Cooper, Heron, Heward Chapter 1

Front 1

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)

Back 1

the science in which tactics derived from the principles of behavior are applied to improve socially significant behavior and experimentation is used to identify the variables responsible for the improvement in behavior.

Front 2

Behaviorism

Back 2

is the philosophy of the science of behavior - Watson: early form of behaviorism known as stimulus-response (S-R) psychology, which did not account for behavior without obvious antecedent causes.

Front 3

Determinism

Back 3

presumption that the universe is a lawful and orderly place in which all phenomena occurs as the result of other events.

Front 4

Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EAB)

Back 4

(Skinner) a natural science approach for discovering orderly and reliable relations between behavior and various types of environmental variables of which it is a function.

Front 5

Experimental Analysis of behavior (EAB)
methodological features

Back 5

1- DV = rate of response
2- repeated or continuous measurement is made of carefully defined response classes.
3- within-subject experimental comparisons (instead of group design)
4- visual analysis of graphed data (instead of statistic inference)
5- description of functional relations (instead of hypothesis)

Front 6

Mentalism

Back 6

an approach to understanding behavior that assumes that a mental, or "inner" dimension exists that differs from a behavioral dimension and that phenomena in this dimension either directly cause or mediate some forms of behavior; it relies on hypothetical constructs (theoretical terms referring to a possibly existing but unobservable process or entity eg. freud ego, superego) and explanatory fictions.
mentalism holds that an adequate causal explanation of behavior must appeal directly to the efficacy of these mental phenomena.

Front 7

Explanatory fiction

Back 7

a fictitious or hypothetical variable that is used to explain and contributes nothing to a functional account or understanding of the phenomenon.
Example: Attributing a rat's behavior (to press lever to get food only when the lights are on) to a hypothetical cognitive process (knowledge) to account for the rat's performance. this explanatory fiction adds nothing to a functional account of the situation. explanatory fictions are the key ingredient in a circular way of viewing the cause and effect of a situation that give a false sense of understanding.

Front 8

Methodological behaviorism

Back 8

is a philosophical position that considers behavioral events that cannot be publicly observed to be outside the realm of the science.
methodological behaviorists uses scientific manipulations to search for functional relations between events. Also, they usually acknowledge the existence of mental events but do not consider them in the analysis of behavior. Methodological behaviorists' reliance on public events, excluding private events, restricts the knowledge base of human behavior and discourages innovation in the science of behavior.

Front 9

Radical behaviorism

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a thoroughgoing form of behaviorism created by Skinner that attempts to understand all human behavior by including private events (such as thoughts and feeling) into an overall conceptual system of behavior.

Front 10

Functional relation

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

Front 11

Empiricism

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the objective observation of the phenomena of interest. Results of empirical methods are objective in that they are open to anyone's observation and do not depend on the subjective belief of the individual scientist.

Front 12

Experiment

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a carefully conducted comparison of some measure of the phenomenon of interest (DV) under two or more different conditions in which only one factor at a time (IV) differs from one condition to another.

Front 13

Replication

Back 13

repeating experiments (and independent variable condition within experiments) to determine the reliability and usefulness of findings

Front 14

parsimony

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simple, logical explanations must be ruled out, experimentally or conceptually, before more complex or abstract explanations are considered.
Given a choice between two competing and compelling explanations for the same phenomenon, one should shave off extraneous variables and choose the simplest explanation, the one that requires the fewest assumptions.

Front 15

Philosophic doubt

Back 15

continually question the truthfulness of what is regarded as fact.
Scientific knowledge must always be viewed as tentative.

Front 16

Science

Back 16

is a systematic approach to the understanding of natural phenomena that relies on:
- determinism as its fundamental assumption
- empiricism as its prime directive
- experimentation as its basic strategy
- replication as its necessary requirement for believability
- parsimony as its conservative value
- philosophic doubt as its guiding conscience.

Front 17

hypothetical constructs

Back 17

presumed but unobserved entities that could not be manipulated in an experiment. e.g. freud's id, ego and superego.