This paper reports the discovery of a new psychiatric syndrome. Multiple-body disorder (MBD) has not been recognized or discussed in the clinical literature. The illness is similar to multiple-personality disorder where several minds have the same body. MBD syndrome occurs when a single personality has several bodies. These duplicate personalities are typically not aware of one another. Several examples of MBD are given.

This paper examines J.P. Rushton’s contention that the concept ‘race’ is useful for distinguishing between Blacks, Whites, and Orientals. He argues that Blacks evolved first followed by Whites, then Orientals. From this perspective, Blacks are the most primitive race and Orientals the most evolved Thus, the rank order is Yellows > Whites > Blacks. According to Rushton, intelligence, personality characteristics, social organization, and sexual restraint index racial differences. These characteristics are said to covary with the reproductive strategies of races and are explained by r/K theory. This theory is borrowed from population biology and refers to two ends of a reproductive continuum. At the r end, organisms like oysters produce many offspring and offer no parental care. The great apes represent the K end of the continuum since they have few offspring and provide a great deal of parental care. Rushton argues that r/K theory extends to differences within the human species and that some races are more K than others. Yellows, he suggests, are the most K followed by Whites, then Blacks. This view of human nature challenges the importance of contingencies of reinforcement for the control of socially significant human behavior.

The present study investigated interaction styles and success at problem solving by students of English as a second language. Students were selected from a continuing education program at Alberta Vocational Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. These subjects were chosen on the basis of active or passive participation in the classroom. Following this selection, subjects were randomly assigned to Active-Active, Active-Passive, or Passive-Passive groups which were comprised of eight same-sex dyads. Each dyad was required to solve ten problems on a two-way interaction task. Results indicated that Active-Active and Active-Passive pairs were equally successful at the task and both were superior to the Passive-Passive group. An analysis of those factors that may have contributed to task solution was conducted. It is argued that these results have practical importance for teaching English as a second language. One recommendation is that when teachers involve students in pair activities, passive students should be placed with active ones.

We argue that applied behavior analysis is relevant to basic research. Modification studies, and a broad range of investigations that focus on the precipitating and maintaining conditions of socially significant human behavior, have basic importance. Applied behavior analysis may aid basic researchers in the design of externally valid experiments and thereby enhance the theoretical significance of basic research for understanding human behavior. Applied research with humans, directed at culturally-important problems, will help to propagate the science of human behavior. Such a science will also be furthered by analogue experiments that model socially important behavior. Analytical-applied studies and analogue experiments are forms of applied behavior analysis that could suggest new environment-behavior relationships. These relationships could lead to basic research and principles that further the prediction, control, and understanding of behavior.

This review concerns human performance on concurrent schedules of reinforcement. Studies indicate that humans match relative behavior to relative rate of reinforcement. Herrnstein’s proportional matching equation describes human performance but most studies do not evaluate the equation at the individual level. Baum’s generalized matching equation has received strong support with humans as subjects. This equation permits the investigation of sources of deviation from ideal matching and a few studies have suggested variables which control such deviations in humans. While problems with instructional control are raised, the overall findings support the matching law as a principle of human choice.

AbstractThe present paper documents the etiological importance of physical activity to self-starvation in animals and suggests similarities between this research area and the literature concerned with some self-starvation in humans. An activity anorexia is proposed that may account for 38% to 75% of anorexia nervosa. An account of excessive locomotor activity is made in terms of schedule-induced behavior. A reciprocally interactive effect of activity and food ingestion is taken to explain self-starvation for animals and activity anorexia in humans. Literature is reviewed which demonstrates that rats and mice self-starve when they are given access to a running wheel and placed on food restriction. In this paradigm, these animals become excessively active and paradoxically reduce food consumption when compared with control subjects. This evidence and related findings are shown to be consistent with a phylogenetically based model of anorexia. Sociocultural factors are hypothesized to set and maintain the conditions that produce activity anorexia in humans.

Applied behavior analysis began when laboratory based principles were extended to humans inorder to change socially significant behavior. Recent laboratory findings may have applied relevance; however, the majority of basic researchers have not clearly communicated the practical implications of their work. The present paper samples some of the new findings and attempts to demonstrate their applied importance. Schedule-induced behavior which occurs as a by-product of contingencies of reinforcement is discussed. Possible difficulties in treatment and management of induced behaviors are considered. Next, the correlation-based law of effect and the implications of relative reinforcement are explored in terms of applied examples. Relative rate of reinforcement is then extended to the literature dealing with concurrent operants. Concurrent operant models may describe human behavior of applied importance, and several techniques for modification of problem behavior are suggested. As a final concern, the paper discusses several new paradigms. While the practical importance of these models is not clear at the moment, it may be that new practical advantages will soon arise. Thus, it is argued that basic research continues to be of theoretical and practical importance to applied behavior analysis.

This paper addresses the current help-oriented focus of researchers in applied behavior analysis. Evidence from a recent volume of JABA suggests that analytic behavior is at low levels in applied analysis while cure-help behavior is at high strength. This low proportion of scientific behavior is apparantly related to cure-help contingencies set by institutions and agencies of help and the editorial policies of JABA itself. These contingencies have favored the flight to real people and a concern with client gains, evaluation and outcome strategies rather than the analysis of contingencies of reinforcement controlling human behavior. In this regard, the paper documents the current separation of applied behavior analysis from the experimental analysis of behavior. There is limited use of basic principles in applied analysis today and almost no reference to the current research in the experimental analysis of behavior involving concurrent operants and adjunctive behavior. This divorce of applied behavior research and the experimental analysis of behavior will mitigate against progress toward a powerful technology of behavior. In order to encourage a return to analysis in applied research, there is a need to consider the objectives of applied behavior analysis. The original purpose of behavioral technology is examined and a re-definition of the concept of “social importance” is presented which can direct applied researchers toward an analytic focus. At the same time a change in the publication policies of applied journals such as JABA toward analytic research and the design of new educational contingencies for students will insure the survival of analysis in applied behavior analysis.