Behavior Analysis

A reoccurring question I get while facilitating in-person workshops is whether the strategies and tactics discussed in class can be applied to other settings—be it spouse, kids, or family dog. While…

Many people underestimate the complexity of being a good leader while simultaneously overestimating their own leadership skills. According to Psychology Today, “The Dunning-Kruger effect is…

We have all been hearing about the home-schooling struggles of parents of younger school-age kids. The fact that my kids are 17 and 19 is one of the things I feel grateful for during this time of…

It has probably happened to you, but you just didn’t know it by name: Ghosting. Ghosting is the act of actively ignoring or dodging attempts to be contacted through various mediums—e.g., texts, phone…

Language is truly a double-edged sword.  Language allows us to cooperate, plan, coordinate, describe the future, talk about the past, and it even allows us to describe interactions between the…

Do people change culture, or does culture change people? When I meet with a group of leaders, I often begin with this question. It’s a fun question for groups to wrestle with, and inevitably, they…

About 11 years ago, my father underwent successful open-heart surgery at age 74. The surgeons completed a triple by-pass and valve replacement. My family and I learned that among the many profound…

Every business goal is driven by human behavior. It follows then that your employees’ performance—their behavior and results—is the most important output of your role as a leader. Considering that…

An office familiar to me has for many years generously provided coffee packets to its employees as a benefit. One selects their particular type from a large assortment, inserts it into the machine…

A reinforcement schedule is a prescription for arranging reinforcers in time and in relation to behavior. “So what,” you may ask? “Why should I care about something so esoteric and seemingly removed…

Reinforcement in most human situations commonly is arranged and administered by another person. Teachers reinforce appropriate behavior of their students and parents praise good acts of their…

We behavior analysts consider ourselves pretty skilled at changing behavior. But are there circumstances where behavior can’t, or won’t, change? Probably, but let’s consider the circumstances where…

Not too many years ago we had a wonderful Golden Retriever named Molly, whose greatest pleasure in life was human contact. Sure, she would step outside in the morning for a quick relief, but within…

In behavioral circles it is common to hear expressions like “the child emitted the response” or “the rat emitted a bar press.” Use of the verb “emit” comes from an old distinction in psychology.…

A performance baseline provides the standard against which we measure the effectiveness of our intervention. A change following an intervention relative to the baseline level of the behavior signals…

In a previous commentary I described an experiment in which response keys and a food delivery device was set in a window such that any free-ranging pigeon who happened by could peck the keys and gain…

Whether you are teacher evaluating students’ learning of a new academic skill, a manager evaluating the efficiency with which employees perform a task, or a basic researcher investigating the effect…

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.…