A Skinnerian Account of Meditation and "Mindfulness" becomes clinically important the moment a team has to turn good intentions into reliable action inside language assessment, teaching sessions, caregiver coaching, and natural communication routines. In A Skinnerian Account of Meditation and "Mindfulness", for this course, the practical stakes show up in clearer case conceptualization, better instructional targets, and stronger generalization, not in abstract discussion alone.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via The Verbal Behavior Conference
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Join Free →Meditation and "mindfulness" practices have been pre-scientifically described and disseminated for over 2,000 years. Within the last century Westerners have shown a growing interest in learning meditation techniques to profit from claimed benefits, such as reduced suffering, better stress management, improved ethical behavior, and so on. Following Skinner's discovery of the lawful behavioral principles, collected facts about complex behavioral phenomena like meditation have become available for scientific interpretation. Since meditation and "mindfulness" appear to be activities which are exclusive to verbal organisms, Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior may provide the necessary tools for a more complete interpretation of the behavioral phenomena involved. This presentation will provide a systematic interpretation of meditation and "mindfulness" within the scope of a Skinnerian explanatory account.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
| COA | 1 | — |
David Roth has been a passionate student of B.F. Skinner’s works for over 20 years, with a special focus on applying behavior analytic principles to topics such as mindfulness, meditation, and lovingkindness. He is the former editor-in-chief of Operants magazine with the B.F. Skinner Foundation and currently serves on its publication committee. He is also a former member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. David has written conceptual articles and presented at conferences on Skinner’s molecular analysis of the operant, complex verbal behavior, and the intersection of behavior analysis with contemplative practices. He contributed a chapter on inclusion in education for the third edition of Julie Vargas’s Behavior Analysis for Effective Teaching, co-authored a book chapter (in-press) with Dr. Vince Carbone on the multiple control of verbal behavior, and wrote the foreword for the 2024 edition of B.F. Skinner’s Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. David also recently wrote the foreword for Dr. Paulie Gavoni’s (2025) book Finding Your Authentic Self: The Fight to Become You.He is the co-host of the podcast series Dialogues on Verbal Behavior with David Palmer, which offers a deep, chapter-by-chapter exploration of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1957).Professionally, David is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst serving school-age autistic support classrooms in Pennsylvania.
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
279 research articles with practitioner takeaways
258 research articles with practitioner takeaways
239 research articles with practitioner takeaways
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.