A Resource on Behavioral Terminology: An Annotated Bibliography of On Terms Articles in The Behavior Analyst

Abstract

An annotated bibliography that summarizes the On Terms articles on behavior-analytic terminology from The Behavior Analyst is provided. Thirty-five articles published between 1979 and 2010 were identified, annotated, and classified using common behavior analysis course-content frameworks.

The way we speak about behavioral phenomena—our scientific vocabulary—has long been a priority in behavior analysis (Foxx, 1996; Hayes, 1991; Schlinger, Blakely, Fillhard, & Poling, 1991). Careful use of the discipline's technical terms is considered to be important for effective scientific communication and more precise conceptual analysis. It is not surprising then to consider that The Behavior Analyst, an official publication of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, has included a publication section exclusively devoted to articles on behavior-analytic terminology. This On Terms section has been a regular feature of the journal since the spring issue of 1980 (Vol. 3).

On Terms articles are short communications (currently 2 to 5 manuscript pages) devoted to a single terminological issue. For example, Peterson (1982) published a cogent two-page argument against the use of the term feedback because it does not refer to a specific behavioral principle or procedure. To date, The Behavior Analyst has published 34 On Terms articles. These articles serve a number of different purposes, including introducing replacement terms (e.g., Drash, 1988), clarifying the definitions of terms (e.g., Smith, 1986), and describing the conditions of proper term use (e.g., Branch & Vollmer, 2004; Friman, 2004). In addition, the articles include terms that span a number of different areas pertinent to behavior analysis such as the experimental analysis of behavior (e.g., Imam & Lattal, 1992), applied behavior analysis (e.g., Johnson & Layng, 1996), behaviorism (e.g., Marr, 1982) and behavioral methodology (e.g., Smith, 1986). On Terms articles are potentially useful for behavior analysts and teachers of behavior analysis in helping them to better understand important technical terms. These articles could be particularly useful in behavior analysis courses as supplements to primary readings to facilitate more in-depth discussion of important terms that might otherwise receive less attention.

On Terms articles are readily available now that back issues of The Behavior Analyst (except for the two most recent volumes) are freely available from PubMed Central (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/557). However, encountering a particular article that one deems relevant would most likely not happen without perusing back issues of the journal, a scenario that is likely improbable for many readers. Ideally, it would be most helpful to encounter On Terms articles while searching for specific topics in the psychological literature. This is possible, in theory, because The Behavior Analyst is indexed in PsycINFO, the primary database of the psychological and behavioral sciences, beginning with Volume 4 (1981). The reality, however, is that On Terms articles are unlikely to be easily located via PsycINFO searches. For example, Deitz (1983) wrote a brief commentary on the use of the term applied in descriptions of behavior-analytic research. Although this article is indexed in PsycINFO, it would be virtually impossible to locate it using a search designed to obtain literature on discussions and commentaries on this particular dimension of applied behavior analysis because of the generic nature of the term. Such a search would likely identify the Deitz article, but it would undoubtedly be overshadowed by hundreds of other articles on applied behavior analysis. Thus, a lower effort method for encountering published On Terms articles appears to be warranted.

The annotated bibliography was selected as the mechanism for assisting behavior analysts in making contact with previously published On Terms articles. An annotated bibliography is a reference list of thematically related scholarly works, each accompanied by a succinct content description (Harner, 2000). The first step in generating the bibliography was to scan the Table of Contents of each issue of The Behavior Analyst to identify every article published in the On Terms section. Thirty-four such articles were identified. An additional article (Johnston, 1979) was selected for inclusion in the bibliography because of its structural and functional similarity to other articles, despite its publication 1 year before the On Terms section was initiated. The 35 articles were then read by each author before an annotation was written for each using a consensus process. Each annotation includes one or two sentences that describe the content of the article. Although the articles are quite diverse with respect to their depth of coverage, inclusion of relevant history, style and degree of logical argument, and so on, the annotations focus on the primary term or concept to assist readers in identifying particular articles for further attention. In addition, each article's primary term is italicized within its annotation.

To assist instructors of behavior analysis courses in determining which articles might be relevant for their courses, each article was classified using two common frameworks for organizing graduate-level behavior analysis course work. First, each article was classified, again by consensus, as being relevant to one of the following course content areas specified in the accreditation requirements of the Association for Behavior Analysis International (2010): applied, conceptual, ethics, experimental analysis of behavior, principles, and research methods. Second, each article was classified as being relevant to one of the following course-content areas specified by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (2010): applied behavior analysis, concepts and principles of behavior analysis, ethical and professional conduct, and research methods in behavior analysis. The resulting classification of the articles using these two frameworks should be viewed merely as a rule of thumb for identifying article relevance; the classification has no particular psychometric importance.

The annotated bibliography can be found in Table 1. Review of the bibliography reveals two findings that are worth mentioning. First, more than half of the articles were published in the first 10 years of the section's existence. Since then, articles have appeared with some regularity, although at a much lower frequency. The second finding is that the majority of articles (74%) concern issues of terminology relevant to the discipline's conceptual and experimental domains, with relatively few articles (29%) concerned with the terminology of applied behavior analysis. This topical distribution appears to be consistent with content published in The Behavior Analyst and, perhaps its most avid readers as well. However, because many more behavior analysts pursue applied rather than solely basic and conceptual interests, the distribution might be viewed as an oddity. Of course, the case could be made that the conceptual and experimental articles are relevant to applied behavior analysis, and we would gladly concede that point.

Table 1.

Annotated bibliography of On Terms articles published in The Behavior Analyst from 1979 to 2010

Given the recent increases in the number of behavior analysis training programs, certified behavior-analytic practitioners, and behavior analysis conventions and attendees, it is likely that the need to address the discipline's technical terms explicitly is greater than ever. We hope that the present annotated bibliography will stimulate interest not only in the existing On Terms articles but also in the section itself as a mechanism for thoughtful commentaries on the language we use to describe our science and practice.