Association for Behavior Analysis International

The seminal research on equivalence relations by Sidman (1994) and colleagues, which commenced in the early 1970s, led in the mid-1980s to the development of relational frame theory (RFT; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001). The tutorial will present an overview of this 30 year-old unfolding research story and will consider some empirical and conceptual issues that appear to require focused attention as the story continues to unfold across the coming decades. In particular, the tutorial will commence by focusing on the historical and intellectual roots of RFT, identifying the work of Darwin, Wittgenstein, Skinner, and particularly Sidman as critically important. The basic units of analysis proposed by RFT, as a behavior-analytic account of human language and cognition, will then be considered. The impact these analytic units have had, and still have, on RFT research will also be reviewed. A relatively new RFT concept, known as the multi-dimensional multi-level (MDML) framework will be presented. A recent model of specific properties of relational framing, the differential arbitrarily applicable relational responding effects (DAARRE) model, will also be considered. Finally, a case will be made to integrate the MDML and the DAARRE model into a hyper-dimensional, multi-level (HDML) framework

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

This tutorial provides a primer on open-source software designed for behavior analysts and behavioral scientists. The review includes an overview of existing works and highlights software designed to extend the range and precision of behavior analytic work. This tutorial also discusses the emerging role of open-source software and software repositories as necessary adjuncts to peer-reviewed works and evidence-based tools. For researchers, open-source repositories provide an additional means for increasing the transparency, replicability, and extendibility of existing approaches. For practitioners specifically, several open-source tools provide applied behavior analysts with additional clinical information that was previously unavailable without substantial time, complicated data collection, and statistical training. Topics covered will include delay discounting, applied behavioral economics, and severe behavior and the tutorial provides examples of how such software can be applied in both clinical work and research. The specific operations performed by these tools include non-linear curve fitting, model selection, inter-rater reliability, and time-based lag sequential analyses.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Ecology is the study of how organisms relate to one another and to their physical environment. This tutorial presents three insights from an ecological approach to investigating the scientific behavior of behavior analysts. First, longstanding discussions of "foxes" and "hedgehogs" have divided us into behavior analysts who use a broad range of skills and those who rely on a more specialized skillset, but additional categories may be valuable as well. Second, we are all products of the training we receive. From an ecological perspective, behavior analysis training programs can be K-selective or r-selective, either investing heavily in a small number of students or training as many students as possible, with less time and resources invested in each one. Finally, organizing behavior analysis research into a taxonomy, as ecologists have organized life on earth, may help to identify knowledge gaps and emerging areas of future research. One system classifies the spectrum of empirical behavior analysis research into tiers based on the research subjects, target behavior, relevant stimuli and setting used. Viewing behavior analysts, training programs and research output as an ecosystem can enable us to apply the enormously successful methods of science to our own affairs.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Much of public policy has to do with how to formulate policy to either directly influence human behavior toward some common goal or consider the indirect effects of public policy on human behavior. From a behavior analytic point of view, public policy designed to influence behavior can manipulate discriminative control of behavior through advertising and education, offer reinforcers as incentives to shift behavior toward more productive or healthy choices, or introduce costs or penalties to discourage destructive or unhealthy choices. Underlying nearly all public policy decisions is a need to understand what sorts of things people want—what do people desire and how much will they pay for the things that they desire. Effective public policy harnesses our natural desires and directs them toward more healthy and productive outcomes by offering new and better alternatives, lowering the perceived costs of desired alternatives, and discouraging less desirable alternatives. Framed in this way, we can see that public policy is all about behavioral economics—the science that quantifies the essential value of commodities and defines the cost/benefit relationships associated with those commodities. In this tutorial I will explain scientific principles and methods for quantifying essential value and demand for alternative goods. I will draw on animal studies using drugs as reinforcers, human studies of drugs as reinforcers and other commodities, and studies of both isolated demand for single goods and competing demand between several goods. I will show extrapolations of these principles to public policy to stimulate future research and application beyond the bulk of prior research. I will conclude by demonstrating that impulsive behavior that is also a focus of behavioral economics and public policy is, at its core, another way to look at the relative essential value of goods, with time as the dimension of cost.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.