In the Winter 2013 issue of "Independent School," Richard Barbieri considered some of the distressing news about humanity being discovered by various physical and social scientists. Barbieri asserts in this issue that there are countervailing views and discoveries about our minds and our mores, enough for us to hope for the frequent, if…

Applied behavior analysts have been helping people to enhance the quality of their lives for decades. Its characteristics as described by Baer, Wolf, and Risley continue to guide efforts to help clients and their significant others. Yet, this knowledge often languishes unused and unappreciated. Distortions and misrepresentations of applied…

Several published reports have now documented the clinical effectiveness of motivational interviewing (MI). Despite its effectiveness, there are no generally accepted or empirically supported theoretical accounts of its effects. The theoretical accounts that do exist are mentalistic, descriptive, and not based on empirically derived behavioral…

Proteins isolated from the brain and used as drugs can improve and apparently even transfer mental states and behavior. Much of the pioneering work and recent research with humans and animals is reviewed and crucial questions that are being posed about the psychologically active peptides are related. (BT)

Summarizes outcome results of treatment programs for boys exhibiting problems commonly subsumed under the label "conduct disorder." Treatment consisted of training agents in each setting to alter the deviant behaviors of the problem child. Direct observations were made in children's homes and classrooms before, during, and after intervention.…

The Work Group on Behavior Modification in Education, which issued this report, was authorized by Secretary Elliot Richardson on November 21, 1970. The body of this report includes an analysis of the benefits of behavior modification techniques in education, examples of their successful application with a variety of large student populations, an…

This paper describes a procedural guide for the application of behavioral principles and techniques in open welfare settings. The aim of the guide is to aid the worker in approaching assessment and modification from a behavioral point of view and to organize his activities sequentially and systematically in accordance with that view. (Author)

This monograph examines the component parts of behavior modification, initially defining the problem behavior and drawing a difference between specific observable behaviors (the focus of behavior modification), and the interest of Freudian and similar psychologies in unobservable internal processes. Instrumental learning related to shaping in…

Female subjects in this study were induced to harm another person in an alleged "learning" study by administering aversive noise to a confederate-victim as she performed a problem-solving task. The subjects consisted of forty-six female undergraduates enrolled in Introductory Psychology at the University of Toronto. They were randomly assigned to…

Three procedures for use in assessing imagery behavior were examined with the intent of finding a prognastic tool that would help the behavior therapist evaluate the applicability and/or the progress of an imagery intervention such as covert sensitization or implosion therapy. The authors attempted to replicate and extend portions of earlier…

Discusses the use of behavioral assessment for both descriptive and program evaluation purposes. Notes the use of behavioral assessment to study coaching behaviors and their effects on young athletes. Operant and cognitive-behavioral interventions have proven effective in both athletic and psychosocial outcomes. Discusses unresolved issues and…

Fifteen articles by different authors discuss behavior modification in terms of research, training, and social application. Topics considered include the classification of behavioral pathology, the extension of learning principles to human behavior, studies of normal and deviant child behavior, operant conditioning of two speech-deficient boys,…

This book presents the cybernetic theory of learning and the evidence which supports it. Learning is more than the openloop forming of new stimulus-response associations--it is a process of reorganization of sensory feedback within a closed loop, or pattern, which increases the learner's level of control over his own behavior and the stimuli in…