Some values guiding community research and action

Current Dimensions of Applied Behavior Analysis in Mainland China: A Review of 20 Years of Research

In the West, the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) evolved over 7 decades from the experimental analysis of behavior. In this evolutionary process, seven dimensions of ABA emerged: applied, behavioral, analytic, technological, conceptual, effective, and generality. In contrast, ABA was introduced into mainland China only about 20 years ago as a direct result of the rise in autism diagnosis in that country, and only since then has it become an area of research there. The purpose of this study is to critically evaluate ABA research published in China by focusing on its seven dimensions. The results of our review reveal that the level of acceptance of and interest in the seven ABA dimensions varies across the studies sampled. Recommendations for the future development of ABA research in China are offered.

A Pilot Study Exploring Practices that Support the Longevity of Community Gardens Supported by Religious Organizations

Current food production methods in the United States (US) contribute to environmental degradation as well as food insecurity. Food production by means of community gardens has the potential to reduce the deleterious effects of current production methods. However, many community gardens face challenges that hinder their longevity, thereby reducing the likelihood of the support they might provide for environmentally sustainable food production and decreased food insecurity for community members. Researchers conducted a literature review regarding best practices for community gardens, and used ethnographic research methods to inform a culturo-behavioral systems analysis using the Total Performance System and matrix (systems interdependency) analysis to better understand the cultural practices of two established community gardens in the southwest region of the US. The results of the analyses are presented in terms of recommendations to support each community garden's sustainability. Recommendations regarding future research include environmental manipulations to identify functional relations and potential outcome measures for improving the longevity of community gardens.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42822-023-00124-7.

Tobacco-free policy reduces combustible tobacco byproduct on a large university campus

Policy drives community-level behavior change, so behavior analysts should aid empirical policy development. University campus regulation is a useful proxy for broader policy initiatives and thus is a convenient inroad for behavior analyst involvement. This paper examines behavior analytic contributions to the planning and evaluation of a university tobacco-free initiative. We provided resources and guidance throughout early planning, and we then evaluated faculty and student compliance via byproduct (e.g., cigarette butts) counts taken at four high-traffic sites (as flagged by preliminary surveying of campus faculty, staff, and students). Visual analysis and supplementary statistical testing support notions of (a) a meaningful and sustained reduction of combustible tobacco byproducts in all locations, and (b) a demonstrative example of behavior analytic involvement with university policy planning and evaluation.

Behavioral Interventions Contributing to Reducing Poverty and Inequities

Behavioral science has a long history of engaging in efforts to understand and address socially important issues. Poverty and inequities in health and development are among the most important and complex social issues facing the world today. With its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations (2015) has focused attention and guidance on addressing key global challenges, including to "end poverty" (SDG 1), "ensure good health and well-being for all" (SDG3), and "reduce inequality within and among countries" (SDG 10). In this paper, we provide a framework and illustrative examples of contributions of behavioral science to these issues. We feature illustrative behavioral interventions at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels. We highlight the diversity of issues, intervention methods, and settings reflected in applications of behavioral science. By joining methods from behavioral science, public health, and other disciplines-and the experiential knowledge of those most affected by inequities-behavioral methods can make significant contributions to collaborative efforts to assure health and well-being for all.

A Critique of Colonialism and Modern Aid in Africa: What Would Skinner Say?

In Skinner's chapter titled The Ethics of Helping People, he stated, "By giving too much help, we postpone the acquisition of effective behavior and perpetuate the need for help" (Skinner, 1996, p. 63). Through years of living cross-culturally in various African countries, the first author has seen this demonstrated not only in organizations but also as part of the very fabric of society. The detrimental effects of helping, as described by Skinner, are especially evident in African countries that were formerly colonized and continue through the delivery of modern aid by western nations. Robust reinforcement contingencies surround the helper and the helped, which creates and maintains a reciprocal dominating/dependent relationship that has stifled growth in the past and continues to do so in the present. Considering that behavior analysis was born in the western world, any dissemination efforts to formerly colonized African countries will perpetuate the power dynamic conceived from colonial "helping" practices. In this paper, suggestions will be outlined for behavior analysts interested in international dissemination, specifically looking at the role of participatory community development in alleviating colonial relations between these regions.

Goal Setting with Latinx Families of Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Case Studies

Behavioral community psychology focuses on studying issues that matter to communities, unpacking contextual factors that impact people's behaviors, and identifying strategies to address such issues. Goal setting is one such strategy often used by behavioral psychologists. Grounded in the values of behavioral community psychology and a behavior analysis paradigm, this study illustrated two case studies of Latinx parents of children with disabilities where goal-setting strategies were implemented to promote behavior change. The first case study focused on the promotion of healthy lifestyle behaviors and routines among Latinx families of children with disabilities in the United States. The second case study examined goal setting related to youth development by parents of adolescents with disabilities in Colombia. In both cases, participants received training on goal setting and had opportunities to discuss progress toward achieving their goals, share action steps taken, and discuss the contextual challenges or barriers that they experienced. The results indicate that behavioral goal-setting procedures can be effective in helping parents attain their goals and brainstorm strategies for addressing behavioral and contextual challenges. Implications for future research advancing behavioral community psychology are discussed.

A Reflection on Community Research and Action as an Evolving Practice

Community research and action is an evolving field of practice with multiple influences. Its varied ways of knowing and doing reflect recombined elements from different disciplines, including behavioral science, community psychology, public health, and community development. This article offers a personal reflection based on my evolving practice over nearly 50 years. The focus is on three types of influence: (a) engaging with different communities, fields, and networks (e.g., discovering shared values, diverse methods); (b) building methods and capabilities for the work (e.g., methods for participatory research, tools for capacity building); and (c) partnering for collaborative research and action, locally and globally. This story highlights the nature of the field's evolution as an increasing variation in methods. Our evolving practice of community research and action-individually and collectively-emerges from the recombination of ideas and methods discovered through engagement in a wide variety of contexts.

Increasing Access and Quality of Behavior-Analytic Services for the Latinx Population

Latinxs are the largest minority group in the United States, making up approximately 18% of the total population. Although there is a critical need for the behavioral health care system, including behavior analysts, to provide services to support the needs of the Latinx community, access to quality behavioral and mental health services continues to be lacking for the Black, Indigenous, and people of color populations. This article highlights some of the cultural and language factors that should be considered by behavior-analytic providers who have a shared responsibility to make culturally and linguistically appropriate services available to this population. Additionally, recommendations for systemic action across service providers, professional organizations, behavior-analytic training programs, and researchers are suggested to address these barriers. Recommendations for bringing about this systemic change are suggested across three domains: (a) increasing diversity in the behavior-analytic workforce, (b) enhancing training in cultural- and language-related issues, and (c) conducting research on cultural and language adaptations to behavior-analytic evidence-based treatments.

Social Justice is the Spirit and Aim of an Applied Science of Human Behavior: Moving from Colonial to Participatory Research Practices

It is time for a paradigm shift in the science of applied behavior analysis. Our current approach to applied research perpetuates power imbalances. We posit that the purpose of applied behavior analysis is to enable and expand human rights and to eliminate the legacies of colonial, oppressive social structures. We report the findings from our examination of the content of our flagship applied research journal. We reviewed 50 years of applied experiments from the standpoint of respect, beneficence, justice, and the participation of individuals and communities. Although there is some promise and movement toward inclusion, our findings indicate that we have not prioritized full participation across all segments of society, especially persons and communities that are marginalized. Social justice rests on the belief that human life is to be universally cherished and valued. In this article, we suggest that policies, strategies, and research practices within our field be interwoven with a commitment to social justice, including racial justice, for all. We offer recommendations to neutralize and diffuse power imbalances and to work toward a shift from colonial to participatory practices in the methods and aims of our applied science.

Creating Inclusive and Equitable Cultural Practices by Linking Leadership to Systemic Change

From a global pandemic to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and others in the Black community, the year 2020 has cast light on long-standing social injustices. With this has come a critical social movement and a call for change-specifically, a call for transformative solutions that address not only new challenges but also centuries of systemic issues, such as systemic oppression and systemic racism. Leadership across the globe has scrambled to answer the call, some issuing statements committed to change, others engaging in necessary action. What is critical, however, is that leadership understands the cultural factors that have given rise to centuries of oppressive practices, and that leaders are held accountable for the commitments they have expressed. Leadership must promote, create, and maintain prosocial, inclusive, and healthy work environments. This requires new cultural practices and a focused organizational model. Equally important is the need to resolve ambiguity and communicate effectively, with strategic consideration of constituent perspectives and needs. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to discuss the contribution of behavior analysis to addressing systemic oppression, as well as the pivotal role leadership communication plays in occasioning social change. It is our hope that this conceptual work will inspire behavior scientists to advance the field of behavior analysis and social movements in the direction of equitable, prosocial change that dismantles systemic oppression.

Underlying Principles of a Covid-19 Behavioral Vaccine for a Sustainable Cultural Change

Until pharmacological measures are effective at containing the COVID-19 outbreak, adopting protective behaviors is paramount. In this work, we aim at informing interventions to limit the spread of the contagion and prepare against any future outbreaks by developing a behavioral framework to interpret and prescribe both the individual and large-scale uptake of non-pharmaceutical measures. First, we analyze the barriers and facilitators to adherence to protective behaviors according to a three-term contingency by exploring potential gaps in terms of setting stimuli, motivating operations, delayed consequences, and positive or negative consequences. We explore their roles in the likelihood of individual compliance to protective behaviors, taking physical distancing as an example of functional analysis. Second, we interpret contagion control as the cumulative effect of large-scale adherence to protective behaviors. We explore the interrelations between societal problems caused or amplified by similar behaviors presented by many individuals and the coordination of agents or agencies aiming at promoting large-scale behavioral change. Then, we highlight the potential of developing a behavioral vaccine, and practical steps for applying it to promote sustainable cultural change that may protect against health, social, and economic losses in future outbreaks.

Bringing ethical thinking to social change initiatives: Why it matters

Norms-shifting interventions (NSI) seek to improve people's well-being by facilitating the transformation of harmful social norms, the shared rules of acceptable actions in a group that prop up harmful health behaviours. Community-based NSI aim for incremental normative change and complement other social and behaviour change strategies, addressing gender, other inequalities, and the power structures that hold inequalities in place. Consequently, they demand that designers and implementers-many who are outsiders-grapple with power, history, and community agency operating in complicated social contexts. Ethical questions include whose voices and values, at which levels, should inform intervention design; who should be accountable for managing resistance that arises during implementation? As interest and funding for NSI increases in lower and middle-income countries, their potential to yield sustained change is balanced by unintentionally reinforcing inequities that violate human rights and social justice pillars guiding health promotion efforts. A review of 125 articles on ethical considerations in public health, social justice, and human rights-where NSI actions intersect-indicated little guidance on practice. To begin to address this gap, we propose ten ethical values and practical ways to engage ethically with the social complexities of NSI and the social change they seek, and a way forward.

Out of the Lab: Shaping an Ecological and Constructional Cultural Systems Science

Contemporary societies face critical, interlocking, "wicked" challenges, including economic inequities and marginalization, personal and collective violence, ethnic and religious conflicts, degradation of "the commons," climate change, and more, and all of these issues clearly are grounded in behavior. An adequate culturo-behavior science could be positioned to advance and leverage research and interventions supporting community well-being, and contribute to overcoming urgent societal and global challenges. The current state of cultural systems science, however, is limited by theory and methodology, and by competition for attention with well-established research and practice opportunities related to individual-level challenges. In this article, the author explores those limitations, and suggests a more expansive perspective drawing on historical and contemporary ecological science and contemporary theories of complex systems. Research guided by established science within those disciplines offers opportunities to move cultural systems science out of the lab, and into a more adequate, environmentally rich stance drawing on ecological strategies, recursively integrating contextual observations, conceptual advances, and in vivo experimentation. Examples of each of those strategies and exploration of developmental programs of research grounded in such integration are explored.

James G. Holland: A Análise do Comportamento como Prática Política

Resumo James G. Holland foi uma voz dissonante, não apenas na análise do comportamento, mas no contexto mais amplo do pensamento político estadunidense. Este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar as principais críticas e sugestões, direcionadas por Holland, à aplicação da análise do comportamento e avaliar sua relevância no cenário atual. Conclui-se que tais críticas e sugestões são úteis para todos os analistas do comportamento, pois contribuem para que mantenhamos uma cultura de avaliação interna sobre as consequências sociais de nossas práticas e para que analisemos de modo amplo o entrelaçamento de contingências presentes em situações de intervenção e sua influência sobre a formulação de nossos objetivos.

The Fuzzy Concept of Applied Behavior Analysis Research

A seven-dimension framework, introduced by Baer, Wolf, and Risley in an iconic 1968 article, has become the de facto gold standard for identifying "good" work in applied behavior analysis. We examine the framework's historical context and show how its overarching attention to social relevance first arose and then subsequently fueled the growth of applied behavior analysis. Ironically, however, in contemporary use, the framework serves as a bottleneck that prevents many socially important problems from receiving adequate attention in applied behavior analysis research. The core problem lies in viewing the framework as a conjoint set in which "good" research must reflect all seven dimensions at equally high levels of integrity. We advocate a bigger-tent version of applied behavior analysis research in which, to use Baer and colleagues' own words, "The label applied is determined not by the procedures used but by the interest society shows in the problem being studied." Because the Baer-Wolf-Risley article expressly endorses the conjoint-set perspective and devalues work that falls outside the seven-dimension framework, pitching the big tent may require moving beyond that article as a primary frame of reference for defining what ABA should be.

Xhosa-Speaking Schizophrenic Patients' Experience of Their Condition: Psychosis and Amafufunyana

This study investigates the experience of 10 Xhosa-speaking schizophrenic patients attending a community psychiatry clinic in Cape Town. Drawing on social constructivist theory, and its critique of psychiatric constructions of psychopathology and culture, the study explored psychiatric patients' construction of their experience of their condition. In face-to-face open-ended interviews, patients were asked to describe their experience of their condition and its treatment, and their understanding of aetiology. Analysis of the transcribed interviews employed qualitative methodologies. While patients frequently described their condition in terms of ‘amafufunyana’ or ‘nerves’, they reported that their preferred mode of treatment had shifted from consultation with traditional healers to use of psychiatric services. Discussion notes (1) the apparent anomaly between explanatory models and preferred mode of treatment; (2) the complex uses of the term amafufunyana, which include diagnostic, explanatory and aetiological functions; and (3) in the absence of ‘psychological’ language, the presence of ‘medical’ and ‘mystical’ language. It is argued that the separation of amafufunyana and psychosis is a false dichotomy, since patients employ both in a complex web of psychiatric, religious and social constructions. The importance of the consideration of patients' experience for the development of psychiatric services is stressed.

Feedback of Research Results: Reflections from a Community-Based Mental Health Programme

The lack of feedback of research results to research participants, or the lack of reflection on the feedback process where it does occur, is problematic. Some fundamental issues appear to inform the feedback process, these being the approach adopted by the researchers to research and the uses envisaged for the research and feedback. In this paper, we reflect on feedback sessions conducted with research participants and local community in a community-based mental health programme in a rural area of South Africa. The results of a comprehensive needs assessment were discussed in four different meetings. This paper reflects upon, amongst others, practical/logistical issues, attendance and non-attendance, the issue of language, group dynamics, challenges from participants, and social and cultural constructions of knowledge. It is concluded that when feedback of research results is seen as part of an on-going process of programme development and engagement with various stakeholders, it is a potential point of growth on a number of levels.

Participatory Epidemiology: Methods of the Living with Diabetes Project

This article describes how the principles of participatory research were applied to the study of non-insulin dependent diabetes (NIDDM) in an urban Aboriginal community in Melbourne, Australia. The process of developing an appropriate questionnaire and method for the epidemiological study of diabetes was combined with community-controlled initiatives for diabetes management and prevention. A close to full time presence in the community and the flexibility of qualitative methods facilitated the development of a quality working relationship between the researcher and community members and the modification of the research to increase direct community benefit. Creating a balance between the priorities of research and action proved one of the major challenges during the collection of data. Flexibility and communication beyond the completion of the research component were crucial for the development of community-owned diabetes education materials and for consultation and collaboration in the publication of the research results.

Involving the Community in HIV Prevention Program Evaluation

This article describes the challenges and benefits of involving the community in evaluating an HIV prevention intervention for African American women. The intervention, Women’s Initiative for Sexual Health, was evaluated using a randomized controlled trial. The intervention and the evaluation involved the community in which the intervention was delivered. To solicit criticism and suggestions for the evaluation, the research team conducted a focus group within each of three collaborating community-based organizations. Our goal was to increase the relevance and appropriateness of the evaluation by showing respect for program participants and consequently for cultures other than our own. We recommend that other researchers involve the community in program evaluation.

Countercontrol in behavior analysis

Countercontrol is a functional class of behavior that is part of Skinner's analysis of social behavior. Countercontrol refers to behavioral episodes comprised of socially mediated aversive controlling conditions and escape or avoidance responses that do not reinforce, and perhaps even punish, controllers' responses. This paper suggests that neglect of countercontrol in modern behavior analysis is unfortunate because the concept applies to interpersonal and social relations the fundamental operant principle that human behavior is both controlled and controlling-humans are not passive and inflexible. Countercontrol is addressed here in terms of conceptual status, contemporary developments in behavior analysis, its importance in a behavior-analytic approach to freedom and cultural design, applications, and research. The main conclusion is that Skinner's formulation of counter-control is scientifically supported and worthy of increased prominence in behavior analysis.

The personal life of the behavior analyst

The human species faces crises of critical proportions. Excessive population, global warming, and the anticipated descent from peak fossil-fuel extraction promise to change our future in far-reaching ways. Operant conditioning prepares the individual for a world similar to the selecting past, but our world is changing more rapidly than our adaptation. As individuals, we cannot make substantial changes in the world at large because we do not control enough reinforcers, but we can turn to the sources of our personal behavior and manipulate them. We will need help. Better organized social networks and the self-management techniques they support can promote immediate changes in consumption at home, work, and moving about in our personal worlds. Surprisingly, consuming less can lead to more satisfying and happier lives, but a better understanding of reinforcement contingencies is necessary. We can recover the strengthening effects of personal daily accomplishments that are eroded when conditioned generalized reinforcers intervene. When we get our own personal lives in order we can reduce our carbon footprints, restore the connections between our behavior and its strengthening effects, and become models worthy of imitation.

Responses of potential users to the intracortical visual prosthesis: final themes from the analysis of focus group data

Although visual implant prosthesis projects are advancing, little exists in the literature on the factors that would lead an individual to volunteer for such an experimental procedure. Many ethical issues are raised in recruiting and involving individuals in experimental implant procedures, most involving autonomy and informed consent. This report provides perspectives of 30 totally or legally blind older individuals on their expectations about a potential visual implant, their motivations for volunteering, and the processes they would use for decision making. Data were collected in eight focus groups, using semistructured focus group processes. Among the primary reasons a person with seriously impaired vision would volunteer for a new implant procedure are helping others, exploring the unknown, and restoring perception. The decision to participate in an experimental brain implant procedure is complex. Potential recipients have many questions about the device and the procedure, the perceived risks, and the commitment of a research team to the participants once a device has been implanted. Some would involve their family in a decision; others are more comfortable making the decision independent, after consulting others. The themes identified provide a guide for recruiting and ensuring an ethical experience for participants in experimental protocols.

Courteous service: Its assessment and modification in a human service organization

We evaluated strategies to increase behaviors associated with courteous provision of service by 3 staff members of a human service agency. Training included written instructions, practice, and performance feedback. A lottery procedure was introduced to maintain courteous service after training. The results of a multiple baseline design across the 3 participants showed marked increases in courteous behaviors following training. These effects were maintained at 3-, 5-, and 8-month follow-ups. Consumers' satisfaction with service also increased. These findings suggest that simple training and reinforcement procedures can enhance courtesy afforded those who receive service from public and nonprofit organizations.

An HIV prevention protocol reviewed at 15 national sites: how do ethics committees protect communities?

To learn whether ethics committees reviewing community-based participatory research concentrate on the protection of communities, in addition to individual participants, data from 15 sites were analyzed. Eighty-two ethics committee concerns related to consent (35%), protocol procedures (49%), data collection (17%), and HIPAA (6%) were identified. Concerns generally involved individual level subject issues; only 17% were related to community issues. To improve community-level protections in research, the authors recommend that both ethics committee members and research staff receive education concerning protection and respect for communities, that a community member group be established to advise researchers throughout the planning and implementation of community-level studies and that local ethics committee boards include members with community-level experience.

Evidence-based (informed) macro practice: process and philosophy

Evidence-informed practice and policy at the macro level offers great potential for honoring ethical guidelines to integrate practice and research, to involve clients as informed participants, to respond ethically to problems of scarce resources, to enhance social and economic justice, and to empower clients. The process and philosophy of evidence-informed practice and care as described in original sources suggest a decision-making process designed to help social workers to integrate ethical, evidentiary, and application concerns. As with all innovations, objections will and should be raised. There are many challenges and obstacles to integrating evidentiary, ethical, and application concerns in practice.

Values and the scientific culture of behavior analysis

As scientists and practitioners, behavior analysts must make frequent decisions that affect many lives. Scientific principles have been our guide as we work to promote effective action across a broad spectrum of cultural practices. Yet scientific principles alone may not be sufficient to guide our decision making in cases with potentially conflicting outcomes. In such cases, values function as guides to work through ethical conflicts. We will examine two ethical systems, radical behaviorism and functional contextualism, from which to consider the role of values in behavior analysis, and discuss potential concerns. Finally, we propose philosophical pragmatism, focusing on John Dewey's notions of community and dialogue, as a tradition that can help behavior analysts to integrate talk about values and scientific practices in ethical decision making.