Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 3 | 2011 | Number 2 | Online ISSN: 2151-4704
Behaviorists for Social Responsibility
By Steve Wong
The mission of Behaviorists for Social Responsibility (BFSR) is to expand applications of behavior analysis and cultural analysis to address important social issues, particularly those related to social justice, human rights, and the environment.
BFSR cosponsors a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal, Behavior and Social Issues (BSI), edited by Mark Mattaini. In 2010, BSI published articles on a wide range of topics, including sustainable world economies, global warming, emergence and metacontingencies, training mental health professionals to be skeptical of the biomedical model of mental disorders, the misrepresentation of applied behavior analysis in Europe, and teaching behavior analysts supportive verbal behavior. Articles accepted for publication in BSI are immediately posted online and published in hard copy later in the year. The journal welcomes the submission of scholarly papers that advance the analysis of human social behavior concerned with, but not limited to, issues of social justice and human rights.
BFSR maintains its own Facebook page, which highlights social issues of interest to behavior analysts and provides a forum for discussion and organized social action. John Glass manages the Facebook page, which at last count had 1,033 fans. Some of these fans are members of ABAI, but many are not, thereby exposing people outside of the behavior analysis sphere to BFSR and ABAI. BFSR members have been discussing the development of a new web page that might provide the SIG with web-based communication and information resources.
Some of the members and energy of BFSR have been diverted by the recent start-up of Behavior Analysis for Sustainable Societies, a new ABAI SIG. Remaining members of BFSR are pondering this development and how it will define the future focus of BFSR.
Members of ABAI are invited to visit the BFSR Facebook page and to participate in or to initiate discussions on that site. Those interested in joining this SIG or learning more about it should contact John Glass at JGlass@collin.edu or Stephen Wong at wongse@fiu.edu.