Identity Development and Scientific Evolution: ABA and Forward Progress
Author: Rachel N. S. Cavalari, Ph. D., BCBA-D
Listening to dialogues unfold about the direction of our field over the course of the last several years has been an interesting journey. Our field appears to be at a crossroads of sorts. In the eyes of many BCBAs, they are charting new territory in research and clinical realms as well as ethics. In some cases, that assessment appears accurate. Our field has spent more focused research time on topics like assent to treatment and assent withdrawal (Breaux & Smith, 2023; Gover et al., 2023; Morris et al., 2021), rapport-building and empathy (Melton et al., 2023; Rohrer et al., 2023), and positive emotional engagement (Rajaram et al., 2021; Wheeler et al., 2023) in applications of our science. References to “Today’s ABA” have popped up in various platforms, both scientific and social media-driven, to emphasize that individuals benefiting from our science need to be given more opportunity to engage and decline to engage.
Clients and research participants should also be able to change their position at any time and provide other feedback to those providing intervention about their receptivity to treatment – in essence, being given freedom to choose how and when they will be supported. This is seen as a marked change from a “compliance headset,” and represents a movement toward partnerships rather than expert-client power differentials. This shift has also moved the focus from measuring outcomes to measuring both the outcome and the journey to get there. Progress in this regard has been amazing to watch and is a testament to the strength of our field’s ethics and constant striving toward improvement. It also is part of the shifting sociopolitical context in which we construct our meaning, which is a shared experience across scientific fields and humanity, in general.
Choice, personal voice, rights, and equity are much more central in public dialogues since 2020 than they seemed to be in prior years. In fact, topics like this are listed as part of the top five global issues to watch in 2024 by the United Nations Foundation (Rabbitt & Altman, 2023). The COVID-19 pandemic opened a heated discussion about these topics, which was then punctuated by other sociopolitical events, including the murder of George Floyd. Black Lives Matter was also launched more clearly into public awareness and discourse since being founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Questions continued to be asked about personal and collective freedoms, fueled by varying opinions on the attack on the United States Capitol Building in January 2021 and many other local, national, and international events since that time. In short, we have all had to take a very hard look at ourselves, our decisions, and our practices to serve our communities in a more informed and intelligent way.
As an applied science with the aim of social significance, we must respond to the needs of our world while also staying true to the science that supports us in that endeavor. Unfortunately, sometimes the dialogue around our positive growth takes on an unhelpful contrasting pattern that leans away from objective and collegial commentary. References are being made to “old ways” of doing things, sometimes with a scoffing tone, and that “new ways” are the replacement for, instead of extension of, what was done in the past. Eye rolls have shown up in conference talks when discussing training experiences 10-20 years prior or critiques lobbied with venom or condescending sarcasm towards others in our field, often those who came before us. Sadly, many of the attempts at sharing hope for our future with novel ideas or directions are being overlaid with accusations of fault toward our predecessors rather than accountability we must collectively own.
This startling shift in professionalism has been a jarring experience. Further compounding internal conflicts are emotionally charged reactions to the unchaperoned public discourse about our science. Even some social media exchanges are coming dangerously close to schoolyard fights from professionals in our own field. Watching these patterns unfold has been very worrisome and, at times, appalling and embarrassing. When emotions run high and we begin to believe too much in our “rightness,” we are unlikely to think clearly or communicate well to move us ahead together. In some cases, external threats to our field are driving wedges between intellects that should be teaming together in the interest of our future. Academic debate is welcome in science – personal attacks and emotional displays of disregard are not.
In cases where there has been true harm done, whether by the application of the science as it was interpreted at an earlier time in our history or malpractice by someone who called us peers, we need to take responsibility and accountability as a field. That is without debate. As is the case with all helping professions, there are some dark stories amidst the shining examples of what we strive to be. If everyone made great choices all the time, we wouldn’t need laws, regulations, and ethical codes that tell us to make good choices and the consequences for not doing so. The hope is that the majority of our profession is composed of people who embody those principles and guidelines rather than needing them as daily reminders to avoid missteps. When we know that harm has been done, a commitment to doing better must emerge. Much of the energy in ABA does appear to be heading in that direction, but we need to take stock of how we approach that endeavor and do so respectfully.
In circumstances where we are merely thinking more clearly on a topic and evolving as a science, the dichotomous thinking of old vs. new poses a significant risk. As per the German proverb, we really seem to be at risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water (first referenced in Thomas Murner’s Appeal to Fools in 1512). Defining things by mutual exclusion is rarely helpful. It’s not long before old vs. new becomes you vs. me. And before we lean into strong conclusions that are also limited by one’s own base of knowledge and experience (i.e., learning history or consequent driven repertoire-altering effects), we had better be certain we have accurate data. We are a science, not a set of personal opinions.
Something known doesn’t become useless once we know more – it is the foundation that allowed us to question what we know in order to progress. According to the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council (1984), “…science accommodates, indeed welcomes, new discoveries; its theories change and its activities broaden and new facts come to light or new potentials are recognized. Examples of events changing scientific thought are legion…” (as cited in National Academy of Sciences (US), National Academy of Engineering (US) and Institute of Medicine (US) Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research, 1992). We should expect growth as the norm given we are a scientific field. We evolve with greater knowledge, which comes from strict application of the scientific method to our theories and hypotheses. Our knowledge does not simply come into being, but is based on a rich history of carefully controlled inquiry that adds, by small increments, to the body of developing knowledge. While what was known before seems insufficient or incomplete in hindsight, it doesn’t mean it is no longer important. It can be important for the same reasons we need to know of historical errors – so we don’t repeat them. It can also be important because without that prior data, we wouldn’t be able to ask more critical questions. Sometimes a line of research and inquiry is forgotten, then picked back up at a later date when society is ready to address the question.
Over the last few years, we have continued our explosive growth as a field, both in number of students and professionals as well as populations served and expanded practice laws for licensure of BCBAs. Technology has also created the opportunity for more information, and misinformation, to be spread about ABA in a more public lens. ABA has been launched into the spotlight in popular media rather aggressively. The results, as often happens, haven’t been pretty. Any celebrity can tell you that the spotlight is not a place where people focus on your excellence for long. Bright lights can reveal cracks and places to grow much better than standard lighting. What would be wonderful is if internally we could avoid diving into trenches against each other in reaction to public scrutiny. We can correct misinformation about our science, even when it is our colleague’s work that is misrepresented and not our own. We can admit accountability for faults we didn’t personally create or own, but it takes immense maturity and humility that we need to culture in each other.
While this is not a new experience for our field across our history, it is the first time some of us in the field are experiencing the shift. We are also a different generation born into a different sociopolitical context. We are, as has been the intent since the beginnings of our science, committed to improving the world around us through socially significant behavior change. It helps to remember that our field has already been through a host of paradigm shifts and subdivisions since its establishment and that, in essence, the framework of behaviorism was a paradigm shift from popular psychology at the time. All fields of science go through evolutions, as they should. In fact, there are fields of research devoted to tracking the evolution of fields within a science because all paths are not linear (see Dalle Lucca Tosi & dos Reis, 2022). If those who came before us had followed a linear path, we might not be behavior analysts at all.
All of the above said, the best most of us will accomplish in our careers will be as rough interpreters of the world around us. Sometimes your interpretation will be limited by the conditions under which your data were obtained, what is socially reinforced at the time of collection, and/or the presence of a committed effort to disprove rather than confirm your own hypotheses. We owe our current skill set to all those who came before us and asked difficult questions, trained us in our skills, honed the expertise that was known at the time of training, and encouraged us to continue to grow and change. Continuing education following credentialing is further support that no one intended you to stop growing at any particular milestone. In fact, many mentors have the express goal of having their students become brighter leaders than themselves.
Our ethical responsibility to our science is an ongoing, analytical, self-reflective process that must be characterized by humility and a devotion to growth and learning for ourselves and each other. We must go where the data take us. But, not surprisingly, I can’t claim this as my own idea. When asked in a multi-year mailed exchange interview with Michael Wesolowski between (1998-2002) where he thought the field of ABA was going, Donald Baer said:
I don’t know. I don’t have a sense that we propel the discipline, only that we can watch it go where it goes and go with it… None of my training that I admired was about being the first; it was about being correct. I've done some studies that had been done earlier by others, but unconvincingly. I wanted to know if they were correct, so I redid them in what seemed to me a better way. I sometimes thought I was doing something original and unprecedented, and that my analysis must therefore be important, but it always turned out I was just ignorant of some part of the literature. I've never had an idea someone else hadn't had earlier. To go only a little too far, I doubt that any of us has” (Wesoloski, 2022 pp. 144-145).
We are all only collections of the experiences we have had and information we have received in our very short human lives. May we all do better and work with respect and collegiality toward a better future for our science and those who can benefit from it.
Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou
References and Recommended Readings
Breaux, C. A., & Smith, K. (2023). Assent in applied behaviour analysis and positive behaviour support: ethical considerations and practical recommendations. International journal of developmental disabilities, 69(1), 111–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/20473869.2022.2144969
Dalle Lucca Tosi, M., & dos Reis, J. C. (2022). Understanding the evolution of a scientific field by clustering and visualizing knowledge graphs. Journal of Information Science, 48(1), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551520937915
Gover, H. C., Hanley, G. P., Ruppel, K. W., Landa, R. K., & Marcus, J. (2023) Prioritizing choice and assent in the assessment and treatment of food selectivity. International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 69(1), 53-65. doi: 10.1080/20473869.2022.2123196
Heward, W. L., Critchfield, T. S., Reed, D. D., Detrich, R., & Kimball, J. W. (2022). ABA from A to Z: Behavior science applied to 350 domains of socially significant behavior. Perspectives on Behavior Science, 45(2), 327-359. doi: 10.1007/s40614-022-00336-z
Melton, B., O’Connell-Sussman, E., Lord, J., & Weiss, M. J. (2023). Empathy and compassion as the radical behaviorist views it: A conceptual analysis. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 1-8. doi: 10.1007/s40617-023-00783-3
Morris, C., Detrick, J. J., & Peterson, S. M. (2021). Participant assent in behavior analytic research: Considerations for participants with autism and developmental disabilities. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 54(4), 1300-1316. doi: 10.1002/jaba.859
National Academy of Sciences (US), National Academy of Engineering (US) and Institute of Medicine (US) Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research (1992). Responsible science: Ensuring the integrity of the research process (Vol. 1). National Academies Press (US). Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234526/
Rajaraman, A., Hanley, G. P., Gover, H. C., Staubitz, J. L., Staubitz, J. E., Simcoe, K. M., & Metras, R. (2021). Minimizing escalation by treating dangerous problem behavior within an enhanced choice model. Behavior analysis in practice, 15(1), 219–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-020-00548-2
Rohrer, J. L., & Weiss, M. J. (2023). Teaching compassion skills to students of behavior analysis: A preliminary investigation. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 16(3), 763-782. doi: 10.1007/s40617-022-00748-y
Rabbitt, M., & Altman, M. (2023, December 15). 5 global issues to watch in 2024. United Nations Foundation. https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/5-global-issues-to-watch-in-2024/
Wesolowski M. D. (2002). Pioneer profiles: An interview with Don Baer. The Behavior Analyst, 25(2), 135–150. doi:10.1007/BF03392053
Wheeler, K., Hixson, J., Hamrick, J., Lee, J., & Ratliff, C. (2023). Behavior analysts’ training and practice regarding trauma-informed care. Behavior Analysis Practice (2023). 21-23. doi:10.1007/s40617-023-00836-71-13.