Ignorance and Cultural Diversity: the Ethical Obligations of the Behavior Analyst
Ethics-code compliance is only the start—build monthly humility checks to catch the cultural blind spots you don’t know you have.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Arango and colleagues wrote a think-piece, not an experiment.
They asked: Does following the BACB Ethics Code catch every cultural mistake?
Their answer: No. Hidden blind spots stay hidden unless you build extra checks.
What they found
The code tells you what to avoid, not what you don’t know.
Only steady humility tools—peer consultation, cultural mentors, reflective notes—can surface the gaps.
How this fits with other research
Lowe et al. (1977) warned that hard-to-read manuals create blind spots of another kind.
Both papers say the same thing: standard tools can fail the learner.
Thompson et al. (2025) give a concrete checklist for policy work; Arango adds reflective tools for cultural work.
Together they form a kit: look outward with policy steps, inward with humility steps.
Why it matters
You can tick every ethics box and still harm a family from a culture you barely grasp.
Add one humility check to your next supervision meeting: ask a peer, "What could I be missing about this client’s culture?" Write the answer down. Repeat monthly.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Applied behavior analysis (ABA) has featured an increasing concern for understanding and considering the cultural diversity of the populations behavior analysts serve in recent years. As an expression of that concern, the new BACB’s Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts is more explicit and comprehensive in its inclusion of ethical obligations concerning cultural diversity. The purpose of this paper is to offer a discussion on the limitations of both our capacity and willingness to know and overcome our ignorance about our own and other cultures. We examine different ways in which our ignorance of other cultures plays out even in willful compliance with the BACB ethics code. We suggest part of the problem is that the BACB ethics code seems to operate under the assumption that practitioners are always aware or can be aware of what they do not know and of their biases. In contrast, we offer a reflection on a more complex picture of our understanding of ourselves and other cultures, where we cannot assume people are aware of what they ignore and of their biases. Ethically, we find that in some cases these blindspots are accounted for by the BACB ethics code and should be foreseen and addressed by the behavior analyst (BA). But in other cases, when a person is not aware of what they ignore, understanding the connection between cultural diversity ignorance and professional behavior requires a different approach. Our analysis suggests an attitude of being thoughtfully diligent and humble while learning about cultural diversity issues and examining the areas where we might be ignorant and not aware of our ignorance. We argue that BAs’ obligations to respect the dignity of clients and their families and to provide effective treatment call for this attitude of diligence and humility that goes beyond mere compliance.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s40617-022-00701-z