Author note. Parts of this paper were included in a presentation at the Annual Convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Chicago, May 1999. Address correspondence to Julian C. Leslie, School of Psychology, University of Ulster at Jordanstown, BT37 0QB, Northern Ireland, UK.Email: [email protected]. Fax: 44 (0) 1232 368251.
The experimental analysis of behaviour has, since Skinner (1938), been concerned with the analysis of functional relationships between environmental variables and behaviour, and, since Skinner (1950) and Sidman (1960), it has fur-ther emphasised the value of establishing a systematic body of data, through the replication and extension of experimental findings, rather than theory construction and testing. Arguably, it is these priorities that have led to the related field of applied behaviour analysis being a sig-nificant part of the broad field of applied psy-chology. The thesis of the present paper is that there is a case for applied behaviour analysis be-ing a larger part of applied psychology as prac-tised, but that the community of behaviour ana-lysts will have to engage in a number of activities
to facilitate such developments. As a prelimi-nary, it will be necessary to discuss the definition of applied psychology.
The definition of applied psychology and its relation to applied behaviour analysis
Although applied psychology is recognised as being of great importance, and is perhaps the main driving force that is moving the disci-pline of psychology to a position of prominence in modern life, it is not easy to define. In a useful review, Gale and Chapman (1984) point out that it generally means either a set of techniques devised by psychologists, or is used slightly differently as a generic term to refer to the work of all the well-known types of profes-sional psychologists. A third possibility, but not one favoured by many psychologists, is to define it as those general principles of psychology that arise directly from everyday life or professional practice, rather than from attempts to generalise “pure” psychological principles to real life con-texts.
Steps towards the wider use of behaviour analysis in
applied psychology.
Julian C. Leslie
University of Ulster at JordanstownApplied psychology can be defined as a set of core skills of psychologists. Of these, it is argued, evaluating the efficacy of intervention strategies should be given central importance. It is it also a key feature of evidence-based practice, a popular approach to the whole of health care. From this perspective, applied behaviour analysis can provide an effective approach to the whole field of applied psychology and it has an excellent track record of success in those areas where applications have been developed. How-ever, it is currently limited to certain areas of application, and there is a focus on work with people with developmental delay. A range of obstacles to the wider use of applied behaviour analysis in applied psychology, arising in undergraduate education curricula, dissemination of behavioural principles and findings to professional groups, and organisational cultures, are identified and some potential solutions are suggested. In dealing with consumers outside of psychology, it is important to promote those approaches which have been found to be effective, and applied behaviour analysis is prominent among these.
As an alternative to previous formulations (but one that is akin to the first type of definition suggested above), Gale and Chapman (1984) suggest that applied psychology should be de-fined by the range of skills used by psycholo-gists working in applied contexts. They fur-ther suggest that fur-there is a substantial number of common skills, but the relative importance of different skills varies a great deal across contexts. This scheme has the advantages that it defines applied psychology as a set of skills or techniques that can in principle be objectively measured, and Gale and Chapman have taken an initial step towards specifying those skills. In a brief form, the skill areas Gale and Chapman identify appears in Table 1 (Gale, 1997, has reproduced this list in a slightly amended form, but the changes are not substantial).
The eleven important skills listed capture a great deal of what is distinctive in the work of psychologists. Of the remainder (indicated at the foot of the table), “collaborating with other pro-fessionals”, “relating to government agencies”, “showing sensitivity to political issues”, and “deal-ing ethically with individuals” (which has been
dealt with at length for behaviour analysis recently elsewhere, see Leslie, 1997a), could be said to be common to many professional groups. The skills have been arranged in Table 1 as six that would form part of a definitional statement of applied behaviour analysis (Group A), and an-other five (Group B) which many practitioners would argue have become typical of current prac-tice. Of these, four skills are concerned with putting an intervention into a broader context, while the other (“allowing individuals to make decisions about their own lives”) is often regarded as a core skill of applied behaviour analysis (see, for example, Owens, 1995).
There is, then, little problem in demonstrat-ing that applied behaviour analysis can match the general requirements of applied psychol-ogy. However, a complete definition of applied behaviour analysis would, in addition to the skills given, make extensive reference to the use of behavioural principles derived from the experi-mental analysis of behaviour, and it is this that most obviously distinguishes it from other approaches to applied psychology.
s i s y l a n a r u o i v a h e b d e il p p a f o s ll i k s g n i n if e D : A p u o r G e g n a h c t u o b a g n i g n ir B . 1 s l a u d i v i d n i f o e f il f o y ti l a u q e h t g n i v o r p m I . 2 t r o p e r d n a t n e m e r u s a e m , n o it a v r e s b o f o s e u q i n h c e t g n i s U . 3 s t r a p t n e u ti t s n o c o t n i s m e l b o r p x e l p m o c g n i v l o s e R . 4 g n i n i a r t d n a n o it a c u d e g n i d i v o r P . 5 s e i g e t a r t s n o it n e v r e t n i f o y c a c if f e e h t g n it a u l a v E . 6 s i s y l a n a r u o i v a h e b d e il p p a y r a r o p m e t n o c f o l a c i p y t s ll i k s r e h t O : B p u o r G n o s r e p e h t f o n o it p e c n o c d e n i m r e t e d -y ll a i c o s f o s s e n e r a w A . 1 s t x e t n o c l a n o it a s i n a g r o n i h ti w g n i k r o W . 2 s e v il n w o t u o b a s n o i s i c e d e k a m o t s l a u d i v i d n i g n i w o ll A . 3 s l a u d i v i d n i f o s e it l a n o it o m e d n a l a i c o s g n i s i n g o c e R . 4 s l a u d i v i d n i n o t x e t n o c l a i c o s r e d a o r b f o s t c e f f e g n i s i n g o c e R . 5 g n i p o c g n i p o l e v e d n i s l a u d i v i d n i g n it s i s s A :t s il ) 4 8 9 1 ( s ’ n a m p a h C & e l a G n i s ll i k s r e h t O [ g n i w o h s ; s e i c n e g a t n e m n r e v o g o t g n it a l e r ; s l a n o i s s e f o r p r e h t o h ti w g n it a r o b a ll o c ; s ll i k s ] s l a u d i v i d n i h ti w y ll a c i h t e g n il a e d ; s e u s s i l a c it il o p o t y ti v it i s n e s
The concurrent development of applied behaviour analysis and applied psychology
The origins of applied behaviour analysis lie in the early successes of behaviour therapy (re-viewed, for example, by Bandura, 1969; Wolpe, 1973), and since then it has only been cautiously extended to other areas of application where “learning processes” seem to have face validity. Currently, these areas include almost all areas of clinical psychology and educational psychol-ogy, and a smaller number of social problems (Mattaini, 1996). Within this relatively broad field, development is extremely uneven with work relating to developmentally delayed children and adults being prominent. In the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, a leading international journal for the field, 30 out of 50 (60%) empirical papers published in 1998 concerned studies of this popu-lation.
Over the period – roughly since 1970- that applied behaviour analysis has made faltering progress, applied psychologists in general have used a diverse range of methodologies in many of the same areas as those current in ap-plied behavioural analysis, and other areas where the methods chosen seem to have face validity. While it is not possible to discover in retrospect why particular methodologies have been used with certain problems, what appears to happen is that psychologists seeking to conceptualise and investigate a new area look for a theoretical frame-work and a methodology that has been devel-oped in an apparently related field and see what use they can make of these in the new case. However, there is a danger that unreliable and invalid data will be generated by this approach and will be accepted as giving the psychological characteristics of the new area. The crucial ad-ditional step that should take place is to ensure at an early stage that the methodology used is effective in the new area. This is Skill 6 in Group A of Table 1 – “evaluating the efficacy of an in-tervention” - and, importantly, is a high priority in applied behaviour analysis. Because applied behaviour analysis does not see behaviour as an indication of an underlying psychological pro-cess, but rather treats it as its essential subject matter, prediction and control of behaviour are
always its first concern. It follows from this that specification of behavioural outcomes is a key feature of applied behaviour analysis, and work-ers in this tradition have always taken the dem-onstration of effectiveness to be their highest priority.
Specification of behavioural outcomes does not invariably have the same priority in ap-proaches derived from other traditions in psychology. While it is not possible to make any general statements, it is easy to identify poor practice in this regard. As exemplars, Leslie (1997b) reviewed some literature on an aspect of health psychology, psychological predictors of management of insulin-dependent diabetes, and an aspect of the smaller field of aviation psychology, the design of safe systems. In both these areas, the vast majority of researchers prefer a social-cognitive framework to a behavioural one but, Leslie argues, this preference is not related to the outcome of empirical studies. Rather, the cognitivist zeitgeist leads researchers to abandon, or not even attempt, behaviour analysis of applied problems. This occurs despite a large number of problems in each area that are amenable to such an analysis. Fuller (1994a; 1994b) provides examples in aviation psychology, while a literature review (Cox & Gonder-Frederick, 1992) notes that over 4,000 articles relevant to behavioural aspects of diabetes could be identified in a ten-year period. Within the area of self-care, however, most studies are correlational or cross-sectional, limiting their interpretation. Cox and Gonder-Frederick identify only five involving behavioural inter-ventions, and they report that all of these had beneficial outcomes. Interestingly, although many studies continue to be conducted from social-cognitive approaches, there are now an increasing number of reports of positive out-comes of behavioural management of diabetes (see, for example, Mendez & Belendez, 1997; Glasgow, Fisher et al., 1999).
Leslie (1997b) concludes that much data have been published from a social cognition perspec-tive because relaperspec-tively weak criteria for posiperspec-tive outcomes have been applied. Although mea-sures of clinical effectiveness are increasingly used as a yardstick for the success of psychological studies, it remains the case that many data sets
are published which reach only the lower threshold of containing differences between treatments that reach statistical significance. Such findings will generally be accepted for publication, provided they are related to a contemporary theoretical account.
The preference for theory-development over collection of “good” data or, more importantly, successfully changing behaviour is not, of course, new (see Skinner, 1950), but is now deeply rooted in applied psychology. Workers in applied psy-chology have tended to abandon methods derived from behaviour analysis not because they have been shown to be ineffective, but because they believe that there are theoretical shortcomings in behaviour analysis which preclude its effective application to, for example, health issues or aviation psychology. The development of this preference is carefully explained in one case in a keynote address by a distinguished health psy-chologist (Johnston, 1996). In describing her own use of different methodologies over a 20-year period, she reports how she initially used behavioural intervention successfully with a girl who had previously been unable to take food by mouth. Within eight days, the intervention programme had lead to the reinstatement of eat-ing and drinkeat-ing. Despite this objective success, she writes that using this behavioural model it was “difficult to explain what had changed in the girl following the introduction of the programme and the contingencies” (p. 207). This perceived gap in our knowledge, she says, has been the sub-ject of more recent cognitive theorising.
In aviation psychology, as in health psychol-ogy, the methodology used appears to have been determined by the prevailing zeitgeist, not by a careful, or even occasional, examination of the effectiveness of alternative methodologies. Given the richness and diversity of the overall body of method and data in psychology in the last fifty years, there are obviously many possible starting points for the development of new areas of application. That is, if we wish to consider the management of a particular disease or the avoid-ance of a catastrophic accident in a particular sys-tem in the aviation industry, we can conceptualise issues and devise related methods from a num-ber of different psychological perspectives. This,
however, only increases the importance of re-lentless attention to the effectiveness of the meth-ods adopted. Otherwise we risk extrapolating from weak findings and never gaining control of the phenomena of interest.
Current status of applied behaviour analysis The emphases within applied behaviour analy-sis include those of careful assessment of the problem, specification of objectives, and quanti-tative evaluation of outcomes. In the UK, and more widely in Europe and North America, there is currently a general move towards evidence-based practice in health and social care. Accord-ing to Booth (1997), “Evidence-based practice is, by implication, the systematic application of rigorous scientific methods to the evaluation of the effectiveness of health care interventions” (p. 1, italics removed). By slightly different names, applied behaviour analysis has been concerned with evidence-based practice since its inception. Given the similarity between applied behaviour analysis and evidence-based practice which is cur-rently endorsed by policy makers, one might ex-pect applied behaviour analysis to flourish across a wide domain of applied psychology, but this does not appear to be the case.
Walsh (1997) suggests some reasons why behavioural strategies are not used widely and may even be becoming less current in professional areas. His account draws effectively on professional practice in one of the few areas, that of services for people with developmental de-lays, where applied behaviour analysis is widely implemented. His seven, depressingly plausible, hypotheses as to the causes of the decline in use of behaviour analysis are shown in Table 2.
The first hypothesis is not a view held by Walsh, rather it is one he find in other profes-sionals working in services for people with de-velopmental delays (the history of this view is discussed by Leslie, 1997a), the remaining hypoth-eses do reflect his observations from within ser-vices for people with developmental delays. His paper is an example of good practice within the community of behaviour analysts. He looks criti-cally at all aspects of an organisational context, and seeks to apply behavioural principles in
de-vising solutions to the problems that are identi-fied. We need many such exercises because, as he points out, there is otherwise a danger that the use of behaviour analysis in professional practice will decline. Walsh’s proposed remedies for professional practice address organisational issues, along with moves towards the use of “real” applied behaviour analysis, grounded in the implementation of positive programming follow-ing functional analysis, rather than “ cookbook” behaviour modification.
Specifying the problem and proposing some solutions
In one version of an old joke, various types of psychologist are given a chance to ask God only one question, and the behaviourist asks when all the other psychologists would come to under-stand that only behaviourists were asking the right questions about how to understand behaviour. God’s answer made him (or her) cry (Cairns, 1999).
The community of behaviour analysts can-not afford to delay or refrain from action while its conceptual and empirical analyses become, or remain, poorly understood in psychology, and behavioural techniques fail to be implemented effectively in applied areas. Rather, the commu-nity should engage in a range of tactics to turn these tides of events. Not only is this necessary for the future vitality of the discipline of behaviour analysis, but it can be argued that it is required by the professional ethics of behaviour analysts. This is because behavioural techniques, when properly implemented, are more effective than many others derived from alternative ap-proaches to psychology. The literature demon-strating the relative effectiveness of behavioural interventions is vast and complex, and continues to be expanded in various directions. Recent examples can be found in health, care of the eld-erly, and family-based interventions. Concerning health, Sartory, Muller, Metsch, & Pothmann (1998) found that behavioural treatment for
chil-: 1 s i s e h t o p y H .s e r u d e c o r p t n e m h s i n u p f o e s u e h t h ti w n o it a c if i d o m r u o i v a h e b f o n o it a i c o s s a n a s i e r e h T : 2 s i s e h t o p y H l a t n e m ir e p x e e h t n i s t o o r s ti d n a n o it a c if i d o m r u o i v a h e b n e e w t e b n o it a r a p e s a s i e r e h T .r u o i v a h e b f o s i s y l a n a : 3 s i s e h t o p y H o t d e s o p p o y ll a t n e m a d n u f s o h t e n a e v a h t n e m e g a n a m e s o h w s e c i v r e s g n ir a c e r a e r e h T . m s i n i m r e t e d d e t a i c o s s a d e v i e c r e p s ti d n a m s ir u o i v a h e b : 4 s i s e h t o p y H .s e c i v r e s n a m u h n i g n i k r o w e l p o e p n i r u o i v a h e b l a r u o i v a h e b f o n o it c n it x e s i e r e h T : 5 s i s e h t o p y H r u o i v a h e b t a h t e v e il e b y l e v i a n o h w s r e n o it it c a r p y b d e il p p a n e t f o e r a s e u q i n h c e t l a r u o i v a h e B . y o l p m e o t s e u q i n h c e t e l p m i s y l e v it a l e r a s i n o it a c if i d o m : 6 s i s e h t o p y H d o o g g n i e b f o s c it s ir e t c a r a h c e h t k c a l s t n e il c d e l b a s i d -g n i n r a e l h ti w k r o w o h w e l p o e p y n a M .s t n e g a e g n a h c r u o i v a h e b : 7 s i s e h t o p y H r o y r o s i v d a , e n il -t n o r f r o f s i s y l a n a r u o i v a h e b n i g n i n i a r t e t a u q e d a f o k c a l a s i e r e h T l e n n o s r e p t n e m e g a n a m
dren with chronic migraine headache was more effective than conventional pharmacological treat-ment. With the elderly, Beck and Stanley (1997) reviewed evidence that the prevalent problem of general anxiety disorder can be combated effec-tively by behavioural means. Regarding family-based interventions, Taylor, Schmidt, Pepler, & Hodgins (1998) found that management of behaviour problems of behaviour problems was more successful with a behavioural family inter-vention programme than with the eclectic ap-proach typically offered in a community mental health service. This study follows earlier reviews showing that similar family-based behavioural interventions are amongst the best strategies for prevention of child abuse (Wolfe, Reppucci, & Hart, 1995) and treating parents who have physi-cally abused children (Becker, Alpert, et al., 1995). These continuing achievements of applied behaviour analysis contrast, as Walsh (1997) re-minds us, with the relative decline in interest of professionals. Faced with this, his analysis and recommendations for change are an example of good practice, but they are directed at only some parts of a broader problem that has many parts in at least three broad categories. These catego-ries are: (1) the role of behaviour analysis in un-dergraduate curricula; (2) the dissemination of behavioural principles and techniques to other professional groups; (3) aspects of organisational cultures. In the remainder of this paper, some of the specific issues in each category and possible tactics for their resolution will be identified. (1) The role of behaviour analysis in undergraduate curricula
In the British Psychological Society, there is continuing concern about the coherence of the discipline and the profession. This is reflected in the content of many recent presidential addresses and other high-profile presentations (see, for ex-ample, Gale, 1997; McAllister, 1998, Lunt, 1999). The same concerns are echoed on correspond-ing occasions in the Psychological Society of Ire-land. It is possible to discern a general argument which runs more or less like this:
1. Very many third-level college students take degrees in psychology.
2. A significant proportion of these go on to, or aspire to go on to, either profes
sional training in psychology or training in an allied profession.
3. Professional training in psychology has become inappropriately diverse and should contain many standard elements. 4. In preparation for more standardised pro
fessional training, undergraduate degrees should also contain many standard ele ments.
Responding to this type of argument, and under pressure from government funding agen-cies to be involved in quality control processes, both the British Psychological Society and, very recently, the Psychological Society of Ireland have introduced undergraduate degree accreditation systems which broadly specify the content areas that have to be included. In neither of these schemes is behaviour analysis a required area.
These national societies, then, in countries where psychology is hugely popular at under-graduate level, are moving towards schemes where degrees are clearly pre-professional qualifications, but knowledge of the concepts and methods of behaviour analysis is not required. Concern about this is heightened by anecdotal observation that new graduates who are working in areas of professional psychology routinely report that knowledge of behaviour analysis and of psychometrics are the only skills which transfer directly from their undergraduate training to professional life. (Psychometrics is not a required area for accreditation in the British or Irish schemes either.)
It might be argued that knowledge of any particular area of psychology at undergraduate level is not crucial, as graduates will readily move into new areas using the skills of assimilation etc. which they have acquired. There are, after all, so many areas of contemporary psychology that any undergraduate curriculum is bound to leave out many of them. Here, however, we have to con-front the pre-scientific aspects of psychology as a discipline. Psychology graduates will have com-pleted a course which not only fails to cover the techniques and applications of behaviour analy-sis adequately, but which also contains mislead-ing information about the conceptual inadequacy
of behaviour analysis; they have, if you like, been taught why not use it. The “misrepresentation of behaviourism” (Jensen & Burgess, 1997; Todd & Morris, 1992; see also O’Donohue, Callaghan, & Ruchkstuhl, 1998) can be seen as a concealed sub-element of many other courses which are actually entitled cognitive psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology or personality.
Behavioural principles should be applied to this problem. If we were to do a functional assessment of the syllabus-selecting behaviour of academic policy makers in psychology, it is likely that it would be found that they select curricu-lum areas on the grounds that they believe devel-opments in those areas to be important, and that they tend to leave out behaviour analysis because of the shortcomings they believe it to have. To try to change their motives, and in due course their behaviour, behaviour analysts might attempt to raise the profile of behaviour analysis to other psychologists in at least the following ways:
1. They should participate in and publicise research on topics that are important on the research agenda of other psychologists; 2. Behaviour analysts should participate in
and publicise activities that the wider public identifies as important;
3. Behaviour analysts should participate in debate in national psychology media on the conceptual basis of contemporary behaviour analysis.
These activities all go on, of course, at a cer-tain level but there needs to be enhanced activity in all three areas. A good example in Category 1, behaviour analytic research that clearly addresses topics of interest to many other psychologists, is the work of Gewirtz and Pelaez-Nogueras on the operant control of protests in young children which has continued over a number of years (see Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 2000, for a review of their work). Recent studies have elegantly demonstrated that mothers of very young chil-dren can be rapidly retrained to either maintain a high level of protests by the child at the time of separation from the mother, or largely to elimi-nate such behaviour through providing the same potent social reinforcers to their child on a DRO schedule. As Gewirtz and Pelaez-Nogueras point out, this not only demonstrates effective control
of an important type of unwanted behaviour, it also undermines the long-standing and oft-re-peated claim of developmental psychologists that such behaviour will be highly persistent, because it results from an insecure attachment process that cannot be readily ameliorated. Here, behaviour analysis is seen to effectively change behaviour that, from a conventional perspective, is seen as problematic and more or less immutable.
In Category 2, activities that the wider public identifies as important, is the provision of sup-port for parents seeking to provide one-to-one educational training for their children who show autistic behaviour (see Keenan, Kerr & Dillenburger, 1999, for training materials derived from these types of activities in Northern Ire-land). In many parts of the world behaviour ana-lysts are spearheading developments of this type and leading to an ever-growing demand for ser-vices that are firmly rooted in behaviour analy-sis. The involvement of numerous articulate middle-class people in these parent support groups is inevitably changing the broader percep-tion of behaviour analysis for the better. Here, behaviour analysis is seen as providing a service for children that other professionals have re-garded as beyond hope of improvement.
In Category 3, debate in national psychology media on the conceptual basis of contemporary behaviour analysis, developments occur from time to time. A recent example is that The Psy-chologist (which in the UK combines some of the functions of American Psychologist and APA Moni-tor in the USA) published a set of papers on behaviour analysis and relational frame theory (Barnes-Holmes, Dymond, Grey & Roche, 1999; Hayes & Toarmino, 1999; Roche, 1999). This is the journal of the British Psychological Society which is sent to all its members, and thus has a broad and eclectic readership. It represents the best type of location for presentation of those aspects of behaviour analysis that provide vigorous competition for conventional cognitive psychology and that clearly contradict the pre-Skinnerian views of our discipline that are held by many psychologists. Here behaviour analysis is seen to be providing effective explanations of
psychological phenomena where only nonbehavioural accounts have previously been taken seriously by psychologists.
(2) Dissemination of behavioural principles and techniques to other professional groups
It is necessary to teach behaviour analysis to undergraduates so that their subsequent devel-opment of related professional skills is securely based. In dealing with other professional groups, the community of behaviour analysts faces a dif-ferent set of demands. It is necessary to provide an account of all, or at least many, aspects of a professionally-defined social environment; a range of ways in which behavioural interventions might be harnessed to achieve the desired pro-fessional goals must be identified; the fact that in practice functional analysis will take the place of predetermined strategies of intervention must be explained; and it must be explained that the final test of effectiveness of interventions will always be the objective measurement of changes in tar-get behaviours.
This is a substantial agenda, but one that has now been fully explicated in some areas of pro-fessional practice, for example in education (Greer, 1996), and in social work with child abus-ers (Mattaini, McGowan & Williams,1996). The name of Greer’s approach - a comprehensive application of behaviour analysis to schooling (CABAS)- reveals its key feature. It does indeed cover all aspects of the system, including the behaviour of pupils, teachers, parents, and people at “higher” levels in the educational system, and it specifies the key interactions at each level and between levels. Relatedly, the approach of Mattaini et al. to social work problems uses con-tingency diagrams which allow all aspects of the social system of concern to be modelled. Such diagrams are constructed by interpreting existing knowledge about likely relevant factors and pro-cesses in the conceptual terms of behaviour analysis. The diagram itself can then be used as the basis of behavioural assessment and consid-eration of intervention strategies. However, in this particular case the diagram itself will be
modi-fied once more is known because successful func-tional analysis will be the core of the approach.
There is now a sufficient literature to form the basis of an approach to any new area of professional involvement. The time has long past the time when an acceptable strategy for behaviour analysis in a new area of intervention might be “Wait for the client to engage in the target behaviour, and then hug him.” Behaviour analysts must ensure that all potential providers and consumers of services are aware of this. (3)Aspects of organisational cultures
As mentioned earlier, Walsh’s (1997) critique of the status of applied behaviour analysis in professional practice addresses a number of is-sues to do with organisational cultures (see Table 2, especially Hypotheses 3, 4, 6 and 7). We need many such analyses. These will provide us with understanding of how our uses of behavioural methods interact with existing management prac-tices, and of how we must extend our training schemes to include various levels of an organisation to improve the likelihood that good practice will endure and be appropriately evalu-ated within the organisation. As long ago as 1982, Bernstein (1982) proposed a “behavioural ser-vices model” with four elements; as well as the client and the “manager”, who implements the programme, there must also be an “engineer” to design the programme, and, crucially, a “consult-ant” who provides the resources for the programme. These elements are hierarchically arranged at different levels, but all are equally important. Similar relationships between levels exist in CABAS (Greer, 1996). We need to ensure that behaviour analysts are familiar with organisational issues, give them the highest pri-ority, and are able to address them in the systematic way very briefly introduced here.
Finally, we must consider aspects of the organisational culture of behaviour analysis it-self. It has been, and remains, very important to the field that its standards of evidence, for pub-lications and other dissemination of findings, in-clude the demonstration of reliable and reversible behavioural change in individual organisms as a function of environmental variables. However,
the operation of these criteria appear at times to generate accidentally a very limited range of pub-lications in, for example, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. As noted earlier, this important journal currently carries a clear majority of em-pirical studies concerned with the limited, albeit important, area of people with developmental delays. Behaviour analysts should be encouraged to publish studies that embrace many more areas of applied psychology more often, and they will not do this unless those publications that they hold in the highest esteem carry related material. It may be that journals need to adopt or review editorial policies to ensure that this type of di-versity is explicitly encouraged.
Conclusions
The premise of this paper has been that ap-plied behaviour analysis should be more widely used because of its established efficacy. Obstacles to its use arise from a variety of sources (includ-ing undergraduate train(includ-ing, knowledge base in other professions, and organisational cultures) and a number of specific issues have been identified and some possible solutions suggested. The community of behaviour analysts should deal with these and related problems, partly to ensure the long-term health of the discipline but, more importantly, because the wider use of applied behaviour analysis will lead to the provision of more effective applied psychology to the wider community.
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