Neither dark age nor renaissance: Research and authorship trends in the experimental analysis of human behavior (1980-1999).
Human operant research in JEAB stayed flat from 1980-1999—most studies still come from North American veterans focusing on reinforcement and stimulus control.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors counted every human study printed in JEAB from 1980 to 1999.
They noted who wrote each paper, where the writers worked, and what the papers were about.
What they found
The yearly number of human studies stayed flat for twenty years.
Most authors came from North America and kept studying the same topics: reinforcement and stimulus control.
How this fits with other research
Saville et al. (2002) looked at the same journal but started in 1958. Their longer view shows the flat line began earlier, so the "pause" is even longer than it first appears.
Geckeler et al. (2000) counted citations inside these human studies. They found the papers mostly cite each other and rarely bring in outside work. Together the two surveys paint the same picture: a small, self-contained club.
Geckeler et al. (2000) saw the same North-American dominance in JABA. The trend is not just a JEAB problem; it is field-wide.
Why it matters
If you run or teach human operant labs, expect the same names and topics to keep popping up. You can break the cycle by teaming up with overseas labs or pulling in fresh questions from other parts of psychology.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The anniversary of several milestones in the experimental analysis of human behavior (EAHB) provides a prompt for updating previous surveys of EAHB publication trends, which portrayed the field's overall health as good but raised questions about its breadth and trajectory. For the years 1980 through 1999, we examined trends in annual frequency of data-based EAHB articles published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB); in the topical emphasis of those EAHB articles; in the geographic region of origin of EAHB articles; and in the relative contributions of new and veteran authors. Our findings show continued productivity in the field, but contradict an earlier report by showing little sustained growth in EAHB over roughly the past 15 years. In terms of authorship, an increasing proportion of EAHB articles are authored by veteran investigators, although the field also benefits from a steady infusion of new authors. International participation in EAHB is limited, with most EAHB research originating in North America. In terms of content, our findings replicate those of previous reports in showing stimulus control and reinforcement and punishment to be the field's most commonly addressed research topics, although content emphases apparently differ across regions of origin. Overall, the data depict EAHB at the close of the 20th century as a multifaceted enterprise, one that is neither bankrupt nor at its full potential for contributing to the overall analysis of behavior. We close with some observations on the value of this type of archival research and some suggestions for improving the archival characterization of the field.
The Behavior analyst, 2001 · doi:10.1007/BF03392034