Applied Psychology. The Case of the Baer, Wolf and Risley Prescriptions for Applied Behavior Analysis

Abstract

Baer, Wolf and Risley, members of the group that promoted the creation of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, offered in its first issue a detailed series of ‘prescriptions’ that characterized the way research and research articles would be conceived as adequate to the applied field by the journal editors. Their ‘prescriptions’ have been largely cited, becoming a sign of authors’ identification with the journal policy, and widely influencing the structure and topics of this specialized literature.

The Fuzzy Concept of Applied Behavior Analysis Research

“…12 Such reflexive invoking of the BWR framework probably first arose as a side effect of the source article doubling as both Banthopologist's account^(Baer et al, 1987, p. 313) and journal mission statement. As a result of the latter, the BWR Bprescriptions, widely followed by contributors [who were] deeply interested in having their papers accepted in JABA, became assumed as the normal way of doing research in the field( Carpintero Capell et al, 2014, p. 1727. To avoid overstating our case, however, we note that some of our papers that were evaluated in this fashion eventually were published because one reviewer advocated for them or because an action editor imposed a more expansive view of what counts as Applied.…”