On the Social Validity of Behavior-Analytic Communication: a Call for Research and Description of One Method Article Swipe
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· 2017
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-017-0077-7
· OA: W4233717582
It has often been suggested that nonexperts find the communication of behavior analysts to be viscerally off-putting. We argue that this concern should be the focus of systematic research rather than mere discussion, and describe five studies that illustrate how publicly available lists of word-emotion ratings can be used to estimate the responses of general-audience listeners. Our results provide support for the hypothesis that some of the ways in which behavior analysts tend to discuss their discipline can be unpleasant, but also illustrate inter- and intraindividual variations in pleasantness. Although our methods are atypical for behavior-analytic research, they are appropriate to the topic and sufficient to suggest many directions for additional research through which a field that considers itself sophisticated in matters of verbal behavior might shed light on its own disciplinary communication challenges.
