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Fernandez EJ, Martin AL. Applied behavior analysis and the zoo: Forthman and Ogden (1992) thirty years later. J Appl Behav Anal 2023; 56:29-54. [PMID: 36562615 PMCID: PMC10107353 DOI: 10.1002/jaba.969] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2022] [Accepted: 11/27/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
The field of applied behavior analysis has been directly involved in both research and applications of behavioral principles to improve the lives of captive zoo animals. Thirty years ago, Forthman and Ogden (1992) wrote one of the first papers documenting some of these efforts. Since that time, considerable work has been done using behavioral principles and procedures to guide zoo welfare efforts. The current paper reexamines and updates Forthman and Ogden's original points, with attention to the 5 categories they detailed: (a) promotion of species-typical behavior, (b) reintroduction and repatriation of endangered species, (c) animal handling, (d) pest control, and (e) animal performances. In addition, we outline 3 current and future directions for behavior analytic endeavors: (a) experimental analyses of behavior and the zoo, (b) applied behavior analysis and the zoo, and (c) single-case designs and the zoo. The goal is to provide a framework that can guide future behavioral research in zoos, as well as create applications based on these empirical evaluations.
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Abstract
This article examines Skinner’s often neglected ideas about evolution, which he returns to in his final academic paper. I attempt to square Skinner’s advocacy for evolutionary explanation, including his efforts to reconcile biological, individual, and cultural adaptation, with how he is framed and critiqued by a school of evolutionary psychologists who attribute to Skinner a blank slate, or so-called standard social science model, view of the mind. I argue that characterizing Skinner in this manner is inconsistent with his evolutionary writings and ignores Skinner’s explicit disavowals of such interpretations. I then discuss Skinner’s evolutionary views in light of contemporary evolutionary theories of human psychology. I also compare the reception to evolutionary psychology and Skinner within the field more generally and conclude by discussing the proposal that evolutionary psychology should be considered a new paradigm for psychology, a claim that seems to follow from evolutionary psychologists’ caricature of Skinner.
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McLoughlin S, Tyndall I, Pereira A. Convergence of multiple fields on a relational reasoning approach to cognition. INTELLIGENCE 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2020.101491] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
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Abstract
Recent discussions have revived old claims that hereditarian research on race differences in intelligence has been subject to a long and effective taboo. We argue that given the extensive publications, citations, and discussions of such work since 1969, claims of taboo and suppression are a myth. We critically examine claims that (self-described) hereditarians currently and exclusively experience major misrepresentation in the media, regular physical threats, denouncements, and academic job loss. We document substantial exaggeration and distortion in such claims. The repeated assertions that the negative reception of research asserting average Black inferiority is due to total ideological control over the academy by “environmentalists,” leftists, Marxists, or “thugs” are unwarranted character assassinations on those engaged in legitimate and valuable scholarly criticism.
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Carrying the baton: Evolution science and a contextual behavioral analysis of language and cognition. JOURNAL OF CONTEXTUAL BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 2017. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jcbs.2017.01.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
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Zilio D. Who, What, and When: Skinner's Critiques of Neuroscience and His Main Targets. THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST 2016; 39:197-218. [PMID: 31976970 PMCID: PMC6701252 DOI: 10.1007/s40614-016-0053-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Skinner is commonly accused of being against neurophysiological explanations of behavior. However, in his writings, he did not criticize neuroscience itself as an important independent field from behavior analysis. The problem was in how some authors were using a pseudo-physiology in the explanation of behavior. Skinner was explicit in showing which authors and theories were using physiology incorrectly. Therefore, my goal is to present an analysis of the main targets of Skinner's critiques against neurophysiological explanations of behavior. This analysis will be divided as follows: (a) the targets of Skinner's critiques, (b) when the critiques were presented, and (c) the specific critiques that were made. The analysis was based upon 73 papers written by Skinner that were selected through keywords related to the issue. When placed in proper historical context, Skinner did not criticize neuroscience, but the misuse of pseudo-physiological theories in the explanation of behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diego Zilio
- Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Fernando Ferrari Ave, 514. Goiabeiras, Vitória, ES 29075-910 Brazil
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Abstract
The developmental systems approach is a perspective that has been adopted by increasing numbers of developmental scientists since it emerged in the twentieth century. The overview presented in this paper makes clear that proponents of this approach and proponents of modern behavior analysis should be natural allies. Despite some distinctions between the two schools of thought, the essential ideas associated with each are compatible with the other; in particular, scientists in both camps work to analyze the provenance of behavior and recognize the central role that contextual factors play in behavioral expression.
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Zilio D. On the Autonomy of Psychology from Neuroscience: A Case Study of Skinner's Radical Behaviorism and Behavior Analysis. REVIEW OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 2016. [DOI: 10.1037/gpr0000067] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Diego Zilio
- Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, Federal University of Espírito Santo
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Goddard MJ. Upon Further Reflection—The Affinity of Noam Chomsky and B. F. Skinner. REVIEW OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 2015. [DOI: 10.1037/gpr0000038] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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Morris EK. Stop Preaching to the Choir, Publish Outside the Box: A Discussion. THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST 2014; 37:87-94. [PMID: 27274963 PMCID: PMC4883465 DOI: 10.1007/s40614-014-0011-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
In this article, I comment on Normand's, Vyse's, Friman's, Schlinger's, and Reed's articles on publishing books, journal articles, letters to the editor, and columns outside of behavior analysis, that is, "outside the box," as well as communicating with editors, authors, and journalists. Among the topics I address are the prerequisite repertoires and these authors' guidance (e.g., task analyses), as well as technical terms and language and the many opportunities available to us, yet also caveats about how, whether, and when we should publish outside the box. In the process, I include lessons I have learned from submitting my own manuscripts outside the box and suggestions I have gleaned from my failures and successes. In conclusion, if the field values publishing outside the box, then, it should analyze the necessary repertoires and provide systematic instruction in them.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edward K. Morris
- Department of Applied Behavioral Science, 4020 Dole Center for Human Development, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045 USA
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Morris EK, Smith NG, Altus DE. B. F. Skinner's contributions to applied behavior analysis. THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST 2012; 28:99-131. [PMID: 22478444 DOI: 10.1007/bf03392108] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Our paper reviews and analyzes B. F. Skinner's contributions to applied behavior analysis in order to assess his role as the field's originator and founder. We found, first, that his contributions fall into five categorizes: the style and content of his science, his interpretations of typical and atypical human behavior, the implications he drew from his science for application, his descriptions of possible applications, and his own applications to nonhuman and human behavior. Second, we found that he explicitly or implicitly addressed all seven dimensions of applied behavior analysis. These contributions and the dimensions notwithstanding, he neither incorporated the field's scientific (e.g., analytic) and social dimensions (e.g., applied) into any program of published research such that he was its originator, nor did he systematically integrate, advance, and promote the dimensions so to have been its founder. As the founder of behavior analysis, however, he was the father of applied behavior analysis.
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Morris EK, Lazo JF, Smith NG. Whether, when, and why Skinner published on biological participation in behavior. THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST 2012; 27:153-69. [PMID: 22478425 DOI: 10.1007/bf03393176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
This paper brings some data to bear on the criticisms, claims, and arguments that Skinner (a) denied or dismissed biological participation in behavior, (b) addressed it only late in his career or more often later than earlier, or (c) addressed it only because of the overwhelming evidence for it or the criticisms that he had overlooked it. For this, we coded Skinner's every primary-source publication for three content categories (i.e., genetics, physiology, and evolution) and for the extent to which he addressed them (i.e., in publication titles, substantively, or in passing). Our findings are that Skinner addressed biological participation in over a third of his publications throughout his career, albeit more often later than earlier. The latter, however, is accounted for by an increase in his base rate of publication and in general conditions and specific events in his career, psychology, and science. The discussion addresses our research methods; the reasons for and refutations of the criticisms, claims, and arguments; and their sources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edward K Morris
- Department of Applied Behavioral Science, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
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Morris EK. Behavior analysis and ecological psychology: past, present, and future. a review of Harry Heft's Ecological Psychology in context. J Exp Anal Behav 2009; 92:275-304. [PMID: 20354604 PMCID: PMC2732324 DOI: 10.1901/jeab.2009.92-275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edward K Morris
- Department of Applied Behavioral Science, 4020 Dole Human Development Center, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.
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Thompson T. Relations among functional systems in behavior analysis. J Exp Anal Behav 2007; 87:423-40. [PMID: 17575907 PMCID: PMC1868585 DOI: 10.1901/jeab.2007.21-06] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2006] [Accepted: 12/29/2006] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
This paper proposes that an organism's integrated repertoire of operant behavior has the status of a biological system, similar to other biological systems, like the nervous, cardiovascular, or immune systems. Evidence from a number of sources indicates that the distinctions between biological and behavioral events is often misleading, engendering counterproductive explanatory controversy. A good deal of what is viewed as biological (often thought to be inaccessible or hypothetical) can become publicly measurable variables using currently available and developing technologies. Moreover, such endogenous variables can serve as establishing operations, discriminative stimuli, conjoint mediating events, and maintaining consequences within a functional analysis of behavior and need not lead to reductionistic explanation. I suggest that explanatory misunderstandings often arise from conflating different levels of analysis and that behavior analysis can extend its reach by identifying variables operating within a functional analysis that also serve functions in other biological systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Travis Thompson
- Autism Program, Department of Pediatrics, MMC 486 Mayo, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, 420 Delaware, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
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Moxley RA. Ultimate realities: deterministic and evolutionary. THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST 2007; 30:59-77. [PMID: 22478489 DOI: 10.1007/bf03392146] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
References to ultimate reality commonly turn up in the behavioral literature as references to determinism. However, this determinism is often difficult to interpret. There are different kinds of determinisms as well as different kinds of ultimate realities for a behaviorist to consider. To clarify some of the issues involved, the views of ultimate realities are treated as falling along a continuum, with extreme views of complete indeterminism and complete determinism at either end and various mixes in between. Doing so brings into play evolutionary realities and the movement from indeterminism to determinism, as in Peirce's evolutionary cosmology. In addition, this framework helps to show how the views of determinism by B. F. Skinner and other behaviorists have shifted over time.
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Abstract
For much of his career, B. F. Skinner displayed the optimism that is often attributed to behaviorists. With time, however, he became less and less sanguine about the power of behavior science to solve the major problems facing humanity. Near the end of his life he concluded that a fair consideration of principles revealed by the scientific analysis of behavior leads to pessimism about our species. In this article I discuss the case for Skinner's pessimism and suggest that the ultimate challenge for behavior analysts today is to prove Skinner wrong.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul Chance
- Address correspondence to Paul Chance, 9590 Cedar Lane, Seaford, Delaware 19973, e-mail:
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Palmer DC. On Chomsky's Appraisal of Skinner's Verbal Behavior: A Half Century of Misunderstanding. THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST 2006; 29:253-67. [PMID: 22478467 PMCID: PMC2223153 DOI: 10.1007/bf03392134] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The history of the writing of Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957), Chomsky's review (1959), and MacCorquodale's rebuttal (1970) are briefly summarized. Chomsky's recent reflections on his review are analyzed: Chomsky's refusal to acknowledge the review's errors or its aggressive tone is consistent with his polemical style but comes at a minor cost in consistency and plausibility. However, his remarks about the place of Skinner's work in science reveal misunderstandings so great that they undercut the credibility of the review substantially. The gradual growth in the influence of Skinner's book suggests that its legacy will endure.
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Morris EK, Smith NG, Lazo JF. Why Morris, Lazo, and Smith (2004) was published in The Behavior Analyst. THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST 2005; 28:169-79. [PMID: 22478449 DOI: 10.1007/bf03392113] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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