Thought Leaders 015 - Dr. E. Scott Geller - Part 1

Shauna Costello (00:00):

You're listening to Operant Innovations, the podcast brought to you by ABA Technologies. This month on Thought Leaders we're talking with Dr. Scott Geller, as he describes how he got into the field of behavior analysis, behavior-based safety, and ultimately started actively caring for people. We're talking with Dr. Scott Geller today on our Thought Leaders series and I'm very excited to hear this, but I'm going to pass it to him and hopefully, he'll be able to tell us his history with the field and how he got to where he is today.

Dr. Scott Geller (00:38):

Thank you, Shauna. Let me start by saying, when I speak to students and their parents at Virginia Tech and this is my 50th year, I've just completed my 50th year and I'm still here, and I tell my students that I hope for them, that they would get to appreciate what I have appreciated. That when you go to college, when you go to universities, find yourself, find what you enjoy, what gives you purpose. And quite frankly, that's why I'm still here because I still see purpose and value in what I'm doing. So let me get way back. My dad was with a medical doctor. My mother was a nurse and I thought all my life, I wanted to be a doctor. And when people asked me back in elementary school, even what are you going to do?

Dr. Scott Geller (01:36):

What do you want to do when you grow up Scott? And I would always say, I'm not sure but I want to make a difference. And then as well, you got to stay in school and you gotta get educated. And now I'm in high school. And so what do you want to do Scott? When you grow up? And I said, huh, I'm not sure perhaps medicine, cause my dad is a doctor, but I want to make a difference. And then they say, well, you want to make a difference. You've got to go to college. You got to get an education. So now I'm at the college of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, a small school I'm grateful for going to that small school cause I tell you what we didn't, we didn't have multiple-choice tests. We learned how to write.

Dr. Scott Geller (02:24):

We filled out exams, discussion exams, but a smaller school and again, always concerned, what do I want to do? And again, when I tell my students this story, I don't tell them this story, but when I say, when you're in college, just find what appeals to you. So I'm thinking pre-med, I'm thinking medicine, but psychology appealed to me. So I ended up majoring in psychology and now I was in an awkward situation kind of cause now I'm a senior, you know, I did pretty well. And, and now I have to decide, do I want to go to graduate school and follow up psychology? Or do I want to go to med school and be like my dad? Well, it turned out that med school was going to be very costly. And I had a scholarship research scholarship to go to graduate school at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

Dr. Scott Geller (03:22):

And that was my selection. And I ended up in an animal lab and studying operant conditioning, but I had no idea what behavior analysis was about in those days. In fact, I was studying cognitive psychology, my master's degree advisor, same as my Ph.D. advisor was Dr. Gordon Pitz and it was math models, it was cognitive psychology, and I did my thesis and my dissertation in that field. But during my junior year, I got an opportunity to visit Anna state hospital and I visited the lab of Nate Azrin and I also met Ted Ayllon while I was there. And it's so appealed to me. Many of your listeners realize who these folks were, you know, in those days, Nate Azrin and was doing work on pain elicited aggression, he was shocking, a rat and a cat, and the rat would attack the cat, you know?

Dr. Scott Geller (04:34):

And, but he was also showing me the token economy that they had set up at Anna State Hospital with Ted Ayllon. So, and that's in the back of my head, cause remember I want to make a difference. And I was thinking cognitive psychology is fun and I can publish in these, in these academic journals, but am I making a difference? For me, I was wondering, but I graduated and I got my first job at Virginia Tech where I am now 50 years ago. And I was hired as a cognitive psychology, I was hired to teach learning, to teach personality, to teach cognitive psychology. In fact, seven years, I did work on reaction time to study cognitions with reaction time the dependent measure got tenure with that research. But also in those days starting about 1970, I started the concern about am I making a difference?

Dr. Scott Geller (05:46):

And in those days we started to do research on litter control and recycling. And I remember those days at Anna State Hospital and how we can use consequences to manage behavior and it occurred to me, could we use consequences to manage recycling, to reduce littering? And indeed that's what we did. One of the first papers I ever presented in 1971 was on litter control at the applied behavior analysis conference. And I was so excited by the attention I was getting. It was kind of like what a new kind of thing that I'm actually talking about. People who want to apply these techniques in the field to preserve the environment. In fact, in those days I was communicating with Dr. Richard Winett and we ended up, co-authoring a book called Preserving The Environment was published in 1982. During that time, however, there were no research funds available for that kind of stuff.

Dr. Scott Geller (06:57):

I mean, and I started to wonder about promoting safety. And in the early eighties, we were trying to get people to wear safety belts. Folks. They're not seatbelts watch your language, their safety belts, but in those days they were lap belts. We could call them seat belts in those days. But today it's a three-point system. It's a safety device to save lives. We should call them life belts. But we set up programs in the community of Blacksburg to get people to buckle up positive consequences. People would drive their cars through the driving window for restaurants and banks. And they would get a bingo number to play belts bingo. And every, if they were buckled up, they get a bingo number. So we had a simple contingency that you get to play belts bingo, and win prizes donated by the community if you were buckled up.

Dr. Scott Geller (07:59):

So all of a sudden we of course collected the data. I might tell you, the reason I got into that research was because I could record that data. I could send my researchers out to the field and they could measure how many people are buckled up during baseline and then during intervention. So we had a clear indication of the impact of our intervention. Indeed, we increased safety belt use in the town of Blacksburg from 20% to over 50% with this community-wide approach. Then one day I got a phone call from Dale Gray, Dale Gray at the time was the safety director of Ford motor company. This was about 1980 and he called me up and he said, Scott, I'm hearing about your work. I should also say that the government was listening and we got some research grants. They just could not believe that I can control influence transportation behavior with positive consequences.

Dr. Scott Geller (09:00):

It always passes a law and enforce it. It's all negative consequences. So they were intrigued and we got some research funds, Dale Gray called me and said Hey Scott, can you come and help us at Ford motor company? We have to get our people wearing safety belts. In fact, we have to get the public buckled up because if we don't get them wearing safety belts, we're going to have to put airbags in cars. And when we put airbags in cars, that's going to cause a crash. Some people will be injured. We can't guarantee that the airbag is always going to be safe with no side effects. So I did traveled Ford wide to their companies, 313 different facilities at the time, and taught their employees how to implement a behavior analysis, I call it behavioral science, I call the application of behavioral consequences to get people to buckle up the positive consequences.

Dr. Scott Geller (10:05):

There's an interesting, the word consequences, a negative connotation consequences can be positive. Of course, we all know that, but the world doesn't get it. Anyway, we increased safety belt use Ford wide to above 50%. And Dale Gray documented at least 200 lives were saved because employees were in crashes and if they had not been buckled up, it might've been a fatality. So that was the inroad to getting me going from environmental to safety. And then we noted the term. We came up with the term in 1979. We called it behavior-based safety, behavior-based safety. And I started to go to safety conferences, Dale Gray in fact got me to be a keynote speaker at the American Society of Safety Engineers. The American association of safety engineers, by the way, I went to those conferences and I sat on my seat and I listened to these people and I'm saying, what are they saying?

Dr. Scott Geller (11:22):

Think safety. They actually set up contingencies that if you didn't have an injury, if you didn't report an injury, I should say you get a prize. And so in fact, if your group did not report an injury, the group gets a prize. So now we put pressure on individuals not to report their injuries, which is exactly what we don't want. So behavior-based safety took off. I started a company with several of my Ph.D. students called Safety Performance Solutions. It exists today, but let me tell you, I know nothing about marketing. I don't know how to take this to the real world. I don't know how to disseminate well, so the public gets it. So the marketers took it. The pop psychology, this became big behavior-based safety became big and I got concerned and I said, wait a minute you're not doing it right, because they really don't know psychological science, by the way, that's what I'm calling it these days, psychological science. Okay. And so I change it to people-based safety. That's the term I started to use wrote two books on people-based safety.

Shauna Costello (12:39):

Today I might say I'm calling it actively caring for people, but let me backtrack. Let me, let me get back to it was 1989 and I got a phone call from two of my close colleagues, John Bailey and Brian Iwata. And John Bailey was the current editor of JABA and Brian Iwata was the former editor of JABA. And they said to me, they said Scott how would you like to be the next editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis? And I said, well, I don't know. I never thought about that. And they said, look, look, our science is narrow and you have demonstrated through your work in the environment and your work with safety that we can get beyond the clinic. We can do more than working with developmental disabilities. We think if you became editor of JABA, you could help us move the field beyond the narrow focus it seems to have. So I did 1989 until 1992. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of those three years. Because what I started to do is first I wrote an editorial for each issue, and I indeed tried to bring behavior analysis beyond the clinic. In fact, we had special issues. We had a special issue on transportation safety, where I would write in those days I was writing three-page editorials about the issue of introducing the issue, which by the way, is not done that much these days. But, and then the whole issue with this particular issue was on traffic safety. Then we had another special issue on social validity.

Dr. Scott Geller (14:40):

And again, when I say a special issue, I mean, we got people, I contacted people to write articles on the topic of social validity, not only research articles but commentary about that. We had a special one on education. We had a special one on using behavior analysis to improve education in schools and industry. And again, the whole issue was dedicated to that topic. So again, you can see that I tried to bring it beyond the narrow focus that behavior analysis seemed to have. Then we had a special issue on organizational behavior management. I remember the title, where's the performance in organizational behavior management. And that was 1991. And that year I featured a picture of W Edwards Deming who had passed away that year. And I might tell you that W Edwards Deming really changed my perspective, my paradigm, I mean, yeah, I started in cognitive, and then I was really into behavior analysis.

Dr. Scott Geller (15:54):

I liked the term behavioral science, cause that's what we are we're scientists applying principles to improve behavior. But then I went to a four-day seminar that W Edwards Deming gave 1991 was by the way he, yes, he passed away in 93. So it was 91 when I went to that seminar and I featured his picture and a story and that issue of JABA, why? Because he was talking about humanism, he was humanistic. And although I didn't buy all of his stories and all of his principles, there were select principles within humanism that I realized needed to be applied to behavior analysis, to make us more effective, to take us beyond the laboratory, beyond the clinic, to the real world. And from then we had a special issue on organizational behavior management. And I went on my I'm proud of the fact that we had special issues.

Dr. Scott Geller (16:56):

And by the way, these special issues resulted in separate monographs that were distributed separate from the journal. In those days, one on social validity, one on transportation safety, we had one on behavioral community psychology. Again, notice how it's taking behavior analysis beyond the clinic to the real world. And we had one on organizational behavior management. We also had one on, the title was science theory and technology and the topic was, is applied behavior analysis technological to a fault. I mean, where's the theory, do we need theory? And we had special articles by Steve Hayes and John Bailey, Bryan Iwata on that particular issue of, are we overly technological and are we missing some theory? And of course, this does relate to my concern or my focus later on humanism, because there is some theory, there are principles within humanism that I think us behaviorist need to adopt to bring our science bigger and better to the real world.

Dr. Scott Geller (18:22):

So that's kind of like I say, I was going to be a doctor and then I realized I got into psychology and then I started in cognitive psychology, and then I wasn't making a difference. And in fact, even in behavioral psychology, my focus has been, am I making the kind of difference in the world that I would like to make? And now my whole perspective is are we as behavioral scientists as we know how to improve behavior, notice, I don't say change behavior. That's a turnoff. In fact, we still have a journal called behavior modification. I learned the hard way that that's a turnoff in fact I worked on death row in the prisons, trying to apply contingency management. That's what we called it to improve behavior in prisons and realized that even inmates heard some of these words like behavior modification, you know, not going to modify my behavior.

Dr. Scott Geller (19:30):

So realize that we have to bring some of the humanistic language into our science. It's just language. We still can follow the same principles. Although there are principles in humanism, that I think we have to respect like empathy, like empathy. Like how about the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Many schools, many textbooks still talk about self-actualization as the top. Not realizing that Abraham Maslow before he passed away in 1970, he said he was wrong. The top of that ladder is self-transcendence. We call it actively caring, going beyond yourself for somebody else. And I think that's what behavioral analysts do we do that, but we don't necessarily talk about it in the language that other people listen and say, wow, I want some of that.

Shauna Costello (20:34):

Well, and I think that this is something too, that I've noticed when talking about how people got into the field of behavior analysis or behavioral science. A lot of them didn't start in behavioral science. They started, I mean it wasn't a major back in the sixties, seventies, eighties depending on where you go, the nineties. And they started in psychology or cognitive or clinical psychology. And to kind of hear how you got into, you finished your masters and your Ph.D. at SIU Carbondale, and then got your job over at Virginia Tech. And then you're like, Hey, wait, I remember some of this stuff that because you brought up Azrin and I'm like, I know exactly the publications and the experience in those experiments that you're talking about, because I mean, I studied those and it's really neat to hear that it took you even after a lot of your formal training, if we want to call it that in school to really start saying, Hey, this could really work.

Dr. Scott Geller (21:54):

And in fact, Shauna at SIU Carbondale, in the department of psychology, they didn't have a course in behavior analysis. When I came back from Anna State in the rehab department at SIU where Beth Sulzer-Azaroff was there, they had behavior analysis, but not in psychology. And so I had to learn it going away from the psychology department, I'd come back from Anna State. And I talked to my advisor and he said, so did you just learn a different way to apply positive reinforcement? I mean, they had this very narrow perspective with regard to applied behavior analysis. And so yeah, sometimes you have to kind of go with the flow, the flow for you, you know, it's kind of like you find your purpose, what works for you. And sometimes you have to get beyond the boundaries of where you are.

Shauna Costello (22:54):

And I think that that's a really big key thing is getting beyond the boundaries as well, because on a lot of the social media sites now, and a lot of the behavior analysis groups that are up there, you see these PC individuals coming up and talking and asking all the time like, Hey, this is my history, but I'm really interested in the field of behavioral science. Is that something that I can still get into I'm in my forties? Can I go back to school for that? And it's like, granted, you were not in your forties, but still, a case in point that you're showing them that just because your formal academic training wasn't in this, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't, you know, switch up your focus and really start, and completely change it up. I mean, if you think about where behavior-based safety is now, and I mean, you know, to hear that you were one of the founders of behavior-based safety is so like, it's so amazing to me to kind of see where it started.

Dr. Scott Geller (24:07):

And if you look at my career, for example, I started in cognitive, you know, and then I was editor of JABA. And then I gave up my editorship at the age of 50. And that's when I realized the value of humanism connecting it to behaviorism. And I must tell you, I've given some keynote addresses that at ABA conferences. And I look at the old-timers like me when I'm talking about humanistic behaviorism and they got their arms crossed and they don't want to listen because they know that some of the principles of humanism just doesn't fit their mindset, but I'm not talking about all the principles. I think sometimes we have to be open to some other principles, some other ideas. And I also think that that life is continuous learning be open to continuously learn and improve really that's, that's what science is about, you know?

Dr. Scott Geller (25:08):

And so again, I tell my students find your purpose, but it can change with time as you move on. I look at my life for example, and I really believe that everything has kind of gone along until now. I've ended up with AC4P actively caring for people, which I think is humanistic behaviors. And if you think of the word actively caring, active is behavior and caring is humanism. And by the way, BF Skinner said in the seventies, behaviorism is the way to make humanism more effective. I ideally I buy that, but I am saying that humanism is a way to make behavior is more effective. The point is its humanistic behaviors, and that was a popular term in the seventies. I might say people were talking about humanism and behaviorism and how the two could collaborate, but then it kind of dropped away. And I think we need to bring it back. We need to bring it back basic concepts of humanism and demonstrate how our science of improving behavior can improve human welfare, of course, on a larger scale beyond the clinic. If we accept and follow some of the principles of humanism.

Shauna Costello (26:39):

Yeah. I can't agree more. And I think I might be, this might be wrong, but I think it might've been in a couple, just within the last couple years, there was a, it was JABA and they were talking about language and our language and you brought this up and this comes up again when you bring up humanistic behaviorism because a lot of behavioral science language is not necessarily approachable. Like you have mentioned so far. And it's also a lot of times the words that we use already have this established definition that the general public is used to. And when we say that word, meaning something different, it doesn't always come off that way. And I think that's a really big thing. And Ronnie Dietrich, I remember his commentary about this as well, pretty specifically, and how he brought up the same stuff that you're bringing up as well, is that you came what your goal was to, how can you make the most change, and be the most effective as possible. And you've really tailored your career to not only producing all of these results that you can see in your CV and all of the jobs that you've had, the consulting, research, everything like that, but also with, you know, the students that you've taught and you're teaching them the same thing. And it kind of goes into that dissemination as well, where we're continuously developing and taking professional development to make sure we're getting better.

Dr. Scott Geller (28:32):

And you know what I've learned, perhaps the hard way, that you have to go to the area where you want to make a difference. Like for example, in the safety field, I had to start going to safety conferences and I had to start writing for safety magazines. In fact, for 19 consecutive years, I wrote an article every month for Industrial Safety and Hygiene News in a column called The Psychology of Safety. Now I didn't call it behavior analysis. I made it broader the psychology of safety, but clearly, in those articles, I brought in our basic principles of behavior analysis, or I call it behavioral science. But the point is I had to go to those conferences and then I ended up being a keynote speaker at those conferences. I might say that my academic world here, I don't get a lot of credit for doing that, but it's not about credit for the academic world.

Dr. Scott Geller (29:29):

It's credit for making a difference in the real world. And that's what I've learned. You have to do. You have to go to the target area that can use your science. And for me, it started out with the environment, and then I moved to the safety and, you know, people-based safety or behavior-based safety became big. They misused it, you know, that they didn't know any better. You know, we can't blame him if you can be unconsciously incompetent and they don't there is still, and I did learn, however, that marketing is everything profound knowledge doesn't work without marketing. I mean, so I've seen these banners and as marketing for safety, I didn't ever, it blew me away when I go to these safety conferences and I'd see these people putting up their banners and frankly, teaching not necessarily wrong stuff, but incomplete stuff about the science of behavior.

Dr. Scott Geller (30:25):

So my point is to make a difference beyond the clinic, we have to go to those places beyond the clinic. And sometimes we have to sacrifice some of our academic credit. I mean, you know, we write articles in these professional journals and who reads them other professionals and that's fine and that's good, but I also realized that the real world, they read something else. And so we need to translate our science into articles and speeches and presentations that the real world can get. One of my biggest thrills was, gosh, it's eight years ago now when I gave it a TEDx talk, you know, and I didn't know it was, you know, you get an opportunity to give a 15-minute talk and whatever you select. And so I selected to do a topic on self-motivation notice that's a humanistic theory.

Dr. Scott Geller (31:24):

Self-Determination theory is humanism. What I took that self-determination theory, and I combined it with behavioral science and gave this 15-minute talk. And to my surprise today, I'm proud to say, I have over 10 million views of this 15-minute presentation. And I get emailed all over the world well, would you be my mentor? And I do get some negative comments, you know, but mostly positive. But my point is, I said, teacher, that's what I want as a teacher who wants to make a difference, we have to do those kinds of things that reach the real world, even though I don't approve of social media, well, we have to use social media if we can, to make a difference. And I must tell you that, that 15-minute talk, I worked hard on that. There's no PowerPoint. It's 15 minutes with this story. And to try to relate humanism with behaviors. I mean, indeed of course I referenced BF Skinner and I'm very, I might say that not that many TedX talks reference science, but I did. And I'm proud to say that I did. And again, that's just another way to reach the world with what we know.

Shauna Costello (32:45):

And I just like to mention in that as well, that in your TedX talk, it's a very, it's a very good TedX talk by the way, but it kind of brings up one of your hobbies as well, that I would like to mention about you is that you're an avid drummer and music lover as well. And in your TedX talk, you will get to see you play a drum. And so I also think that that is a very fun and unique aspect to your TedX talk. Not only did I really enjoyed talking about, you know, the four CS and bringing the science into it and things like that. But you really kind of, you really showed your human self, not just as a science practitioner, but really you kind of, you made yourself more relatable. And I think that that ties back into what you were just mentioning about. Yeah. It's not always about the academic career because everybody who is really reading the journals are other professionals it's really about making yourself more human and more relatable to individuals who are going to be reading or watching that.

Dr. Scott Geller (33:56):

Oh, thank you, Shauna. Well, you know, I started playing drums at the age of 10, 10 years old, and I did learn the right way to play the drums. Now, people don't even hold drum sticks correctly, but I learned, and yes, I became a rock and roll drummer. And I might tell you that I'm pretty much an introvert. I'm pretty, was pretty shy, but playing the drums gave me an opportunity to use in the back of the band. Many, I played with many bands and I felt part of the crowd, but yet I could still be an introvert, you know, and that doesn't mean an introverts can't interact effectively with other people, but it just means that their inclination is to, is to be them be by themselves at times. You know, I probably couldn't have written as many books if I wasn't an introvert stayed away from the parties and, and writing. But anyway, thank you for recognizing that. Yeah, that took me, that brought me through school again, to have something else, something else to take your mind off the studies. But when I would go and play the peppermint lounge in Cleveland, Ohio, for example, during the breaks, I would take my books with me because I was constantly wanting to study at the same time, participate in a rock and roll band.

Shauna Costello (35:19):

Well, I can definitely relate to that introvert, the introvert aspect of yourself. Yes, I do have this podcast for, you know, the company I work for, but I am also very much so an introvert as well.

Dr. Scott Geller (35:34):

After I give a lecture and I've lecturing, introductory psychology, about 500 and 600 students in the classroom, and I'm bouncing around the stage and screaming and shouting. And when I tell them I'm more of an introvert than an extrovert, they say what? And they come up and say, what you can't. I said, well, yeah, because this is a performance like we are performing now. But if we also choose to be alone and do stuff on our own by ourselves, or we might simply say that we're not as likely to go out and approach a stranger and interact. And let me also say with regard to introvert extrovert and in regard to actively caring, let me talk about these wristbands on my wrist. How about that? Shauna? I have two wristbands on my wrist and the green wristband says actively caring for people and this wristband has its own identification number on it, by the way, this, this started after our tragedy at Virginia Tech, April 16th, 2007.

Dr. Scott Geller (36:42):

Perhaps some of you recall that terrible time when, when 32 faculty and students were shot by another student. Anyway, we said, you know, we need to develop a world of actively caring. So this is a green wristband. Now I give this wristband. When I see an act of kindness, I give it to somebody and I thank them for their act of kindness. And I tell them to wear this wristband and actually report the number at the website. Website AC4P actively caring for people.org, go to that website and report this number. Okay. And then guess what? Don't keep this wristband. When you see an act of kindness from somebody else, take it off and give it to them and tell them the story. And now we're going to pass on acts of kindness, rewarding acts of kindness. Okay. Now I might say that this is an ongoing process.

Dr. Scott Geller (37:50):

There are thousands of students, thousands of stories at that website about acts of kindness. And I'm wearing a blue wristband. And I want to show this. This is for police officers. So we've written a book on actively caring for people policing. And when a police officer sees an act of kindness, and then we got in three States. Now they are actually doing this. They take off the wristband, give it to a citizen, tell them about the number. And they go and report this act of kindness at their website, activelycaringforpeoplepolicing.org. Now the process is summarized by the, by the acronym or the the term step S T E P. See an act of kindness S reward that act of kindness with a wristband notice, by the way, I'm not saying reinforcement, I do dislike misuse of the word positive reinforcement. It's only positive reinforcement if it increases the behavior, it follows. So I, I must say I do like to use the appropriate technologies, but it's a reward. Okay. And T see T thank them for their act of kindness, E of STEP, enter the wristband number at the website, and guess what? You can check this wristband number and you can follow it from where you first gave it out across the country, across the world. These wristbands are showing up in South Africa. In fact, they have their own website down in South Africa, where they promote actively caring for people. And then the P of STEP, of course, pass it on. I must tell you that what a citizen we've learned is what assistant gets a blue wristband from a police officer. They don't want to pass it on. They want to keep this wristband. They're proud of is I got this one, officer Bentley, man, I'm going to keep this. And again, you can buy wristbands and we have them in child sizes and adult sizes. You buy them at the website. And I might say too, we've published research articles where we've reduced bullying in schools. In fact, we have a book actively caring for people in schools, and we've reduced bullying in schools by setting up a process where STEP, where students recognize acts of kindness or the teacher, is putting focus on acts of kindness rather than bullying.

Shauna Costello (40:32):

Well, and I think that that's a really good point as well. And I will, of course, make sure to put the website in the description. So if anybody is interested in visiting the website and looking at the books or buying wristbands to start engaging in this actively caring for people initiative.

Shauna Costello (40:49):

thank you for listening to this episode of thought leaders. Join us next month as Dr. Geller answers the question, where do you see the field going, and or where would he like to see the field go? And as always, if you have questions, comments, feedback, or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to us at operantinnovations@abatechnologies.com.