Since Julian Leslie’s guest blog back in November of 2022 (click here), I have found myself intrigued by academic lineage and genealogy. As Julian notes, “it is fun to do, but also very revealing – you can use it to trace the development of major strands of the discipline.” I, for example, was supervised during my Masters and PhD by Dermot Barnes-Holmes and Yvonne Barnes-Holmes; Yvonne was supervised by Dermot during her PhD, while Dermot was supervised by Julian Leslie and Mickey Keenan during his (Mickey had also been supervised by Julian). Julian, then, was supervised by Jock Millenson, who, along with Murray Sidman, was supervised by Nat Schoenfeld. Nat, a contemporary and friend of Fred Keller (among other things, Nat and Fred co-authored a foundational text book on Principles of Psychology), was supervised by Albert Poffenberger who was supervised by James McKeen Cattell, a student of Wilhelm Wundt (yes, the very Wilhelm Wundt from the famous Leipzig lab)! Albert Poffenberger was also supervised by Robert Woodworth who had been supervised by Stanley Hall, a student of none other than William James!
Since moving to Brazil and contacting a whole other league of influential behavior analysts, I was keen to explore this new branch on my academic tree. Julio de Rose, my post-doctoral mentor, was supervised by one Carolina Bori, who along with Fred Keller, helped establish behavior analysis in Brazil (click here for Julio’s blog which also mentions Carolina as part of the telling of his own story). And just like that, two strong roots in this academic family tree, across multiple continents, converged.
This month’s invited blog by Gabriel Cândido very much speaks to the importance of these lineages in the ongoing evolution of the discipline, and to something I perhaps hadn’t fully appreciated until reading Gabriel’s incredible work: how much of our field’s growth depends on the conditions that pioneers in our field, like Carolina Bori, created for others to thrive. We are not just interconnected by lineage, but also critically by the structures, institutions, and opportunities that people like her built. I have been aware for some time now of Gabriel’s fascinating work, initially because of the meticulous, decade-long historical research he has devoted to the life and contributions of Carolina Bori, a juggernaut of Brazilian Behavior Analysis. Exploring the new Brazilian branch of my own academic lineage through the stories of Julio and another of Carolina’s supervisees, Deisy das Graças de Souza, led me straight to Gabriel’s academic door and own contributions, impressive and important in their own right.
It is no overstatement to say that I am in awe of Carolina Bori and her commitment to behavior analysis and science more generally, as well as Gabriel’s dedication to telling her story. So, after running into Gabriel for the first time in person in April of this year at a conference in Londrina here in Brazil (Congresso de Psicologia e Análise do Comportamento or CPAC), I invited him to come on here and tell us his own story, and about the influence Carolina has had on that story and wider behavior analysis. Many of you may know of Carolina and her influence on the field, and others may not. Regardless, I encourage you to sit back and enjoy this fantastic excursion into the life and impact of Carolina Bori, told through the lens of Gabriel’s personal journey.
Colin
Author bio:
Gabriel Vieira Cândido is a psychologist, holding a master’s degree in Experimental Psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto (USP-RP), and a postdoctoral fellowship at PUC-SP, including a research internship at the University of Kansas. He works as a behavior-analytic therapist and professor. His academic career integrates two main lines of work: History, Philosophy, and Science Policy in Psychology, and Clinical Interventions. His research focuses on the historiography of Brazilian psychology, primary source analysis, scientific biography, and the relationships between science, culture, and clinical practice. He is currently the coordinator of the postgraduate specialization program Behavior-Analytic Psychotherapy: Process-Based Therapy at DiadeLab and is a member of the Interinstitutional Collaboration Network for Research and Development in Behavior-Analytic Therapies (RedeTAC).
Carolina Bori and Creating the Conditions for Science
When I began studying Psychology in the countryside of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, I had no idea that an important part of the education I would receive existed because of the work of a woman named Carolina Bori (1924–2002). I started my undergraduate studies in March 2002, and during my first year, I became intrigued by informal conversations with a professor who told me about a rat that learned to press a lever when a light was turned on and stopped doing so when the light was turned off. I wanted to learn more about what he was describing, and in 2003 I became an undergraduate teaching assistant in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior course.
This initial interest led me, in 2004, to two experiences that would introduce me to Carolina Bori’s name. One was an undergraduate research project examining the organization of Behavior Analysis research groups in Brazil, in which she already stood out for the extensive network of relationships she maintained with other researchers. The other was the ABAI conference held in Brazil in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Psychotherapy and Behavioral Medicine (ABPMC), where I had the opportunity to meet her in person. At the time, I heard people say that she was the first psychologist in Brazil (later I learned that she was the first psychologist to receive an official professional registration number). About two months after our brief encounter, Carolina Bori passed away at the age of 80.
When I began my master’s degree in 2007, I already knew something about Carolina Bori’s importance in the history of Behavior Analysis in Brazil. These accounts highlighted her pioneering role, her contribution to the training of an influential generation of researchers, her introduction of teaching laboratories in Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and her involvement in the development of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI). Many of my professors had been Carolina Bori’s students and often shared stories about her, emphasizing her impact on the training of psychologists and behavior analysts, her work in education, and her ideas about science—topics that were especially interesting to me. However, it was only in 2010 that my long-standing interest in Carolina Bori’s contributions inspired me to begin studying her life and work as a research project.
The research I conducted on her lasted approximately eight years and involved several historiographical approaches. I worked with oral history methods, interviewing researchers from different institutions who could provide information about Carolina Bori’s role in the development of a scientific culture in Brazil. I gathered a broad range of bibliographic sources and consulted archival collections that helped me address the questions I was asking about her life and work.
In 2025, this research journey culminated in the publication of a book that presents the trajectory of Carolina Martuscelli Bori, highlighting her public life devoted to the advancement of Brazilian science. The book, Carolina Bori: Psychology, Education, and Science Policy (available free of charge at carolinabori.pdf), is a scientific biography based on historical research.
For me, writing about Carolina Bori meant writing about a significant part of the history of Psychology, Education, and Science Policy in Brazil during the second half of the twentieth century. Brazil’s first universities had only emerged in the 1930s, and there was no formal training in Psychology when Carolina Bori graduated in Pedagogy in 1947. It was during her undergraduate years that she became interested in Psychology through courses in General Psychology and Educational Psychology.
Foto de formatura em Pedagogia.
Between 1950 and 1952, she completed graduate studies at the New School for Social Research in New York City. This experience played an important role in expanding her interests in Social Psychology, Experimental Psychology, and in shaping a perspective strongly influenced by the Gestalt tradition. Immersed in an intellectual environment marked by direct heirs of Gestalt Psychology and Field Theory, Carolina encountered conceptions of behavior that emphasized the relationship between individuals and their social environments. Although it is impossible to determine precisely all the courses she took, historical records suggest the influence of scholars such as Solomon Asch, whose studies on group dynamics frequently appeared in her later writings; Mary Henle, an important advocate of Gestalt Psychology; and Tamara Dembo, her advisor, whose work focused on motivation, conflict, and social behavior within the Lewinian tradition.
In reconstructing her educational background, I was surprised by the diversity of theoretical influences that preceded her encounter with Behavior Analysis. Particularly striking was the strong presence of Experimental Psychology—still in its infancy in Brazil at the time—and a deep concern with social issues. Science, for Carolina Bori, was inseparable from social transformation.
The path Bori followed to become a psychologist reflects what many Brazilians of her generation had to do. Since Psychology training programs did not yet exist in Brazil, many sought educational opportunities abroad. Beginning in the 1950s, Psychology in Brazil underwent a process of professional regulation and the creation of psychology degree programs, leading to enormous growth in the field and expanding opportunities for professional training. Carolina Bori played a central role in this process, eventually receiving professional registration number 1 among Brazilian psychologists.
It was in this context that she met Fred S. Keller (1899–1996), a professor at Columbia University with whom she developed a highly influential professional partnership. In 1961, Keller spent a sabbatical year in Brazil teaching Experimental Analysis of Behavior to psychology students at the University of São Paulo. Since Carolina Bori was responsible for Experimental Psychology courses at the university, she served as his assistant. During this period, she became acquainted with what Keller called “reinforcement theory” and soon began applying its principles in her own teaching. That same year saw the creation of the first locally produced Skinner boxes in Brazil, an innovation that facilitated the introduction of Experimental Analysis of Behavior laboratories into psychology programs throughout the country. Only in recent decades have many of these laboratories been replaced by software simulations that reproduce procedures such as shaping, extinction, reinforcement schedules, discrimination, and chaining.
In 1962, due to her involvement in the regulation of psychology training and professional practice, Bori was invited to create the Department of Psychology at the newly established University of Brasília (UnB). Brasília itself was a new city, built to serve as Brazil’s capital and to promote national development. The university was part of this broader national project, and the Department of Psychology created by Bori became essential to the development of Behavior Analysis in Brazil. Although her stay there was relatively brief, the work she and her colleagues accomplished served as a model for many psychology programs established throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Brasilia, 1964
At the University of Brasília, Carolina Bori, Rodolpho Azzi (1927–1993), Gilmour Sherman (1931–2006), and Fred Keller developed teaching strategies grounded in Behavior Analysis that left a lasting impact on education. At least two major educational innovations emerged from this experience. One became known as the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), often referred to internationally as the Keller Plan. In Brazil, however, Bori continued developing related work under names such as Programmed Instruction and, more recently, Programming Contingencies for Behavioral Development (PCDC).
Although Carolina Bori collaborated directly with Keller in the development of behavior-analytic teaching methods, her theoretical concerns gradually evolved in a distinct direction. While PSI became internationally known as an innovative instructional approach, Bori became increasingly interested in a broader question: how to create the conditions necessary for the development of behavioral repertoires that would enable people to address meaningful challenges in their everyday lives. As a result, her educational legacy followed a somewhat different path from the one that made PSI internationally known. This distinction helps illuminate a theme that would characterize her entire career: her concern with creating the conditions necessary for the development of socially relevant behavior.
Throughout the 1970s, Carolina Bori’s collaborative work with Keller gained tremendous influence. Numerous training programs were offered in Brazil and abroad across different fields of knowledge, especially in Behavior Analysis. An entire generation of Brazilian behavior analysts was trained through educational experiences shaped by Carolina Bori, and her ideas about education became the foundation for applications in diverse settings.
It was at this point that my own research began to change direction.
When I first started studying Carolina Bori, I expected to uncover the story of one of the pioneers of Behavior Analysis in Brazil. As my research progressed, however, I realized that describing Carolina Bori as a pioneer of Behavior Analysis captured only part of a much broader and more influential trajectory. Her work in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and Programmed Instruction represented only one part of a much broader and more influential trajectory. Documents, interviews, and historical records revealed someone who moved constantly among Psychology, Education, higher education, and science policy. She actively participated in the consolidation of Psychology as a profession, in the training of researchers, in the defense of public universities, and in the strengthening of scientific institutions throughout Brazil. Her concern with creating conditions for behavioral development also distinguished her as a leader in science policy. Through positions she held at institutions such as the Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência (the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science; SBPC), the University of Brasília, and national scientific agencies, Bori helped create opportunities for researchers to be trained, scientific communities to flourish, and knowledge to be produced and disseminated.
As I interviewed researchers from different generations, a pattern began to emerge. Many spoke about articles, laboratories, or courses. What most captured my attention, however, was something else: they talked about conditions. Carolina created conditions for people to meet, for groups to form, for projects to emerge, and for institutions to grow stronger. Her contribution lay not only in the knowledge she produced, but also in the contingencies she helped plan to make scientific production and dissemination possible.
Throughout the research, it became impossible to separate Carolina Bori from the history of Brazilian scientific institutions. Her name repeatedly appeared at the forefront of scientific organizations, promoting discussions about universities, research funding, researcher training, and the defense of scientific freedom. At various moments in her career, she occupied leadership positions that placed her at the center of debates concerning the future of scientific production in Brazil. She was committed not only to creating conditions for the production of knowledge but also to ensuring that knowledge extended beyond university walls and reached broader sectors of society. She believed that scientific development was indispensable to national development and therefore dedicated herself to the public dissemination of science through newspapers, museums, radio, and television.
After years of research, I realized that writing about Carolina Bori involved a unique historiographical challenge. How can one narrate the trajectory of someone whose contribution cannot be measured solely by publications, but by the conditions she created for countless scientific discoveries to become accessible and inform decisions that promoted national development?
The book Carolina Bori: Psychology, Education, and Science Policy was my attempt to answer that question. The book reconstructs the trajectory of Carolina Bori as a psychologist, educator, and scientific leader whose work helped create the conditions for the development of Brazilian science throughout the second half of the twentieth century.
Over time, I came to understand that Bori’s concern with creating conditions for learning extended far beyond education. The same logic guided her efforts in researcher training, research group development, scientific institutions, and public advocacy for science. Above all, she wanted scientific knowledge to reach the broader public and help people address the challenges they faced in their everyday lives.
Over the course of this research, I came to understand that Carolina Bori’s legacy cannot be understood solely through her publications, her experiments, or the students she trained. Her work extended to the creation of conditions that enabled scientific communities to emerge, institutions to grow, and knowledge to circulate beyond the university. In many ways, the concerns that guided her work in Programmed Instruction reappeared throughout her career, now on a different scale, shaping her efforts to create conditions conducive to the training of researchers, the strengthening of scientific institutions, and the expansion of the role of science in Brazilian society. In this sense, her trajectory offers a unique perspective on the intertwined histories of Brazilian Psychology, Behavior Analysis, Education, and science during the second half of the twentieth century.
