Preface
What Does It Mean to Be a Behavior Analyst?
Why Do Practitioners Need to Understand Conceptual Issues?
What This Book Will Do
What This Book Will Not Do
Becoming Bilingual
So, What Is All This Fuss About?
1. An Unavoidable (but Reasonable) Assumption
Free or Determined
Inside versus Outside
Talking About Freedom
Are We Really Free to Choose?
Or Is Our Behavior Determined?
Competing Assumptions
A Few More Issues
Yes, Your Assumption Is Itself Determined
Consequences for Practitioners
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
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2. It’s Just Verbal Behavior
Some Questions About Verbal Behavior
Do You Agree…?
But First, What Is Behavior Anyway?
What About Verbal Behavior?
Verbal Behavior Is Learned
How Do We Learn Our Verbal Repertoire?
Organization of Verbal Behavior
The Concept of Response Classes
Verbal Response Classes
Reconsidering Conventional Concepts
Given That Verbal Behavior is Learned…
Just Verbal Behavior?
What Is a Conviction?
Is Something Missing?
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
3. Nevermind
Cause and Effect
The Seduction of Inner Causation
Historical, Not Mechanical, Causation
Is Making Up Your Mind Like Making Up Your Bed?
What Is Mentalism?
The Mind-Body Problem
Do Mental Explanations Explain?
Inventing Inside “Causes”
Still At The Beginning
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
4. What is Really Inside?
Distinguishing Between Real Versus Fictional
Public versus Private
Learning to Respond to Private Events
Is Thinking Behavior?
What About Emotions and Feelings?
And Traits, Attitudes, Moods, and All That Other Stuff?
What To Do About Mentalism
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
5. Seeing Yourself
Learning To Talk About Ourselves
Our Verbal Community
Who Do You Think You Are?
Perception, Awareness, Attention, and Consciousness
The Behavior of Sensing
The Role of Reinforcement History
Seeing That You Are Seeing
Managing Our Behavior
Self-control
Self-reinforcement
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
6. The Misdirection of Everyday Dialect
Knowledge and Understanding
Purpose, Intention, and Goals
As a Cause for Behavior in Terms of Future Events
As a Self-report of Our Private Experience
As a Description of the Function of a Behavior
Problem Solving
Rules, Advice, and Instructions
Reasoning
More Than Verbal Behavior?
Propositions and Premises
Logicality and Rules
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
7. Behavioral Responsibility
Creativity
What is Creativity?
Novel Instead of Creative?
Learned Behavior
Credit Where Credit is Due?
Are We Then Blameless?
It Comes Down to Responsibility
Conscience
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
8. Ethics, Rights, and Values–Without the Heat
Ethics and Ethical Communities
Rights
What are Rights?
And Where Do They Come From?
Values
What Are Values?
Are Values Beyond Science?
Taking the Heat Out of Arguments About Rights and Values
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
9. A Social Life
Culture
Culture-free Contingencies
And the Influence of Culture
Natural Selection
Where Might This Lead?
A Role for Behavioral Science
Cultural Engineering
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
10. Radical Behaviorism
Radical Behaviorism
Historical Context
The Philosophy of the Science of Behavior Analysis
Radical versus Methodological Behaviorism
Radical Behaviorism and Research Methods
A Matter of Opinion?
Selling Radical Behaviorism
Chapter Summary
Text Study Guide
Box Study Guide
Discussion Topics and Exercises
Suggested Readings
Supplementary Website Readings
Glossary
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index
