ABSTRACT
As a profession, behavior analysis has evolved in a unique way compared with the other “helping professions.” We have a relatively short history, going back only to the mid-1960s, and our roots are —rmly planted in the experimental analysis of behavior. ‹e original behavior analysts were o¤en experimental psychologists who recognized how their animal lab procedures could be applied to help the human condition. ‹e original applications with humans (Ayllon & Michael, 1959; Wolf, Risley, & Mees, 1964) were almost direct replications of experimental (animal lab) procedures. ‹ese procedures were used with populations that were abandoned by the other service professionals at the time. ‹is was also a time in which questions about the ethics of treatment were not raised. Well-trained, responsible, experimental psychologists used their own conscience, common sense, and respect for human values to create new treatments. Based on learning theory, it was believed that these treatments might work to relieve
su˜ering or dramatically improve the quality of life for institutionalized individuals who were not receiving any other forms of e˜ective treatment. ‹ere were no “guidelines for responsible conduct,” and there was no oversight of these PhD researchers turned leading-edge therapists. ‹eir work was done in the public eye with full knowledge of parents or guardians, and a review of the work today would —nd little to fault in terms of ethical conduct. It was only much later that some poorly prepared and insensitive behavior analysts would run into ethical problems creating the scandals described in Chapter 1.
