Key Terms (Week 1)

Question 1

Applied Behavior Analysis

Answer 1

is a scientific approach for discovering environmental variables that reliably influence socially significant behavior and for developing technology of behavior change that takes practical advantage of those discoveries

Question 2

Behaviorism

Answer 2

is the philosophy of the science of bx., basic research is the province of the experimental analysis of bx (EAB)

Question 3

Determinism

Answer 3

Assuming the world is a lawful and. Orderly place rather than chaotic

Question 4

Empiricism

Answer 4

Relying on the objective observation of some phenomena in the development of scientific knowledge

Question 5

Experiment

Answer 5

The act of controlling variables to determine if the independent variable changes the dependent variable

Question 6

Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EAB)

Answer 6

studies the relationship between environmental factors and individual bx. focusing on how consequences influence actions through detailed observation and manipulation in controlled settings

Question 7

Explanatory Fiction

Answer 7

a fictitious variable that often is simply another name for the observed bx. that contributes nothing to an understanding of the variables responsible for maintaining the bx.

Question 8

Functional Analysis

Answer 8

demotes demonstration of functional relations between environmental variables and bx.; provides the very foundation for an experimental science of bx - as a method for assessing the controlling variables for problem bx

Question 9

Functional Relation

Answer 9

exists when a well-controlled experiment demonstrates that a specific change in one event (the dependent variable) is reliably produced by specific manipulations of another event (the independent variable), and that the change in the dependent variable was unlikely to be the result of other extraneous factors (confounding variables).

Question 10

Hypothetical Construct

Answer 10

presumed but unobserved entities that could not be manipulated in an experiment

Question 11

Mentalism

Answer 11

an approach to the study of bx. which assumes that a mental or “inner” dimension exists that differs from a bx. dimensions.

Question 12

Methodological Behaviorism

Answer 12

The philosophy of bx. that is concerned with explaining only bx. that is publicly observable, and thus verifiable, excluding private events is called