Behavior analysis and learning

Synopsis: Behavior Analysis and Learning, Fourth Edition is an essential textbook covering the basic principles in the field of behavior analysis and learned behaviors, as pioneered by B.F. Skinner. The textbook provides an advanced introduction to operant conditioning from a very consistent Skinnerian perspective. It covers a range of principles from basic respondent conditioning through applied behavior analysis into cultural design. Elaborating on Darwinian components and biological connections with behavior, the book treats the topic from a consistent worldview of selectionism. The functional relations between the organism and the environment are described, and their application in accounting for old behavior and generating new behavior is illustrated.

Foreword / Philip N Hineline -- Preface -- 1: Science Of Behavior: Perspective, History And Assumptions: -- Science and behavior -- New directions: behavior analysis and neuroscience -- Focus on: B F Skinner -- Brief history of behavior analysis -- Science and behavior: some assumptions -- Chapter summary -- 2: Experimental Analysis Of Behavior: -- Functional analysis of behavior -- Functional analysis of the environment -- Tactics of behavioral research -- Focus on: Operant baselines and behavioral neuroscience -- Single-subject research -- Focus on: Assessment of behavior change -- Advanced section: Perceiving as behavior -- Chapter summary -- 3: Reflexive Behavior And Respondent Conditioning: -- Phylogenetic behavior -- Ontogenetic behavior -- Temporal relations and conditioning -- Second-order respondent conditioning -- On the applied side: Drug use, abuse, and complexities of respondent conditioning -- Note on: Physiology and the control of preparatory responses by conditioned stimuli -- Advanced section: Complex conditioning -- Aspects of complex conditioning -- Rescorla-Wagner model of conditioning -- Focus on: Rescorla-Wagner equation -- Chapter summary -- 4: Reinforcement…