ABA presidential address: the aim, progress, and evolution of behavior analysis

The Evolution of the Conceptually Systematic Dimension and Its Current Functions in Applied Behavior Analysis

What does it mean to be conceptually systematic in contemporary applied behavior analysis (ABA) research and practice? To answer this question, the present study conducted a historical analysis of ABA scholars' interpretations of the conceptually systematic dimension of ABA over the last 55 years. The present article found the current characteristics of the conceptually systematic dimension are indeed sufficient to suggest ABA's conceptual independence from the experimental analysis of behavior or any other subdisciplines of behavior analysis. Based on this finding, this article addresses the challenges in contemporary ABA field such as ABA's own basic and applied continuum, translational research, and its relationship with other disciplines' research and practice.

Interpretação: Um Objetivo e um Método da Ciência de B. F. Skinner

Resumo Este artigo tem por finalidade geral apresentar a visão de Skinner sobre a interpretação, seja como objetivo ou como método. Além disso, tem como propósitos específicos (a) definir a interpretação, conforme Skinner, (b) apontar quando e como o autor defende a sua realização, (c) relacionar a interpretação a outros objetivos e métodos propostos por Skinner e (d) indicar contribuições e limites da interpretação, segundo o autor. Para isso, examinamos 35 textos de Skinner ligados ao assunto, publicados entre 1931 e 1990. Seja como objetivo ou como método, mostramos que a interpretação oferece contribuições teóricas, metodológicas e tecnológicas à ciência de Skinner, ainda que ela apresente limites relacionados à sua natureza inferencial e especulativa, bem como ao seu caráter plausível e, às vezes, temporário.

Behavioral Research with Planaria

This article serves as a brief primer on planaria for behavior scientists. In the 1950s and 1960s, McConnell's planarian laboratory posited that conditioned behavior could transfer after regeneration, and through cannibalization of trained planaria. These studies, the responses, and replications have been collectively referred to as the "planarian controversy." Successful behavioral assays still require refinement with this organism, but they could add valuable insight into our conceptualization of memory and learning. We discuss how the planarian's distinctive biology enables an examination of biobehavioral interaction models, and what behavior scientists must consider if they are to advance behavioral research with this organism. Suggestions for academics interested in building planaria learning laboratories are offered.

Two Psychologies

Cognitive psychology and contingency-based behavior analysis are contrasted to each other with respect to their philosophical and theoretical underpinnings as well as to theirpractical goals. Whereas the former focuses on intra-organismic structure and function in explaining minds, the latter emphasizes a history of environment–organism interactions in the explanation of behavior. A plea is made to value both psychologies on their own merits. Although we can speak of two separate psychologies, each with its own agenda, they must be considered as complementary, in principle.

Single-Case Research Methods: History and Suitability for a Psychological Science in Need of Alternatives

This paper presents a historical and conceptual analysis of a group of research strategies known as the Single-Case Methods (SCMs). First, we present an overview of the SCMs, their history, and their major proponents. We will argue that the philosophical roots of SCMs can be found in the ideas of authors who recognized the importance of understanding both the generality and individuality of psychological functioning. Second, we will discuss the influence that the natural sciences' attitude toward measurement and experimentation has had on SCMs. Although this influence can be traced back to the early days of experimental psychology, during which incipient forms of SCMs appeared, SCMs reached full development during the subsequent advent of Behavior Analysis (BA). Third, we will show that despite the success of SCMs in BA and other (mainly applied) disciplines, these designs are currently not prominent in psychology. More importantly, they have been neglected as a possible alternative to one of the mainstream approaches in psychology, the Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST), despite serious controversies about the limitations of this prevailing method. Our thesis throughout this section will be that SCMs should be considered as an alternative to NHST because many of the recommendations for improving the use of significance testing (Wilkinson & the TFSI, 1999) are main characteristics of SCMs. The paper finishes with a discussion of a number of the possible reasons why SCMs have been neglected.

Nonhuman primate models of social behavior and cocaine abuse

RATIONALE

Although cocaine is often abused in social situations, very few animal studies examine the effects of cocaine in the context of social behavior.

OBJECTIVES

This review highlights studies investigating the behavioral effects of cocaine in the context of social housing conditions using nonhuman primates. In addition, this review presents recent findings examining the effects of self-administering cocaine on social behavior and the effects of manipulations hypothesized to be stressful or enriching on the interactions between cocaine reinforcement and social rank. The following dependent variables are examined: (1) cocaine-induced changes in social behavior and (2) cocaine self-administration in cynomolgus monkeys of varying social ranks. The independent variables examined include several environmental and pharmacological manipulations.

CONCLUSIONS

The studies reviewed here indicate that several variables can differentially affect cocaine self-administration when studied in a social context, rather than in individually housed animals. These variables include the social rank and sex of the individual, drug history, the nature of the "fear"-inducing manipulation, and the reliability of cortisol as an appropriate measure of "stress." While the inclusion of socially housed animals necessitates larger sample sizes, animal models incorporating social behavior are more homologous to the human condition and should be implemented when possible.

Some reflections on 25 years of the association for behavior analysis: Past, present, and future

This paper offers some reflections on the discipline and profession of behavior analysis, as well as on the Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA), on the occasion of the association's 25th anniversary. It is based on a panel session conducted at the 1999 convention that included six past presidents of ABA (Donald M. Baer, Judith E. Favell, Sigrid S. Glenn, Philip N. Hineline, Jack Michael, and Edward K. Morris) and its current Executive Director and Secretary-Treasurer (Maria E. Malott). Among the topics addressed were (a) the survival of behavior analysis in university and cultural contexts, (b) the training of behavior-analytic researchers and practitioners, (c) relations between basic and applied research, (d) convergences between behavior analysis and other disciplines, (e) the structure and function of ABA, and (f) the importance of students for the future of the association, the discipline, and the profession. Questions from the audience raised issues concerning the relevance of major behavior-analytic journals, advances in behavior analysis since the death of B. F. Skinner, and the availability of accessible, popular material on applied behavior analysis.

Behavior analysis and mechanism: One is not the other

Behavior analysts have been called mechanists, and behavior analysis is said to be mechanistic; that is, they are claimed to be aligned with the philosophy of mechanism. What this means is analyzed by (a) examining standard and specialized dictionary and encyclopedia definitions and descriptions of mechanism and its cognates and (b) reviewing contemporary representations of the mechanistic worldview in the literature on the philosophy of psychology. Although the term mechanism and its cognates are sometimes an honorific (e.g., "natural science"), their standard meanings, usages, and functions in society, science, psychology, and philosophy do not aptly characterize the discipline. These terms mischaracterize how behavior analysts conceptualize (a) the behavior of their subjects and the individuals with whom they work and (b) their own behavior as scientists. Discussion is interwoven throughout about the nature of terms and definitions in science.

Comments on the 1950s applications and extensions of Skinner's operant psychology

These comments address Laties', Dewsbury's, and Rutherford's papers on the extension and application of Skinner's operant psychology during the 1950s. I begin by reflecting on the papers' overall theme-that the success of behavior analysis lies in its practical applications-and add some comments on Planck's principle. I then turn to the three papers and address such topics as (a) other applications and extensions (e.g., the U.S. space program), (b) relations between the research and researchers at the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology (e.g., a Yerkes' researcher in Skinner's laboratory), and (c) human schedule performance (e.g., continuity and discontinuity with nonhuman behavior). I end with a discussion of the fundamental reason for the success of the extensions and applications of behavior analysis-the experimental analysis of behavior.

Jacques Loeb, B. F. Skinner, and the legacy of prediction and control

The biologist Jacques Loeb is an important figure in the history of behavior analysis. Between 1890 and 1915, Loeb championed an approach to experimental biology that would later exert substantial influence on the work of B. F. Skinner and behavior analysis. This paper examines some of these sources of influence, with a particular emphasis on Loeb's firm commitment to prediction and control as fundamental goals of an experimental life science, and how these goals were extended and broadened by Skinner. Both Loeb and Skinner adopted a pragmatic approach to science that put practical control of their subject matter above formal theory testing, both based their research programs on analyses of reproducible units involving the intact organism, and both strongly endorsed technological applications of basic laboratory science. For Loeb, but especially for Skinner, control came to mean something more than mere experimental or technological control for its own sake; it became synonomous with scientific understanding. This view follows from (a) the successful working model of science Loeb and Skinner inherited from Ernst Mach, in which science is viewed as human social activity, and effective practical action is taken as the basis of scientific knowledge, and (b) Skinner's analysis of scientific activity, situated in the world of direct experience and related to practices arranged by scientific verbal communities. From this perspective, prediction and control are human acts that arise from and are maintained by social circumstances in which such acts meet with effective consequences.

Functions of research in radical behaviorism for the further development of behavior analysis

The experimental analysis of behavior began as an inductively oriented, empirically based scientific field. As the field grew, its distinctive system of science-radical behaviorism-grew with it. The continuing growth of the empirical base of the field has been accompanied by the growth of the literature on radical behaviorism and its implications. In this article the case is made that radical behaviorism is more than an abstract description of the assumptions and practices of the field; it is an active area of research within the field itself, and that such theoretical research is of great importance to the development of the field. Some of the characteristics of radical behaviorism are described in brief, along with the functions of organization, clarification, and extension of various aspects of behavior-analytic science. Research examples are given from the areas of work on the system itself, behavior-analytic theory, and implications of behavior analysis for issues and findings in other fields. The unique characteristics of radical behaviorism provide an integrative and generative scientific framework for the continuing development of behavior analysis.

Behavior analysis and ecological psychology: past, present, and future. a review of Harry Heft's Ecological Psychology in context

Relations between behavior analysis and ecological psychology have been strained for years, notwithstanding the occasional comment on their affinities. Harry Heft's (2001)Ecological Psychology in Context provides an occasion for reviewing anew those relations and affinities. It describes the genesis of ecological psychology in James's radical empiricism; addresses Holt's neorealism and Gestalt psychology; and synthesizes Gibson's ecological psychology and Barker's ecobehavioral science as a means for understanding everyday human behavior. Although behavior analysis is excluded from this account, Heft's book warrants a review nonetheless: It describes ecological psychology in ways that are congruent and complementary with behavior analysis (e.g., nonmediational theorizing; the provinces of natural history and natural science). After introducing modern ecological psychology, I comment on (a) Heft's admirable, albeit selective, historiography; (b) his ecological psychology-past and present-as it relates to Skinner's science and system (e.g., affordances, molar behavior); (c) his misunderstandings of Skinner's behaviorism (e.g., reductionistic, mechanistic, molecular); and (d) the theoretical status of Heft's cognitive terms and talk (i.e., in ontology, epistemology, syntax). I conclude by considering the alliance and integration of ecological psychology and behavior analysis, and their implications for unifying and transforming psychology as a life science, albeit more for the future than at present.

A case study in the misrepresentation of applied behavior analysis in autism: the gernsbacher lectures

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life. (Tolstoy, 1894)This article presents a case study in the misrepresentation of applied behavior analysis for autism based on Morton Ann Gernsbacher's presentation of a lecture titled "The Science of Autism: Beyond the Myths and Misconceptions." Her misrepresentations involve the characterization of applied behavior analysis, descriptions of practice guidelines, reviews of the treatment literature, presentations of the clinical trials research, and conclusions about those trials (e.g., children's improvements are due to development, not applied behavior analysis). The article also reviews applied behavior analysis' professional endorsements and research support, and addresses issues in professional conduct. It ends by noting the deleterious effects that misrepresenting any research on autism (e.g., biological, developmental, behavioral) have on our understanding and treating it in a transdisciplinary context.

Description and effects of sequential behavior practice in teacher education

This study examined the effects of a sequential behavior feedback protocol on the practice-teaching experiences of undergraduate teacher trainees. The performance competencies of teacher trainees were analyzed using an alternative opportunities for appropriate action measure. Data support the added utility of sequential (Sharpe, 1997a, 1997b) behavior analysis information in systematic observation approaches to teacher education. One field-based undergraduate practicum using sequential behavior (i.e., field systems analysis) principles was monitored. Summarized are the key elements of the (a) classroom instruction provided as a precursor to the practice teaching experience, (b) practice teaching experience, and (c) field systems observation tool used for evaluation and feedback, including multiple-baseline data (N = 4) to support this approach to teacher education. Results point to (a) the strong relationship between sequential behavior feedback and the positive change in four preservice teachers' day-to-day teaching practices in challenging situational contexts, and (b) the relationship between changes in teacher practices and positive changes in the behavioral practices of gymnasium pupils. Sequential behavior feedback was also socially validated by the undergraduate participants and Professional Development School teacher supervisors in the study.