Adherence to interventions has received significant attention in scientific communities, including behavior analysis. This is likely due to the importance of adherence to promote long-lasting behavior change for clients in uncontrived settings and the costly impact of nonadherence. Unfortunately, caregiver adherence to behavioral interventions is poor, relative to other forms of intervention (e.g., medication). Despite widespread recognition of the importance of adherence, adherence has remained a passive concept devoid of technology. To advance the scientific study of adherence, a better understanding of the concept of adherence is needed. To this aim, we used a mixed-method approach to explore the stimuli behavior-analytic researcher-clinicians and clinicians commonly attributed to the concept of adherence in particular, as it pertains to caregiver adherence to behavioral interventions designed to reduce challenging behavior. In addition, we summarize measurement systems reported by professionals to measure adherence, as well as barriers to measuring adherence in clinical settings. We conclude by calling for action in four primary areas to advance our conceptualization and technology of caregiver adherence. These include a need for a concept analysis on adherence, reliable and valid methodologies to measure adherence, organizational contingencies that promote adherence, and professional teaching and training on adherence.
Group behavior cannot always be understood solely by examining the actions of individual members. Some approaches have focused on how group behavior emerges from the interactions and learning processes of individuals—that is, on the mechanisms that produce collective outcomes from individual contingencies. In this article, we take a complementary perspective: rather than analyzing how groups emerge from individuals, we examine how the behavior of groups themselves, treated as systems, can be shaped by reinforcement contingencies at the level of the group. In other words, we ask how groups can learn through consequences. To address this question, we summarize and extend core principles of behavior analysis—particularly operant conditioning—and apply them directly to group behavior. Although related ideas have appeared in the literature on metacontingencies and group contingencies, our framework differs in that it shows how the analytic tools traditionally used to study individual behavior can be systematically extended to groups, offering a coherent and testable foundation for the experimental analysis of group behavior.
Research on recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD) requires measuring drinking and other behavior and characterizing the natural environments in which they occur. Successful recovery goes beyond simply changing drinking practices and involves changes in other life-health areas. Variability in individual recovery pathways is poorly understood. This article summarizes translational research informed by behavioral economics and molar behaviorism, emphasizing natural recovery, low-risk drinking, and supportive natural environmental contexts. Challenges in measuring behavior and characterizing natural contexts are described, including verbal reports of drinking and resource allocation patterns (monetary spending). Results from prospective studies revealed shifts in individuals’ allocation of discretionary spending on alcohol versus other activities/commodities before and after quitting heavy drinking, and these shifts were associated with recovery outcomes, including stable moderation, a preferred drinking goal among individuals trying to stop heavy drinking. More recent research addresses individual change trajectories within broader environmental contexts, ranging from social networks to communities to larger geographic units. This work highlights the utility of the social ecological model to investigate environmental influences on drinking and other health-related behavior change and draws concepts and methods from public health and other disciplines concerning relevant variable domains and quantitative methods for analysis.
Despite growing attention to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), empirical research on anti-Black bias within behavior analysis remains scarce. This systematic review followed PRISMA guidelines and adopted a methodological and conceptual framework grounded in behavior analysis to identify and examine 23 empirical studies published in 27 behavior-analytic journals between 1964 and 2026. The selected studies were categorized into three methodological domains: (1) cross-sectional and correlational surveys; (2) validity of implicit and explicit measures for detecting anti-Black bias; and (3) experimental interventions on anti-Black bias. Cross-sectional and correlational studies examined associations between values, psychological flexibility, mental health, and racial attitudes, highlighting contextual influences on bias. Measurement studies primarily used relational frame theory–based tools, including the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP) and the Function Acquisition Speed Test (FAST), demonstrating sensitivity to implicit anti-Black biases not captured by self-report measures. Intervention studies included equivalence-based training, particularly with children, showing promising but preliminary effects in modifying biased relational networks. Interventions with adults also yielded favorable outcomes, especially those involving values clarification and exposure to relationally inconsistent stimuli. Across cross-sectional studies, common limitations included reliance on convenience samples, incomplete reporting of sampling procedures, and inadequate control of confounding variables. Experimental studies frequently lacked control groups or baseline comparability included limited follow-up assessments, and relied on self-report or emerging measures with limited validation. Overall, findings highlight the need for a more cumulative, conceptually precise, and functionally grounded research agenda to advance antiracist efforts within behavior analysis.
This article introduces a 1979 symposium held at Furman University in honor of the centennial of John B. Watson’s birth and reproduces B. F. Skinner’s unpublished contribution to it. Watson was commemorated in presentations by James V. McConnell, Fred S. Keller, and Skinner. The introduction describes the symposium’s structure, the presenters’ professional records, and their views on Watson’s behaviorism, situating the speech within its historical context. McConnell offered a critical yet admiring view of Watson, whereas Keller emphasized Watson’s influence on behaviorism’s application, particularly in education. Skinner’s presentation, titled “What John B. Watson Meant to Me,” reflected on both his intellectual debt to Watson and their philosophical differences. This is likely the lengthiest and most in-depth of Skinner’s appreciations and analysis of Watson’s work. In publishing the presentation, the article contributes to the historiography of behavior analysis and clarifies the relationship between two of the most influential figures in the history of behaviorism.
This article examines publication as a product of verbal behavior selected by audience control and applies this analysis to reconsider the chronology of B. F. Skinner’s earliest published works. I identify Skinner’s 1919 poem in the Lone Scout as his first publicly disseminated output, highlighting how different audiences alter what counts as a “first publication.” This historical reframing underscores the functional role of an audience in defining scholarly products across Skinner’s early contributions.
In 2020, the U.S. government, like other countries, instated a nationwide quarantine to reduce the spread of COVID-19, which had reached pandemic status. Though challenging on a number of levels, the quarantine also provided a unique opportunity to examine the effects of a cultural phenomenon that reduced access to many sources of reinforcement and the potential impact on behavior and health. From a behavioral economic standpoint, the quarantine likely resulted in greater consumption of reinforcers that were highly available in the home, such as social media, sleep, substances, and food, while lowering consumption of reinforcers that were restricted by quarantine policies. These two trends likely combined into a net reduction in the diversity of reinforcers that were available to individuals during the quarantine. For some individuals, these shifts in consumption also predicted changes in health and mental health status, especially those involving consumption of social media, sleep, substances, and food. We discuss the implications for health and mental health associated with these trends and end by offering suggestions on how a more careful programming of available reinforcers during times of low reinforcer diversity may prevent excessive consumption of reinforcers that may affect health or mental health risks.
The term “noncontingent reinforcement (NCR)” has long been used in both research and clinical practice. However, several authors have recognized it as a conceptually flawed term in the scholarly literature (e.g., Poling Normand, 1999). Nonetheless, behavior analysts have continued to use this term, and there are several concerns surrounding its usage in addition to the conceptual reasons previously reported. At present, “NCR” is serving as an umbrella term for several response-independent (e.g., time-based schedules, continuous access), response-dependent (e.g., change in dependency), and other procedures with preexisting labels (e.g., mand training, pairing). With “NCR” being used to describe a wide array of distinct procedures, it can lead to confusion and imprecise communication. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide a brief history of “NCR,” describe procedures commonly labelled as “NCR,” explore some of the attendant terminological issues in relation to the mechanisms of action, and summarize arguments from the literature for keeping or removing “NCR” from our lexicon. We will then propose an umbrella term (i.e., response-independent schedules) for these common procedures and suggest a series of actions to resolve this ongoing problem in our terminology.
This article presents radical behaviorism as the philosophical foundation of behavior analysis and argues for its practical relevance to contemporary applied behavior analysis. Written primarily for students and instructors, it is motivated by upcoming credentialing and accreditation standards that will require substantial coursework in behaviorism and philosophical foundations. The article focuses especially on explaining behavior from a radical behaviorist perspective and clarifying the assumptions that underlie the science of behavior analysis. After briefly distinguishing among the conceptual, experimental, applied, and service-delivery aspects of the field, the article traces the historical development of behaviorism from Watson and Thorndike to Skinner’s experimental work and his formulation of radical behaviorism. The article emphasizes that radical behaviorism treats behavior—public and private—as physical events subject to lawful relations, rejects mentalistic and dualistic explanations, and interprets verbal behavior and private events (e.g., thinking, consciousness) as environment behavior relations. The core assumptions of radical behaviorism—monism, empiricism, determinism, parsimony, selectionism, and pragmatism—are outlined, and their implications for theory, explanation, and practice are explained. Finally, radical behaviorism is framed as both a professional guide for behavior-analytic activity and a broader worldview that can foster compassion, improve practice, and support cultural and personal change.
Severe behavior problems (SBPs) exhibited by individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDD) can produce challenging and potentially dangerous situations. Although the field of behavior analysis has access to effective behavioral assessment and treatment methodologies, the risks associated with serving individuals with NDD engaging in SBPs remain high. Advances in wearable sensing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning offer potential support for behavior analysts working with individuals engaging in SBPs. Thus, researchers have begun studying physiological and behavioral signals (i.e., biometrics), such as heart rate or bodily motion, and their predictive relationship with SBPs. The current systematic literature review summarizes 13 peer-reviewed articles that studied predictive relations between biometrics and SBPs. We highlight commonalities, differences, and limitations among these studies. In particular, although some studies claim to predict the occurrence of SBPs over 30 s in advance of their occurrence, methodological concerns reduce the veracity of these claims. We propose short-term and long-term research questions to move this line of research forward.
The Multiscale Molar View of behavior fits with evolutionary theory and with General Process Theory. These two theories combine to afford a monistic ontological basis for understanding behavior as consisting of extended activities controlled by extended behavior–environment relations. General Process Theory casts the world as process and all existences as processes—no objects, no events, and no substance. Although the theory applies to both animate and inanimate things, behavior analysts focus on animate processes. Evolutionary theory conceives of a species as a process, the function of which is to evolve, and the individual members—the parts—as processes, the function of which is to reproduce. All behavior consists of activities, which are processes that ultimately promote surviving and reproducing. Evolutionary theory, process ontology, and the concept of induction provide a powerful conceptual framework for understanding not only behavioral phenomena in the laboratory and everyday life but also for more flexible approaches to clinical applications.
Only humans live in continuously and cumulatively changing worlds of their own making—cultural worlds. Theories of cumulative cultural evolution are multidisciplinary, depending heavily on the home disciplines of theorists. Virtually all cultural evolutionary theorists view behavior as fundamental to cultural evolution, but most theories focus on changes in social relations, or human cognition, or human brains. Here we attempt a first approximation to a behavior-based theory that explains the origins and evolution of the human-built world. We include topics such as the origin and evolution of cultural organization and resulting cultural systems, which have not often been addressed in this literature.
In studies of operant relapse, the effects of contingency and context changes are often examined in isolation to clarify their individual contributions to the reoccurrence of a previously extinguished target behavior. In recent years, a section of the relapse literature has examined whether the combination of contingency and context changes interact to produce additive, superadditive, or subadditive effects. Yet, absent from the relapse literature is a formalized quantitative framework for empirically determining the nature of these interactions. Isobolographic analysis is one such framework that has been extensively applied in the pharmacological literature to assess interactions between drug combinations. This article introduces the topic of linear and nonlinear isobolographic analysis and the feasibility of its direct application to the study of operant relapse. Illustrative examples are presented using a hypothetical relapse arrangement, and an alternative analytic method is discussed that may be better suited to behavioral research. This work aims to advance terminological accuracy and methodological precision in relapse research and encourage the integration of quantitative interaction models within operant relapse preparations in which participants undergo mixtures of contingency and context changes during a relapse test.
This article discusses three contributions to the special issue from the Symbolic Processes cluster in the second Theory and Philosophy conference. Each of the articles advances a naturalistic, learning-based account of complex linguistic and social phenomena. The article by Barnes-Holmes and colleagues suggests a refinement of relational frame theory (RFT) informed by findings emerging from research conducted with the IRAP protocol for the past decade. Degli-Espinosa offers a behavioral reinterpretation of the development of theory of mind with implications for understanding its absence in certain populations and the potential for remediation where necessary. Palmer presents a thorough-going behavioral account of word order in novel utterances and, by way of example, offers a blueprint for the analysis of syntactic organization in spoken languages more generally. This paper discusses the articles’ conceptual innovations, empirical grounding, and the implications of the analyses for future research. The discussion ends with an appreciation of the shared philosophical and methodological commitments reflected in these articles.
The characterization of Pavlovian conditioning in behavior analysis is outdated. Pavlovian conditioning is not limited to the conditioning of glandular and visceral responses; it also involves responses that participate in operant contingencies, and the elicitation of motivational or emotional states that affect operant behavior. Contemporary formulations emphasize the inseparability of behavior from the antecedent contextual stimuli in the presence of which the behavior occurs. Operant procedures also involve various relations between behavior and antecedent and consequential stimuli, making Pavlovian relations an integral but often overlooked part of operant procedures. Considering these issues encourages increased attention to the relationship of behavior to antecedent context and interactions between Pavlovian and operant relations in applied behavior analysis procedures. We argue that adopting a modern view of Pavlovian conditioning should increase the analytic tools available to behavior analysts, and to the development of new and more effective treatment strategies in the domains of maintenance/generalization of behavior change and behavioral assessment.
The present article offers a brief review of the status of radical behaviorism as a defining feature of behavior analysis from the field’s origins to the contemporary era. It further examines how these changes in the impact of radical behaviorism developed over the decades, the challenges to augmenting its role as a comprehensive context for both research and service activities, and the risks of failing to do so. The article concludes with a brief discussion of why radical behaviorism is important to behavior analysis and applied behavior analysis.
The present article focuses on presentations from the second topical cluster from the 2024 Theory and Philosophy Conference held by the ABAI—Cultural Systems. The cultural systems cluster was comprised of two primary talks—“Unhinging Design from Darwinian and Skinnerian Selection” (Wasserman, 2024), and a second, co-authored by Sigrid Glenn and Maria Malott (and delivered by Sigrid Glenn), entitled “Behavior and Cumulative Cultural Evolution.” We will begin by briefly summarizing some of the main points of each talk, and then discussing some of the implications of the arguments developed in each. The approach taken to link these two seemingly different primary talks will be interdisciplinary. I will seek to illustrate how dynamic patterns of systemic interactions within systems of physical energy parallel the dynamic patterns of behavioral systems and enable us to “reconstruct” some of the main principles emphasized in the primary talks, while also seeking to develop an understanding of how various processes of selection by consequences (natural selection, operant selection, and selection of cultures) emerge from systemic interactions.
Meticulous literature citation is a cornerstone of science, yet citations in published articles mischaracterize the cited work with concerning frequency. There appears to be limited emphasis on citation practices in graduate research training. This tutorial emphasizes the scientific importance of careful citation and the potential costs of careless citation practices. Recommendations are aimed at promoting citations that clearly and accurately represent the cited work. This article provides a resource to encourage more careful citation with the goal of bringing the behavior of scientists under tighter control of the literature and promoting dissemination of work that connects the reader with a systematic body of knowledge.
