Newsletter
Volume 29 | 2006 | Number 3
Recent Trends in the Eastern Psychological Association
By Dr. Philip N. Hineline
In the early days of behavior analysis, the annual convention of the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) was the primary place for psychologists to meet in early spring. Skinner and Keller, along with their colleagues and students ("operant conditioners," as they were then called) were very much a part of this, and the genesis of our flagship publication, the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, was accomplished at an EPA meeting. Over the years, EPA became less central to the field when various specializations, including behavior analysis, developed their own organizations, but it has retained its identity as sponsoring a meeting with a distinctively scientific orientation. EPA is a meeting that has become a particularly good place for graduate students and other young scholars to begin presenting their work. A firmly committed group of researchers identified with "animal learning" has maintained an especially strong part of the program, thus providing a platform for some of the basic research in behavior analysis. Meanwhile, the program categories explicitly concerning human behavior has evolved along the lines of traditional experimental psychology, providing no clear venue for behavior-analytic work with humans. We have recently fixed that, as noted below.
Last year, Stanley Weiss, of American University, was President of EPA, and his term coincided with the delivery of the first Fred Keller Memorial Lecture – one of three endowed events to be scheduled on a rotating basis. Stan’s Presidential Address, and Murray Sidman's Memorial Lecture, then, gave behavior analysis a salient place on the program. Stan's topic was "Environmental Control of Drug-Seeking: Reinforcement Contingencies and Incentive Motivation." Murray celebrated our old friend as "Fred S. Keller: A Generalized Conditioned Reinforcer." Complementing these was a special gathering of the students and other intellectual descendents of Fred Keller, and reminiscences provided by Fred's son, John, were a highlight of a Sunday morning symposium.
We hope to build upon the success of these events to facilitate renewed participation and visibility of behavior analysts in this organization, and thus within psychology as well. Applied Behavior Analysis has been added as a distinct program category, for which William Ahearn is serving as Program Chair. Given the close link between the basic concepts and practical applications of behavior analysis, this topic area can readily encompass both basic and applied work.
The 2007 EPA convention will be held March 23-25 in Philadelphia. Preliminary planning has yielded, in addition to my own Presidential Address, an Integrative Symposium under the title, "Behavioral Economics in Three Flavors," and a Focus Session that will feature the work of behavior analysts on feeding disorders. An additional symposium will showcase techniques that build upon functional classes of verbal behavior. Allen Neuringer has agreed to give an invited address entitled "Science, Choice, and Free Will," thus presenting analyses of behavior in a domain that is often viewed as beyond the reach of a behavioral approach.
Proposals for additional presentations and posters are especially welcome; the submission deadline is 15 November, 2006. Coming in early spring, EPA can provide a good warm-up for getting one's ABA act together – given the slight overlap of audiences between EPA and ABA, thematic overlap between one’s presentations at the two meetings should not be an issue. Presenters at EPA must be members of the organization, but the combined membership/registration fee is a reasonable expense as such things go. Consequently we anticipate that renewed behavior-analytic vigor will accompany the spring thaw on the Eastern seaboard, and we invite the citizens of ABA to join in.