About the presentation:
Seven evidence-based guidelines for improving the quality and increasing the frequency of desirable behavior are described and illustrated as relevant for benefiting human welfare and well-being. If practiced extensively, these life lessons would most assuredly improve overall quality of life by reducing interpersonal conflict and bullying, preventing the occurrence of unintentional injuries and fatalities, and enhancing work productivity, environmental sustainability and life satisfaction. The first three guidelines reflect the applied behavioral science principles of positive reinforcement, observational learning, and behavior-based feedback. The subsequent four life lessons are derived from humanism. Techniques for operationalizing these humanistic guidelines are presented, demonstrating social validity in integrating select principles from humanism with behaviorism. The result: humanistic behaviorism — the application of some humanistic fundamentals to make behaviorism more acceptable, effective, and sustainable on a large scale.
About the presenter:
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 wasn’t 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.