Behavior Analysis in Practice - Call for Papers: Compassion in Applied Behavior Analysis

Guest Editors: Emily Sandoz, Hannah Kaplan-Reimer

Guest Associate Editors: Bridget Taylor, Troy DuFrene, Ruth M. DeBar, Mary Jane Weiss, Luisa F. Canon G. 

Submission Deadline:  November 15, 2022

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), including clinical behavior analysis, is fundamentally a pro-social practice aimed at helping individuals by expanding their repertoires to be more meaningfully effective. However, ABA has faced criticism for lacking certain qualities of compassionate practices such as warmth and flexibility. In 2018, Taylor et al. published a pivotal paper in Behavior Analysis and Practice, alerting readers to the unfavorable perception that many parents of ABA consumers have of behavior analysts as lacking in compassion skills. This acknowledgment included suggestions for improvement and has been followed by an increase in publications and presentations that further explore compassionate care in ABA. 

In addition, since the publication, the new BACB Ethics Codes (this opens in a new tab) includes “treat[ing] others with compassion” as one of the core foundational principles that behavior analysts use to interpret and apply the standards in the code (BACB, 2020). The concept of compassion, however, remains loosely defined with few connections to behavioral principles, and specific functional applications of compassion within behavior analysis have yet to be fully elaborated. 

Given the role of compassion in both the public’s criticism of ABA practices and recent developments in the practice of Behavior Analysis, we invite papers on the conceptual, technical, and strategic analysis of compassionate behavior in ABA. The papers in this special issue will provide the foundation for further behavior analytic exploration of the impacts of compassionate contexts and the various conditions under which compassionate behavior is evoked. All BAP submission types will be considered. Conceptual papers must have a clear emphasis on direct implication for future research.