Dialogue on private events.
Private events are still a battlefield—use them only when you can trace them back to something observable.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four well-known behavior analysts sat down to talk. They argued about private events—thoughts, feelings, and sensations that only the person can notice.
The talk was printed as a round-table. No new data were collected; the goal was to settle what private events mean in ABA.
What they found
The group split into two camps. One side said private events are just more behavior and can shape outward actions. The other side said they are body events or simply stories we tell when we cannot see the real causes.
No side won. The paper ends with the field still divided on whether to treat thoughts as behavior, biology, or explanatory filler.
How this fits with other research
Parrott (1984) had already claimed private events matter only when you can link them to past public contingencies. The 2004 dialogue keeps that same fight alive, showing the issue is still hot twenty years later.
Hoffmann et al. (2016) move past the talk and give you a tool. They say when standard ABA cannot reach private events, add ACT. The debate becomes a how-to guide instead of just words.
Galbicka et al. (1981) widened ABA by adding "setting events." Hatton et al. (2004) try to widen it again with "private events." Both papers stretch the science without new data, just clearer concepts.
Why it matters
You will hear team members say, "He hit because he was frustrated." This paper reminds you to ask, "What does frustrated mean and where can I see it?" If you can tie the feeling to a past public event, keep it. If not, drop it or test it with ACT tools. The dialogue gives you permission to stay practical and keep language tied to things you can count.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In the fall of 2003, the authors corresponded on the topic of private events on the listserv of the Verbal Behavior Special Interest Group. Extracts from that correspondence raised questions about the role of response amplitude in determining units of analysis, whether private events can be investigated directly, and whether covert behavior differs from other behavior except in amplitude. Most participants took a cautious stance, noting not only conceptual pitfalls and empirical difficulties in the study of private events, but doubting the value of interpretive exercises about them. Others argued that despite such obstacles, in domains where experimental analyses cannot be done, interpretation of private events in the light of laboratory principles is the best that science can offer. One participant suggested that the notion that private events can be behavioral in nature be abandoned entirely; as an alternative, the phenomena should be reinterpreted only as physiological events.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 2004 · doi:10.1007/BF03392998