A View on the Development and Current Situation of Behavior Analysis in Europe
European behavior analysis grew by hopping cities, not by copying the single-journal North-American launch.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Arntzen et al. (2021) traced how behavior analysis took root in Europe. They mapped the city-hopping experimental meetings that ran from 1983 to 2000. Those gatherings seeded today’s European Association for Behaviour Analysis (EABA) and the European Journal of Behavior Analysis (EJOBA). The paper is a story, not an experiment.
What they found
The field grew through small, moving meetings, not one fixed lab or journal. Each city added new teachers, students, and local groups. Over time these nodes linked into a network of university programs, a shared journal, and a professional association.
How this fits with other research
Horton (1987) tells the older North-American tale: one 1957 meeting created JEAB. Arntzen’s account shows Europe followed a different path—many small meetings instead of one big launch.
Laties (2008) updates the JEAB story, noting wider authorship and free online archives. That open-access idea pairs well with Europe’s later push for shared training across countries.
Stalford et al. (2024) pick up where Arntzen stops. They describe current UK and Ireland fights over PBS versus ABA standards. The early network Arntzen describes now faces new policy battles.
Rehfeldt et al. (2016) offer a next step: a free online MOOC that could plug into the European training models Arntzen maps out.
Why it matters
If you train students or plan workshops, borrow the European road-map. Rotate meeting cities, link local labs, and share a common journal. This scattered-start model can grow a behavior-analytic community where none existed before.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present article discusses essential historical trends in behavior analysis in Europe, in terms of both organizations and conferences. Of particular interest is the series of the European Meetings on the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour held in different European cities between 1983 and 2000, just when the European Association for Behaviour Analysis (EABA) and the European Journal of Behavior Analysis (EJOBA) both started. This article not only extends the information on EABA and EJOBA from a previous publication (Arntzen et al., 2009) but also discusses other European behavior-analytic outlets and different ways in which behavior analysis is taught in Europe.
Behavior and Social Issues, 2021 · doi:10.1007/s42822-021-00068-w