A Bibliographic Tribute to Jack Michael

Abstract

In the late 1950's, Jack Michael, a bright but irritating young psychology instructor, moved from the Universities of Kansas to Houston to Arizona State. Along the way he befriended two nontraditional students, protected them through their Ph.D. programs, and turned them loose on the world: Teodoro Ayllon…and Montrose Wolf…" (Risley, 2001, p. 267). So begins Risley's chapter on the origins of applied behavior analysis. For almost 50 years, Jack Michael provided a model for us to "talk like Skinner" and to analyze behavior as Skinner would. For this, he has been widely respected and revered. The purpose of this bibliography is to explain to new and familiar readers alike Jack's contributions to the field of behavior analysis in areas of his primary focus: (a) behavioral function taxonomy, (b) motivation, (c) reinforcement, (d) response topographies, (e) multiple control, (f) duplic and codic verbal behavior, and (g) teaching. Throughout, we weave his role in the field's history and his leadership in its expansion, as these have been additional areas of significant contributions. Above all, we wish to highlight Jack's work, in bibliographic and narrative form, in a way that expresses a heartfelt tribute on behalf of his students and others whom he influenced to learn about psychology as a natural science and to think and talk like Skinner. Keywords Jack Michael. bibliography. verbal behavior. motivating operations. stimulus control This bibliography is written in a somewhat informal style to give readers a sense of Jack's affability, yet also to highlight his precise attention to the details of our "verbal behavior about behavior." In fact, he was a stickler for these details. Former students will recall his frequent NQR ("not quite right") written in the margins of a quiz paper, leading many to examine their own intraverbal and transcriptive behaviors and

Recollections of Jack Michael and the Application of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior

“…Jack's work (and that of Skinner) continues on at a number of university-based VB research labs, clinics, schools, and in-home programs around the world. Many of these programs are operated by Jack's former students or by students of Jack's former students (Esch & Esch, 2016). On the 60th anniversary of the publication of Verbal Behavior, Skinner would have been very pleased to see the impact that his analysis of VB is now having and to see that his book is currently selling at an all-time high (J. Vargas, personal communication, May 25, 2017).…”

“…Many students put it off as long as possible. Jack used a modified personalized system of instruction (Michael, 1991) that involved weekly reading assignments, dozens of detailed objectives, a lengthy essay exam, and an equally lengthy remedial exam, if necessary (see Esch &Esch, 2016, andMabry, 2016, for more detail on Jack and his approach to teaching). All of Jack's classes were demanding, but his VB class was especially so because of the complexity of the content.…”

“…Norm Peterson and I were Jack's teaching assistants. In that course, Jack covered a wide variety of topics, including autism, intellectual disabilities, aphasia, dementia, social behavior, literacy, academics, deafness, sign language, nonhuman language acquisition, poetry, literature, music, comedy, memory, problem solving, emergent relations, and more (Esch & Esch, 2016;Sundberg & Michael, 2001;Sundberg, Michael, & Peterson, 1977). Each topic was discussed in terms of how a VB analysis could contribute to that area of study.…”

The Consummate Skinnerian: Remembering Jack Michael

“…Carl Cheney noted, "He seemed much more interested in mentoring us, his groupies, than palling around with faculty buddies" (Mabry, 2016, p. 333). Jon Bailey also noted (in Esch & Esch, 2016) that at Arizona State University in the mid-1960s, Jack taught an informal verbal behavior class for graduate students at his house on Saturdays, something unheard of at the time. Undergraduate students (such as Bailey) tried to sneak in.…”

In Memoriam: Jack Michael (1926‐2020)

“…Jack's Verbal Behavior class (VB for short), was by far, the most popular (and challenging) course in the graduate curriculum at WMU. The story goes that he had been teaching classes on verbal behavior since he started in academia back in 1956, using a mimeographed version of Skinner's William James Lectures (Esch & Esch, 2016;Sundberg, 2013). Over the years, Jack's former students, all of whom have taken VB at least once, 1 played an active role in disseminating Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior, by conducting research, teaching classes on the topic, serving as editors, associate editors and reviewers, as well as playing important roles as area coordinators for the Association for Behavior Analysis International annual conferences and being actively engaged in its Verbal Behavior Special Interest Group (Dal Ben & Goyos, 2017).…”