ABSTRACT
The experimental analysis of behavior is concerned with identifying, to the extent it is possible, orderly relationships between the behavior of the intact individual and the environments within which the individual behaves, including organizational and social environments. Respondent behavior reflects effects of antecedent environmental stimuli on the individual's reflexive behavior. Operant behavior, on the other hand, is behavior of an individual that acts upon the environment, producing a consequent change in it or the individual's orientation to it (i.e., locomotion). Operant behavior typically exhibits sensitivity to its immediate, and sometimes delayed, consequences (Baum, 1973), and antecedent stimuli can evoke changes in operant behavior when they have reliably predicted its consequences. Relations among antecedents, operant behaviors, and their consequences (A-B-Cs) are described as three-term contingencies and contingencies of reinforcement by Poling and Braatz (Chapter 2, this book).
