ABSTRACT
Whatever psychologists think of Professor Burrhus Skinner's work, he has become something of a legend. His work includes the development of a number of techniques of 'behaviour modication'. 'Behaviour modification', based on sound principles of Skinnerian conditioning, has become nearly as popular in the USA as psychoanalysis. In the 1930s, he found that if he placed a rat or a pigeon in a cage, he could train that animal to do any number of things. Skinner believed he had the answer with his pigeons. If they could be taught to play table tennis they could be taught to guide a missile. When Skinner came to Harvard in 1929, he had already read Pavlov and J. B. Watson. Skinner's work shows that you can explain actions not in terms of inner feelings and intentions but in terms of past history and this history is one of external actions.
