Jeff Kupfer and Ron Allen
University of Colorado (Denver) and Simmons University (Boston)
It seems that with every blog we post about our culture, conditions worsen for many individuals. Personal lives are affected daily, and the cultural contingencies developed to protect many are in shambles. As odd as it seems the First Amendment has been replaced by a Second Amendment on steroids. Contingencies of counter-control (by individuals and groups) are underway which is a good sign and one that is spreading with support internationally.
These events may seem like a course that began back in November 2025, but there were some indicators and warnings that were present back in 1989 when the article: Behavior Analysts and Cultural Analysis: Trouble and Issues was published in The Behavior Analyst. The authors (Malagodi & Jackson) describe a path not unlike the one we find ourselves walking today. The article was a call to expand our behavior-analytic worldview by: (1) building a cohesive cultural framework upon the epistemological, theoretical, and strategic foundations we have developed for the study of individuals; and (2) examining the works of social scientists who have developed theories and strategies compatible with, and complementary to, our own.
The authors offer the distinction proposed back in 1959 by C. Wright Mills that provides a perspective on differences between psychology and the social sciences (or between behavioral and cultural issues). Troubles describe personal matters occurring for the individual within the context of the local contingencies in the immediate social setting. Issues, in contrast, describe public matters that are based on contingencies that go beyond the individual’s local environment, pertains to the organization of many social contingencies and social settings into the larger sociocultural structure. “When troubles are replicated for a large or increasing number of individuals, an issue is born, so to speak, and a type and level of analysis which addresses that replication is demanded” (p. 19).
To illustrate: an individual born in Nigeria moves to the U.S. with his family and all become U.S. citizens. His wife passes away two years later, he returns to Nigeria, remarries and wants to bring his newlywed to live with him in America but she cannot currently obtain a Green Card due to changes in immigration policy. Meanwhile, the individual back in America has high blood pressure related problems due to this uncontrollable situation and cannot risk travel back to Nigeria. They are physically separated indefinitely and are being deprived of the life they dreamed. This individual has troubles based on personal problems.
Upon closer examination, however, thousands of individuals are experiencing the similar problems with safe travel in the U.S. and abroad, and with the very real possibility of facing incarceration and/or deportation. Our culture has issues based on the replication of opposing and oppressing contingencies.
Another example closer to home for many ABA practitioners: an eight-year-old boy with severe autism and his single mother are in despair as they are facing massive cuts to Medicaid funding for behavioral services. Their BCBA provider organization is being audited because Medicaid has found unusual billing activities in some companies. The BCBA is mandated to write voluminous treatment plans that are often rejected for frivolous reasons (e.g., rejecting a 30-page treatment plan because the word “relax” was used and even operationalized). When this mother receives a notification about an interruption in services until she appears in court to discuss the matter, this is a trouble. When this scenario is replicated in states across the U.S. this is an issue.
In building a cohesive cultural framework and examining the works of other social scientists, Malagodi and Jackson (1989) describe the pervasiveness of the psychocentric worldview— home to personally indwelling psychological processes, with terms that are mentalistic, creationistic, and noncontextualistic. Consequently, issues are viewed as aggregates of the collective troubles of a population. The authors raise the question: “Is behavior analysis sufficiently “radical” to move more comfortably from viewing the world in terms of troubles to viewing it in terms of issues?” (p.21). The authors lean into the advantages to broadening that worldview with cultural materialism based on the many similarities of underlying principles, particularly selection by consequence. This suggestion is similar to those of other behavior analysts (e.g., Glenn 1985, 1988; Lloyd, 1985, 1987; Malagodi, 1986; Vargas, 1985, 1987).
In cultural materialism, the problem of autonomy and psychocentrism are viewed as “deviation-dampening” functions, providing general rules and legitimations for punishing deviations from local social norms. These help to maintain the fundamental characteristics of the socio-cultural system (See Glenn, 1985, for a discussion regarding the distinction between technical and ceremonial practices). Psychocentric-based practices serve the interests of culture’s politicians, clergy, business leaders, educators, psychologists, and others charged with responsibilities to “keep the money machine rolling.”
These systems exonerate the above of any blame when ordinary people behave in undesirable or pathological ways. Solutions often suggested by radical behaviorism and cultural materialism point to rearranging inequitable reinforcement contingencies and metacontingencies which often conflict with the immediate vested interests of those gatekeepers. As the authors point out: The Power Elite in all sectors of our culture continue to support psychological, sociological, and anthropological worldview which provides a minimal post-damage repair for a scatter of individuals likely to receive psychocentric-infused therapies.
Alas, the authors present a grim picture, yet they greatly discourage bailing out of behaviorism (escape responding) or adulterating our current worldview by incorporating the conventional psychocentric view with a different name. Interesting, back in 1989 when this was first published the authors suggest:
“America was increasingly approaching the point of becoming a third-class world power – as its infrastructure practices involved in the production of goods and services continue to deteriorate- our political and economic leaders will be increasingly pressured to seek those system-changing innovations which will be necessary for solving many of America’s most serious and culturally debilitating problems (italics added). The most open moments for change are those at which a mode of production reaches its limits of growth, and a new mode of production must soon be adopted in order to maintain standards of living within the culture and to survive against competing cultures.”(p. 28).
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal described the continuation of a decline in the U.S. production and dissected the current administration and the previous administration failed attempts to address this issue (https://www.wsj.com/economy/u-s-manufacturing-is-in-retreat-and-trumps-tariffs-arent-helping-d2af4316). If the “open moment” has yet to arrive— just how bad does it have to get?
Although the authors (and ourselves) do not foresee an immediate departure from behaviorism, and at least no conspicuous distortions in our current worldview, our ability to withstand cultural contingencies which serve to dampen, rather than amplify, deviant practices aimed at “preventing alleviating human suffering” is waning. In light of the current state of U.S. social and cultural turmoil, if this moment begins to define our “most open moment”, and system-changing innovations occur, what prevents another plunge into the next psychocentric culture? The authors offer no real answer, nor does any other author or theory to our knowledge.
In strange and uncertain times, a reasonable person might despair. We hope that behavior analysts here and abroad continue to be resilient and resistant to extinction.
REFERENCES
Glenn, S.S. (1985). Some reciprocal roles between behavior analysis and institutional economics in post-Darwinian science. The Behavior Analyst, 8, 15-27.
Glenn, S. S. (1988). Contingencies and metacontingencies: Toward a synthesis of behavior analysis and cultural materialism. The Behavior Analyst, 11, 161-179.
Lloyd, K. E. (1985). Behavioral anthropology: A review of Marvin Harris’ Cultural Materialism.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 43, 279-287.
Lloyd, K. E. (1987, May). Emics and etics. In H. S. Pennypacker (chair), Behavior analysis and
cultural materialism: Toward integration. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Nashville, TN.
Malagodi, E. F. (1986). On radicalizing behaviorism: A call for cultural analysis. The Behavior
Analyst, 9, 1-17.
Malagodi, E. F., & Jackson, K. (1987, May). Behavior analysts/cultural analysis: Troubles and
issues. In H. S. Pennypacker (chair), Behavior analysis and cultural materialism: Toward integration. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Nashville, TN.
Malagodi, E.F. & Jackson, K. (1989). Behavior analysts and cultural analysis: Troubles and issues. The Behavior Analyst, 12, 17-33.
Mills, C.W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York; Oxford University Press.
Vargas, E. A. (1985). Cultural contingencies: A review of Marvin Harris’s Cannibals and Kings.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 43, 419-428.
Vargas, E. A. (1987, May). Cultural materialism, radical behaviorism, and evolutionary Darwinism: Feedback control. In H. S. Pennypacker (chair), Behavior analysis and cultural materialism: Toward integration. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Nashville, TN.