On radicalizing behaviorism: A call for cultural analysis.
ABA must study cultural rules, not just individual behavior, to solve real-world problems.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Malagodi (1986) wrote a position paper. It asked behavior analysts to treat radical behaviorism as a full worldview.
The paper urged the field to study cultural rules and borrow ideas from sociology, anthropology, and politics.
No data were collected; the goal was to spark a new research direction.
What they found
The author argued that ABA will stay small if it only studies single clients in clinics.
Cultural contingencies—laws, media, school norms—shape behavior on a grand scale.
Ignoring these forces leaves half the story untold.
How this fits with other research
Hobson (1987) picked up the baton one year later. It told behavior analysts to tackle big social problems like poverty and voting behavior.
Malott (2004) extended the idea worldwide. It showed how to plant ABA in new countries by training local leaders and shaping policy.
Kirby et al. (2022) gave you a tool. Their cultural-reciprocity framework teaches you to question your own values before working with new communities.
Roche et al. (2003) found common ground with social constructionism. Both camps reject mentalism and treat language as action, so collaboration is possible.
Why it matters
You can start today. Pick one cultural variable that affects your clients—school suspension policy, local zoning laws, or social-media trends. Measure how it changes behavior, then share the data with stakeholders. This turns ABA from a clinic service into a community science.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Our culture at large continues many practices that work against the well-being of its members and its chances for survival. Our discipline has failed to realize its potential for contributing to the understanding of these practices and to the generation of solutions. This failure of realization is in part a consequence of the general failure of behavior analysts to view social and cultural analysis as a fundamental component of radical behaviorism. This omission is related to three prevailing practices of our discipline. First, radical behaviorism is characteristically defined as a "philosophy of science," and its concerns are ordinarily restricted to certain epistemological issues. Second, theoretical extensions to social and cultural phenomena too often depend solely upon principles derived from the analysis of behavior. Third, little attention has been directed at examining the relationships that do, or that should, exist between our discipline and related sciences. These practices themselves are attributed to certain features of the history of our field. Two general remedies for this situation are suggested: first, that radical behaviorism be treated as a comprehensive world view in which epistemological, psychological, and cultural analyses constitute interdependent components; second, that principles derived from compatible social-science disciplines be incorporated into radical behaviorism.
The Behavior analyst, 1986 · doi:10.1007/BF03391925