Toward greater integration of basic and applied behavioral research: An introduction.
Cross-citation between basic and applied journals is climbing—use it to tighten your own practice-to-science loop.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author counted how often JABA papers cite the basic-science journal JEAB, and vice-versa.
The tally showed more cross-citations each year, so the editor wrote a short piece cheering the trend.
What they found
Basic and applied researchers are talking to each other more than before.
The editor calls this a good sign that the two sides can keep helping each other.
How this fits with other research
Varley et al. (1980) warned that JABA articles were drifting into technical trivia and losing real-world punch.
McAuley et al. (1986) fired back, saying applied work feeds basic science by spotting new environment-behavior links.
Mace (1994) steps in between: the rising citation counts show both sides now listen, so the drift may be ending.
Smith (2013) later shows one way to keep the talk going—package your single-case findings into manuals that others can test in bigger designs.
Why it matters
You can ride the same wave. When you write a treatment study, cite the basic rat or pigeon paper that inspired you. When you read a basic article, ask how you could test its principle with your clients next week. The loop keeps our field honest and useful.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The articles ap- pearing in this special issue of theJournal of Ap- plied Behavior Analysis represent a significant step toward increasing the interactions between the basic and applied sectors of our field. These papers cover a wide range of topics and illustrate, in a very practical sense, how basic science discoveries can stimulate the development of behavioral technol- ogies (Mace, 1994). Although this series of articles exemplifies the influence basic research can have on technology, this influence can certainly be bidirectional. That is, specific applied problems that have proven resistant to solution with existing behavioral technologies can occasion the design of laboratory studies to examine the basic behavioral relations that maintain these problems. Such reciprocal in- fluences should be reflected in the cross-citation patterns in JABA and JEAB (i.e., JEAB papers cited in JABA, and vice versa). The article by Poling, Ailing, and Fuqua in this issue reports a recent increase in cross-citations that seems to reflect the growth in basic-applied interactions that this special issue tangibly represents. Our hope is that as these interactions prove to be profitable, basic scientists will also increasingly pose research ques- tions with direct relevance to human problems.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1994 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1994.27-569