PSY8003 provides the essential conceptual and historical grounding for Capella's PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis. As a first-quarter required course, it establishes the philosophical framework that unifies and gives coherence to the entire field — radical behaviorism — and traces how Skinner's conceptual system gave rise to both the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis as a helping profession. Students also engage the professional ethics, BACB standards, and current landscape of the field they are entering as doctoral-level behavior analysts.
Behaviorism, experimental analysis, and the foundations of ABA
Core topics
- History of behaviorism: The intellectual history from Watson's methodological behaviorism through Skinner's radical behaviorism — the rejection of mental causation as unscientific, the emphasis on observable behavior and environmental determinism, the selectionist worldview (phylogenic, ontogenic, and cultural selection by consequences), and how behaviorism's core assumptions differ from cognitive and mentalistic accounts of behavior
- Radical behaviorism and verbal behavior: Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957) as an analysis of language within a selectionist framework — the distinction between verbal and nonverbal behavior, operant verbal categories (mand, tact, echoic, intraverbal, textual), and why verbal behavior analysis became a central theoretical and clinical tool in ABA, especially for language intervention with individuals with autism
- The experimental analysis of behavior (EAB): The laboratory science of behavior — single-subject methodology, the use of the operant chamber, schedules of reinforcement and their characteristic behavioral patterns, matching law, and the distinction between basic (EAB) and applied (ABA) research. How laboratory findings establish the empirical principles that ABA practitioners apply in human service settings
- The seven dimensions of ABA: Baer, Wolf, and Risley's (1968) defining article — applied, behavioral, analytic, technological, conceptually systematic, effective, and generality — as the enduring framework for evaluating whether a practice qualifies as ABA. Students analyze current research and practice against these seven dimensions
- BACB professional standards and scope of practice: The Behavior Analyst Certification Board — history, credentialing tiers (RBT, BCaBA, BCBA, BCBA-D), task list structure, supervision requirements, and the professional certification pathway. Understanding the BACB Ethics Code for behavior analysts: the relationship between ethics codes, legal obligations, and professional judgment in the applied settings where behavior analysts work
- Current landscape of the profession: Where behavior analysts practice (ABA therapy for autism, organizational behavior management, behavioral education, behavioral medicine, behavioral sports performance) — the growth, controversies, and future trajectory of the field — and the doctoral-level behavior analyst's distinct role in advancing the science and improving its professional standards
PSY8003 assignments include ABA dimensions analyses, ethics case studies, and philosophy of behavior analysis papers
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Frequently asked questions
Radical behaviorism, as Skinner developed it, is not merely a set of clinical techniques — it is a comprehensive philosophy of science and a worldview about the causes of behavior. The "radical" in radical behaviorism refers not to extremism but to comprehensiveness: unlike Watson's methodological behaviorism (which simply excluded private events from scientific study), Skinner's radical behaviorism included thoughts, feelings, and sensations within the behavioral account — as behaviors to be explained by the same principles of selection by consequences that explain overt behavior. This philosophical stance has direct clinical implications. Behavior analysts who understand radical behaviorism interpret client behavior, treatment approaches, and research questions through a consistent conceptual lens. Verbal behavior analysis grows directly from this philosophy. The applied technology of ABA (reinforcement, extinction, stimulus control, generalization) is derived from the basic science of EAB, which is grounded in this philosophy. PSY8003 begins with foundations precisely because practitioners who apply techniques without understanding their conceptual basis are less equipped to generalize, adapt, and evaluate their practice — which is exactly what doctoral-level behavior analysts are expected to do.