2025 Annual Convention Highlights

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2025 Presidential Address: Found in Translation

Dr. Mark Galizio earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and currently serves as professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, having previously served as department chair (2004–2011). Dr. Galizio’s highly productive research career includes more than 80 published articles and chapters, a textbook now in its seventh edition, an edited book, more than $1 million in grants, service as associate editor and editorial board member of multiple prominent behavior analytic journals, and extensive leadership service to the field (e.g., president of APA Division 25, NIH Study Section on Biobehavioral Regulation, Learning, and Ethology). His contributions have included empirical, conceptual, and methodological advances across an impressive range of specialties within the experimental analysis of behavior, including rule-governed behavior, aversive control, complex stimulus control, behavioral pharmacology, and learning and remembering. His work exemplifies the best of the benefits of translational research, taking a thoroughly behavior analytic approach to issues of broader interest in the behavioral, social, and biological sciences, for which he has been recognized as a Fellow in four different divisions of APA. Dr. Galizio’s teaching and mentorship are also noteworthy, and have resulted in numerous awards and recognitions.

Abstract: The emergence and successful development of behavior analytic science and practice began with both being tightly integrated. However, as the field matured and the tremendous value of applied behavior analytic assessments and interventions was recognized, more specialization was required. Increasing specialization within behavior analysis has led to the development of distinctive cultures, institutions, and organizations that separate experimental and applied research and create gaps between research and practice. In contrast, a unifying force can be “found in translation.”  Translational research bridges the differences between these cultures. I will briefly discuss several stories of successful translational research (e.g., stimulus relations, behavioral approaches to substance abuse, resurgence). These examples illustrate the historic and contemporary interplay between science and practice in which applied problems drive laboratory research questions and laboratory findings lead to new applied research directions. The ultimate effect is to provide improved applications and theoretical advances. These examples also show the continuing interdependence between behavior science and practice—indeed behavior analysts at all levels of training are in many ways scientist-practitioners. I will argue that this interdependence is largely responsible for many of the advances that have made behavior analysis so successful. For our field to continue to thrive, future behavior analysts will need a broad understanding of the field that includes both the principles and methods of behavior science as well as applications and technology.

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2025 Presidential Scholar Address: Unhinging Design from Darwinian and Skinnerian Selection

Edward Wasserman received his B.A. from UCLA and his Ph.D. from Indiana University. His only academic home has been The University of Iowa, where he is the Stuit Professor Experimental Psychology. He was President of the Comparative Cognition Society as well as President of Divisions 3 (Experimental Psychology), 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology), and 25 (Behavior Analysis) of APA. He is a member of the Society of Experimental Psychologists. And, he has received the Hebb Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from Division 6 of APA, the Career Research Award from the Comparative Cognition Society, the Distinguished Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research Award from Division 25 of APA, and the Gantt Medal from the Pavlovian Society. He has edited four volumes, including the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Cognition, and he has recently authored, As if by Design: How Creative Behaviors Really Evolve. Wasserman has published extensively in the areas of comparative cognition and perception with support from NSF, NIMH, NEI, NICHD, and HFSP.

Abstract:

Darwin explained how purposeful and foresightful design could be unhinged from natural selection. Skinner followed suit for selection by reinforcement. These complementary selectionist ideas together with cultural selection now represent the prime pillars of evolutionary thought in biological and behavioral science. 

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2024 DEI Award Presentation: Affirmative Behavior Therapy: What is it and Who Does the Affirming?

Christopher Martell, Ph.D., ABPP is Director of the Psychological Services Center and Professor of Practice in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Massachusetts, USA.  Dr. Martell is first author of one of the first books on CBT with sexual minority clients, and has co-authored many chapters and articles on affirmative care with sexual minority and gender diverse clients.  He was in private practice in Seattle, Washington for 23 years prior to turning his attention to training the next generation of students.  He has conducted workshops around the world on topics of behavioral interventions for depression, and on conducting LGBTQ+ affirmative CBT. Dr. Martell is known internationally for his work on Behavioral Activation (BA) in the treatment of depression and other disorders, and provides clinical consultation and training on BA worldwide.

Abstract: This address provides a review of the work of Christopher Martell, 2025 recipient of the ABAI Diversity Award.  Dr. Martell was first author of a 2004 book on providing Cognitive Behavioral Therapies in an affirmative manner with Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Clients, the first such book to do this.   Affirmative therapies not only apply to sexual or gender minority individuals. The admonition “nothing about us without us” from various disability and diversity advocates is relevant in work with any minoritized or marginalized groups.  Affirmative behavior analysis accounts for the role of culture and can provide insight into behavioral change that is relevant to individuals and non-discrimatory.  Dr. Martell will speak to the process by which affirmative CBT for LGB clients was begun, and how taking an affirmative stance can extend to functional analytic treatments like behavioral activation.

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Scholarly Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Paper Competition Winners

Cultural Responsiveness in Behavior Analytic Practice: A Thematic Analysis

Zeinab is a PhD student in behavior analysis at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Munroe-Meyer Institute under the advisement of Dr. Catalina Rey. Her research focuses on skill acquisition, cultural responsiveness, and translational research on relapse. She aims to contribute to the development of effective interventions to improve learning outcomes and enhance culturally responsive practices in behavior analysis to better serve individuals from diverse backgrounds

Abstract: This study reviews the literature on cultural responsiveness in applied behavior analysis, offering a thematic overview of recommendations to enhance service delivery. We conducted a comprehensive search across multiple databases, resulting in 47 peer-reviewed articles that met our inclusion criteria. Through a thematic analysis of extracted recommendations, we identified three primary themes: self-reflection, including sub-themes such as awareness of one’s culture, reflection on biases, and assessing competency and humility; tailoring assessments and interventions, which includes learning about clients’ backgrounds, adapting assessments, collaborating with clients and caregivers, and modifying intervention components; and language match, encompassing the use of interpretation services, bilingual staff, translation of materials, and modern technologies. This paper aims to provide clinicians with a comprehensive overview of recommendations in the literature to help enhance their cultural competency in practice.

Mitigating Racial Bias in a Caucasian Sample Using a Prophylactic Functional Response Class Training Method

A Ph.D. student that is interested in experimental psychology and behavior analysis of cognition. During my undergraduate degree, I studied phenomena related to transitivity, function transfer, and generalization of stimuli. During my master’s degree, the Subliminal Conditioning and the mediation of appetitive motivation. Currently, I am investigating the experimental analysis of racial prejudice.

Abstract: Racial biases can be captured using self-report methods and simulated first person shooter games, such as Corel’s Police Officer Dillema task (PODT). The current study adopts a behavior-analytic approach to reducing racial bias on such measures. The prophylactic intervention approach involved exposing 116 Caucasian adults (mean age: 23.13 years, 69 females) to one of various configurations of the Function Acquisition Speed Test (FAST) method across four conditions before exposure to two self-report and the PODT measure. These conditions involved establishing functional response classes consistent with racial bias, inconsistent with racial bias, or establishing both bias-consistent and bias-inconsistent functional response classes (i.e., relational flexibility). A fourth control condition involved no intervention. Results indicated that participants in the stereotype-consistent condition (C3) were more accurate in shooting armed Black targets compared to White targets in the PODT. Furthermore, C3 and C4 Control participants were more accurate in refraining from shooting unarmed White targets compared to Black targets. No such racial bias was observed in the relational flexibility condition (C1) or the stereotype-inconsistent (C2) condition. A consistent pro-Black bias was observed on the Modern Racism Scale (MRS) across all conditions. Likert scale ratings showed that Black faces were rated more positively than White faces in the stereotype-inconsistent condition only. These findings provide some process-level insights into the formation and change of socially problematic verbal relations that characterize racial bias.

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