1. Psychology Department Colloquium
On the Interpretation of Generalized Operants
Dr. David Palmer
Smith College
3:30 PM Friday, November 19, 2010
1718 Wood Hall
Informal Discussion (with pizza), noon, 3715 Wood
With bachelor’s degrees in geology and English, Dave Palmer was devoting his post-graduate
years to avoiding the draft when he chanced to pick up a copy of Walden Two from a friend’s
bookshelf. It changed the direction of his life. He promptly read the rest of the Skinner canon
and spent the next decade trying to start an experimental community and preaching radical
behaviorism to anyone who would listen. Eventually he took some classes with Beth Sulzer-
Azaroff, who urged him to apply to graduate school. Thanks to a dyslexic secretary who entered
his undergraduate GPA backwards, he was admitted, and began working with John Donahoe. He
was happy in grad school and would be there still if the University of Massachusetts had not
threatened to change the locks. He has spent the last 21 years as the token behaviorist at Smith
College. During that time he co-authored, with Donahoe, Learning and Complex Behavior. He
2. continues to puzzle over the interpretation of memory, problem-solving, and, particularly, verbal
behavior. He still thinks Skinner was right about nearly everything.
