Chapter 1- Achieving Lasting Behavior Change Through Behavior Analysis

Question 1

Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Answer 1

One directed toward producing a body of knowledge and understanding about how contingencies of reinforcement influence what people, and other living organisms, say and do.

Question 2

Behavior

Answer 2

What living organisms do- including what and how they communicate, aside from its value or acceptability.

Question 3

Behavior Analysis

Answer 3

The experimental investigation of variables that influence the behavior of any living organism.

Question 4

Applied Research

Answer 4

Refer to choosing as our subject matter behavior that is important and immediately beneficial to individuals and/or society.

Question 5

Basic Research

Answer 5

Generally, it takes place in a laboratory where responses can be investigated under tight experimental control.

Question 6

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)

Answer 6

An evidence-based method of examining and changing what people (and other living creatures) say and do.

Question 7

5 Philosophical Concepts on which ABA is based

Answer 7

1. Determinism
2. Empiricism
3. Parsimony
4. Scientific Method
5. Pragmatism

Question 8

Overt

Answer 8

Directly observable

Question 9

Covert

Answer 9

Within the individual

–> thinking, imagining…

Question 10

Contiguity

Answer 10

Events happening simultaneously, or near simultaneously.

–> pressing a button and a door opening, touching a hot stove and getting burned

Question 11

Methodological Behaviorism

Answer 11

Emphasized directly observing human and animal action to study behavior

• -> Much more objective route than structuralism
• -> John B. Watson took this route, as well as B.F. Skinner

Question 12

Introspection

Answer 12

A careful set of observations made under controlled conditions by trained observers using a stringently (strict)-defined descriptive vocabulary.
–> Major tool in structural psychology.

Question 13

Structuralism

Answer 13

Sought to understand the adult “mind” in terms of a set of simple, definable components.
–> Initially proposed by Wilhelm Wundt and promoted by Edward Titchener.

Question 14

Deterministic Perspective

Answer 14

Asserts that, like other natural phenomena, human behavior obeys the laws of nature- that it is causally determined- by preceding events and/or consequences.

Question 15

Pragmatism

Answer 15

A practical approach to problems in which truth is found in the process of verification.
–> Pragmatism and behaviorism go hand in hand

Question 16

Scientific Method

Answer 16

A method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis or question is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis or question is empirically tested.

Question 17

Parsimony

Answer 17

The simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected.

Question 18

Empiricism

Answer 18

Derived from or guided by experience or experiment.

Question 19

Determinism

Answer 19

Doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws.