Will the “Cult of the Laboratory” Hinder the Spread of Applied Behavior Analysis?

Abstract

Recent articles on behavior analysis have suggested that the field is drifting in several unfortunate directions, becoming less laboratory-based, less analytic, and more technical, at the expense of conceptual rigor. A number of authors have suggested that one countercontrol to these trends is a return to an animal-based laboratory-apprenticeship model of behavioral education. The present article contends that this model is now unworkable for a number of disciplines utilizing applied behavior analysis and some educational alternatives more viable for incorporation into the curricula of non-psychological human service professions are proposed.