A Little Background

Almost all
our major problems
involve human behavior,
and they cannot be
solved by physical and
biological technology alone.

What is needed is a
technology of behavior...

B.F.Skinner
Beyond Freedom and Dignity [1971]

Put simply, behavior analysts study the relation between behavior and its environment. The wealth of data collected during much of the last century gives strong support to the notion that behavior is largely determined by its environment. More specifically, it has become increasingly clear that the consequences of behavior are responsible in large part for what we do and why we do it. In other words, we act as we do because of what happens when we do it.

The following pages on aging are written in this spirit. While the perspective and the findings of behavior analysis have been borrowed for the purposes of analyzing the problems of aging, its technical terms have been avoided.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about the foundations of this science, there is information right here at the Cambridge Center behavior.org site. For example, see Howard Sloane's page “What is behavior analysis?” There are also many other behavioral sites on the Web, including the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. You may also be interested in visiting the Web page for the Association for Behavior Analysis. In addition, there are many good books on the subject. The following are just a few:

• Baldwin J. D. and Baldwin, J. I. Behavior Principles in Everyday Life, 4th Ed. Prentice-Hall.
• Catania, A. C. Learning, 4th Ed. Prentice-Hall.
• Chance, P. First Course in Applied Behavior Analysis. Brooks/Cole.
• Mazur, J. E. Learning and Behavior, 4th Ed. Prentice-Hall.
• Rachlin, H. Introduction to Modern Behaviorism. W.H. Freeman & Co.
• Skinner, B. F. About Behaviorism. Random House.
• Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior. Free Press.
• Staddon, J. E. R. Behaviorism. Focus Publishing.

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