On the impact of human operant research: Asymmetrical patterns of cross-citation between human and nonhuman research.

The author counted every citation in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior for one year. He asked a simple question: when a paper studies people, do animal studies cite it? He also checked the reverse. The count showed which way knowledge was flowing between human and non-human work.

Almost no animal studies cited human operant papers. Human studies, however, often cited animal work. The traffic was one-way. Human research formed a small slice of the journal, yet it rarely shaped later animal experiments.

Baer et al. (1984) did the same kind of count on Skinner’s Verbal Behavior one year earlier. They also found lots of citations but little real testing. Together the two papers warn that citing does not equal using.

Petursdottir et al. (2017) updates the story. They show that after 2005 human verbal-operant research surged, especially in autism intervention. The new data say human work is now growing and being applied, even if older animal studies still ignore it.

Lemons et al. (2015) cataloged every JEAB subject and design. They found pigeons still dominate. Their count fits with Rumsey (1985): animal researchers keep using animal models and rarely look at human data.

If you write or review for an experimental journal, add human operant citations when they matter. A short line like ‘Smith (1982) showed similar response patterns with college students’ can break the one-way street. It spreads useful findings and gives human studies the credit they deserve.