Going Out Of Style Isn't A Natural

A Piece Of Music Is An Experience To Be Taken By Itself.

Fame Is Also Won At The Expense Of Others. Even The Well-deserved Honors Of The Scientist Or Man Of Learning Are Unfair To Many Persons Of Equal Achievements Who Get None. When One Man Gets A Place In The Sun, The Others Are Put In A Denser Shade. From The Point Of View Of The Whole Group There's No Gain Whatsoever, And Perhaps A Loss.

We Have Seen That In Certain Respects Operant Reinforcement Resembles The Natural Selection Of Evolutionary Theory. Just As Genetic Characteristics Which Arise As Mutations Are Selected Or Discarded By Their Consequences, So Novel Forms Of Behavior Are Selected Or Discarded Through Reinforcement.

A Culture Must Be Reasonably Stable, But It Must Also Change, And It Will Presumably Be Strongest If It Can Avoid Excessive Respect For Tradition And Fear Of Novelty On The One Hand And Excessively Rapid Change On The Other.

The Strengthening Of Behavior Which Results From Reinforcement Is Appropriately Called 'conditioning'. In Operant Conditioning We 'strengthen' An Operant In The Sense Of Making A Response More Probable Or, In Actual Fact, More Frequent.