Comments about the Isolation of Behavior Analysis

They Should Have Thought About the Consequences: The Crisis of Cognitivism and a Second Chance for Behavior Analysis

“…Then the practical side: Many authors have discussed the relationship between behavior analysis and mainstream psychology (e.g., Henriques, 2003;Kimble, 1989;Lee, 1989;Staats, 1980 , 2006). is there any reason to think that concrete integration attempts, were they to take place, would yield results?…”

Why Morris, Lazo, and Smith (2004) was published in The Behavior Analyst

“…This may be due to disregard-even disrespect-by other behavioral, social, and cognitive scientists because of the field's countercultural views (Hineline, 1980). It may be due to the natural process of specialization within the sciences, as subdisciplines build on subdisciplines (Lee, 1989) or, in the case of APA, as its minisciences proliferate into disunity (Stemnberg, 2005). And, it may be due to the founding of behavior-analytic journals, leading to the field's reduced visibility in psychology as a whole.…”

Methodological Commitments and Other Philosophic Necessities

“…The time and effort that this debate has required might have been better spent on behavior analysis itself. But, clarification is often necessary, especially when misconceptions about the nature and purpose of behavior analysis are published in our own journals: Hence, an earlier paper (Lee, 1989), which was written in response to comments by Proctor and Weeks (1988) about a paper by Harzem (1987), and the present paper, which was written in response to further comments by Weeks and Proctor (1990).…”

“…The meaning of "good data" from a behavior-analytic perspective can be grasped by reading Sidman (1960) and Johnston and Pennypacker (1980). (Incidentally, the term "cognitive data" (Lee, 1989) was used, not without knowledge of the fact that much of the data collected by psychologists are behavioral data (Weeks & Proctor, 1990), but rather as a shorthand reference to data that have been collected by psychologists for the purpose ofunderstanding the hypothetical system inside the head of the individual. Such data are seldom good data even if some aspects of the behavioral phenomena might interest some behavior analysts.…”

“…Weeks and Proctor said that they intended to recommend that behavior analysts should become familiar with psychological research in the broad sense. Interpreting this recommendation to mean that behavior analysts should become familiar with cognitive psychology (Lee, 1989) seems reasonable when the terms "cognitivism" and "cognitive psychology" have been used elsewhere to refer to the traditional approach which locates the subject matter of psychology inside the individual. For example, as Sampson (1981) pointed out, this as-sumption about the location of the subject matter of psychology underlies most psychological research and theory.…”