April 2014: Volume 17, number 1, of Journal of Behaviorology is now available online. This first issue for 2014 features two articles, some announcements, and the usual information resources. The first article, by Stephen Ledoux and Dale and Thomas Hallat, is entitled An Interview on Behaviorology Supporting a Sustainable Society. It records the preparation for a lengthy interview, parts of which appeared in the British documentary film, Prosocial Progress: A Blueprint for Social Sustainability. The documentary features parts of interviews with three prominent North American behaviorologists: Julie Vargas, Janet Twyman, and Stephen Ledoux. This article and the film focus “on the relevance of the natural science of behavior—under old or new labels—to various aspects and areas of prosocial change, particularly some of the contributions of behaviorology to contingency arrangements that could increase the scientifically informed, prosocial activities of citizens, specifically with respect to solving global problems” (from an earlier NEWS item). The documentary can be accessed through the Prosocial Progress Foundation website at www.prosocialprogress.org or at the following link: http://vimeo.com/80155313.

The second article, by Lawrence Fraley, is entitled Behaviorological Science and the Complexity of Unfathomable Variation. As the Journal editor points out (in his editorial) at first, the important points in this article seemed to get lost in the details. “Upon analysis, however, several specific characteristics of the larger context of Fraley’s paper relate to its value in [the Journal] pages. When pointing out the complexity of behavior (e.g., Fraley, 2008), and subsequently accounting for such complexity (e.g., Ledoux’s Law of Cumulative Complexity; see Ledoux, 2012, p. 10), behaviorologists have stressed (e.g., Ledoux, 2014, p. 19) that thoroughly analyzing all independent variables relating to even simple responses, while costly and nearly impossible, can be valuable and will occur under appropriate contingencies. We cannot, however, readily point to an example where contingencies have compelled such an analysis until now. Interpretively, in an extension akin to a shaping process, the contingencies affecting Fraley’s writing induced the discussion of another step regarding the thorough analysis of a simple response. This paper explicitly provides such an analysis. While the paper might appear to focus on the response example, its value lies in its ability to illustrate the validity of showing that such examples further clarify the sufficiency of natural science and the lack of place or role for mystical inner self agents. Fraley places his example in the context of appreciating the scientific management of the complexity that constitutes even single, simple responses. In this paper Fraley demonstrates that the controlling evocative stimuli are inextricably tied to the complex cascades of combined neural responses to the full range of energy streams impacting the nervous system of the speaker in his example. The analytical result demonstrates once again the reasonable completeness and full consistency of naturalistic scientific analysis while leaving no role for mystical, mental, agential entities to play.” (Check out these articles by clicking HERE for the Spring 2014 issue of Journal of Behaviorology.)