Behaviorology Movement
The Behavior of Organisms, B. F. Skinner's first book, was published in 1938. The research strategy that Dr. Skinner presented in that book was widely adopted and grew into a school of psychology named the experimental analysis of behavior. That school is today known as Behavior Analysis.
As Behavior Analysis grew larger, a growing number of scholars began to believe that Behavior Analysis had outgrown its place in Psychology and that it was time to establish a separate discipline. Makram Khalil Samaan gave expression to this belief in 1973 when he wrote, "It is time now for the scientific analysis of behavior to call for its own scientific discipline. It is contradictory to its function, objective, methods and content to stay within the realm of psychology." Mr. Samaan suggested that the scientific analysis of behavior become a separate scientific discipline named "behaviorology".
In 1974 the Los Horconans began using the term "behaviorology" to refer to "the natural science of behavior". Their summary of behaviorology reads as follows: "Behaviorology encompasses basic research, applied research and philosophy. Basic research includes (a) descriptive analysis of behavior (behaviography), (b) experimental analysis of behavior (experimental behaviorology), and (c) a theoretical or conceptual analysis of behavior (theoretical behaviorology). Applied research refers to behavior-analytic applications of the experimental analysis of behavior to the prevention and solution of social problems. As such, it includes (a) applied research in the form of experimental analysis oriented towards finding solutions to social problems and (b) behavioral technology, in the form of behavior-analytic procedures alone. The philosophy of behaviorology is that of behaviorism, which includes both, philosophical (or metatheoretical) assumptions and the philosophical implications of data obtained by the experimental analysis of behavior and its applications."
The International Behaviorology Association (TIBA) was founded in 1987. TIBA's purpose statement reads, in part, "TIBA is a professional organization dedicated to representing and developing the philosophical, analytical, experimental, and technological components of the discipline of behaviorology, the comprehensive natural science of the functional relations of behavior including determinants from the environment, both socio-cultural and non-cultural, as well as determinants from the biological history of the species".
In August 1988 three Los Horconans attended the first TIBA convention, which was held at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. The second TIBA convention was held at Los Horcones in January 1990. To accommodate that convention, the Los Horconans built a convention hall and several residential buildings.
TIBA subsequently changed its name and is today known as the International Society for Behaviorology (ISB). The ISB describes itself as "an organization of behavioral materialists who hold that: (a) evolution from nonhuman to human behavior is a continuous physical, biological, and behaviorological process; (b) contingencies evoke, shape, and maintain behavior and its processes with no implied or inferred agency playing a causal role". The ISB's twenty-first annual convention was held in Newport Beach, California. That convention opened on March 18, 2009 and closed 2 days later on March 20, after a "Memorial Dinner" that celebrated the birth of B. F. Skinner on March 20, 1904.
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