E. Scott Geller – Caring About Social Significance

1.5 Type II CE Credits

In cooperation with Karen R. Wagner, PhD and Behavior Services of Brevard, we offer the following CEU opportunity from The (R)Evolution of Behavior Analysis project:

Dr E. Scott Geller: Caring About Social Significance

Scott Geller is arguably one of the most prolific researchers in the field of behavior analysis. He has large bodies of research in increasing seatbelt use, increasing APPROPRIATE student drinking behavior, increasing the use of trash receptacles, increasing safe work behavior, and increasing beneficial interpersonal interactions with a group of behaviors he calls Actively Caring. With hundreds of publications, including numerous books and monographs, Dr Geller has the data to back his hypotheses of human behavior.

Trained as a Cognitive Psychologist, his leanings towards applied behavioral applications were reinforced early on by his wanderings into the labs of Dr Nate Azrin and Dr Ted Ayllon while in graduate school at Southern Illinois University. After achieving tenure at Virginia Tech in the early 70s as a cognitive psychologist with an incredible 60 publications under his belt, Dr Geller felt he wasnt making enough of a difference in the lives of people, and started dabbling in changing group behavior. Finding success by increasing recycling on campus, he quickly expanded into other research involving changing behaviors to increase socially meaningful behaviors with the general population. Soon he was successfully publishing in behavior analytic publications and presenting at behavior analysis conferences. Organizational behavior management has never been the same, and cognitive psychology’s loss is certainly behavior analysis gain. Please join the (R)Evolution of Behavior Analysis in examining the life and work of Dr. E. Scott Geller.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to describe how People Based Safety evolved from a worker safety initiative Dr. Geller created for Ford.
2. Participants will be able to identify the three C’s of motivation as proposed by Dr. Geller.
3. Participants will be able to identify what employers need to do to keep people vigilant in a job with low frequency and high liability events.