A host of special methodological issues arise in any discussion of research on human behavior. This practical new volume addresses many of those questions with 19 superb contributions from leading experts in the field. The text evaluates specific strategies and techniques used in laboratory settings, including - reinforcement and punishment - stimulus control - behavioral pharmacology - and methodologies concerning verbal and social behavior, among others. The book includes 135 illustrations and a notable Appendix that offers the APA's ethical guidelines for research with human subjects.

This book provides the reader with an insight into recent developments in the theory and application of operant conditioning with people. The main aim of the contributions to this book is to convey some of these developments and to suggest new directions for future work - both in the theoretical and applied aspects of operant analysis with humans. Specifically, the contributors cover the following ground: (i) a look at future trends in operant theory and applied behaviour analysis, (ii) a detailed discussion of the role of animal and laboratory- based operant performance, (iii) the role of operant analyses in understanding human psychological phenomena and (iv) direct quantitative analyses of human operant performance. This volume is not so much a comprehensive review and summary of recent developments in human behaviour analysis, but rather a critique and source of ideas, and new techniques, for all psychologists using applied behaviour analysis methods.

This classic edition of the Handbook of Operant Behavior presents seminal work in the field of learning and behavior, foreshadowing a new direction for learning research, and presenting many questions that remain unanswered. Featuring impressive contributions from leading figures across the field—ranging from N. J. Mackintosh from what was to become the cognitive school through Morse, Kelleher, Hutchinson, and Hineline on the neglected topic of aversive control to Blough and Blough on psychophysics to Philip Teitelbaum on behavioral physiology—the book is a must-read for anyone interested in human and animal learning. In a newly written introduction, J. E. R. Staddon highlights several issues that deserve more attention: how language is learned and syntax evolves, how animals choose, and a new paradigm for the study of learning in general. The book is essential reading for all students and researchers of learning and behavior, and aims to encourage researchers to revisit some of the fascinating behavioral questions raised by the original book.