Behaviorism
Behaviorism
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals.[1][2] It
assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the
environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and
punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling
stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior,
deriving from Skinner's three levels of selection: phylogeny, ontogeny, and culture,[3] they focus
primarily on environmental events. The cognitive revolution of the late 20th century largely replaced
behaviorism as an explanatory theory with cognitive psychology, which unlike behaviorism views
internal mental states as explanations for observable behavior.
Behaviorism emerged in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of
psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested experimentally. It was
derived from earlier research in the late nineteenth century, such as when Edward Thorndike pioneered
the law of effect, a procedure that involved the use of consequences to strengthen or weaken behavior.
With a 1924 publication, John B. Watson devised methodological behaviorism, which rejected
introspective methods and sought to understand behavior by only measuring observable behaviors and
events. It was not until 1945 that B. F. Skinner proposed that covert behavior—including cognition and
emotions—are subject to the same controlling variables as observable behavior,[4] which became the
basis for his philosophy called radical behaviorism.[5][6] While Watson and Ivan Pavlov investigated how
(conditioned) neutral stimuli elicit reflexes in respondent conditioning, Skinner assessed the
reinforcement histories of the discriminative (antecedent) stimuli that emits behavior; the process became
known as operant conditioning.
Branches of behaviorism
The titles given to the various branches of behaviorism include:
Although John B. Watson mainly emphasized his position of methodological behaviorism throughout his
career, Watson and Rosalie Rayner conducted the infamous Little Albert experiment (1920), a study in
which Ivan Pavlov's theory to respondent conditioning was first applied to eliciting a fearful reflex of
crying in a human infant, and this became the launching point for understanding covert behavior (or
private events) in radical behaviorism;[16] however, Skinner felt that aversive stimuli should only be
experimented on with animals and spoke out against Watson for testing something so controversial on a
human.
In 1959, Skinner observed the emotions of two pigeons by noting that they appeared angry because their
feathers ruffled. The pigeons were placed together in an operant chamber, where they were aggressive as
a consequence of previous reinforcement in the environment. Through stimulus control and subsequent
discrimination training, whenever Skinner turned off the green light, the pigeons came to notice that the
food reinforcer is discontinued following each peck and responded without aggression. Skinner
concluded that humans also learn aggression and possess such emotions (as well as other private events)
no differently than do nonhuman animals.
Skinner's empirical work expanded on earlier research on trial-and-error learning by researchers such as
Thorndike and Guthrie with both conceptual reformulations—Thorndike's notion of a stimulus-response
"association" or "connection" was abandoned; and methodological ones—the use of the "free operant",
so-called because the animal was now permitted to respond at its own rate rather than in a series of trials
determined by the experimenter procedures. With this method, Skinner carried out substantial
experimental work on the effects of different schedules and rates of reinforcement on the rates of operant
responses made by rats and pigeons. He achieved remarkable success in training animals to perform
unexpected responses, to emit large numbers of responses, and to demonstrate many empirical
regularities at the purely behavioral level. This lent some credibility to his conceptual analysis. It is
largely his conceptual analysis that made his work much more rigorous than his peers, a point which can
be seen clearly in his seminal work Are Theories of Learning Necessary? in which he criticizes what he
viewed to be theoretical weaknesses then common in the study of psychology. An important descendant
of the experimental analysis of behavior is the Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior.[20][21]
Relation to language
As Skinner turned from experimental work to concentrate on the philosophical underpinnings of a science
of behavior, his attention turned to human language with his 1957 book Verbal Behavior[22] and other
language-related publications;[23] Verbal Behavior laid out a vocabulary and theory for functional
analysis of verbal behavior, and was strongly criticized in a review by Noam Chomsky.[24][25]
Skinner did not respond in detail but claimed that Chomsky failed to understand his ideas,[26] and the
disagreements between the two and the theories involved have been further discussed.[27][28][29][30][31][32]
Innateness theory, which has been heavily critiqued,[33][34] is opposed to behaviorist theory which claims
that language is a set of habits that can be acquired by means of conditioning.[35][36][37] According to
some, the behaviorist account is a process which would be too slow to explain a phenomenon as
complicated as language learning. What was important for a behaviorist's analysis of human behavior was
not language acquisition so much as the interaction between language and overt behavior. In an essay
republished in his 1969 book Contingencies of Reinforcement,[23] Skinner took the view that humans
could construct linguistic stimuli that would then acquire control over their behavior in the same way that
external stimuli could. The possibility of such "instructional control" over behavior meant that
contingencies of reinforcement would not always produce the same effects on human behavior as they
reliably do in other animals. The focus of a radical behaviorist analysis of human behavior therefore
shifted to an attempt to understand the interaction between instructional control and contingency control,
and also to understand the behavioral processes that determine what instructions are constructed and what
control they acquire over behavior. Recently, a new line of behavioral research on language was started
under the name of relational frame theory.[38][39][40][41]
Education
B. F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior (1957) does not quite emphasize on language development, but to
understand human behavior. Additionally, his work serves in understanding social interactions in the
child's early developmental stages focusing on the topic of caregiver-infant interaction.[42] Skinner's
functional analysis of verbal behavior terminology and theories is commonly used to understand the
relationship between language development but was primarily designed to describe behaviors of interest
and explain the cause of those behaviors.[42] Noam Chomsky, an American linguistic professor, has
criticized and questioned Skinner's theories about the possible suggestion of parental tutoring in language
development. However, there is a lack of supporting evidence where Skinner makes the statement.[42]
Understanding language is a complex topic but can be understood through the use of two theories:
innateness and acquisition. Both theories offer a different perspective whether language is inherently
"acquired" or "learned".[43]
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning was developed by B.F. Skinner in 1938 and is form of learning in which the
frequency of a behavior is controlled by consequences to change behavior.[44][18][45][46] In other words,
behavior is controlled by historical consequential contingencies, particularly reinforcement—a stimulus
that increases the probability of performing behaviors, and punishment—a stimulus that decreases such
probability.[44] The core tools of consequences are either positive (presenting stimuli following a
response), or negative (withdrawn stimuli following a response).[47]
The following descriptions explains the concepts of four common types of consequences in operant
conditioning:[48]
Skinner's model was based on the premise that reinforcement is used for the desired actions or responses
while punishment was used to stop the responses of the undesired actions that are not. This theory proved
that humans or animals will repeat any action that leads to a positive outcome, and avoid any action that
leads to a negative outcome. The experiment with the pigeons showed that a positive outcome leads to
learned behavior since the pigeon learned to peck the disc in return for the reward of food.
These historical consequential contingencies subsequently lead to (antecedent) stimulus control, but in
contrast to respondent conditioning where antecedent stimuli elicit reflexive behavior, operant behavior is
only emitted and therefore does not force its occurrence. It includes the following controlling stimuli:[48]
Discriminative stimulus (Sd): An antecedent stimulus that increases the chance of the
organism engaging in a behavior. One example of this occurred in Skinner's laboratory.
Whenever the green light (Sd) appeared, it signaled the pigeon to perform the behavior of
pecking because it learned in the past that each time it pecked, food was presented (the
positive reinforcing stimulus).
Stimulus delta (S-delta): An antecedent stimulus that signals the organism not to perform a
behavior since it was extinguished or punished in the past. One notable instance of this
occurs when a person stops their car immediately after the traffic light turns red (S-delta).
However, the person could decide to drive through the red light, but subsequently receive a
speeding ticket (the positive punishing stimulus), so this behavior will potentially not reoccur
following the presence of the S-delta.
Respondent conditioning
Although operant conditioning plays the largest role in discussions of behavioral mechanisms, respondent
conditioning (also called Pavlovian or classical conditioning) is also an important behavior-analytic
process that needs not refer to mental or other internal processes. Pavlov's experiments with dogs provide
the most familiar example of the classical conditioning procedure. In the beginning, the dog was provided
meat (unconditioned stimulus, UCS, naturally elicit a response that is not controlled) to eat, resulting in
increased salivation (unconditioned response, UCR, which means that a response is naturally caused by
UCS). Afterward, a bell ring was presented together with food to the dog. Although bell ring was a
neutral stimulus (NS, meaning that the stimulus did not have any effect), dog would start to salivate when
only hearing a bell ring after a number of pairings. Eventually, the neutral stimulus (bell ring) became
conditioned. Therefore, salivation was elicited as a conditioned response (the response same as the
unconditioned response), pairing up with meat—the conditioned stimulus)[51] Although Pavlov proposed
some tentative physiological processes that might be involved in classical conditioning, these have not
been confirmed.[52] The idea of classical conditioning helped behaviorist John Watson discover the key
mechanism behind how humans acquire the behaviors that they do, which was to find a natural reflex that
produces the response being considered.
Watson's "Behaviourist Manifesto" has three aspects that deserve special recognition: one is that
psychology should be purely objective, with any interpretation of conscious experience being removed,
thus leading to psychology as the "science of behaviour"; the second one is that the goals of psychology
should be to predict and control behaviour (as opposed to describe and explain conscious mental states);
the third one is that there is no notable distinction between human and non-human behaviour. Following
Darwin's theory of evolution, this would simply mean that human behaviour is just a more complex
version in respect to behaviour displayed by other species.[53]
In philosophy
Behaviorism is a psychological movement that can be contrasted with philosophy of mind.[54][55][56] The
basic premise of behaviorism is that the study of behavior should be a natural science, such as chemistry
or physics.[57][58] Initially behaviorism rejected any reference to hypothetical inner states of organisms as
causes for their behavior, but B.F. Skinner's radical behaviorism reintroduced reference to inner states and
also advocated for the study of thoughts and feelings as behaviors subject to the same mechanisms as
external behavior.[57][58] Behaviorism takes a functional view of behavior. According to Edmund Fantino
and colleagues: "Behavior analysis has much to offer the study of phenomena normally dominated by
cognitive and social psychologists. We hope that successful application of behavioral theory and
methodology will not only shed light on central problems in judgment and choice but will also generate
greater appreciation of the behavioral approach."[59]
Behaviorist sentiments are not uncommon within philosophy of language and analytic philosophy. It is
sometimes argued that Ludwig Wittgenstein defended a logical behaviorist position[10] (e.g., the beetle in
a box argument). In logical positivism (as held, e.g., by Rudolf Carnap[10] and Carl Hempel),[10] the
meaning of psychological statements are their verification conditions, which consist of performed overt
behavior. W. V. O. Quine made use of a type of behaviorism,[10] influenced by some of Skinner's ideas, in
his own work on language. Quine's work in semantics differed substantially from the empiricist semantics
of Carnap which he attempted to create an alternative to, couching his semantic theory in references to
physical objects rather than sensations. Gilbert Ryle defended a distinct strain of philosophical
behaviorism, sketched in his book The Concept of Mind.[10] Ryle's central claim was that instances of
dualism frequently represented "category mistakes", and hence that they were really misunderstandings
of the use of ordinary language. Daniel Dennett likewise acknowledges himself to be a type of
behaviorist,[60] though he offers extensive criticism of radical behaviorism and refutes Skinner's rejection
of the value of intentional idioms and the possibility of free will.[61]
This is Dennett's main point in "Skinner Skinned". Dennett argues that there is a crucial
difference between explaining and explaining away... If our explanation of apparently rational
behavior turns out to be extremely simple, we may want to say that the behavior was not really
rational after all. But if the explanation is very complex and intricate, we may want to say not
that the behavior is not rational, but that we now have a better understanding of what rationality
consists in. (Compare: if we find out how a computer program solves problems in linear
algebra, we don't say it's not really solving them, we just say we know how it does it. On the
other hand, in cases like Weizenbaum's ELIZA program, the explanation of how the computer
carries on a conversation is so simple that the right thing to say seems to be that the machine
isn't really carrying on a conversation, it's just a trick.)
Molar behaviorists, such as Howard Rachlin, Richard Herrnstein, and William Baum, argue that behavior
cannot be understood by focusing on events in the moment. That is, they argue that behavior is best
understood as the ultimate product of an organism's history and that molecular behaviorists are
committing a fallacy by inventing fictitious proximal causes for behavior. Molar behaviorists argue that
standard molecular constructs, such as "associative strength", are better replaced by molar variables such
as rate of reinforcement.[68] Thus, a molar behaviorist would describe "loving someone" as a pattern of
loving behavior over time; there is no isolated, proximal cause of loving behavior, only a history of
behaviors (of which the current behavior might be an example) that can be summarized as "love".
Theoretical behaviorism
Skinner's radical behaviorism has been highly successful experimentally, revealing new phenomena with
new methods, but Skinner's dismissal of theory limited its development. Theoretical behaviorism[12]
recognized that a historical system, an organism, has a state as well as sensitivity to stimuli and the ability
to emit responses. Indeed, Skinner himself acknowledged the possibility of what he called "latent"
responses in humans, even though he neglected to extend this idea to rats and pigeons.[69] Latent
responses constitute a repertoire, from which operant reinforcement can select. Theoretical behaviorism
links between the brain and the behavior that provides a real understanding of the behavior, rather than a
mental presumption of how brain-behavior relates.[70] The theoretical concept of behaviorism are blended
with knowledge of mental structure such as memory and expectancies associated with inflexable
behaviorist stances that have traditionally forbidden the examination of the mental state.[71] Because of
its flexibility, theoretical behaviorism permits the cognitive process to have an impact on behavior.
Pavel et al. (2015) found that in the realm of healthcare and health psychology, substantial evidence
supports the notion that personalized health interventions yield greater effectiveness compared to
standardized approaches. Additionally, researchers found that recent progress in sensor and
communication technology, coupled with data analysis and computational modeling, holds significant
potential in revolutionizing interventions aimed at changing health behavior. Simultaneous advancements
in sensor and communication technology, alongside the field of data science, have now made it possible
to comprehensively measure behaviors occurring in real-life settings. These two elements, when
combined with advancements in computational modeling, have laid the groundwork for the emerging
discipline known as behavioral informatics. Behavioral informatics represents a scientific and
engineering domain encompassing behavior tracking, evaluation, computational modeling, deduction,
and intervention.[79]
Noam Chomsky's 1959 critique of behaviorism, and empiricism more generally, initiated
what would come to be known as the "cognitive revolution".[82]
Developments in computer science would lead to parallels being drawn between human
thought and the computational functionality of computers, opening entirely new areas of
psychological thought. Allen Newell and Herbert Simon spent years developing the concept
of artificial intelligence (AI) and later worked with cognitive psychologists regarding the
implications of AI. The effective result was more of a framework conceptualization of mental
functions with their counterparts in computers (memory, storage, retrieval, etc.).
Formal recognition of the field involved the establishment of research institutions such as
George Mandler's Center for Human Information Processing in 1964. Mandler described the
origins of cognitive psychology in a 2002 article in the Journal of the History of the
Behavioral Sciences[83]
In more recent years, several scholars have expressed reservations about the pragmatic tendencies of
behaviorism.
Burgos (2003) highlights the potential peril of pragmatism, noting that within William James
pragmatism—widely discussed in philosophy and science, including behaviorism and
behavior analysis—there exists a tolerance for anything deemed useful, even if
nonsensical.[84] Additionally, Burgos (2007) contends that pragmatism engenders a
relativism that contradicts the emphasis on science as the paramount path to knowledge.[85]
Staddon (2018, as cited in Araiba, 2019) further argues that the proliferation of
diversification in social science poses disadvantages by hindering healthy and open
scientific communication and critique among specialized areas.[86]
Rider (1991) shares a similar concern, highlighting reduced communication between the
experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis. Contrarily, diversification is
portrayed as an innate and uncontrollable consequence of the environment, a natural facet
contributing to species' survival. It is viewed as an integral aspect of the evolution of
behaviorism.[87]
In the early years of cognitive psychology, behaviorist critics held that the empiricism it pursued was
incompatible with the concept of internal mental states. Cognitive neuroscience, however, continues to
gather evidence of direct correlations between physiological brain activity and putative mental states,
endorsing the basis for cognitive psychology.
Limitations
Staddon (1993) found that Skinner's theory presents two significant deficiencies: Firstly, he downplayed
the significance of processes responsible for generating novel behaviors, which it is term as "behavioral
variation." Skinner primarily emphasized reinforcement as the sole determinant for selecting responses,
overlooking these critical processes involved in creating new behaviors. Secondly, both Skinner and
many other behaviorists of that era endorsed contiguity as a sufficient process for response selection.
However, Rescorla and Wagner (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rescorla%E2%80%93Wagne
r_model&oldid=1138116120) (1972) later demonstrated, particularly in classical conditioning, that
competition is an essential complement to contiguity. They showed that in operant conditioning, both
contiguity and competition are imperative for discerning cause-and-effect relationships.[88]
The influential Rescorla-Wagner model highlights the significance of competition for limited
"associative value," essential for assessing predictability. A similar formal argument was presented by
Ying Zhang and John Staddon (1991, in press) concerning operant conditioning: the combination of
contiguity and competition among action tendencies suffices as an assignment-of-credit mechanism
capable of detecting genuine instrumental contingency between a response and its reinforcer.[89] This
mechanism delineates the limitations of Skinner's idea of adventitious reinforcement, revealing its
efficacy only under stringent conditions – when the reinforcement's strengthening effect is nearly constant
across instances and with very short intervals between reinforcers. However, these conditions rarely hold
in reality: behavior following reinforcement tends to exhibit high variability, and superstitious behavior
diminishes with extremely brief intervals between reinforcements.[88]
Behavior therapy
Behavior therapy is a term referring to different types of therapies that treat mental health disorders. It
identifies and helps change people's unhealthy behaviors or destructive behaviors through learning theory
and conditioning. Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning, as well as counterconditioning are the basis for
much of clinical behavior therapy, but also includes other techniques, including operant conditioning—or
contingency management, and modeling (sometimes called observational learning). A frequently noted
behavior therapy is systematic desensitization (graduated exposure therapy), which was first
demonstrated by Joseph Wolpe and Arnold Lazarus.[90]
Behavior analysis
Applied behavior analysis (ABA)—also called behavioral engineering—is a scientific discipline that
applies the principles of behavior analysis to change behavior. ABA derived from much earlier research in
the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, which was founded by B.F. Skinner and his
colleagues at Harvard University. Nearly a decade after the study "The psychiatric nurse as a behavioral
engineer" (1959) was published in that journal, which demonstrated how effective the token economy
was in reinforcing more adaptive behavior for hospitalized patients with schizophrenia and intellectual
disability, it led to researchers at the University of Kansas to start the Journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis in 1968.
Although ABA and behavior modification are similar behavior-change technologies in that the learning
environment is modified through respondent and operant conditioning, behavior modification did not
initially address the causes of the behavior (particularly, the environmental stimuli that occurred in the
past), or investigate solutions that would otherwise prevent the behavior from reoccurring. As the
evolution of ABA began to unfold in the mid-1980s, functional behavior assessments (FBAs) were
developed to clarify the function of that behavior, so that it is accurately determined which differential
reinforcement contingencies will be most effective and less likely for aversive punishments to be
administered.[16][91][92] In addition, methodological behaviorism was the theory underpinning behavior
modification since private events were not conceptualized during the 1970s and early 1980s, which
contrasted from the radical behaviorism of behavior analysis. ABA—the term that replaced behavior
modification—has emerged into a thriving field.[16][93]
The independent development of behaviour analysis outside the United States also continues to
develop.[94][95][96][97][98][99] In the US, the American Psychological Association (APA) features a
subdivision for Behavior Analysis, titled APA Division 25: Behavior Analysis, which has been in
existence since 1964, and the interests among behavior analysts today are wide-ranging, as indicated in a
review of the 30 Special Interest Groups (SIGs) within the Association for Behavior Analysis
International (ABAI). Such interests include everything from animal behavior and environmental
conservation to classroom instruction (such as direct instruction and precision teaching), verbal behavior,
developmental disabilities and autism, clinical psychology (i.e., forensic behavior analysis), behavioral
medicine (i.e., behavioral gerontology, AIDS prevention, and fitness training), and consumer behavior
analysis.
The field of applied animal behavior—a sub-discipline of ABA that involves training animals—is
regulated by the Animal Behavior Society, and those who practice this technique are called applied
animal behaviorists. Research on applied animal behavior has been frequently conducted in the Applied
Animal Behaviour Science journal since its founding in 1974.
ABA has also been particularly well-established in the area of developmental disabilities since the 1960s,
but it was not until the late 1980s that individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders were
beginning to grow so rapidly and groundbreaking research was being published that parent advocacy
groups started demanding for services throughout the 1990s, which encouraged the formation of the
Behavior Analyst Certification Board, a credentialing program that certifies professionally trained
behavior analysts on the national level to deliver such services. Nevertheless, the certification is
applicable to all human services related to the rather broad field of behavior analysis (other than the
treatment for autism), and the ABAI currently has 14 accredited MA and Ph.D. programs for
comprehensive study in that field.
Early behavioral interventions (EBIs) based on ABA are empirically validated for teaching children with
autism and have been proven as such for over the past five decades. Since the late 1990s and throughout
the twenty-first century, early ABA interventions have also been identified as the treatment of choice by
the US Surgeon General, American Academy of Pediatrics, and US National Research Council.
Discrete trial training—also called early intensive behavioral intervention—is the traditional EBI
technique implemented for thirty to forty hours per week that instructs a child to sit in a chair, imitate fine
and gross motor behaviors, as well as learn eye contact and speech, which are taught through shaping,
modeling, and prompting, with such prompting being phased out as the child begins mastering each skill.
When the child becomes more verbal from discrete trials, the table-based instructions are later
discontinued, and another EBI procedure known as incidental teaching is introduced in the natural
environment by having the child ask for desired items kept out of their direct access, as well as allowing
the child to choose the play activities that will motivate them to engage with their facilitators before
teaching the child how to interact with other children their own age.
A related term for incidental teaching, called pivotal response treatment (PRT), refers to EBI procedures
that exclusively entail twenty-five hours per week of naturalistic teaching (without initially using discrete
trials). Current research is showing that there is a wide array of learning styles and that is the children
with receptive language delays who initially require discrete trials to acquire speech.
Organizational behavior management, which applies contingency management procedures to model and
reinforce appropriate work behavior for employees in organizations, has developed a particularly strong
following within ABA, as evidenced by the formation of the OBM Network and Journal of
Organizational Behavior Management, which was rated the third-highest impact journal in applied
psychology by ISI JOBM rating.
Modern-day clinical behavior analysis has also witnessed a massive resurgence in research, with the
development of relational frame theory (RFT), which is described as an extension of verbal behavior and
a "post-Skinnerian account of language and cognition."[100][38][39][40] RFT also forms the empirical basis
for acceptance and commitment therapy, a therapeutic approach to counseling often used to manage such
conditions as anxiety and obesity that consists of acceptance and commitment, value-based living,
cognitive defusion, counterconditioning (mindfulness), and contingency management (positive
reinforcement).[101][102][103][104][105][106] Another evidence-based counseling technique derived from
RFT is the functional analytic psychotherapy known as behavioral activation that relies on the ACL
model—awareness, courage, and love—to reinforce more positive moods for those struggling with
depression.
Incentive-based contingency management (CM) is the standard of care for adults with substance-use
disorders; it has also been shown to be highly effective for other addictions (i.e., obesity and gambling).
Although it does not directly address the underlying causes of behavior, incentive-based CM is highly
behavior analytic as it targets the function of the client's motivational behavior by relying on a preference
assessment, which is an assessment procedure that allows the individual to select the preferred reinforcer
(in this case, the monetary value of the voucher, or the use of other incentives, such as prizes). Another
evidence-based CM intervention for substance abuse is community reinforcement approach and family
training that uses FBAs and counterconditioning techniques—such as behavioral skills training and
relapse prevention—to model and reinforce healthier lifestyle choices which promote self-management of
abstinence from drugs, alcohol, or cigarette smoking during high-risk exposure when engaging with
family members, friends, and co-workers.
While schoolwide positive behavior support consists of conducting assessments and a task analysis plan
to differentially reinforce curricular supports that replace students' disruptive behavior in the classroom,
pediatric feeding therapy incorporates a liquid chaser and chin feeder to shape proper eating behavior for
children with feeding disorders. Habit reversal training, an approach firmly grounded in
counterconditioning which uses contingency management procedures to reinforce alternative behavior, is
currently the only empirically validated approach for managing tic disorders.
Other widely published behavior analytic journals include Behavior Modification, The Behavior Analyst,
Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, The Analysis of
Verbal Behavior, Behavior and Philosophy, Behavior and Social Issues, and The Psychological Record.
Cognitive-behavior therapy
Cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) is a behavior therapy discipline that often overlaps considerably with
the clinical behavior analysis subfield of ABA, but differs in that it initially incorporates cognitive
restructuring and emotional regulation to alter a person's cognition and emotions. Various forms of CBT
have been used to treat physically experienced symptoms that disrupt individuals' livelihood, which often
stem from complex mental health disorders. Complications of many trauma-induced disorders result in
lack of sleep and nightmares, with cognitive behavior therapy functioning as an intervention found to
reduce the average number of PTSD patients suffering from related sleep disturbance.[107]
A popularly noted counseling intervention known as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) includes the use
of a chain analysis, as well as cognitive restructuring, emotional regulation, distress tolerance,
counterconditioning (mindfulness), and contingency management (positive reinforcement). DBT is quite
similar to acceptance and commitment therapy, but contrasts in that it derives from a CBT framework.
Although DBT is most widely researched for and empirically validated to reduce the risk of suicide in
psychiatric patients with borderline personality disorder, it can often be applied effectively to other
mental health conditions, such as substance abuse, as well as mood and eating disorders. A study on BPD
was conducted, confirming DBT as a constructive therapeutic option for emotionally unregulated
patients. Before DBT, participants with borderline personality disorder were shown images of highly
emotional people and neuron activity in the amygdala was recorded via fMRI; after 1 year of consistent
dialectical behavior therapy, participants were re-tested, with fMRI capturing a decrease in amygdala
hyperactivity (emotional activation) in response to the applied stimulus, exhibiting increases in emotional
regulation capabilities.[108]
Most research on exposure therapies (also called desensitization)—ranging from eye movement
desensitization and reprocessing therapy to exposure and response prevention—are conducted through a
CBT framework in non-behavior analytic journals, and these enhanced exposure therapies are well-
established in the research literature for treating phobic, post-traumatic stress, and other anxiety disorders
(such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD).
Related therapies
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
Applied animal behavior
Behavioral activation
Behavior modification
Behavior therapy
Biofeedback
Clinical behavior analysis
Contingency management
Desensitization
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
Direct instruction
Discrete trial training
Exposure and response prevention
Exposure therapy
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing
Flooding (psychology)
Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP)
Habit reversal training
Organizational behavior management
Pivotal response treatment
Positive behavior support
Prolonged exposure therapy
Social skills training
Systematic desensitization
See also
Psychology portal
Behavior analysis of child development
Behavioral change theories
Behavioral economics
Behavioral neuroscience
Cognitive inhibition
Dog behaviorist
Ethology
Functionalism (philosophy of mind)
Models of abnormality § Behavioural model
Operationalization
Pharmacology § Behavioral pharmacology
Perceptual control theory
Professional practice of behavior analysis
External links
Graham, George. "Behaviorism" (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/). In Zalta,
Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Behaviorism" (http://www.iep.utm.edu/behavior). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Behaviorism&oldid=1261345550"