A “visible scientist”: B.F. Skinner’s Writings for the Popular Press

Abstract

The year 2004 marks the 100th anniversary of B. F. Skinner’s birth. At this historic juncture, it is useful to consider Skinner’s status, not only in psychology, but in society at large. One way Skinner became known outside academia was through his popular writing. In this paper, I examine Skinner’s experiences writing for the popular press and explore his role as a popularizer of his own work. Specifically, I present results from a survey of newspapers and popular magazines for material authored by Skinner from the 1930s to his death in 1990. I describe this material and discuss the aims and goals he had for his popular writing, as well as the problems he encountered in publishing in the popular press. I follow this descriptive account with a consideration of science popularization generally, to illuminate how this process may have affected Skinner in his development as a public intellectual.

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS NUMBER 2 (WINTER 2004)2004, 5, 109 - 120
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He’s a legend in his time. He’s a loaded
subject. His ideas about control and ma-
nipulation have been called evil. He has
been accused of setting back the study of
psychology rather than advancing it. He
has also been called one of the most inci-
sive thinkers of modern times. (Sanford,
1977, p. 21)
He antagonizes psychologists and lay-
men alike, for his contention that behavior
is determined by the environment. But
his theories are as influential as they are
controversial, both in psychology and lay
society. (Goodell, 1977, p. 5)
B. F. Skinner was one of the twentieth centu-
ry’s most widely recognized psychologists, both
within academia and in the culture at large (see,
for example, Haggbloom, 2002; Korn, Davis,
& Davis, 1991; Slater, 2004). Although many
psychologists achieve eminence within their own
fields or areas of specialization, the psychologist
who attains the level of public recognition that
Skinner did – both in his own lifetime and beyond
– is a much rarer phenomenon. It thus seems
fitting to examine Skinner as a public intellectual,
or as Smith (1996) characterizes him, a “cultural
icon” (p. 294), more closely. In 1977, Rae Goodell
characterized Skinner as a “visible scientist,”
remarking that one prominent characteristic of
scientists who achieve great public recognition is
that they write effectively for audiences outside
their fields, and for the public at large (Goodell,
1977; see also Blakeslee, 1975; “What makes a re-
searcher ‘good copy’,” 1975). Thus, one window
on Skinner as a public intellectual is the writing he
undertook for the popular press throughout the
years of his career. Although less a popularizer
of his own work than an object of popular atten-
tion, Skinner did write intentionally for a broad
audience, and it was the books he intended for a
wide readership (such as Walden Two and Beyond
Freedom and Dignity) that ultimately ensured his
status as a “cultural icon.”
In this paper, I survey the writing Skinner
published in newspapers, magazines, and his best-
selling books, concentrating on the period leading
up to and including the publication of Beyond
freedom and dignity. What aspects of his work did
he present to popular audiences, and what did he
hope to achieve by writing for a wide readership?
What were some of the challenges he faced in
writing about his work for the popular press? My
A “visible scientist”:
B.F. Skinner’s Writings for the Popular Press
Alexandra Rutherford
York University
The year 2004 marks the 100th anniversary of B. F. Skinner’s birth. At this historic juncture, it is useful
to consider Skinner’s status, not only in psychology, but in society at large. One way Skinner became known
outside academia was through his popular writing. In this paper, I examine Skinner’s experiences writing
for the popular press and explore his role as a popularizer of his own work. Specifically, I present results
from a survey of newspapers and popular magazines for material authored by Skinner from the 1930s to
his death in 1990. I describe this material and discuss the aims and goals he had for his popular writing, as
well as the problems he encountered in publishing in the popular press. I follow this descriptive account
with a consideration of science popularization generally, to illuminate how this process may have affected
Skinner in his development as a public intellectual.

110
emphasis is on Skinner’s own writing, although
clearly his audiences in turn had a lot to say about
him, as evidenced by the hundreds of articles that
have appeared, and continue to appear (see, for
example, Gaynor, 2004) about Skinner and his
work in the popular press.1 Specifically, I base my
comments on material from a systematic survey
of popular magazine and newspaper articles by
Skinner from the 1930s until his death in 1990.
I cannot claim that this is a complete survey – as
Knapp (1996), Morris and Smith (2003), and oth-
ers have shown, the primary and secondary litera-
tures on Skinner are vast, and the challenges of
compiling accurate and complete bibliographies,
especially of popular material, are great. With
this caveat in place, I report how I collected the
material for this survey, describe some of it, and
then provide some of the historical background
for Skinner’s popular writing. Finally, I discuss
science popularization more generally, and then
use this framework to place some of Skinner’s
experiences with the popular press in context.
Survey Method and Results
This survey of Skinner’s writings for newspa-
pers and popular magazines proceeded through
a number of steps. First, references to specific
articles by Skinner in any newspaper were col-
lected from primary and secondary sources,
including Skinner’s three-volume autobiography
and the collection of newspaper clippings in
the Skinner Papers at the Harvard University
Archives. Then a systematic survey of the New
York Times Index was performed. This consisted
of an author search on B. F. Skinner from January
1, 1930 until his death in 1990.2 This approach
surely has limitations and could be supplemented
with systematic searches of the indexes of other
major papers. The search of the New York
Times index at least ensured a representation of
Skinner’s writings in the national paper of record
in the United States.
In terms of magazines, an author search on
B. F. Skinner of the Reader’s Guide to Periodi-
cal Literature and the General Reference Center
Gold database, starting on January 1, 1930 until
his death in 1990, was performed.3 A list of all
references to popular magazine articles in Skin-
ner’s three-volume autobiography, in a selection
of secondary works on Skinner, and in archival
material in the Skinner Papers at the Harvard
Archives was compiled. Finally, a search of the
complete run of the popular magazine Psychology
Today was conducted.
Using the strategy outlined above, 50 articles
authored by B. F. Skinner were located in news-
papers and magazines. His five books written
for a wide audience – Walden Two, Beyond Freedom
and Dignity, and the three volumes of his autobi-
ography – were also included in the survey, for
a total of 55 publications (see Appendix for the
complete list of articles). A cumulative frequency
distribution and graph show the rate at which
these articles appeared, in five-year increments
(see Figure 1).
Of the 50 articles, 13 appeared in newspapers.
Included in this category are numerous letters to
the editor and book reviews. Reviews of others’
work were some of Skinner’s earliest writings for
the popular press. These included three book
reviews published from 1946 to 1948, of titles
by Max Schoen, J. B. Rhine, and Stuart Chase,
respectively (see Rutherford, 2000b, p. 378, for a
more detailed discussion of these reviews).
The remaining 37 articles appeared in a variety
of magazines, or magazine-type, publications.
Arguably, one of the magazines included in the
survey is not a popular magazine per se – Science,
but given its high status and readership among a
broad range of scientists outside of psychology,
it was included in the survey. Skinner authored
or co-authored nine articles in Science. He also
authored pieces for Atlantic Monthly, Ladies Home
Journal, Psychology Today, The Listener, Scientific
Alexandra Rutherford
1 See Knapp (1996) for a discussion of the secondary literature,
including popular literature, on Skinner; see Rutherford (2000b,
2003) for analyses of these popular representations and responses;
see DeBell & Harless (1992), Dinsmoor (1992), Nye (1979), and
Todd & Morris (1983) for discussions of “mis”representations and
myths about Skinner that have appeared in the popular and academic
literatures. In this paper, I intentionally restrict myself to discussing
Skinner’s own popular writings, as opposed to discussing reactions
to these writings from his diverse audiences, as I have covered this
material elsewhere.
2 Included in the complete survey, although not reported here,
were additional keyword searches of “B. F. Skinner” and “behav-
iorism” until 2004, resulting in 255 articles about Skinner and his
work in the popular press. The method for the complete survey is
available from the author upon request.
3 My thanks go to Reina Zatylyny and Christian Rizzea for
helping to update this survey and check it for accuracy.

111
American, Free Inquiry, Saturday Review, and The
Humanist, among other magazines. The chart
shows that the rate of Skinner’s contributions to
the popular press was fairly steady after 1950, with
a slight increase in rate between 1965 and 1975,
the period in which he rose conclusively to the
status of public intellectual through his efforts
in developing programmed instruction and the
teaching machine, and the publication of Beyond
Freedom and Dignity.
Although as previously noted Skinner was
less an intentional popularizer of his work than
an object of popular attention, it is significant
to note that he, like other “visible scientists” did
write for an audience beyond academia. In the
next section I discuss some of Skinner’s contri-
butions and examine his attitudes toward and
intentions for his popular writing. In any case
of popularized science, the scientists themselves
play active roles in shaping the public face of their
work. The process of popularization can also be
affected by the scientists’ relationships with their
popularizers, and their intended audiences. It is
to these topics that I now turn.
Skinner and the popular press
Skinner’s personal journalistic debut occurred
in 1934, when he wrote an article for Atlantic
Monthly, entitled “Has Gertrude Stein a secret?”
Motivated by his curiosity about the series of
experiments on automatic writing alluded to by
Stein in “The autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,”
Skinner wrote to an acquaintance who worked on
the editorial board of the Atlantic Monthly. He
A “visible scientist”
1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990
0 1 1 1 9 13 16 20 27 37 45 51 55
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
1930
1935
1940
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
Years
Number of articles
Figure 1. Cumulative frequency distribution and graph showing the number of articles written by Skinner for the popular press,
1930-1990.

112
inquired if the magazine would be interested in
a piece arguing that Stein’s “Tender buttons” was
essentially automatic writing. She encouraged
him to write the article, and in January, 1934, it
appeared in the magazine.
Reactions from friends and colleagues were
largely positive and encouraging. Skinner, who
by his own account had led a fairly quiet social
life as a graduate student and Harvard fellow, also
benefited from his foray into popular writing by
being invited to a dinner party hosted by the editor
of the magazine, Ellery Sedgwick (Skinner, 1979,
p. 135). In a letter to Sedgwick, Stein responded
to the article, remarking that Skinner was a “pretty
good” psychologist “when he is not too serious”
(as quoted in Skinner, 1979, p. 136).
The next time the creative writing urge over-
took Skinner was in the early summer of 1945.
The day after submitting an article on operation-
ism to E.G. Boring for a special issue of Psycho-
logical Review, Skinner turned his thoughts to an
imaginary utopian community (Skinner, 1948).
In a letter written to an interested inquirer eleven
years later, Skinner remarked:
I came to write Walden Two in the following
way. In the spring of 1945 I sat next to a woman
at a dinner party who had a son and son-in-law in
the South Pacific. I remarked casually, “What a
shame that these young men, with such crusading
spirits, must come back and sign up in a society in
I they do not really believe.” She asked me what I
would have them do instead…. She insisted that
I write these ideas up for the benefit of young
people…. I insisted that I had other deadlines to
meet, but she was quite adamant. I did meet one
such deadline on June 1, and then to my surprise
began to write Walden Two which I finished within
seven weeks. The only preparation for writing it
had been a sporadic interest in community experi-
ments in the United States, and extensive reading
of Thoreau. (Skinner, March 21, 1956)
Skinner probably had no idea, upon writ-
ing Walden Two, that it would sell as well as it
eventually did, or that it would inspire would-be
communitarians in the 1960s to originate Walden
Two-type communities (see Kinkade, 1973, 1994).
He had a hard time getting it published, it did not
sell well until much later in his career, and he actu-
ally remarked that he didn’t pay much attention
to it or use it in his courses until many years later
(see Elms, 1981, p. 476). In discussing the several
possible reasons Skinner may have had for writ-
ing Walden Two, Elms (1981) includes the reason
Skinner alluded to above, that is, to “provide a
model of life for returning World War II veterans”
(p. 471). In addition to this, Elms demonstrates
that Skinner may have wanted to “apply a ‘science
of behavior’ to the resolution of dissatisfactions
that were external but personal” (p. 471), such as
his struggle to balance administrative duties with
research, and “to provide self-therapy” (p. 471),
by using his writing to help reconcile the two
sides of his character represented by Burris and
Frazier. It is unlikely that Skinner initially wrote
the book thinking that it would have widespread
influence.
In addition to writing Walden Two, in 1945 Skin-
ner was also preoccupied with domestic matters.
It was a busy year for the Skinner family. Skinner
and his wife Eve’s second child, Deborah, had
just been born, and Eve wondered if there was
anything Skinner could do to make the first year
of child-rearing less strenuous (for an account of
the Skinners’ approach to parenting, see Jordan,
1996). To address his wife’s concerns, Skinner
invented a glassed-in crib with temperature and
humidity controls, in which the infant could move
freely wearing only a diaper (for a history of the
baby tender see Benjamin & Nielsen-Gammon,
1999). Skinner, enthusiastic about the potential
of the new device to benefit mother and child
alike, wrote an article and sent it to the Ladies’
Home Journal for consideration. Associate editor
Mary Lea Page responded: “I would have written
sooner, but your article on the “baby box” has
aroused such controversial interest among the
Journal editors, that we are still in the process of
heated discussion” (Page, June, 1945).
Skinner responded to several questions from
the editors about the device (Skinner, June 21,
1945b), and the article was published in October
of that year (Skinner, 1945a). Skinner’s eldest
daughter, Julie Vargas, has noted that although
her father probably wouldn’t have considered the
baby tender to be a major contribution, he wrote
the article because he had “invented this neat
gadget” and thought the public “ought to have
the advantage of it” (Vargas, 2000). In the case
Alexandra Rutherford

113
of this publication, it is clear that Skinner hoped
to gain a wide audience so that parents would
become interested in the air crib. His attempts
to commercially market the device (although
ultimately unsuccessful), indicated that he was
– in the case of air crib – eager to have an impact
beyond academic psychology and was willing to
engage the power of the popular press in this
endeavor. It was, in effect, his first use of the
press to market his ideas.
In 1951, Skinner wrote an article for the Ama-
teur Science Section of Scientific American on how
to teach animals (Skinner, 1951). Excerpts from
this article were also published in the Boston Daily
Globe. As Peterson (2001) has shown, this 1951
article was clearly a “landmark” in the history
of animal training and the burgeoning industry
now know as clicker training (see Pryor, 1999).
In it, Skinner turned his attention to the practi-
cal problem of how to use operant principles to
shape animal behavior. Not only was it to become
an important article for animal trainers, it also
brought Skinner into more contact with the popu-
lar press. The article attracted the attention of a
writer from Look magazine, Joseph Roddy, who
came to Skinner’s office to discuss a possible fol-
low-up piece in which Skinner could demonstrate
further the power of his procedures (Skinner,
1983, p. 42). He proclaimed that if Skinner could
train an animal that easily, they wanted pictures.
Skinner took up the challenge, and Roddy bought
a dalmatian with the understanding that Skinner
would train it to stand on its hind legs and jump.
Photographers arrived, flashbulbs were readied,
and within a few minutes the dog was “jumping
so high that its hind feet rose a foot off the floor”
(Skinner, 1983, p. 42).
But Skinner was not pleased when the article
did appear. Despite having explained the proce-
dures carefully to Roddy in behavioral terms, the
writer reported that Skinner had put the idea of
jumping into the dog’s head. One of the photos
showed a dog placing his paws on a playing card,
and the article quoted Skinner’s colleague, Charles
Ferster, who was present at the shoot, as saying
that Skinner could teach a dog to play poker in
seventeen minutes. Skinner maintained that this
was a misquote. One of Skinner’s students, Mi-
chael Maccoby, subsequently wrote an article for
the Harvard Crimson outlining some of Skinner’s
concerns about the piece (Maccoby, May 3, 1952).
This was to be one of Skinner’s first altercations
with journalists and science writers who covered
his work, and was by no means the last.
More media attention followed the Look
article, despite Skinner’s dissatisfaction with it.
But this time, Skinner was more circumspect. In
1952, Skinner received a letter from Marjorie Van
de Water, a journalist working for Science Service.
She wrote to him, noting: “I find that we have
been missing some very interesting material from
you and your department, such as your sugges-
tions for training dogs which appeared recently in
Look…. I wonder whether it would be possible for
you to let us know when you are ready to release
something new” (Van de Water, May 8, 1952). To
which Skinner replied:
I shall try to remember to tip you off when
we have anything to release. The Look article was,
from our point of view, very badly handled, and
definitely violated our understanding with the edi-
tors. At the moment, I am anxious to avoid any
and all publicity. (Skinner, May 16, 1952)
Ms. Van de Water’s request for material was
not unique. Over the years of his career, Skinner
received numerous requests from reporters for
interviews, as well as invitations to write articles
for magazines and newspapers. For example,
in 1959, an editor for Scientific American wrote to
Skinner inviting him to write an article, like the
one that Skinner had written in 1951, for their
Amateur Science section. One of the paragraphs
from this letter provides an interesting glimpse
into the relationships among scientists, science
writers, and popular science audiences. The edi-
tor wrote:
Up to now a number of scientists have writ-
ten for this part of the magazine, but most have
been physicists. In consequence, we have carried
a disproportionate number of articles on how to
build Wilson cloud chambers, radiation counters,
rockets, instruments for locating artificial satellites
and so on. Recently, more and more high school
teachers, who direct youngsters to our magazine
for science fair projects, have been asking us to
balance the diet. (Stong, November 24, 1959)
Skinner complied with this request, and wrote
an article on teaching machines that appeared in
A “visible scientist”

114
1961 (Skinner, 1961). After this time, Skinner
continued to write articles for the popular press,
as well as letters to the editor, but most were short
pieces or excerpts from his scholarly writing. He
continued to have difficulties with journalistic
misrepresentation, including one that created in-
tense personal embarrassment. In 1968, a writer
for the New York Times Magazine took a quote
out of context and titled his article “B.F. Skinner
agrees he is the most important influence in psy-
chology” (Rice, 1968). Two years later, Skinner
was still smarting from the incident. In a letter
to a colleague who had requested biographical
information, Skinner wrote:
I enclose a biographical sketch, but not the
New York Times article. I suffered badly from that
article and its implication that I am some sort
of conceited ass. Some time, if you like, I will
show you the exchange I had with the editors of
the New York Times Magazine about it. (Skinner,
February 11, 1970)
In 1971, of course, Skinner’s bestseller Beyond
Freedom and Dignity (hereafter BFD) was published,
and conceit would become one of the least of
Skinner’s worries. Charges of fascism and Na-
zism were commonly laid against him and his
work. Skinner, however, obligingly appeared on
television and radio shows. His daughter, Julie
Vargas, has remarked that her father’s attitude
toward requests for appearances and interviews
was one of obligation (Vargas, 2000). Just as he
rarely turned down requests for academic talks,
and painstakingly responded to all manner of
correspondence with personal notes, so too did
he respond to requests for radio and television
appearances. As his annotated schedule from one
post-BFD period indicates, these requests were
numerous and demanding, including appearances
on local and national news programs and daytime
and evening talk shows.
In the midst of this publicity, Skinner did find
time to respond to his critics (see also Skinner,
1973). When a young sociology professor, Rich-
ard Sennett (who would soon publish The Fall of
Public Man), wrote a review of BFD for the New
York Times Book Review (see Sennett, 1971), Skinner
responded with a letter to the editor. Here is an
excerpt from his letter:
My book has evoked an angry response from
Professor Sennett, and my only hope is that it
will be better understood by those who read it
dispassionately. Professor Sennett repeatedly
accuses me of subscribing to examples I merely
offer for discussion. I do not rail against sex; I
discuss its role. I do not “believe in hard work”;
I argue that a culture must produce the goods it
needs – but as pleasantly as possible. I do not
recommend “that the control of the population
as a whole be delegated to police, priests, owners,
teachers, therapists, and so on”; I deplore a culture
in which so much of that is necessary…. How are
we to explain Professor Sennett’s extraordinary
misreading? Have I paid too little attention to
his own field of specialization? If so, I ask him
to pay a little more attention to mine. (Skinner,
October 27, 1971)
Thus, Skinner clearly had a somewhat ambiva-
lent relationship with the popular press. On the
one hand, throughout his career he recognized
that writing for a wide audience was important
for maximizing the potential impact of his
ideas. However, it does not appear as though
he systematically used the press as a vehicle for
furthering his own public prestige, or for nurtur-
ing a popular following (see Cerullo, 1996, for a
similar argument about Skinner’s relationships at
Harvard). He did hope to use it as a vehicle of
persuasion. He was concerned throughout his
career with the public’s resistance to the use of
behavioral technology, and hoped to convince
people of the need for change. Julie Vargas has
noted that, in writing BFD, her father “hoped
to influence people…. I think he hoped that he
would convince people that we need a science of
behavior to solve the world’s problems” (Vargas,
2000). Although often accused of not respond-
ing to his critics, Skinner clearly did, on occasion,
attempt to correct the popular misrepresentations
of his work, and sometimes found himself in-
tensely embarrassed or uncomfortable as a result
of misquotation or misrepresentation. There is
evidence that he retreated from publishing in
more popular venues when he was worried that
misrepresentation would result.
Skinner wrote articles for the popular press on
topics he felt would be of public interest or use,
such as the baby tender and the teaching machine.
Alexandra Rutherford

115
He occasionally wrote articles and often gave
interviews in response to direct requests, and, as
noted above, occasionally responded to articles or
reviews that he felt misrepresented his position.
Thus, his popular press writing was both proactive
and reactive. He also penned several letters to
the editor later in his career that appeared in the
New York Times outlining his position on a number
of social issues. In these, he expressed anti-war
sentiments (Skinner, 1966), concern about prison
environments (Skinner, 1974), and his opinions
about housing programs (Skinner, 1976). These
letters, among others, suggest that Skinner’s social
conscience and commitment to social meliorism
motivated much of the writing he published in
non-academic outlets.
Thus, in summary, Skinner appeared to use the
popular press for a variety of purposes. First,
it was a vehicle through which he could publicly
disseminate his ideas or inventions in the hope
that this would increase the probability that the
technology of behavior would be used on a large
scale. He also used the press to express his con-
cerns about a variety of social problems, and to
propose behavioral solutions to them. Finally, he
used the press to try and correct misrepresenta-
tions of his position (for example, by highlighting
behaviorism’s humanism - Skinner, 1972), and to
respond to specific criticisms of his work.
All of these areas highlight the role that Skin-
ner played in popularizing his own ideas. Increas-
ingly, social studies of science are examining the
relationships between science-producers and
science-consumers in an attempt to understand
how scientific knowledge is transmitted to and
impacts the culture of which it is a part. Thus,
examining science popularization generally may
help us understand Skinner’s own role as a popu-
larizer of his work, and the particular impact that
his work had.
Skinner and the process of science popularization
An account of Skinner’s writings for and inter-
actions with purveyors of the popular press can
be examined in relation to the processes through
which science generally, and psychological science
specifically, is transmitted to the public. These
processes are not always straightforward, and
have, at present, remained largely unexplicated.
Cooter and Pumfrey (1994) have written:
[S]urprisingly little has been written on science
generally in popular culture, past or present…
..[Q]uestions have yet to be asked about how
scientists, science communicators, and audiences
define their relationship to something called sci-
ence, and how that relationship is embedded in
the particularities of their different cultures and
ideologies. (p. 237)
Cooter and Pumfrey touch on several impor-
tant areas for the study of science popularization,
and for understanding Skinner’s place in popular
culture. First, how do scientists and their audi-
ences, not to mention those who translate science
for the public, think about, conceptualize, and
relate to the broad enterprise called science? I
propose that this relationship will, in part, de-
pend on the “status” of the science in question
and that it will be different for the human and
social sciences, such as psychology, versus the
natural sciences. As a behavioral scientist and
psychologist, Skinner wrote on topics that were
intensely personal, such as the experience of free
will and the design of everyday life. His thor-
oughgoing scientific/behavioral analyses of these
problems were based on an ontological position
that threatened popularly held (and experienced)
conceptions of what it meant to be human.
Skinner’s inability to translate his position into
terms that were compatible with the “psychology
of everyday experience” meant that some of his
work probably had less popular impact than he
would have liked. It served as a lightning rod for
public debate, but this debate may have mitigated
the transformative potential of the science and
technology of behavior that Skinner envisioned
(see also Rutherford, 2000a).
Secondly, how are the relationships between
scientists and their audiences defined by and
embedded in different cultures circumscribed
by time, place, and ideology? Skinner’s writings
in the popular press spanned almost six decades
in the middle of the twentieth century. Defin-
ing American culture in this period were various
ideologies and social values that affected, and
continue to affect, the popular reception of
behaviorism, behavioral technology, psychol-
ogy, and science generally. These social values
A “visible scientist”

116
include views on technology, definitions of the
“good life,” attitudes towards parenting, etc.
(see Rutherford, 2003, for a discussion of these
themes in relation to the reception of Skinner’s
work). Because of the topics on which he wrote,
and the positions he held on those topics, Skin-
ner often found himself at the center of these
social debates. It is clear that the reception of his
ideas was profoundly influenced by the broader
cultural dialogues on these topics. His ideas and
prescriptions resonated with some segments of
the population, but alienated others.
Conceptualizations of the process of sci-
ence popularization have undergone substantial
revision in recent years, and shed light on the
processes affecting Skinner’s popularization.
Burnham (1987) cited the editor of Popular Sci-
ence News in 1883, who defined popularization as
“science put in a language which can be compre-
hended; it means science adapted to every one’s
wants, to every one’s necessities” (p. 34). In this
early view, popularization entailed the transmis-
sion of knowledge from scientist to non-scientist.
At the very least this involved a translation from
scientific language into popular jargon, but often
involved the extrapolation from scientific theory
to practical, everyday, applications that would be
of interest to the popular consumer. Certainly
some of Skinner’s popular writings reflect these
characteristics; he undertook popular writing to
extend his ideas to audiences outside academia,
and he translated his ideas into everyday appli-
cations that he felt would be of interest, such
as the air crib, pet training, and programmed
instruction.
More recently, however, Whitley (1985) has
proposed that this traditional definition of popu-
larization is too narrow and is based on outmoded
ideas about the nature, production, and transmis-
sion of science and its relationship to its publics.
He has suggested instead a much broader and
more inclusive definition. In this revised view,
popularization is the “transmission of intellectual
products from the context of their production to
other contexts” (p. 12). He acknowledges that
the audiences of popularized science, although
traditionally conceptualized as inexpert and pas-
sive, are often highly educated, and include other
scientists and intellectuals as well as non-scientists.
Whalen and Tobin (1980) have used the term
“devotees of science” to refer to those members
of science’s popular audience who have varying
levels of scientific training, but are united in their
desire for personal enlightenment through sci-
ence (such as the readers of the Amateur Science
Section in the Scientific American). In addition to
devotees, researchers, cultivators, and practitio-
ners of science are included in science’s possible
audiences, and certainly comprised the audience
for Skinner’s work. It is clear from archival and
published sources that the audience for Skinner’s
popular writing included other psychologists and
scientists, students, homemakers, politicians,
teachers, parents, and prison inmates, among
others. The readers of Skinner’s work were not
inexpert, and were certainly not passive.
In Whitley’s revised view, scientists are not
necessarily separate from the larger culture. La
Follette (1990) has written that popular magazine
writers have traditionally presented scientists as
“unique and as set apart from society…. They
implied that it was somehow possible to distin-
guish scientists from ordinary people” (pp. 66-67).
Although this stereotype may still persist in the
public mind, it is now recognized that scientists
themselves and the work that they do are very
much embedded in particular social and cultural
contexts and value systems (Latour & Woolgar,
1979). Skinner’s work was very much a product
of his upbringing and his social milieu (see Bjork,
1993, 1996; Smith 1996). As Woodward (1996)
has noted, “As works consciously constructed
during a period of technological optimism in
American life, Skinner’s writings convey a pecu-
liarly “hands on” social philosophy. They extend
to the social and personal realms a philosophy of
technology that…has long been ingrained in the
American penchant for making and remaking the
environment” (p. 8). More specifically, the prob-
lems faced by American society during the time
that Skinner lived and work, such as the plight
of returning WWII veterans, overpopulation,
the depletion of environmental resources, and
the threat of nuclear warfare, shaped his thinking
about his work and the uses to which behavioral
technology could be put.
Finally, in the traditional view, dissemination
of scientific knowledge occurs after the facts have
Alexandra Rutherford

117
been discovered, and this dissemination is separate
and distinct from the research enterprise. Thus,
there is no feedback between popularization and
the scientific research enterprise. In the revised
view, these two processes are seen as highly related
and interdependent, especially for scientific fields
that address everyday concerns, as in some areas
of psychology. The process of popularization is
intimately tied to what research gets done, how it
is done, and how it is interpreted. As an example,
in Skinner’s case the publication of BFD resulted
in considerable public controversy. As a result of
the book, the sources of Skinner’s funding were
queried in Congress. The nature of the query was
whether the federal government should continue
to fund research which was perceived to threaten
or subvert American values (see “Freedom and
funding,” 1971). Fortunately, no action was taken
as a result of the concern, and Skinner retained
his funding. However, this provides just one ex-
ample of how scientists’ activities are intimately
embedded in a larger cultural and political land-
scape, and how this has the potential to shape the
nature and scope of their activities in, at times,
very direct ways.
A consideration of the processes of science
popularization is closely tied to an analysis of
Skinner as a public figure, and highlight the poten-
tial richness and complexity of such an analysis.
Skinner used the popular press in a variety of ways
that either intentionally or unintentionally helped
shape his public persona and thus influenced the
probability that his technology would be taken up
on a large scale. Ultimately, what Skinner actu-
ally said provides only one side of this complex
picture. As Geiser (1976) has noted, “What
Skinner says is one thing; what the public hears
is another. The difference could make or break
his technology” (p. 11). Here I have surveyed, in
part, what Skinner said to his popular audiences.
Unraveling what the public heard - and why - is
the other half of the analysis.
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A “visible scientist”
Appendix
A chronological listing of Skinner’s writings for the popular press
Has Gertrude Stein a secret? (1934, January).
Atlantic Monthly, pp. 50-57.
Baby in a box. Introducing the mechanical baby
tender (1945, October). Ladies Home Journal,
pp. 30-31, 135-136, 138.
More boxes for babies (1945, December). Ladies
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“Psi” and its manifestations [Review of the book
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Letter to the editor (1947, December 28). New
York Times Book Review, p. 14.
Walden two (1948). New York: Macmillan.
Science of society [Review of the book The proper
study of mankind] (1948, November 14). New
York Times Book Review, pp. 20, 22.
Card-guessing experiments (1948). American
Scientist, 36, 36, 456, 458.
How to teach animals (1951, December). Scientific
American, pp. 26-29.
How you can train a dog to do simple dance
steps (1951, December 28). Boston Daily Globe
[reprinted from Scientific American].
How to train a pigeon to play on a toy piano (1951,
December 29). Boston Daily Globe [reprinted
from Scientific American].
A critique of psychoanalytic concepts and theo-
ries (1954, November). Science Monthly, pp.
300-305.
Some issues concerning the control of human
behavior: A symposium. (1956). Science, 124,
1057-1066 (with C. R. Rogers).

120 Alexandra Rutherford
The experimental analysis of behavior (1957).
American Scientist, 45, 343-371.
Teaching machines (1958). Science, 128, 969-
977.
May we have a positive contribution? (1960, Oc-
tober 10). The New Republic, p. 22.
Teaching machines (1961, November). Scientific
American, pp. 90-102.
Behaviorism at fifty (1963, May 31). Science, 140,
951-958.
New methods and new aims in teaching (1964).
New Scientist, 122, 483-484.
Why teachers fail (1965, October 16). Saturday
Review, pp. 80-81, 98-102.
War’s victims [Letter to the editor] (1966, May 5).
New York Times, p. 46.
The phylogeny and ontogeny of behavior (1966,
September 9). Science, 153, 1205-1213.
Visions of utopia (1967, January 5) The Listener,
pp. 22-23.
Utopia through the control of human behavior
(1967, January 12) The Listener, pp. 55-56.
Teaching science in high school: What is wrong?
(1968, February 16). Science, 159, 704-710.
The machine that is man (1969, April) Psychology
Today, 2, 22-25, 60-63.
Beyond freedom and dignity (1971). New York:
Knopf.
Autoshaping (1971). Science, 173, 752.
Humanistic behaviorism (1971, May/June). The
Humanist, 31, 35.
B.F. Skinner says what’s wrong with the social
sciences (1971, September 30). The Listener,
pp. 429-431.
[Letter to the editor] (1971, November 21). New
York Times Book Review, p. 50.
On ‘having’ a poem. (1972, July 15). Saturday
Review, pp. 32, 34-35.
Humanism and behaviorism (1972, July/August).
The Humanist, pp. 18-20.
Freedom and dignity revisited (1972, August 11).
New York Times, p. 29.
Are we free to have a future? (1973) Impact, 3,
5-12.
To build constructive prison environments [Letter
to the editor] (1974, February 26). New York
Times, p. 36.
Particulars of my life (1976). New York: Knopf.
Of housing programs and problem families [Let-
ter to the editor] (1976, February 4). New York
Times, p. 32.
Freedom at last, from the burden of taxation
(1977, July 26). New York Times, p. 29.
Between freedom and despotism (1977, Sep-
tember). Psychology Today, 11, 80-82, 84, 86,
90-91.
See Dick and Jane. See Dick and Jane play the
numbers! (1977, September 25). Boston Sunday
Globe, p. A4.
The shaping of a behaviorist (1979). New York:
Knopf.
My experience with the baby tender (1979,
March). Psychology Today, 12, 29-31, 34, 37-
38, 40.
Getting more mileage out of incentives (1979,
April). Interview by D. Yergin. Psychology
Today, pp. 18+.
Symbolic communication between two pigeons
(1980). Science, 207, 543-545 (with R. Epstein
and R. P. Lanza).
‘Self-awareness’ in the pigeon (1981). Science, 212,
695-696 (with R. Epstein and R. P
. Lanza).
Selection by consequences (1981). Science, 213,
501-504.
Understanding psychological man (1982, May).
Psychology Today, pp. 48-49.
A matter of consequences (1983). New York:
Knopf.
Origins of a behaviorist (1983, September) Psy-
chology Today, pp. 22-33.
Sleeping in peace (1986, Summer). Free Inquiry,
6, 57.
What religion means to me (1987, Spring). Free
Inquiry, 7, 12-13.
A humanist alternative to A.A.’s twelve steps
(1987, July/August). The Humanist, 47, 5.
Outlining a science of feeling (1987, May 8) Times
Literary Supplement, pp. 490-496.