events we A satisfies rather even these conditions confines or than in the statistical constructs in the In

same dimen events having the sions ). The probability is accounted of behavior for by appeal to the of the organism and its past and present environ genetic endowment in the The ments, described wholly language of physics and biology. of such an analysis, and their technological laboratory techniques the prediction and control of behavior via the applications, emphasize is found of variables. in the suc Validation manipulation primarily cess with which can be controlled. the subject matter An example of how such an analysis differs from its predecessors is at hand. An important group of variables which conveniently modify behavior the consequences of action. "Rewards" and are variables of this sort, though rather inadequately "punishments" in the fact (apart from identified by those terms. We are interested which explains it) that by arranging certain consequences any theory have to do with

is the probability call behavior (or of inferred

study of social behavior. occurrence of the of the observable

?that ?we

certain kinds of events contingent is, by making upon behavior a control.* achieve of experimental Our present high degree of the so-called of reinforcement" is understanding "contingencies
* To is a reinforcement An experimenter food organism on a the response with the contingent by connecting response" a lever, is For if the response food magazine. example, pressing a to close a switch which be made operates magazine electrically. of food is said to reinforce the lever. pressing hungry a "makes food

of a operation the lever may The receipt

536

The Design

of Cultures

us to construct but it nevertheless undoubtedly incomplete, permits new forms of behavior, to bring behavior under the control of new it under such control and to maintain of the environment, aspects for long periods of time?and all of this often with to less rigorously controlled Extrapolation samples side the laboratory has already led to promising developments. But the importance of the principle instance of human behavior involves ment, and those who have been surprising of behavior ease. out

technological Almost of any reinforce

is embarrassing.

by significance in pointing studies often seem fanatical them out. Yet laboratory is important mainly because of its consequences. behavior We may more this fact if we recall the of the concept readily accept ubiquity of purpose. is The experimental contingencies study of reinforcing more than a nonteleological nothing of behavior, of relations which have effects as been described traditionally in ways of reinforcement contingencies analysis of the directed

contingencies to their alerted

purpose. By manipulating to standard which conform

in the physical sciences, we practices and use them without to final causes. study appealing We can put this reinterpretation of purpose to immediate use, for it bears on a confusion between the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic our thinking about of reinforcement the are

of behavior which has clouded development and growth of cultures. origin Contingencies similar to what we might call contingencies patterns of behavior must have been selected to survival in ways which are not unlike those of the individual is selected Both

of survival.

Inherited

by their contributions in which the behavior

or shaped by its reinforcing consequences. or but very different processes adaption adjustment, exemplify must be involved. mechanisms of inherited is as plausible as forms of behavior of any function of the organism when the environment can be as stable. The internal environment regarded reasonably satisfies this requirement, and a genetic endowment re of behavior or lated to the internal economy?say, peristalsis sneezing?is usually The external environment is much less question. accepted without to generation, stable from generation but some kinds of responses to The evolution the evolution mechanisms it are also selection. The genetic plausibly explained by evolutionary are similar to those which account for other presumably

537

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change, and any process which permits its behavior is then important. The structures organism modify which permit modification must have evolved when organisms were being selected by their survival in novel environments. an to the mechanisms which permit modification of behavior Although are inherited, learned behavior does not emerge from, and is not an extension of, the unlearned behavior of the individual. The organism to does not simply refine or extend a genetic behavioral endowment make itmore effective or more inclusive. it develops collater Instead, al behavior, which must be from an inherited response distinguished system even when both serve similar remember this when considering social it is not Ukely that intriguing analogies, are founded on or that they emerged of animal fying nated They as inherited their behavior activities of the anthill of from those societies. functions. behavior. the social from the to It is important In spite of certain institutions instinctive of man patterns modi coordi

functions.

But environments

are the achievements mechanisms

of individuals, The permit.

principles two kinds The different

reasons.

or beehive operate on very different or a great city. of a family, a large company, have developed social behavior must through and they are maintained in force for different

processes,

is not a refinement take a specific example, verbal behavior cries of alarm, distress, and so on, even though the upon to the condi in the one case are analogous contingencies reinforcing To instinctive tions of survival functions, behavior clearly vocal endowment to modification, of a nonspecific In general, rather verbal esses or other tive in the other. but Both may the mechanisms involved be said to serve similar adap verbal in acquiring

set it apart from instinctive The innate responses. is indeed particularly of an organism refractory most if not all verbal responses being modifications behavioral the evolution endowment. of man has emphasized modifiability Inherited of specific forms of behavior. and trivial. By far social responses are fragmentary in the individual of behavior develops through proc

than the transmission

a normal Man endowment. biological given a social creature only because other men are important parts becomes of a child born into a flourishing The behavior of his environment. are most of which by variables, society is shaped and maintained 538

the greater part of conditioning,

The Design
arranged "culture" by other people. in which the child These

of Cultures

the social variables compose in lives, and they shape his behavior in such a way that he in turn with that culture, usually conformity it. The behavioral tends to perpetuate processes present no special a some Nevertheless, problems. explana satisfactory account calls for can have arisen from nonsocial tion of how a social environment precursors. of society, event which This may seem to raise the hoary question of the origin an actual historical but we have no need to reconstruct speculative beginning, about the nature

such as a social compact from of society can be drawn. We have only to show that a social environment could have emerged from nonsocial As in explaining the origin of life, we conditions. an actual historical cannot discover event but must be satisfied conclusions a demonstration could have The that certain arisen under of a given structures with their associated functions conditions. plausible form of social behavior from nonsocial

or even a

with

emergence is exemplified antecedents imitative be Inherited by imitation. owe its dis havior is hard to demonstrate. The parrot may possibly tinction only to an inherited capacity to be reinforced by the produc tion of imitative of certain imitative behavior sounds. in man In any case, an inherited is insignificant, compared of reinforcement contingencies of repertoire with the product

establish which powerful if organism and maintain For example, behaving-as-others-behave. A sees organism B running in obvious alarm, A will probably avoid same direction. in the aversive consequences Or, if A by running sees B picking and eating ripe berries, A will probably be reinforced the same berry patch. Thousands of instances of this for approaching sort compose a general contingency for the reinforcement providing In this sense, behavior exemplifying imitation of doing-as-others-do. it is practically is acquired, two or more inevitable whenever yet one another. The essential conditions organisms five in contact with are not Most in themselves social social. arises from social antecedents. however, behavior, is more than social invention. Unlike Transmission the important their transmission need not be a matter of cultural practices, origin trans since the process can be observed. Deliberate for speculation, because achieved mission of practices which is, transmission (that is not needed. For ex have been reinforced by their consequences) 539

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SKINNER as the members of a group perpetuated A has already developed If specific controlling to B, partly upon incidental charac depending he may impose the same control on a new in are not himself

some ample, practices are severally replaced. behavior with respect teristics of B's behavior, dividual, C, who might tices in A. A mother baby

into a primitive to bear on a second contingencies follower

same prac have generated just the who has shaped the vocal responses of her first verbal repertoire may bring already established child. A leader who with even in his interactions follower relation has acquired a submissive

aversive

controlling practices take by storm a second may this preparation, the leader-follower in the second case.

versed

Overlapping one factor to manners, customs, only contributing and other abiding features of a social environment. course, These simple examples but to illustrate are offered not as solutions

though, without have been re might is, of group membership folkways,

problems behavior

an to the approach to the design of a culture. A special kind of social in a definite way because of the behavior emerges when A responds on the behavior consider the importance of effect of B. We must B to A as well as of A to B. For example, when A sees B looking into a store window, if he looks too, as in the he is likely to be reinforced to B, But if his looking is important of the berry patch. example in or to a third person who controls B, a take place change may in order to induce A to B may look into the window B's behavior. and do the same. customers is seen The carnival in this way. in the window on A. of prospective shill plays on the behavior is no longer controlled by what B's behavior (directly or indirectly) by the effect of for A break down: taken by

to important of social analysis

but

that behavior the window A because control."

"personal the properties behavior, important are mediated derive from the fact that reinforcements of which by is cultural design. Another subdivision other organisms.1 In analyzing any social episode from this point of view a complete of both parties as they con account must be given of the behaviors of each other. of the behavior tribute to the origin and maintenance An subdivision is verbal example, speaker both 540 in analyzing and listener. a verbal This account we must for episode, is seldom done in the case of non

(The original contingencies may not now be "worth looking into.") Action of B may be called of its effect on the behavior

For

The Design
verbal

of Cultures

In noticing controls the control. how the master personal slave or the employer overlook reciprocal the worker, we commonly are led to effects and, by considering action in one direction only, or at least the control as exploitation, of a onesided regard gaining but the control is actually mutual. The slave controls advantage; the master as the master the slave, in the sense that completely the techniques of punishment have been by the master employed to them. This does selected by the slave's behavior in submitting that the notion as

or that we is meaningless of exploitation In doing so, however, we go ask, Cui bono? may not appropriately the account of the social episode itself and consider certain beyond effects which are clearly related to the question of value long-term A comparable judgments. behavior which alters any We may not be consideration a cultural an arises in the analysis of the behavior of of practice. explanation The slaves

not mean

satisfied with

two parties in a social interaction. in a quarry cutting stone for a pyramid work to escape or death, and the punishment is sufficiently to the reigning pharaoh to rising pyramid reinforcing him to devote part of his wealth induce to maintaining the forces which men An employer pays sufficient wages to induce for him, and the products of their labor reimburse social him, let us say, with a great deal to spare. These are on-going them we may not have taken every systems, but in thus analyzing into account. The system may be altered in whom thing by outsiders or fear of, the lot of the slave or sympathy with, exploited worker be generated. is the More that may important, perhaps, possibility the system may not actually be in It may breed equihbrium. changes punish to work which to through punishment may lead an eventual loss of the support of viciousness, increasing to maintain those needed and the increasing poverty of the worker it; and the resulting increase in the economic power of the employer with also lead to A culture lead to its destruction. Control or kill.

may

action. countercontrolling or deferred raises the question which of collateral is most effects and adopt practices which will likely to discover survive or, as conditions lead to modifications will which change, in turn will survive. This is an in cultural important step design, but it is not easily taken. Long-term are consequences usually not obvious, and there is little inducement to pay any attention to them. 541

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We

for the stimulation may admire a man who submits to aversive or who eschews reinforcement immediate sake of later reinforcement

lead him to be which later punishment, but the contingencies sense (our admiration is part of them) are by in this "reasonable" no means societies a long time It has taken civilized overpowering. to avoid to invent which seem where Thus, most the verbal devices?the advantages promote successfully in the control of behavior, to overlook to be particularly easy a may have undue weight. quick though slight advantage we boast that the birch rod has been abandoned, although school children is more results. are still under aversive control?not because it yields in the long run, but because It is easier for the teacher to control the student effective reinforcement of morals precepts an outcome. Ultimate such and ethics?

punishment immediate

than by using positive by threatening punishment more effects. with its deferred, powerful, though to the sensitive has become A culture which sequences of its measures includes and function group, which

philosophy measures between these statements of the members effective they

con long-term a literature or is usually by supported a set of statements expressing the relations

self-management. are sometimes but this may mean said to "justify" a measure, it with more than strengthening the measure by classifying nothing called "good" or "right.") certain kinds of events characteristically

To the cultural designer, consequences. as for effective action; to the prescriptions are important variables furthering they (To both, and to the neutral observer,

Thus, a government may induce its citizens to submit to the hardship is made a future in which the world and tragedy of war by picturing or to a program of aus or free of Communism, safe for democracy lead to economic changes which will eventually terity by pointing of good things for all. In so doing, it strengthens to an abundance to its is essential on the part of its citizens which certain behavior in power reinforces the government's purposes, and the resulting gain them. effects and its efforts to formulate own concern for deferred The of scientific study of behavior and underlines unstable the collateral features effects reveals practices controlling interaction which may lead to long-deferred measures. or remedial effective dictate preventive this, however, 542 by taking the scientist out of of a given It may consequences. It does the causal not do stream.

The Design
The scientist also

of Cultures

and an endowment is the product of a genetic the culture or cultures environmental history. He also is controlled by is a to which he belongs. Doing-something-about-human-behavior must be and by-products kind of social action, and its products understood accordingly. A reciprocal and the known, the knower between relationship common to all the sciences, is important here. A laboratory for the the environ contains many devices for controlling study of behavior

ment With

the behavior of organisms. for recording and analyzing we the help of these devices and their associated techniques, in various ways, with consider the behavior of an organism change in able precision. But note that the organism changes our behavior and as a fashion. Our apparatus was precise we study, for it was the organism which by the designed led us to choose

quite

organism a of stimulation, categories particular particular manipulandum, and so on, and to record particular modes of reinforcement, particular for Measures which were successful were aspects of its behavior. that reason been, we analyze as we reinforcing and have been with which The say, extinguished. our data has been in a similar way: order and con shaped to reinforce certain practices which were sistency emerged adopted, while other practices suffered extinction and were abandoned. (All as well as scientific itself, are gen techniques, knowledge in this way. A cyclotron is "designed" by the particles it is to it is to explain, as the particles and a theory is written control, by and verbal the behavior of these particles shapes the nonverbal behavior of the scientist. ) scientific erated A similarly reciprocal effect is involved in social action, especially in cultural economic, educational, religious, design. Governmental, institutions in many ways? and therapeutic have been analyzed as as for example, exalt such entities systems which sovereignty, and health. There is a considerable virtue, utility, wisdom, advantage as behavioral in these institutions considering simply technologies. set of Each one uses an identifiable for the control of techniques the variables manipulated. The human behavior, distinguished by invention of such techniques and and their later abandon discovery ment a or continued use?in part of the history short, of technology. or should be, their evolution?are, The issues they raise, particularly 543 retained, while verbal behavior others have

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with

or inventor, are charac respect to the behavior of the discoverer teristic of technology in general. Both physical and behavioral have shown prog technologies ress or in the sense that new have been improvement practices or invented and tested and that some of them have Men sur because their effects were

discovered vived

have found better reinforcing. ways, not only to dye a cloth or build a bridge, but to govern, teach, and employ. The conditions under which all such practices originate to the extremely called range from sheer accident complex behaviors are tested and selected under which thinking.2 The conditions they are immediate diverse. Certain may advantages personal equally in the behavior well have been the only important variables of the inventors of both physical and cultural devices. But the primitive has reduced the impor of moral and ethical practices elaboration of personal with which society The honorific reinforcements aggrandizement. common weal, as well action for the encourages a as the sanctions it applies to selfish behavior, generate relatively im in the field of personal Even disinterested control, creativity. not for immediate but may be proposed, exploitation, provements as by religious and educators?for of rulers, political leaders, benevolent philosophers, "the good of all." an analysis of moral and ethical practices will clarify the the cultural tance

at this stage. He has faced a designer in the fact that it is easier to demonstrate the right special difficulty to build a bridge than the right way to treat one's fellowmen way ( the difference cultural The found and clarity of the results ). reducing to the immediacy even has inventor, disinterested, relatively though to appeal for support to secular or divine authori it necessary inviolable

Only behavior

and even to mili premises, philosophical sort has been needed for the greater of the tary persuasion. Nothing The wheel was not propagated by the technology. part of physical its own way. Cultural made of salvation?it sword or by promises on or fallen only in part because of their effect practices have survived the strength of the group, and those which have survived are usually the current burdened with unnecessary By association, impedimenta. the fact that men look behind any cultural is handicapped by designer or threatening forces. invention for irrelevant, ingenuous, ties, supposedly There 544 is another step in physical technology, however, which

The Design
must have a parallel in cultural of scientific scientist

of Cultures

shows knowledge is usually concerned with the control of nature apart from He is perhaps not wholly his personal aggrandizement. "pure," but for its own sake or for the sake of furthering he seeks control mainly other scientific activity. There are practical as well as ethical reasons for this: scientist tions as becomes more for example, the complex, technology is less and less able to pursue the himself implica practical is very little personal There of his work. reimbursement for As a result, a new idea without improvements bringing a of plotting coup. But social personal science.

The practical design. application a new kind of disinterestedness. The

the most

may the scientist

ideas of modern profitable immediate yield technological under

suspicion has not yet reached this stage. A disinterested considera technology tion of cultural practices from which for improvement suggestions This is the price we may emerge is still often regarded as impossible.

( 1 ) have so often improved their control of pay for the fact that men other men for purposes of exploitation, (2) have had to bolster their social practices with spurious justifications and (3) have so seldom shared the attitudes of the basic scientist. Most value people would involved subscribe in to the proposition to build deciding how that there that there an atomic is no

judgment but would reject the proposition to build one. The most deciding that the scientific are clear, while builds a bomb a cultural physical to value practices those which

is none

bomb, involved in

which

significant difference guide the designer

here may be of the bomb

are not. We

invention invention.

guide the designer of the culture which cannot the success or failure of predict as we do that of a the same accuracy with It is for this reason that we are said to resort

in the second case. What we resort to is judgments guessing. sense that value It is only in this take up where science judgments leaves off. When we can design small social interactions and, possi

cultures with the confidence we tech bly, whole bring to physical not be raised. of value will the question nology, their cultures So far, men have designed largely by guesswork, some very lucky hits; but we are not far from a stage of including in which this can be changed. The change does not knowledge some distant state of mankind that we be able to describe require or toward which we are moving "deciding" to move. Early physical 545

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could not have foreseen technology led to it. Progress and improvement our world as we ourselves and go. We men our cultural change practices in certain ways. to be reinforced

it the modern world, though are local We better changes. because This it is in our nature as

guide. It could, indeed, lead to fatal mistakes. For example, we have devel science to escape from aversive events oped sanitation and medical associated with illness and death, yet a new virus could conceivably

is not an infallible

arise to wipe out everyone except those to whom chronic illness and our decision filth had granted On the present evidence, immunity. in favor of sanitation and medicine seems to make for survival, but in the we may in time look back light of unforeseeable developments upon it as having had no survival value. From time to time, men have sought to reassure themselves about as the the future by characterizing out of some such progress working as the or collective will, universal reason, or the principle general seem to if valid, would Such a principle, greatest good. guarantee an inevitable, such principle behavior. ultimate Yet if devious, is clearly in the human condition. No a scientific of human supported by analysis the nature of man tells us something. Just as an improvement

if immediate effect cannot be reached effects are genetic so we must look to the immediate not beneficial, consequences only in a cultural pattern. for modifications of behavior Nevertheless, inventions have created current conditions which cultural have at connection with future consequences. It is easy least a probabilistic to say that men work for pleasure and to avoid pain, as the hedonists it. These have but in would are, indeed, powerful principles; of men, they have led to the con behavior the day-to-day affecting struction of cultural devices which extend the range of both pleasure It is the same man, and pain almost beyond recognition. biologically acts selfishly or for the good of the group, and it is speaking, who as a disinterested the same man who, scientist, will make human more effective invention. behavior through cultural vastly
References 1 Skinner, B. B. 1953. F., F., Verbal Science Behavior. and Human New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York: Macmillan Inc., Com

1957.
2 Skinner, pany, Behavior.

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