Socialization, control and ideology in Walden II, by B. F. Skinner

Development, maximization of satisfaction and happiness under the domain of operant conditioning

Abstract

This article aims to investigate aspects of the socialization process in the utopian village created by Burrhus Frederic Skinner, in the work Walden II, and establish some relationships between this process and the composition of a new family arrangement driven by the community's supportive sociability structure. However, the intercourse of this innovative society project presents as a basic element of the production, maintenance or change of social reality – continually subjected to experimental intervention – control over human behavior. This reveals the ideological facet of its creator's seductive and coherent discourse, which, ultimately, corroborates the asymmetry of relationships circumscribed by dynamics of power, domination and legitimation.