Taking A Look At The Three Branches Of ABA

There are three branches of behavior analysis: behaviorism, the experimental analysis of behavior (EAB), and applied behavior analysis (ABA) (Cooper et al., 2020). All three branches are interrelated, and each branch must be understood in order to have a basic understanding of behavior analysis, as a whole (Cooper et al., 2020). The branch of behaviorism refers to the philosophy of the science of behavior (Cooper et al., 2020). The field of experimental analysis of behavior (EAB) focuses on basic science research in behavior analysis, and applied behavior analysis (ABA) focuses on developing methods for improving behaviors of social significance (Cooper et al., 2020). In order to understand and implement ABA effectively, it is important to explore the history of behaviorism and how the philosophical perspectives have shifted over time. The key findings from both philosophy (behaviorism) and basic research (EAB) must be examined since both branches have influenced the development of ABA as we know it today.

The Three Branches of ABA

Behaviorism is a branch of psychology that emerged in the 1920s - and through the mid-1950s, it became the dominant school of thought for psychologists (Baum, 2017). Behaviorism grew in popularity mainly because of the desire to establish psychology as a science - that could be

The mentalistic explanation correlates behavior with internal mental processes, including private thoughts, desires, or intentions (Fisher et al., 2021). As a result, a mentalistic approach would rely on hypothetical constructs that cannot be observed or measured directly. Since mentalistic explanations refer to concepts like mind, consciousness, and unobservable experiences, radical behaviorism rejects these explanations as unscientific because they rely on speculation about an individual's inner