Jack Michael’s Appointments at the University of Houston and Arizona State University: Reflections from a Former Student

Jack Michael offered a course on verbal behavior almost every year throughout his teaching career. Jack was also interested in the application of Skinner's work and in 1976 began to offer a graduate course at Western Michigan University titled Verbal Behavior Applications. Jack and his students pursued the application of Skinner's work on verbal behavior with dozens of empirical studies during the 1970s. In honor of the 60th anniversary of the publication of Skinner's book Verbal Behavior, the current paper presents some of my recollections of Jack's work on verbal behavior as his student, graduate teaching assistant, and research collaborator during that time period. Keywords B. F. Skinner. Jack Michael. Verbal behavior (1957). Verbal behavior applications Jack Michael dedicated his career to teaching behavior analysis. One of his goals was to impart to students the verbal repertoires necessary to use the concepts and principles of behavior analysis to precisely analyze behavior in any context (Michael, 1995, 2004). In the process of teaching others, he was constantly working on furthering his own understanding of Skinner's writings and refining various aspects along the way (e.g., establishing operations, positive and negative reinforcement, automatic reinforcement). Jack was especially interested in Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior (VB). He argued, like Skinner, that an analysis of VB was essential for a complete account of complex human behavior. However, in the early days of our discipline, very little use was made of Skinner's analysis of VB-an issue that was a constant source of irritation to Jack (e.g., Michael, 1984).

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confidence: 99%

Recollections of Jack Michael and the Application of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior

Sundberg¹

2017

“…Jack's unique personality and approach to teaching inspired many students. John Mabry (2016) noted that while at the University of Houston, Jack's hair was shaved close like a Buddhist monk's and he wore sandals, and "his sandals were later referred to as 'Jesus boots' because he quickly began to attract a following among the students" (pp. 324-325).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Consummate Skinnerian: Remembering Jack Michael

Sundberg¹

2021

Go ask Jack." That was the advice often given in hallways at conferences and elsewhere. Jack Michael was our go-to person in behavior analysis for decades. The solution to complex quandaries could be found by just spending a few minutes with Jack, which he usually seized as a teaching opportunity. Teaching was Jack's passion and primary activity throughout his long professional career. His focus was mainly on B. F. Skinner's body of works. Jack's goal as a teacher was for his students to be able to analyze behavior in the same manner that Skinner analyzed behavior. A common mand from Jack to a student was "What would Skinner say?" In a recent interview with Jack, he said, "I was willing to dedicate my life to teaching Skinner, which I pretty much did, and I was quite satisfied with that" (Esch et al., 2017, p. 273).Jack taught his students how to use the concepts and principles of behavior analysis to think critically about behavioral events. He insisted on precision when talking about behavior. If a student's answer drifted too far in a cognitive direction, a "BAH!" could be found in the margin along with a possible point loss. Jack diligently prepared each class unit and lecture period, using a modified version of Keller's (1968) personalized system of instruction (Michael, 1991). At the core of Jack's classes were his weekly study objectives covering the reading material and his lectures. Students were expected to master the answers to dozens of detailed objectives and demonstrate that mastery on a lengthy essay exam. If a student failed to obtain a satisfactory grade, an equally lengthy remedial exam could be taken in an attempt to improve that grade. Students knew Jack's classes were hard and required a major time commitment, and sometimes they delayed taking them. But after completing one of his classes, most students were proud of their newfound grasp of behavior analysis and their ability to apply what they had learned. This was especially the case after students took his verbal behavior class.Jack was easily accessible to students. In addition to informal access, he maintained formal office hours where students could ask him or his graduate assistants questionsThe Analysis of Verbal Behavior

“…We both officially were awarded our Doctorates at the same time, May 1963, and were, also officially, among the first four Ph.D.'s awarded by the University. (Mabry, 1996) Twenty years later I added to the 1996 article more about Jack's influence and the reactions of other former students, especially Ted Ayllon, whose intro to Jack was in informal ping-pong sessions, as well as Carl Cheney's comment on his relation to Jack as contrasted to other professors at ASU (Mabry, 2016). After all, Jack was known to all of us as Jack, not "Professor Michael" or "Doctor Michael" as some others insisted.…”

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John L. Michael’s Early Career: Houston to Arizona

Mabry

2021

My memories started, of course, at Houston, where Jack was teaching Intermediate Statistics, in summer 1957. When he and Lee Meyerson needed a graduate assistant and I needed a job, I was hired to help set up a child operant lab for testing hearing with children and other nonverbal individuals (autistic, intellectual disability, even deaf).Most of my later classroom contact with Jack was in Advanced Statistics and Learning Theory, using Hilgard but with an emphasis on Skinner. Somewhere between the stat class and the learning course, I learned several views of science that were new to me. Although Jack always deferred to Skinner as the origin, most bore the stamp of his own unique analysis. He represented a position that was distinct from the traditional and elitist "princes and kings" approach to the history of science and relied more on the contributions of technology and Mach's appreciation of the artisans that preceded formal science as represented by the universities. My reading and previous undergraduate courses had given a distinctly different view, that of the eminence of man thinking, by theorists who bragged that they "could not walk past a laboratory without hearing glass breaking." Though I took no philosophy courses, there were frequent references to thought experiments and a certain deference to philosophy of that stripe in textbooks and lectures in psychology. At any rate, Jack's view was not a popular position in my undergraduate training. As to my questions about the history of science, Jack counseled me instead to consider the history of technology-which I did, with I think some profit.The learning course was my first and was the first to suggest that something in psychology had a clear application. For my part, I applied Jack's suggestions (or Skinner's) to helping with my child-rearing chores. My daughter, Linda, was the chief recipient of my behavioral engineering, eventually including toilet training, shoe tying, and so on. As a result, I got a brief mention in a book that featured Jack's and others' influence on the application of Skinner's work (Rutherford,