Allan N. Schore has served on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine since 1996 and has maintained a private clinical practice for more than four decades. He has contributed significant research to the disciplines of interpersonal neurobiology, affective…

In his article, the author claimed that studies of operant variability that use a lag-"n" or threshold procedure and measure the obtained variability through the change in U value fail to provide direct evidence that variability is an operant dimension of behavior. To do so, he adopted Catania's (1973) concept of the operant, which takes the…

Historically, researchers have never quite been able to agree as to the role of emotions, if any, when behavior is selected by its consequences. A brief review of findings from several fields suggests that in contingency-shaped behavior, motivating events, often unconscious, seem needed for reinforcement to select behavior. In rule-governed…

A series of experiments on operant variability by Neuringer and colleagues (e.g., Neuringer, 1986, 2002; Page & Neuringer, 1985) have been repeatedly cited as showing that behavioral variability can be reinforced by making reinforcement contingent on it. They showed that the degree of variability in pigeons' eight-peck sequences, as measured by U…

In this article, the author comments on Moore's (2010) illogical attack on the matching law which was published by "The Behavior Analyst." Moore begins by attacking the psychophysical power law because he claims it is based on mentalism. One may argue about theory, but one cannot argue with data. Moore's attack on the generalized matching law is…

Comments on an article by J. J. Arnett regarding the assertion that American psychology focuses too narrowly on Americans while neglecting the other 95% of the world's population. The authors challenge Arnett's methodology in his research and question the ways in which he drew his conclusions. They claim that a major weakness of Arnett's…

Since 1992 C. J. Rogers has lived with wolves and studied their societies at Raised by Wolves, a licensed, nonprofit research sanctuary situated in a high valley of New Mexico's Zuni Mountains, not far from the Four Corners. Rogers, who has taught at Northeastern Illinois University and Western New Mexico University, holds doctorates in both…

Comments on a recent attempted replication of the Milgram studies (Burger, January 2009). Over the last 20 years when lecturing to undergraduates, the author found that the students consistently and vehemently denied that similar results would be obtained "today." They would note how much more independent individuals are now, how authority is not…

Translating ethics knowledge into ethical behavior is much harder than it appears, writes Sternberg. In this article, he outlines an eight-step process that individuals must go through to act in an ethical way--for example, recognizing that there is an event to which to react, taking personal responsibility for generating an ethical solution to…

Comments on the special issue on Charles Darwin and psychology (Dewsbury, February-March 2009), in which the authors present evidence supporting the validity of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and how generations of psychologists have viewed the natural world through its light, taking Darwinian theories for granted as being a literal…

Comments on a article by Blass (January 2009) who pointed out his historical perspective on human welfare problems facing a democratic society. The author would like to add some information from the cognitive-developmental framework that seems most pertinent to these larger issues of obedience and disobedience. It is relevant to note that a number…

Responds to the comments of LoSchiavo F. M. and Shatz M. A.; Webster G. D., Nichols A. L., and Schember T. O.; Stroebe W. and Nijstad B.; and Haeffel et al. on the author's original article regarding the assertion that American psychology focuses too narrowly on Americans while neglecting the other 95% of the world's population. The author…

Benefiting from new data provided by experimental economists, behavioral economics is now moving beyond empirical tests of standard behavioral assumptions to the problem of designing improved institutions that are tuned to fit real-world behavior. It is therefore worthwhile to consider the potential for new experiments to advance school choice…

This article presents the author's response to Nicola Rollock's critique on the author's paper in which the author has argued that ethnographic data should be more widely used in psychology (Woods 2005, 2007b). Rollock argues that the paper neglects Zak's level of educational achievement, and fails to critically interrogate his teachers' actions…

This article contends that the modern descendant of B. F. Skinner's experimental analysis of behavior, "behavior analysis," and as well his 1957 masterwork "Verbal Behavior," have rarely if ever been seriously contemplated by applied linguists for possible contributions to the field. Rather, a pat literature of dismissal has developed that…