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Translating the Covenant: The Behavior Analyst as Ambassador and Translator

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Abstract

Behavior analysts should be sensitive to how others react to and interpret our language because it is inextricably related to our image. Our use of conceptual revision, with such terms as punishment, has created communicative confusion and hostility on the part of general and professional audiences we have attempted to influence. We must, therefore, adopt the role of ambassador and translator in the nonbehavioral world. A number of recommendations are offered for promoting, translating, and disseminating behavior analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Program, Penn State University, Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, Pennsylvania, 17057, USA

    R. M. Foxx

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  1. R. M. Foxx
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I dedicate this paper to the memory of my good friend, Don Hake, who died before giving his ABA presidential address. Don knew something about the need to translate, as evidenced by one of his last papers, “The Basic-Applied Continuum and the Possible Evolution of Human Operant Social and Verbal Behavior” (Hake, 1982).

This article is adapted from the Presidential Address to the Association for Behavior Analysis, Washington, D.C., May 1995.

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Foxx, R.M. Translating the Covenant: The Behavior Analyst as Ambassador and Translator. BEHAV ANALYST 19, 147–161 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393162

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