Behavior analysts and cultural analysis: Troubles and issues.
See client behavior as both a private trouble and a public cultural issue, then plan accordingly.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Malagodi et al. (1989) wrote a think-piece, not an experiment.
They told behavior analysts to borrow two tools from social science.
The first is C. Wright Mills’ idea of ‘troubles’ (private pain) versus ‘issues’ (public patterns).
The second is Marvin Harris’s cultural materialism, which says survival practices shape beliefs.
Together, the tools let you place one client’s behavior inside big cultural contingencies.
What they found
The paper finds nothing new in data.
It finds a blind spot: we usually treat the child, not the culture that feeds the problem.
Using the two lenses, you see both the child’s ‘trouble’ and the culture’s ‘issue’ at once.
How this fits with other research
Malagodi (1986) made the first call; Malagodi et al. (1989) answer with the actual lenses to use.
Kirby et al. (2022) later turns the same worldview into a how-to called ‘cultural reciprocity.’
Malott (2004) stretches the idea worldwide, showing how to plant behavior analysis in new countries.
Capriotti et al. (2022) applies it to sexual and gender-minority liberation, proving the lens works for equity work.
Why it matters
Next time a parent says ‘he always hits at church,’ map the cultural contingencies.
Ask: what social rules at church create the trigger?
Write both the child’s trouble and the church’s issue in your behavior plan.
You will design interventions that last beyond the clinic room.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add one line to your FBA: ‘Cultural contingencies that may maintain this behavior are…’
02At a glance
03Original abstract
THREE STRATEGIC SUGGESTIONS ARE OFFERED TO BEHAVIOR ANALYSTS WHO ARE CONCERNED WITH EXTENDING THE INTERESTS OF OUR DISCIPLINE INTO DOMAINS TRADITIONALLY ASSIGNED TO THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: (1) to expand our world-view perspectives beyond the boundaries commonly accepted by psychologists in general; (2) to build a cultural analytic framework upon the foundations we have developed for the study of individuals; and (3) to study the works of those social scientists whose views are generally compatible with, and complementary to, our own. Sociologist C. Wright Mills' distinction between troubles and issues and anthropologist Marvin Harris's principles of cultural materialism are related to topics raised by these three strategies. The pervasiveness of the "psychocentric" world view within psychology and the social sciences, and throughout our culture at large, is discussed from the points of view of Skinner, Mills, and Harris. It is suggested that a thorough commitment to radical behaviorism, and continuation of interaction between radical behaviorism and cultural materialism, are necessary for maintaining and extending an issues orientation within the discipline of behavior analysis and for guarding against dilutions and subversions of that orientation by "deviation-dampening" contingencies that exist in our profession and in our culture at large.
The Behavior analyst, 1989 · doi:10.1007/BF03392474