| Abstract: Under the leadership of its Executive Council, ABAI has been crossing geographical borders for the past four decades, disseminating behavior analysis around the world through grants and awards, support of chapters on five continents, and conferences that welcome participation from behavior analysts across the globe. The consistent and unique epistemology of behavior analysis means that geographical borders need not be impediments to the advancement of our field. Paradoxically, however, the domains within behavior analysis (basic research, applied research, service delivery, and theory and philosophy) have created borders that have not been easy to cross or navigate, although many authors have pointed out that such navigation is critical. The ABAI Program Committee has been suggesting to presenters who primarily do basic research to discuss the applied implications of their work, and vice versa. Nevertheless, many behavior analysts still see our field as fragmented. What are the contingencies that make interaction among the different domains of behavior analysis so difficult? What are the contingencies that control the wrong assumption that some domains are more important than others? These contingencies will be analyzed, and recent data and data from the literature will be presented. |
 Dr. Hübner is a professor of experimental psychology at the Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, and was coordinator of the graduate program in the experimental department from 2004 to 2010. She is also past president of the Brazilian Association of Psychology and of the Brazilian Association of Behavioral Medicine and Psychology. She conducts research at the Laboratory for the Study of Verbal Operants involving managing processes in the acquisition of symbolic behaviors such as reading, writing, and verbal episodes. She is currently immersed in three areas of research: investigating the empirical relations between verbal and nonverbal behavior, analyzing the processes of control by minimal units in reading, and studying verbal behavior programs for children with autism spectrum disorders. |