Association for Behavior Analysis International

The last several years I have taught a workshop for board certified behavior analysts on the application of behavior analysis to improve organizational performance so that clients can achieve efficient progress. The workshop always begins with a discussion of Skinner’s pragmatic philosophy of science and its applications to research and practice. I ask participants if they can define pragmatism and if they have read any of Skinner’s writings that illustrate his pragmatic approach. Usually no hands are raised. Hence I have invited the presenters to discuss Skinner’s pragmatic philosophy of science, “Radical Behaviorism,” and its applications to behavior analysis research and practice. What role did Skinner’s pragmatism play in the discovery of more useful explanations of behavior and procedures for producing behavior change? How does a pragmatic approach differ from other approaches to research and practice? What might be the consequences for the future of behavior analysis if practitioners abandon Skinner’s pragmatism?

Researchers who prefer more useful explanations and practitioners who prefer more effective procedures will find this symposium useful in achieving their goals.

Several recent developments that have grown out of behavior analysis have, to varying degrees, strayed from Skinner’s pragmatic approach to the study of behavior and, therefore, threaten the scientific and theoretical framework of behavior analysis and, by extension, the Association for Behavior Analysis International. They are delayed discounting, relational frame theory (RFT)/acceptance and commitment theory (ACT), positive behavior support (PBS), and the Behavior Analysis Certification Board (BACB). Each, in my opinion, has contributed to the erosion of the basic scientific foundation upon which behavior analysis is built. The combined effect is, to paraphrase B. F. Skinner by way of Mike Perone, the “circumvention of an operant analysis,” moving our discipline from being largely analytic to one that is increasingly descriptive and technological. One conclusion that can be drawn from this dramatic change is that those of us who consider ourselves true behavior analysts, that is, those who actually analyze behavior—not certified behavior analysts or behavior scientists—now possibly find ourselves in the minority. My point in this talk is that straying from Skinner’s pragmatic approach and the experimental and theoretical foundations of behavior analysis will dilute our science and, ultimately, our discipline.

Pragmatic considerations tend not to be uniformly well understood in behavior analytic research and practice. According to pragmatism, the value of an analytical or explanatory statement is found in its practical implications in the world of human affairs, rather than in some claim that it represents a metaphysical truth or reality. In this regard, the contemplative forms of science, such as the development of equations and models, are sometimes distinguished from the technological, such as interventions aimed at prediction and control. This presentation argues that these forms are more usefully understood as continuous than dichotomous. Equations and models are presumably derived from prior efforts to predict and control. These forms are valuable because of the further opportunities for prediction and control that they occasion, rather than any claims they represent laws of nature. In the applied arena, treatment fidelity and effect size surely seek to highlight pragmatic considerations for interventions. However, the complexity of clients’ histories and the setting sometimes makes the practical contribution of an intervention difficult to assess, especially when the intervention is balanced against ethical considerations. Throughout, the value of scientific statements in behavior analysis lies in the identification of the participating factors in contingencies.