Suggested French translations of expressions in the field of operant conditioning.
Keep this glossary handy any time you need to turn English operant terms into clear French.
01Research in Context
What this study did
BAER (1960) built a French-English glossary for every-day operant words. Think "reinforcement," "extinction," "punishment.
No kids, no data—just a list so bilingual scientists could speak the same language.
What they found
The paper gives one-to-one French terms for Skinner’s vocabulary. It does not test if the words work—only that they exist.
How this fits with other research
Lattal (2004) shows many English terms already shifted meaning since 1960. The glossary is still useful, but check the history so you don’t freeze old usage.
Gilroy (2023) adds a new exact equation for "essential value." The 1960 list had no math—today you can pair the French word with Gilroy’s formula.
Duker et al. (1996) breaks "extinction" into planned-ignore, sensory-cut, and other sub-types. Use their finer labels alongside the glossary’s single French word.
Why it matters
If you write reports in French or teach Quebec staff, keep BAER (1960) open on your desktop. Pair it with newer papers so your translations stay sharp and up-to-date.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A word already accepted in French psychological usage is preceded by an asterisk. To facilitate translation and reading of foreign literature, the French equivalent of the form closest to the English term is used whenever acceptable. When French has no one‐word equivalent, the English term is kept, as is usual in other scientific vocabularies. When a word is difficult to translate into French because it would sound, say, poetic or ridiculous in a scientific context, an abstract word or expression is used instead. English abbreviations are maintained so that experimental reports can be easily read in either language.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1960 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1960.3-167