Change your attitudes of science? Never!

After a very fun weekend of making working out reinforcing I am ready to talk about another ABA subject. This one is all about attitude. Attitudes of science that is.

Attitudes of Science for ABA guide our practice to use scientifically valid treatments. The six attitudes are:

Determinism: everything that happens is a result of some previous event. Meaning that things do not just happen without a reason.
Example: finding $20 on your way to work is not a stroke of luck it is a result of money falling out of a strangers pocket/wallet.

Empiricism: objective observation of the subject matter. In other words, leave your opinions at home people.
Example: the researcher who only records the frequency of nail picking regardless of their ideals of how the treatment will change the participants behavior.

Not without a differential reinforcement procedure Ned. 

Experimentation: when observing behavior you carefully implement your treatment (independent variable) to your behavior (dependent variable) to demonstrate a functional relation. Making sure that your treatment is the only variable changing the behavior.
Example: reinforcement for working out is putting money aside ($5 for every hour of physical exercise) there are no other reinforcement procedures put in place (make special protein shakes, night off from work, posting how awesome you are on Facebook etc.)

Admit it, all of those likes from friends can be highly reinforcing.

Replication: to repeat the treatment phase and baseline of an experiment to verify that the treatment was the only variable manipulating the behavior.
Example: If I give a child a jelly bean for every time they sit in their seat for a minute over two weeks. During the second baseline I should see a decrease in sitting because I have stopped delivering jelly beans. If there is no change in the behavior that means there is some other variable influencing the behavior.

Figure 1: Cartman demonstrating sitting behavior. 

Parsimony: when you investigate simpler reasons for behavior before the more complex.
Example: To determine why a student is asleep in class first investigate how many hours of sleep the student is getting a night. If the student is getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night then move to a more complex issue (escaping behavior so they will not have to answer questions, new medication, etc.)

I am picking up what you are putting down scholarly dog.

Philosophic Doubt: when observing behavior always question what is viewed as fact. Meaning there could be other treatments that should be investigated for the same behavior. Never be happy with one result for a behavior.
Example: Weight watchers may be a scientifically valid way to lose weight but it is not the only way an individual could do that.

How much would that job pay? How hard would I have to slap your hand? 

There you have it, the attitudes of science. Don't ever change your attitude, Science, you are great the way you are.