Whatever he thought he was, it was painfully clear he was not. - Tom Butler-Bowdon

Instead of trying to find out what goes on inside a person’s head (“mentalism”), to know why people act as they do, Skinner suggested, all we need to know is what circumstances caused them to act in a certain way.

Character” is the unique interplay between two opposing forces: a need for power, or personal aggrandizement; and a need for “social feeling” and togetherness (in German, Gemeinschaftsgefühl).

But first we have to accept the idea that thinking long and hard about something does not always deliver us better results, and that the brain actually evolved to make us think on our feet.