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The word identity seems ubiquitous. It is a focus of contemporary social science, appears regularly in the media, and occurs increasingly often in everyday conversation, especially on college campuses and among the cultural cognoscenti. Typically, it is used as or paired with a descriptor - such as gender identity, ethnic identity, or identity crisis - and then offered as an explanation of some behavioral phenomena, including gender and ethnic differences, the results of presidential elections, and even B. F. Skinner’s enrollment in graduate school following his “dark year” as a fledging writer. While behavior analysts eschew such explanations, most people, including most behavioral and social scientists, are more interested in the temporally extended patterns of complex behavior subsumed by terms like identity than they are in the foci of much current behavior analytic research. Cogent behavioral accounts of identity and related phenomena are available, but typically garner little attention. Borrowing from these, a behavior analysis of identity is presented and then used to reflect on the identity of behavior analysis itself. If identity consists of patterns of behavior, it appears that our identity is changing. Within behavior analysis, the extraordinary success of the applied wing has overshadowed our identity as a basic behavioral science. Outside behavior analysis, our identity as a viable, comprehensive behavioral science has diminished. We appear to be having an identity crisis, and if it is important to retain our scientific identity, we need to address it.
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