Comments on the 1950s applications and extensions of Skinner's operant psychology.
The 1950s proved behavior analysis grows fastest when lab tools and daily practice stay glued together.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author looked back at the 1950s. He asked, 'How did Skinner's lab ideas jump into schools, clinics, and homes?'
He read early JABA papers, hospital reports, and classroom studies. He told the story in plain words.
What they found
The 1950s teams won when they kept one foot in the lab and one foot in real life. They measured every client with the same graphs Skinner used for rats.
Success snowballed. Each small win gave new workers tools and confidence to try the next setting.
How this fits with other research
Szempruch et al. (1993) counted every JABA article for 25 years. Their numbers show the trend Sarimski (2003) praises: after 1950 the field moved from rats to kids with autism in natural homes.
Leslie (2006) reminds us that while Skinner's fans pushed ahead, Chomsky's 1959 attack said verbal behavior could never be science. Sarimski (2003) shows the workers answered with results, not debates.
Wacker et al. (1985) gave one clear example: babies on fixed-interval schedules act like pigeons until language kicks in. That lab-school link is exactly the bridge Sarimski (2003) says made the 1950s special.
Why it matters
When you write a program today, keep the cumulative record on the desk. Show the parents the same graph you show the funding agency. That double transparency, born in the 1950s, is still our strongest sales pitch.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
These comments address Laties', Dewsbury's, and Rutherford's papers on the extension and application of Skinner's operant psychology during the 1950s. I begin by reflecting on the papers' overall theme-that the success of behavior analysis lies in its practical applications-and add some comments on Planck's principle. I then turn to the three papers and address such topics as (a) other applications and extensions (e.g., the U.S. space program), (b) relations between the research and researchers at the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology (e.g., a Yerkes' researcher in Skinner's laboratory), and (c) human schedule performance (e.g., continuity and discontinuity with nonhuman behavior). I end with a discussion of the fundamental reason for the success of the extensions and applications of behavior analysis-the experimental analysis of behavior.
The Behavior analyst, 2003 · doi:10.1007/BF03392082