Behavior Analysis As Science
What is "behavioral anaylsis"?
Behavior analysis is a scientific discipline aimed at understanding, predicting, and controlling behavior.
What are "philosophical assumptions" and what do they provide?
The philosophical assumptions provide the foundation for how behavior analysts approach scientific inquiry and practice. These assumptions guide the way behavior analysts conceptuality and conduct research and practice in behavior analysis.
Define Radical Behaviorism and include who developed it in your answer.
Radical behaviorism, developed by B.F. Skinner, is a comprehensive view of behavior that includes not only observable behavior but also private events and their relationship to environmental stimuli. It emphasizes that behavior is shaped by environmental contingencies and it rejects mentalistic explanations for behavior.
What are the Four Branches of Behavioral Analysis?
1. Radical Behaviorism
2. Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EBA)
3. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)
4. Practice Guided by Behavior Analysis
What are the 7 Dimensions of ABA?
Hint: GET A CAB
1. Generality
2. Effective
3. Technological
4. Analytic
5. Conceptually Systematic
6. Applied
7. Behavioral
Define "science" as it relates to behavioral analysis.
A systematic approach to understanding natural phenomena—as evidenced by description, prediction, and control—that relies on determinism as its fundamental assumption, empiricism as its prime directive, experimentation as its basic strategy, replication as its necessary requirement for believability, parsimony as its conservative value, and philosophical dough as its guiding conscience.
Name the 6 Attitudes (AKA Assumptions) of science.
Hint: PS DEER PP
1. Pragmatism
2. Selectionism
3. Determinism
4. Experimentation
5. Empiricism
6. Replication
7. Parsimony
8. Philosophic Doubt
What are 3 key features of Radical Behaviorism?
1. Private Events
2. Rejection of Mentalism
3. Focus on the Environment
Define Radical Behaviorism.
The philosophical domain of behavior analysis, entails pursuing theoretical and conceptual issues.
Define Generality AND Effective.
Generality: If it lasts over time, appears in environments other than the one in which the intervention that initially produced it was implemented, and/or spreads to other behaviors not directly treated by the intervention.
Effective: Application of behavioral techniques must improve the behavior under investigation to a practical degree.
What are the 3 levels of science? For bonus points, define each level during your answer.
1. Description: Consists of a collection of facts about the observed events that can be quantified, classified, and examined. This is the broadest level of science.
2. Prediction: Repeated observations reveal that two events consistently covary with each other.
3. Control: A well-controlled experiment demonstrates that a specific change in one event is reliably produced by a specific manipulation of another event, and that change is unlikely to be a result of other extraneous factors. This is the highest level of science.
Having a healthy level of skepticism is also known as _________?
Philosophic Doubt
Define Private Events. Include an example in your answer to demonstrate full knowledge of the subject.
Private events such as thoughts and feelings are behavior.
Example: A person feeling nervous before giving a presentation may have an internal physiological response (e.g. increased heart rate), but these private events are still considered behaviors that are influenced by the environment.
Define Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EBA).
Basic research branch of the science. Consists of experiments in a lab setting with both human and nonhuman subjects with the goal of discovering, extending, and clarifying fundamental principles of behavior
Define Technological AND Analytic.
Technological: When all of an interventions procedures are identified and described with sufficient detail and clarity such that a reader has a fair change of replicating the application with the same results.
Analytic: When the experimenter has demonstrated a functional relation between the manipulated events and a reliable change in some measurable dimension of the targeted behavior.
What is the main goal of ABA?
Utilizing a scientific approach to discovering the environmental variables that reliably influence social significant behavior and for development a technology of behavior change that is practical and applicable.
Experimentation is also known by what terminology in ABA?
Functional Analysis
Define Rejection of Mentalism. Include an example in your answer to demonstrate full knowledge of the subject.
Reject explanations of behavior based on internal mental states as the cause.
Example: Instead of saying a child “wants” to avoid a task, radical behaviorism focuses on the external factors (e.g. the task itself or reinforcement history) that lead to the child’s avoidance behavior.
Define Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA).
Conduct experiments aimed at discovering and clarifying functional relations between socially significant behavior and its controlling variables, with which they can contribute to further development of humane and effective technologies of behavior change.
Define Conceptually Systematic AND Applied
Conceptually Systematic: The procedures for changing behavior and any interpretations of how or why those procedures where effective should be described in terms of the relevant principles from which they were derived. Uses 3 principles of ABA: Reinforcement, extinction, and/or punishment.
Applied: Effecting improvements in behaviors that enhance and improve people’s lives.
What is Occam’s Razor?
The simplest answer is usually the most logical one.
Define Focus on the Environment. Include an example in your answer to demonstrate full knowledge of the subject.
The relationship between behavior and environmental events is central to understanding and influencing behavior.
Example: A teacher who reinforces a student’s correct answer is using environmental contingencies to shape the studnt’s behavior.
Define Practice Guided by Behavior Analysis.
The delivery of professional services informed by behavior analysis. Organizational Behavior Management (OBM)
Define Behavioral.
Behavioral: The behavior must be observable & measurable.