Chapter 01 of 5
Pigeons and Slot Machines
Why unpredictable rewards are so hard to walk away from.
- The Scientist
B. F. Skinner
American psychologist B. F. Skinner spent his career studying how rewards and consequences shape behaviour.
- The Box
A chamber for learning
Skinner built a small chamber where an animal, often a pigeon or rat, could press a lever or peck a key to earn food.
- The Principle
Rewarded behaviour repeats
Actions followed by a reward become more likely. Skinner called this operant conditioning.
17 more cards in this chapter
Could you answer this?
Which reward schedule produced the most persistent behaviour in Skinner's experiments?
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📱 The Attention Machine
- 01Pigeons and Slot MachinesWhy unpredictable rewards are so hard to walk away from.
- 02The Infinite ScrollThe feature that removed the bottom of the page — and its inventor's regret.
- 03Built to HookThe design playbook behind apps that are hard to put down.
- 04What Happens to FocusWhat switching, interruptions and multitasking really do to attention.
- 05Taking It BackPractical, evidence-based ways to get your attention back.