Previous posts in this series:
- #1 Învățare Mediată de Funcție într-o Fantomă (Operant Conditioning of a Ghost)
- #2 The Case of the Kung Fu Pigeon
- #3 Cumulative Graphs After and Before Skinner
If you’re a blog reader (and if you’re not, that begs the question of what you’re doing here right now), and you’re interested in some of the unexpected twists and turns that behavior analysis has taken during its development as a revolutionary science of behavior, then here’s a treat for you. The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies hosts a blog called Historian’s Corner in which Andy Lattal (aka the ABAI Blog Czar) posts brief tales of odd and curious moments in the history of our discipline.
To call these posts “odd and curious” is not to disparage, only to note much of what Andy writes about is not mainstream behavior analysis. But it’s certainly informative if, like me, you’re concerned with how behavior analysis interfaces with the societal and disciplinary mainstream.
Andy’s a super writer, and the posts are crisp and to the point. Unlike posts on ABAI’s site, you can download them as pdf files for use in classes and such. I strongly recommend checking them out and, if you enjoy, maybe showing the Cambridge Center a small tangible token of your appreciation for making this material available.
FYI here are few of my favorite installments of Historian’s Corner:
- The Unknown Experiments of Murray Sidman with Patient H.M.
- Behavior analysis in war series: Behavior Analysis in Service to America: The Earliest Days, The Greatest Generation of Behavior Analysts, and Scoping Out Behavior
- The Connection Between Your PJs and the History of Behavior Analysis
- The Unabomber: An Extreme Reaction to Behavior Modification
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