Behavior and Social Issues

The Association for Behavior Analysis International established a Verified Course Sequence (VCS) for Culturo-Behavior Science (CBS) that covers core concepts, procedures, and methodologies necessary to analyze and intervene in system-level social problems. However, the experiential practicum component lacks defined competency criteria; not surprisingly, the handful of current CBS practica also lack clear markers. We propose that Behavioral Community Psychology (BCP) can provide a framework for developing rationally articulated competencies and designed learning opportunities for students to demonstrate such core competencies. The structure that BCP offers is grounded in its fundamental values—community-researcher collaboration to address important systemic problems, an emphasis on social activism aimed at primary and secondary prevention of social problems, and the development of sustainable, pragmatic, empirically supported and replicable interventions that contribute to fundamental social change. We employ climate change as a practicum focus area to provide an example of how BCP can lead to clarification of important competency criteria used by instructional designers. We discuss how CBS concepts, measures, and procedures can be applied in the planning and evaluation of practicum learning experiences and in the selection of practicum sites to create new opportunities to transfer behavior science to socially significant issues. The intended audiences for this paper are faculty designing CBS experiential learning, students engaging with VCS practica, and personnel in sites hosting learners.

The structure, function, and processes of a system modulate human behavior on at least 3 levels of selection: biological, behavioral, and cultural. During phylogenesis, an acquired biological structure will enable the organism to discriminate antecedent and consequent stimuli that are functionally related to response classes. Although the reinforcing value of most stimuli is based on natural selection, the stimuli’s control over behavior is mediated by a verbal community. Thus, the reinforcing value of a stimulus is established (a) during phylogenesis when it has adaptive value for that species, (b) during ontogenesis when it has adaptive value for the organism, and (c) culturally when it has adaptive value for a group. If a gene sequence/phenotype, response class, or set of contingencies matches the environment over time (i.e., function), then a structure will become recurrent. Structures are networks of relations that carry information about the adaptive history of a certain system. This paper discusses the ways in which a selectionist explanation of human behavior may incorporate the interdependence of processes, function, and structure at 3 levels of complexity. The cultural behavioral perspective represented by the concept of metacontingency will have its parallel to processes (interlocking behavioral contingencies IBC), function (aggregated product AP), context (receiving system RS), and a recurrent structure (nested interlocking behavioral contingencies n-IBC).

At least 80% of the world’s population has been significantly impacted by climate change; the most vulnerable around the world are already facing dramatic, severe costs due to emissions produced by wealthy nations. In fact, “climate change is not just an environmental issue—it is an economic issue, a social issue, a security issue, and, above all, a moral issue” (Freer-Smith et al., 2007, p. xiii; see also Shue, 2020, “Distant Strangers and the Illusion of Separation”). Despite decades of work, none of the current models for mitigating climate change offers a realistic route toward stable end-state solutions, even in the wealthiest nations, much less the world (Brooks, 2020; Bordoff & O’Sullivan (2022). Efforts to affect climate change have typically been viewed as the province of engineers and policy makers, but achieving timely and adequate cultural shifts as required to support global climate justice (GCJ), is a question of behavior, and thereby calls out to our science. Taking a constructional approach, behavior science is in a position to offer and construct conceptual and experimental tools for understanding, studying, and contributing to cultural systems that have the potential to lead to meaningful climate change responses. Drawing on what is known about (a) contingencies of reinforcement; (b) delay and probability discounting, and related levels of demand; (c) firmly embedded, widely established patterns of derived relational responding, (d) emerging conceptual models of strategic cultural-systems analysis, and (e) what is now known about the power of narrative, behavior science offers intriguing systemic possibilities for engaging in strategic, science-based social action supporting GCJ. Included in the possibilities explored here are community and societal interventions, policy advocacy, and other forms of activism, framed in behavior science terms. The paper ends with an example of how our discipline can contribute to climate change mitigation through narrative and activism supporting forests and other natural ecosystems.

Handwashing is the most cost-efficient method to lower the risk of the transmission of infectious diseases. Especially before eating in public places like cafeterias, handwashing is recommended. Often, people do not wash their hands before eating because of the response effort associated with going to the bathroom. As an alternative way to improve hygiene, disinfection with a hand sanitizer gel is recommended. The current study used an A-B-C-A design (and a no-intervention control site) with prompts and feedback to increase the number of cafeteria patrons using hand sanitizer. Dispensers for hand sanitizer gel were placed at the entrance area of two halls of a university cafeteria. Intervention took place in one hall, whereas the other served as a control. After baseline, a poster explaining the usefulness of hand sanitizing was posted near the entrance of the cafeteria. This led to a doubling of the percentage of cafeteria patrons using the hand sanitizer, from 10.79% during baseline to 24.45%. A second poster provided feedback about the percentage of patrons sanitizing their hands and asked for more participation. This led to no further increases in hand sanitizing (23.73%). After all posters were removed, the percentage dropped to 15.63% in the mean. This research demonstrated that a simple, informative prompt can have a considerable impact on hand-sanitizing behavior. However, the role of feedback in such interventions remains questionable.

The present research had as its objective to analyze the development of epistemological, ontological, and methodological assumptions defended by B. F. Skinner and his propositions to intervene in social questions between 1953 and 1960. To a certain extent, we sought to continue the research of Andery (1990, Uma tentativa de (re)construção do mundo: A ciência do comportamento como ferramenta de intervenção [ An attempt to (re)construct the world: Behavioral Science as an intervention tool ] [Doctoral dissertation, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP]), in which all of Skinner’s publications from between 1931 and 1953 were analyzed, with Science and Human Behavior as the last analyzed work. We investigated how Skinner advanced in the definition of the assumptions of his science and the proposition of social analysis and interventions in the first years after the publication of Science and Human Behavior. All of Skinner’s available texts, published between 1953 and 1960 after Science and Human Behavior, were identified and collected in order to classify how much of Skinner's explanatory system it had been changed/maintained when compared with its previous development . We analyzed the selected texts based on 2 categories: (a) excerpts related to the constitution of ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions of behavioral science and (b) excerpts related to the constitution of social propositions. There were additions, but no rupture, in all categories analyzed when we compared our data with those of the period analyzed by Andery (1990). The results obtained in the present research allow us to maintain that Skinner improved the assumptions of his science and his social proposals, introducing new conceptual discussions and new data from relevant basic and applied research.

Latinxs are the largest minority group in the United States, making up approximately 18% of the total population. Although there is a critical need for the behavioral health care system, including behavior analysts, to provide services to support the needs of the Latinx community, access to quality behavioral and mental health services continues to be lacking for the Black, Indigenous, and people of color populations. This article highlights some of the cultural and language factors that should be considered by behavior-analytic providers who have a shared responsibility to make culturally and linguistically appropriate services available to this population. Additionally, recommendations for systemic action across service providers, professional organizations, behavior-analytic training programs, and researchers are suggested to address these barriers. Recommendations for bringing about this systemic change are suggested across three domains: (a) increasing diversity in the behavior-analytic workforce, (b) enhancing training in cultural- and language-related issues, and (c) conducting research on cultural and language adaptations to behavior-analytic evidence-based treatments.