Behaviorally Oriented Therapies, Corrections, And Public Policy (Editorial‪)‬

As we release another issue of the Behavior Analyst Today, the first author was struck by the brightness of the future of the field of behavior analysis. Advances in basic research appear to demonstrate that many of the higher processes of the brain are automatized, such as social interaction, evaluations, and judgments, as well as goal setting suggesting these processes can be studied purely behaviorally without reference to conscious, will or internal guidance (Bargh & Ferguson, 2000). This places behavioral research as central in the discussion of public policy in issues such as socialization and social judgments. Readers of this journal of course will not be surprised by this for we have presented data and theoretical work for years on the role of reinforced function in establishing social behavior (see Patterson, 2002; Snyder, Stoolmiller, Patterson, Schrepferman, Oeser, Johnson, & Soetaert, 2003). In addition, a recent review by Dunst (2003) of 29 studies of infants including 862 infants found that response-contingent learning opportunities, in which the behavior of the child is clearly related to the consequences, produced the greatest amount of social responding and greatly attenuated both negative affect and negative social responding. This offers behaviorists with a clear explanation of positive social development in children and a method to help parents avoid emotional disturbances. **********