Behavior Analysis in Mexico: A Long-Standing Tradition

(Note: As part of our From the Field series on behavior analysis around the world, Professors Alicia Roca and Rogelio Escobar of the National Autonomous University of Mexico have kindly written the…

Love and Rock Climbing: A Shaping Story

Shaping is a powerful tool for teaching any new skill.  Although most shaping of our behavior is done inadvertently, people who use this process purposefully are better coaches and leaders who…

Behavior Analysis in Colombia

Note from the Institute: This is the second in our series on the status of behavior analysis in countries around the world. Our observer is Andres Garcia-Penagos, who currently is completing his Ph.D…

Beyond the Limits of Intelligence: Children’s Unlimited Potential in Deliberate Practice

Note: The Institute’s guest commentator, Dr. Darnell Lattal, recently assumed the role of Executive Director of the Aubrey Daniels Institute. She was trained as a clinical psychologist, and for many…

Differences 101

I love William James’s observation that, “there can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t make a difference elsewhere – no difference in abstract truth that doesn’t express itself in concrete…

Stability and Change

Getting a baseline of our target behavior before introducing a treatment is essential to assessing the effectiveness of what we are doing, whether it is trying to change a personal bad habit or help…

Standing Up for Ethics

In the ABC series, What Would You Do? host John Quiñones places ordinary folks in situations that force them to make tough, ethical decisions. Will they step in when someone is being mistreated? If a…

Too Much Praise? Don’t Believe What You Read

Every day I read, see or hear something that drives me crazy. The latest is the headline on a piece that’s circulating the news outlets, “Too Much Praise Can Turn Your Kids into Narcissistic Jerks,…

Predicting Future Behavior

It sometimes is said that the best predictor of future behavior is present behavior. Like most blanket, categorical statements about what someone will do next, this one invites some reflection. Taken…

Behavioral History

The current behavior of living creatures is determined by four things: the creature’s phylogeny (evolutionary history), its current physiological state, the current contingencies impinging on it, and…

William B. Abernathy

Our behavior analysis community has been built by many people who have found B. F. Skinner’s ideas about human behavior compelling. Bill Abernathy, who died on March 4, 2015 after a long illness…

Survivor: Feeding the Fire

In the long-running TV reality series Survivor, starting and maintaining a fire has always been a fundamental and immediate need. Without the proper tools, merely generating a spark can be…

Talking about Intentions

My most recent Behavior Watch commentary described a scenario in which my eldest granddaughter was trying to persuade her pet Pug to cease disrupting our card game by plopping down on the floor in…

Skinner and American Sniper

My husband and I went to see the controversial new Clint Eastwood-directed film, “American Sniper.” It is a vivid story of an American man, romanticized or not depending on your perspective, who did…

Two Granddaughters, a Pug, a Stuffed Toy Chicken, and Behavior Management

The other night I had the great pleasure of babysitting two of my granddaughters, ages 9 and 11. As we tried to play a card game on the floor, their pet Pug rudely kept using our playing field as his…

Behavior Analysis or Behavioral Enviroscience?

Who am I?  “I am a behavior analyst,” I answer in whatever circumstance the question arises. I then have to explain why my first identity is not that of psychologist (yes, I am a professor of…

Putting an End to Groundhog Day

Like Bill Murray in the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, every day for some people feels like a repeat of the last. Seemingly no matter what they do, nothing changes. Each day greets them with the same…

Behavioral Cusp: Getting the Biggest Bang for the Buck

We are pleased to have as our guest commentator this week behavioral education expert Ronnie Dietrich, a Senior Fellow of the Wing Institute in Oakland, California. Ronnie has been involved in the…