Verbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: A Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior. Quote 5

“Language” is now satisfactorily remote from its original commitment to vocal behavior, but it has come to refer to the practices of a linguistic community rather than the behavior of…

Continue ReadingVerbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: A Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior. Quote 5

Verbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: A Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior. Quote 4

Unfortunately, the term “speech” emphasizes vocal behavior and is only awkwardly applied to instances in which the mediating person is affected visually, as in writing a note. (p. 2)

Continue ReadingVerbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: A Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior. Quote 4

Verbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: A Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior. Quote 3

Behavior which is effective only through the mediation of other persons has so many distinguishing dynamic and topographical properties that a special treatment is justified and, indeed, demanded. (p. 2)

Continue ReadingVerbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: A Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior. Quote 3

Verbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 1: A Functional Analysis of Verbal Behavior. Quote 2

Behavior alters the environment through mechanical action, and its properties or dimensions are often related in a simple way to the effects produced ... Much of the time, however, a…

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The Peculiar, Potential Relation Between Choosing to Do Hard Things and Having the Choice in the First Place

Adithyan RajaramanTRIAD – The Autism Institute at Vanderbilt Kennedy CenterDepartment of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center I struggled my whole life to have a consistent fitness routine. Despite my elementary…

Continue ReadingThe Peculiar, Potential Relation Between Choosing to Do Hard Things and Having the Choice in the First Place

Cumulative Record. Chapter 22: Compassion and Ethics in the Care of the Retardate. Quote 13

Sympathetic understanding may suggest the design of a reinforcing environment, but it will not specify details. What is needed is technical knowledge of the effects of the environment on human…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 19

The basic researcher has, in fact, a tremendous advantage. Any slight advance in our understanding of human behavior which leads to improved practices in behavior modification will eventually work for…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 19

Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 17

Prevailing practices [in American elementary and high school education] are derived from unscientific “philosophies of education” and from the personal experiences of administrators and teachers, and the results are particularly…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 17

Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 16

The experimental analysis of behavior is more than measurement. It is more than testing hypotheses. It is an empirical attack upon the manipulable variables of which behavior is a function.…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 15

Behavior modification is environment modification, but this is not widely recognized. Very little current “behavioral science” is really behavioral, because prescientific modes of explanation still flourish, but behavior modification is…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 14

The genetic history is at the moment beyond control, but the environmental history, past and present, can be supplemented and changed, and that is what is done in a genuine…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 13

The theory which accompanies an experimental analysis is particularly helpful in justifying practice because behavior modification often means a vast change in the way in which we deal with people…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 12

Techniques of behavior modification often seem, after the fact, like the plainest of common sense, but we should remember that they remained undiscovered or unused for a long time and…

Continue ReadingCumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 12

Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 11

The amenable conditions of the laboratory are likely to bring the researcher under the control of deferred consequences and to maintain his behavior when it is only intermittently reinforced. (p.…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 10

The effects of reinforcement are often deferred and need to be mediated, and this is particularly true when reinforcement is used in place of punishment because the latter has quicker…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 9

A contribution ... — from basic to applied — would traditionally be described as the “confidence” with which contingencies are now designed in solving practical problems. Laboratory successes generalize to…

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Cumulative Record. Chapter 21: Some Relations Between Behavior Modification and Basic Research. Quote 8

... an important difference [between basic and applied research] lies in the reasons why research is undertaken and supported. The applied researcher is under the influence of a special kind…

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