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. 1990 Spring;13(1):31–37. doi: 10.1007/BF03392515

Forgetting the lessons of history

Barbara A Wanchisen
PMCID: PMC2733382  PMID: 22478047

Abstract

While a great deal of behavior analytic research has focussed on studying current contingencies, the amount of work done in the area of conditioning history is spotty, at best. Weiner (1964, 1969) conducted history research with human subjects, but little has followed in either the human or the nonhuman literature. Some direction can also be found in the literature studying the effects of conditioning on drug effects (e.g., Barrett, 1977; Urbain, Poling, Millam, & Thompson, 1978). However, “behavioral history” or “conditioning history” has not been a fully-developed area within behavior analysis. It is suggested that empirical work on history effects might have implications for (a) better understanding human-nonhuman behavioral differences and similarities, (b) clinical applications, especially where clients are resistant to behavioral change, and (c) theoretical assumptions in behavior analysis in relation to both basic and applied concerns.

Keywords: conditioning history, behavioral persistence, reinforcement schedules, continuity theory, behavior analytic theory, human-nonhuman differences, clinical applications, behavioral variability

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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