Can Behavior Analysis Help Us Understand and Reduce Racism? A review of the Current Literature
Behavior analysts have barely studied racism, but a growing chain of papers shows exactly how to start.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Payne et al. (2020) read every paper they could find on racism and behavior analysis. They wanted to see if our science already shows how to reduce racist behavior.
They also checked if anyone had used Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for this problem. They wrote a narrative review, not a new experiment.
What they found
Almost no studies exist. The shelves are bare.
The authors say behavior analysts have the tools, but we have not used them on racism yet.
How this fits with other research
Levy et al. (2022) extend this call. They move from "we can study racism" to "we must reform our own field first." They give a self-audit checklist for agencies.
Catagnus et al. (2022) add the first data. Their survey shows many BCBAs feel uneasy talking about race and emotion. The 2020 paper said "we need research"; this supplies a baseline.
Jackson-Perry et al. (2025) supersede the race-only focus. They keep the reform spirit but widen it to ableism and neurodiversity, urging a new college course called Critical Behavioral Studies.
Why it matters
You now know the field’s roadmap. Start small: add one cultural-response question to your intake form this week. Read the Levy checklist and pick one item for your team to audit next month. The 2020 paper gives you the green light; the later papers give you the next steps.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Despite ongoing efforts to eradicate racism, it persists globally, negatively affecting education, mental health, community relations, and economic development. Every behavior analyst can, and should, contribute to the reduction of racism in some way. Unfortunately, little behavior-analytic research exists to guide us. This article proposes ways that members of our scientific community can learn about racism from a behavioral perspective, extend experimental analyses of prejudice, and intervene to reduce racism in varied settings. It describes both traditional behavior-analytic and functional-contextualist accounts of racism and summarizes the small amount of related empirical and applied research. The review suggests that combining traditional behavior-analytic methods with acceptance and commitment training techniques may attenuate racism more effectively. The article ends with a call to collaborate around this globally important issue-and to do more to reduce racism.
, 2020 · doi:10.1007/s40617-020-00411-4