Philosophical Assumptions

Philosophical Assumptions

1. Determinism

   • "The perfect order"
   • The universe controls what happens.
   • When data is variable this mean that some events are not controlled or the source of control is unknown.

2. Empiricism

   • Objectivity

3. Experimentation

   • Carefully manipulating variables in the interest of disproving a law.
   • tests two or more conditions
     • IV changes
   • DV not controlled
   • Does not
     • Associate with the supernatural
     • require a control group
   • Does not look for correlations

4. Selectionism

5. Parsimony

   • The simplest and most logical reasoning should be ruled out first

6. Replication

   • Experiments must be done multiple time to show it was not a one off

7. Philosophic Doubt

   • Scientific knowledge is not set in stone
   • one must continually question what is currently regarded as fact

8. opposites

9. Feelings

   • Do not cause behaviors; they are collateral products
   • Explanatory Fictions
     • When a cause is determined from the same information as the effect
       • Explaining a behavior using another behavior
     • Circular reasoning
   • Involve covert and respondent behaviors
   • Antecedent analysis

10. Mentalism

    • Pauses inquiry into causal elements
    • Unobservable events

11. Behavior analysis as a natural science

    • Analysis off observable events
    • Based on basic research

12. Radical Behaviorism

    • Private events included into the conceptualization of bx and seeks to understand all human bx.
    • Rejects dualism between inner and outer worlds; bx is found in one world
    • Both objective public events and subjective private events are impacted by the same processes
    • Explanation of bx in terms of contingencies at the level of phylogeny, ontogeny or the culture
    • Stimulus-Response- Stimus SRS Model
    • Fundamental nature, far-reaching, Thorough

13. Methodological Behaviorism

    • Acknowledges private events
      • Considered outside the realm of science and does not consider them in analysis.
    • Supports dualism
      • internal subjective events and external objective events are different
    • Objective public events are considered indicative of subjective private events.
    • Explanation of bx in terms of an organism's mediation of stimulus through causal mental variables that underlie bx.
    • Stimulus - organismic variable - response or (SOR model)

14. Basic Science

    • the discovery go principles under very controlled conditions
    • EAB

15. Behavioral Technology/ Treatment Package

    • Creation
      • The development and evaluation of a treatment package.
        • Evaluate efficiency
        • After development you do not need to...
          • all components evaluated
          • compared to other technologies
        • Are the dispersed results achieved?
        • During development the whole thing is evaluated.
    • How does it work and why?

16. ABA was defined by Baer Wolfe and Risley