In a recent piece in the New York Times titled, “

The stability of an ecosystem, including the species that occupy it, can be disrupted when an invasive species appears in it.

“Complex” has two uses in psychology.

Ever think about where operant behavior comes from? What is it before that first reinforcer occurs? In speaking of the origins of operant behavior, Skinner famously observed that “[o]perant conditioning shapes behavior as a sculptor shapes a lump of clay.

Contrary to a popular myth among many behavior analysts, Skinner invented neither the cumulative record nor the cumulative recorder. The origins of cumulative frequency plots, as they were known, date back to at least a couple of centuries ago, and now appear frequently in popular media.

What comes to mind when you hear the word brand?

Someone recently sent me a rather gloomy article titled, “You

Rules are everywhere, from the Ten Commandments to those whose violations bring us into traffic court. It is no surprise that rule-governed behavior occupies such a prominent place in behavior-analytic theory.

Psychologically speaking, an agent is an entity responsible for a course of action. Some psychological agents with which many of us are familiar are “personality,” “conscience,” “self,” and “stress.” Each of these agents is said to be responsible for behavior: 

I recently found myself caught up in a great discussion with two colleagues, both of whom I highly respect, concerning a particular term that we see in many places in our science.

 Once upon a time, there were twins named Immedium and Procrastinium. As their names might suggest, the two approached tasks very differently. When a deadline was assigned, Procrastinium’s first reaction was to do something else, while Immedium started on it and soon got it done, PDQ, kazaam, what’s next?

The end of the year can be a busy time of hustle and bustle as you wrap up work and manage the end of year holiday celebrations.