Andy Lattal, Ph.D.

A while ago, I found myself in a lovely restaurant in a small town in Belgium with a close colleague and his wife. We had enjoyed cocktails, a delightful dinner, a bottle of wine, and lots of bottled…

Think about it. You can put a turkey in the oven only once. The pleasure for the turkey is over immediately (well, realistically some days before), and for you not long after the Thanksgiving feast.…

Note from the Institute: Although behavior analysis started in the United States, it has long been an international enterprise. To give readers an idea of the breadth of our discipline and its impact…

We are pleased to have as a Behavior Watch guest commentator Jim Cook, a doctoral candidate in behavior analysis at West Virginia University. He takes us to the beach for some observations of unusual…

  Yes, yes, I know that one is supposed to say “How to shape zombie behavior,” but, hey, it’s Halloween and weird things happening are OK.  And what could be weirder than thinking about…

In the spirit of the Halloween season, it seems appropriate to comment on superstitious behavior, the subject of one of B. F. Skinner's best-known scientific papers. He delivered brief presentations…

It’s not unusual to hear behavior or the circumstances surrounding it described as either “simple” or “complex.” Used to describe our human interactions, these terms often substitute in various ways…

The main title of this commentary was one among many New Year’s resolutions that our local coffee shop invited customers to post on its blackboard (yes, a real blackboard in this digital day and age…

In several earlier commentaries, I have discussed different aspects of shaping behavior by reinforcing successive approximations to the target response – essentially a behavior-analytic version of…

Are our actions determined by the past or by the future? We often speak of implementing plans, looking to the future, and having goals in mind. Our behavior is said to have purpose and intention, to…

The government of Slovakia recently was reported (click here for the New York Times report) to have been having great difficulty collecting value-added taxes (basically, a sales tax) from many…

Are we concerned with "rewarding" or "reinforcing" behavior? Does it matter? Although perhaps not the most burning question in behavior analysis, it does bear on some important issues to those who…

Can it be that only some people like positive reinforcement? The older I get, the more half-truths and unsupported declarations bug me.  Nowhere is this more evident to me than the way writers,…

Behavior is said to be selected by its effects, or consequences, in a way that is similar to the selection of physical characteristics occurs in Darwinian natural selection.  In both instances,…

The principles of operant learning are well known.  If, for example, you give your dog treats from the dinner table, it is highly likely that, whenever you eat, the forlorn critter will be…

The Innovative Work of Betty Hart and Todd Risley Here we recognize the seminal, innovative work of Betty Hart and Todd Risley analyzing the role of early verbal interactions in subsequent academic…

Every business and discipline has its technical terms, neologisms, and acronyms. Such word usage is of great value to those within what we in behavior analysis call a particular “verbal community” (…

The self appears frequently in psychological literature. It is one of Freud’s three structures of human personality and appears in most other personality theories in one form or another, as well as…