The Ups and Downs of “Behaviorese”

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” (…

Help Your Self

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…

Life Hacking With Behavioral Science

Many of us are in the deliberate search for better, easier, faster, more effective ways of getting things done.  We look for optimization in all sorts of pursuits; fitness, cooking, business…

When Previous Behavior Returns: Old Wine in New Bottles

Imagine yourself in front of a soft drink machine. You insert your money and make your selection. Nothing happens. Nada. No drink, just a cold, apparently empty machine staring you in the face. What…

Further Thoughts on Technological Solutions to Behavioral Problems

In a previous commentary (Technology and Behavior Around the Office Coffee Machine), I described a mechanical solution to the problem of getting people to refill the coffee machine’s water reservoir…

How Not to Talk About Reinforcers

In behavior analysis, a reinforcer is defined functionally, in terms of its effect on behavior. Thus, something (or someone or some activity) is said to be a reinforcer if it develops or maintains…

Helping People Change

In discussing compliance or adherence to treatment recommendations, be they drugs, exercises or instructions to cease smoking, one of my colleagues, Stephanie Kincaid, observed the distinction…

Overworked? Could Reducing Workloads be the Key to Improved Results?

We may be at a tipping point.  It just might be that we have hit the limit on how much we can do on any given day, week or month.  Most of us have more work on our to-do lists than we can…

Foraging in Lab and Life

In medical research it is well established that the biology of rats and mice is sufficiently similar to humans that these nonhuman species are used routinely and without challenge to further the…

Is Alfie Kohn Conning You?

One of my colleagues sent me a link to a New York Times article by Alfie Kohn, Do Our Kids Get Off Too Easy?.  As with most articles by Mr. Kohn, I shouldn’t respond but figured somebody might…

Doing What Comes Naturally: Shaping

The WiFi connection in my apartment is not the greatest. When I try to use my various gadgets for connecting to the internet from my bedroom, the service often cuts out, leaving me suspended outside…

Really? or Don’t Say Stuff You Don’t Mean

Every parent has heard their child(ren) say “Well, if you don’t let me (fill in the blank), then I will (fill in the blank).”  Every child has heard their parent(s) say, “Well if you (fill in…

An Experimental Life

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”  For most of my adult life I have been in the enviable position of being able to do…

Lessons from a French Washing Machine

(Note: This commentary was written during Dr. Lattal’s sabbatical year in France) My apartment in France came with a washer/dryer combo unit, which is simply wonderful. The last time I…

Leaving our Children Behind

There is a great deal of emphasis on testing and outcome in American education circles these days.  School systems, individual schools, and individual teachers all have had the onus on them to…

Semper Fi

“Always faithful” is a message not only for members of the United States Marines but also for anyone involved in changing behavior. The core principle of behavior change is reinforcement, and the…

Fair Words Butter No Parsnips

I ran across this quaint old expression recently in an 1839 novel by British writer Frances Trollope (the mother of Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, for you trivia fans). Though it was my first…

When Companies Suffer from CEOpathy

The antivirus company Symantec seems to have been infected by its own virus — what I call CEOpathy. In March 2014, the security company fired its CEO for the second time in two years. And,…