A Functional Contextualist Analysis of the Behavior and Organizational Practices Relevant to Climate Change

Alavosius, Mark P.; Newsome, Donny; Houmanfar, Ramona A.; Biglan, Anthony

doi:10.1002/9781118489857.ch25

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Relevant to the psychological issues related to police officers, one of the main goals of the program is to identify strategies to prevent chronic PTSD ("Traumatic Stress Research Program," n.d.). The role of advocacy organizations (Alavosius et al, 2016;Biglan, 2009) is also critical as they provide a counterweight to the actions of organizational leaders and bring the perspective of communities affected by their practices and the potential for funding opportunities. The impact of many advocacy groups like BLM could benefit from lobbyists who can advance the public's interest in social justice movements as the lobbyists who advocate alternative views are often well organized and richly funded (Biglan, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restructuring Law Enforcement Agencies to Support Prosocial Values: A Behavior-Scientific Model for Addressing Police Brutality

Ghezzi

Funk

Houmanfar

2021

Behav Analysis Practice

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Policing in the United States is irrefutably a component of systemic racism. The history of police brutality against the Black community can be found in our amendments, laws, and cultural practices-it is an infrastructure of oppression. Though police brutality is not a new development, it has reached a fever pitch with the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Recent calls to defund the police puts law enforcement agencies squarely, and rightly, in the spotlight of social justice movements and reform. Current issues operating within law enforcement agencies ensure the perpetuation of a system that reinforces the status quo and gives nothing back to the communities that have been victims of brutality. A philosophical restructuring of how law enforcement agencies interact with the communities they serve is paramount. The purpose of this paper is to propose a behavior scientific model aimed at both the individual and organizational levels of law enforcement agencies using elements of Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) and Elinor Ostrom's core design principles (CDPs), called Prosocial. The Prosocial model promotes clarification of values within organizations and the communities they serve and reinforces valuesconsistent action. The model therefore has the potential to be a useful tool to combat systemic racism and police brutality within law enforcement agencies. The proposed model will be discussed in the context of those who created it (white academicians), who will be implementing it (law enforcement), and ultimately who should benefit from it above and beyond police brutality and without psychological or financial cost (Black communities).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restructuring Law Enforcement Agencies to Support Prosocial Values: A Behavior-Scientific Model for Addressing Police Brutality

Ghezzi

Funk

Houmanfar

2021

Behav Analysis Practice

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“…Other conceptual contributions included significant work in behavioral community psychology in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (Greene, Winett, Van Houten, Geller, & Iwata, 1987, more recent studies out of the University of Kansas, particularly from Steve Fawcett (e.g., 1991) and his colleagues and students (e.g. Francisco, Paine, & Fawcett, 1993), two books edited by Peter Lamal in the 1990s (Lamal, 1991(Lamal, , 1997, the work of the University of Nevada Reno Group (e.g., Alavosius, Newsome, Houmanfar, & Biglan, 2015), and perhaps some of our own (e.g., Aspholm & Mattaini, 2017;Mattaini, 2013). Jay Moore's 2002 presidential address called out and conceptualized our collective ethical obligations to support social justice (Moore, 2003).…”

Section: Conceptual Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of the Lab: Shaping an Ecological and Constructional Cultural Systems Science

Mattaini

2019

Perspect Behav Sci

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Contemporary societies face critical, interlocking, "wicked" challenges, including economic inequities and marginalization, personal and collective violence, ethnic and religious conflicts, degradation of "the commons," climate change, and more, and all of these issues clearly are grounded in behavior. An adequate culturo-behavior science could be positioned to advance and leverage research and interventions supporting community well-being, and contribute to overcoming urgent societal and global challenges. The current state of cultural systems science, however, is limited by theory and methodology, and by competition for attention with well-established research and practice opportunities related to individual-level challenges. In this article, the author explores those limitations, and suggests a more expansive perspective drawing on historical and contemporary ecological science and contemporary theories of complex systems. Research guided by established science within those disciplines offers opportunities to move cultural systems science out of the lab, and into a more adequate, environmentally rich stance drawing on ecological strategies, recursively integrating contextual observations, conceptual advances, and in vivo experimentation. Examples of each of those strategies and exploration of developmental programs of research grounded in such integration are explored.

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“…Behavior analysts could contribute more to this work. Alavosius and colleagues ( 2016 ) argue that interpreting the influence of climate warnings in terms of the operant and associative conditioning, including relational responding, may help improve climate messaging. Moreover, behavior analysts can provide a cohesive theoretical framework for understanding the human response to climate change.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, psychologists have shown that verbal stimuli can be important in altering pro-environmental behaviors (see Lehman & Geller, 2004 ; Osbaldiston, & Schott, 2012 ). Analyzing reactions to climate warnings as rule-governed behavior may help us understand the failure of climate warnings to motivate behavior, and aid the development of better behavior-change strategies, including verbal strategies (see Alavosius et al, 2016 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Rule-Governed Behavior and Climate Change: Why Climate Warnings Fail to Motivate Sufficient Action

Pietras

2022

Behav. Soc. Iss.

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Climate scientists warn of dire consequences for ecological systems and human well-being if significant steps to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are not taken immediately. Despite these warnings, greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, indicating that current responses are inadequate. Climate warnings and reactions to them may be analyzed in terms of rules and rule-governed behavior. The literature on rule-governed behavior in behavior analysis has identified a variety of factors that can reduce rule following, including insufficient rule exposure, insufficient learning history and rule complexity, incomplete rules, instructed behavior not sufficiently learned, rules having weak function-altering effects, conflicting rules, lack of speaker credibility, rule plausibility and inconsistency with prior learning, and insufficient reinforcement for rule following. The present paper aims to analyze how these factors might impact responses to climate change, and possible solutions and strategies are discussed. Much of the theory and research on climate-change communication has come from outside of behavior analysis. Thus, the paper also aims to integrate findings from this literature with a behavior-analytic approach to rule control. Interpreting climate warnings and climate solutions in terms of rule-governed behavior may improve our understanding of why such rules are not more effective, and aid in the development of verbal and nonverbal strategies for changing behavior and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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A Functional Contextualist Analysis of the Behavior and Organizational Practices Relevant to Climate Change

Cited by 11 publications

References 43 publications

Restructuring Law Enforcement Agencies to Support Prosocial Values: A Behavior-Scientific Model for Addressing Police Brutality

Restructuring Law Enforcement Agencies to Support Prosocial Values: A Behavior-Scientific Model for Addressing Police Brutality

Out of the Lab: Shaping an Ecological and Constructional Cultural Systems Science

Rule-Governed Behavior and Climate Change: Why Climate Warnings Fail to Motivate Sufficient Action

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