The Hall of Really Good People in Behavior Analysis is a way to honor acts of being… well, darned decent. Its inspiration is one of my guilty pleasures, NPR’s series “My Unsung Hero,” in which everyday folks relate “stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression” (if, like me, you’re secretly sentimental, check it out). In a harsh world, it’s valuable to have models who remind us we’re all in this together. And who are these Really Good People? Sometimes they do unexpectedly big things. Sometimes their gift to us lasts only a moment (by the way, there’s good evidence that even small social interactions can have a positive impact on happiness and mental health!). The common denominator is behavioral function: how their actions make a difference to US.
Guest posts are invited! Install your favorite Really Good Person into the Hall by sharing your brief story of someone whose behavior (act of support or kindness, big or small) made a difference to you. There are no rules about what behavior to celebrate, as long as it was impactful. Contact Tom Critchfield (tscritc@ilstu.edu) with your idea.
It was 1981, my first professional convention. A mere 5 months previous, I had been an undergraduate English literature major who’d taken only one course related to behavior analysis. Only weeks before the convention I’d finished a first semester of graduate school that proved to be long on skid marks and short on finish lines. In particular but not entirely due to a seminar on Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, behavior analysis was proving to be a lot. Maybe too much.
And yet here I was, in a big hotel in Milwaukee, suddenly surrounded by a ton of REAL behavior analysts. It seemed to me that not only did everyone know a lot more than I did; they all seemed to know each other, while of course nobody knew me. So I spent a lot of time wandering the convention space, feeling deeply alone and out of place and questioning whether I had made a mistake pursuing this thing called graduate school.
Now, in fairness, I wasn’t totally alone. Julie Vargas, bless her heart, went to a great deal of trouble to shepherd us graduate students around and introduce us to people — but though no fault of hers, this tended to exacerbate my insecurity. It was pretty clear that many of the people I met (understandably) derived no particular pleasure from chatting up Baby Graduate Students, and they would break off contact at the first opportunity. This only increased my crushing imposter syndrome.
I finally reached the point where I was just about ready to pack it in. Unsure if I could face one more painful reminder of my irrelevance, I began ruminating about the cost of an early escape back to West Virginia on a Greyhound. In the meantime, though, Julie persisted, and she walked me up to two Very Famous Behavior Analysts who were in the middle of an animated conversation. This might be a constructed memory, but in my mind’s eye, when Julie interrupted, the response looked a bit like that in the inset. Yikes, I thought. Here comes another existential smack-down.
As with most people I’d met at the conference, Very Famous Behavior Analyst #1 wanted nothing to do with me. He started fidgeting. His eyes darted all over the convention hall in search of a better conversation partner, and he excused himself the instant that proved feasible.
But then something I never expected happened. Very Famous Behavior Analyst #2, Temple University’s Phil Hineline, who I’m sure must have had a million other things to do, turned to face me and, with a smile, gave me his full attention for about 15 minutes. He asked how I’d become attracted to behavior analysis and what my interests were. He suggested readings he thought might appeal to me. He talked about some of the things he’d been thinking about lately. And he assured me that a functional approach to behavior can seem simple at first but takes a very long time to master — in essence, he was saying that we are all students.
This induction to the club of “We Students” was incredibly affirming, and I came away thinking that, just maybe, I could pull off this graduate school thing after all.
Over the years I’ve had a lot of conversations with Phil, and he’s never turned down the opportunity to “co-student” with me. I’ve also seen him go out of his way to encourage a lot of other students — and a bunch of people who saw this post have reached out to tell me that Phil affected them similarly. For example, Jason Vladescu of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences Center wrote to say:
I wanted to note a similar experience I had with Phil. He probably would not remember this, but I introduced myself to him at some poster session at some state conference many years ago. He was gracious, brilliant, and engaging. He seemed genuinely interested in me, my interests, and anything behavior analysis I wanted to chat about. He even told me, a nobody, to email him to follow up for further discussion. I’ll never forget that moment, and based on his example I do my best to engage with those new or not-so-new to the field similarly. Sometimes, I fail, but other times, I think I’ve succeeded.
I have no doubt Jason has succeeded because the critical ingredient of these interactions is not being erudite or impressive (btw I’m absolutely not implying Jason isn’t these things! 😉) — but rather being present for other people. Recently, Phil has written about how language manipulates motivating operations, and in hindsight I’ve realized that the content of that first chat was less important than how, at a critical juncture, Phil’s attention propelled me forward. Careers are hard at every stage, but particularly when you’re brand new and not fully tapped into the reinforcers that our behavior analysis verbal community has to offer. When reinforcement schedules are lean, one big reinforcer can control a hell of a lot of behavior (for an easy-to-read summary of the supporting evidence, see a great article by Andy Lattal on “jackpot” reinforcers). I’m eternally grateful to Phil for the jackpot reinforcer that might just have kept me in behavior analysis.
Concluding note: You might regard this tale as unremarkable for a discipline that makes a big show of supporting its students. And it’s true that collectively we’ve established a lot of programs and professional development opportunities for students (for instance, ABAI’s grants to support student presenters at the annual conference). But how do we do as individuals in unscripted moments? As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image,” and an old adage holds that to judge a person’s character, check out how they treat their “inferiors” (i.e., people with less status and influence). So next time you’re in a group of behavior analysts — maybe it’s a classroom or board room, maybe a staff meeting, maybe a conventional hall — do a quick behavioral assessment. See who goes out of their way to engage and encourage their “inferiors,” especially when those people are strangers. What Phil Hineline did for me isn’t unheard of, but it’s rarer than you might imagine [Exhibit A: Very Famous Behavior Analyst #1].
Look, as Aubrey Daniels has said, behavior goes where reinforcement flows. Our behavior flows effortlessly toward folks with whom we’re well acquainted. In the case of convention buddies who we may not get to see very often, there’s special urgency to catch up while we can. And there’s nothing wrong with that, except when it leaves too little oxygen for others in the room. What Phil seemed to recognize, all those years ago, was that in a few strategically-played ticks of the clock he could influence where a total nobody’s future behavior would flow, and for me that has made all the difference.