Beyond Basic or Applied.
Basic and applied BA are drifting apart—build small daily bridges to keep one field.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author looked at how basic and applied behavior analysis are drifting apart.
He wrote a story-style review that says the split is risky for both sides.
The paper warns that if the two camps stop talking, the whole field could weaken.
What they found
The study found that basic and applied BA now face different survival rules.
Money, journals, and training push each camp further from the other.
The author says we must act now or live with a permanent break.
How this fits with other research
Reed (1991) saw the same split but called it natural and unstoppable. St Peter (2017) updates that view and says we can still fix it.
Sidman (2004) adds another crack: human and animal labs also drift apart. Together the papers show many small splits that add up.
Leaf (2025) and Conners et al. (2019) echo the fix-it call. They say better training in class and in the field can glue the pieces back together.
Why it matters
You can slow the drift. Add a basic-research article to your next staff meeting. Invite a lab partner to your clinic tour. Pick a journal club paper that mixes animal and human data. Small bridges keep one field alive.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Some twenty-five years ago The Behavior Analyst published a paper by David Rider (The Behavior Analyst, 14, 171-181, 1991) titled "The speciation of behavior analysis." Rider's thesis was that basic and applied behavior analysis, for a variety of reasons, are destined to become independent species. In a commentary on this paper I pointed out, for example, that scientists and engineers are interdependent, especially at the frontiers of application. I was sanguine about a continuing analogous relationship between basic and applied behavior analysis. However, especially in the last decade, indications are that basic and applied behavior analysis may indeed be emerging as distinct species. I discuss several themes in a review of the "literature of survival" addressing the evolving complex relations between basic and applied behavior analysis, including constraints on training leading to narrow foci of application, our often self-imposed isolation from those with whom we could productively collaborate, and the difficulties of obtaining sufficient support for our science. All these challenges reflect a briar-patch of interlocking contingencies; each one depends crucially on the others and we cannot effectively address any in isolation. Thus solutions will not be easy, but our long-term survival as a coherent discipline absolutely depends on finding some.
The Behavior analyst, 2017 · doi:10.1007/BF03392295