Principles of Behavior: Preface

Principles of Behavior
Sixth Edition
Richard W. Malott
Western Michigan University

Preface to the Instructor
Anonymous Reviewer Comments
Users of PB
Reviewer 2: The examples of the “psychotic talk” and “socializing Jimmy” are both very good, and are
initially written in a narrative form, rather than an analytical one which comes after the narrative, I
personally think this is a brilliant move on the authors’ part in that it draws the student in with real-life
example, and then provides the analysis of it using learning theory…. I honestly cannot stress enough
how valuable the Malott analytic structure is in helping students to analyze contingencies correctly….It
is a very confusing concept, and the Malott text does a very good job of presenting the information on
conditional stimuli in a clear and very concise way.… Verbal behavior is a very complex topic, but the
Malott text does a good job of simplifying it.… One of the strengths of this text is its adherence to a
single theory; namely Radical Behaviorism….As a clinical psychologist, the topic of avoidance is a
more important one to me. This is one of the best chapters on the topic I have ever read….A treatment of
rule-governed behavior and behavioral control by verbal behaviors are very rare in learning texts, and no
book covers these topics to the depth that the Malott text does.
Reviewer 3: One of the overall strengths of the text is its thoroughness and applicability for training
behavior analysts.
Reviewer 4: The main strengths of this book are its informal presentation, its technical adequacy, and
they extent of its coverage. The book is also innovative and creative, with the authors not afraid to
speculate beyond the data, but always with a disclaimer, so the reader knows when they are doing this.
Reviewer 6: I would recommend this book to a colleague. It is by far the best book on this topic I have
found.
Non-users of PB
Reviewer 1: Top 3 reasons I would choose the Malott text: 1) Thoroughness and depth appropriate for a
grad.- level class, 2) Organized and well written, 3) Interesting writing and good blend of theory and
application…. It (chapter 22) clarifies many things regarding delayed consequences that students would
otherwise likely have difficulty figuring out (particularly on their own). This is a chapter that I could see
my graduate students gaining a lot from…. The main strengths of the text are readability, good use of
case descriptions, and getting students to think about important conceptual differences between operant
conditioning in its basic form and its many applications relative to unique processes of language and
memory that humans possess.
Reviewer 9: What are the three main strengths of this book? 1) The numerous examples for the
literature; 2) The down-home writing approach which probably makes it more fun for the students to
read; and 3) The breadth of coverage.

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Of course, I didn’t include the negative feedback…ah…it’s classified and disclosure would harm
national security; however, I do my best to address such feedback in each revision.
Anonymous Student Data
The following figures show oodles of anonymous social-validity data and a little performance data for
students at Western Michigan University. The first figure shows that most undergrad students rate
Principles of Behavior (PB) as very valuable, while most grad students rate it very valuable or valuable.
While the rating of the grad students is good, for most of them, this was not their first hit at behavior
analysis; so they may not be quite as blown away, as if it were their first time; I suspect that may be the
more crucial variable than that they were grad students, as later data will suggest. Also most undergrads
rate Brand X Principles of Behavior (a composite of more than one alternative to PB) as very valuable or
valuable, not nearly as impressive as PB, but not bad.

The following undergrad performance data are based on tests we give at the beginning and end
of the course. The first set of data is from a 50-question multiple-choice, non-conceptual test; and the
second set of data is from a 20-question multiple-choice, conceptual test where the students analyze
novel behavioral examples. My experience is that it’s hard to get an increase in performance in any
higher ed setting much better than we get on the general test, though it may be possible, though not easy
to improve performance on the conceptual test. Harder to do than our dogma might suggest, however.

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Why Is This Book So Weird?
Why donʼt we concentrate on the experimental analysis of behavior (EAB), as most
behavior-analytic textbooks do?
Because that’s a great way to kill the interest of all but the most neurotic of students, you know, the ones
with the glasses who sit in the front row and ask a lot of questions, you know students like you and I
were. At least that’s been my experience. Here’s what undergrads think of the emphasis Brand X puts on
EAB; about 34% like it or like it very much, but about 40% dislike it. And my experience is that much
negativity ain’t good.

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At least initially, most students have little interest in EAB and a lot of interest in applied
behavior analysis (ABA). Sometimes, I have been able to have my more serious students take my
principles course, illustrated with ABA and everyday life examples. And then they take a principles
course, illustrated with EAB examples. And that works well; having been turned on to behavior analysis
with applied examples, and having gotten a solid training in the principles and concepts of behavior
analysis, they are ready to do the more abstract work with experimental examples. Of course, if you
don’t have the luxury of such a two-course sequence, you can imagine what my recommendation is,
especially given that most students who make a career in behavior analysis will end up in ABA and not
EAB.
Furthermore, you don’t need to emphasize EAB to rigorously teach the principles and concepts
of behavior analysis, as I think PB demonstrates. In other words, we should not confuse EAB with
behavior analysis; we should not confuse the science that produced the principles and concepts with the
principles and concepts themselves.
Though this emphasis on ABA may be needed for undergrads, is it really needed for grad
students? Well, I’ve had a lot of experience using this book at the graduate level and find that
essentially all grad students appreciate it, including those whose primary interest is EAB. I started
teaching our graduate conditioning and learning course with this book, because too many applied grad
students had complained too vociferously that they couldn’t see the relevance when the course was
taught as an EAB course. And, as the next figure shows, grad students really like the case studies, just as
much as the undergrads do.
Furthermore, not only does everyone like the case studies, but most don’t want much more
emphasis on EAB, though my question with its options may have been a little misleading. However a
significant minority would like more EAB, but more would have to be at the expense of their beloved
case studies, because PB has maxed out in size. Maybe we can start adding some EAB material on
DickMalott.com; if you think it’s a good idea.

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By the way, six of the eight independent reviewers for PB6e said its breadth was one of its main
strengths, in spite of the lack of traditional emphasis on EAB (only semi-relevant here, but I had to put it
somewhere).
Is Principles of Behavior (PB) missing the mark by trying to appeal to both undergrad
and grad students?
The data suggest otherwise. Compared to other psych texts, PB is the champ for the undergrads, and a
serious contender for the grads.

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Note, that in my grad courses, I also use the optional Advanced Study Objectives and Advanced
Enrichments Sections (both available free on DickMalott.com); but I don’t think these more advanced
supplemental materials are crucial to the grad students positive evaluation of PB in comparison to other
psych texts, but I haven’t directly evaluated that.

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However, it may be relevant that we’ve built more flexibility into later editions to accommodate
different entering-skill levels. We’ve divided each chapter into two main sections. We call the second
section the Enrichment section. All the subsections that come before it we call the Fundamentals
section, the bare bones of the text. The student needs to master each Fundamentals section to understand
the Fundamentals sections of following chapters. However, the student needn’t master the Enrichment
sections to understand the later Fundamentals sections. Also, we’ve usually divided the Enrichment
section into three levels—Basic, Intermediate, and a few Advanced Enrichment sections. We’ve tried to
keep the Basic sections at the same level of difficulty as the Fundamentals sections. The Intermediate
and Advanced levels get progressively more difficult and esoteric; yet they assume no knowledge of
behavior analysis beyond this book. We’ve written the essential Fundamentals sections to appeal to both
the jaded graduate student and the eager freshman. And, we’ve written those Fundamentals sections so
all students can easily understand them. However, though we’ve made the Fundamentals simple, we’ve
not made them simplistic. And though we’ve made the Fundamentals clear, they are still conceptually
rigorous.
Incidentally, when Don Whaley and I wrote the first edition of this textbook (at that time titled
Elementary Principles of Behavior [EPB1e]), we intended it only for first-year, university-level
psychology courses. But an American Psychology Association committee pleasantly surprised us by
also recommending it for high school psychology courses. Then we found behavior analysts using it at
all levels, including graduate courses; in a variety of departments, from dentistry to social work to
special education; and from community colleges to universities to in-service training programs. So
we’ve tried to write subsequent editions with all of these audiences in mind.

The following social-validity data surprise even me in the positive impact grad students report
PB having on their appreciation of behavior analysis and their career goals, even though presumably

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most of them were committed to behavior analysis before reading the book; and it has considerable
impact on the undergrads as well.

As the previous two figures show, though Brand X, didn’t do quite as well as PB, it wasn’t too shabby;
however, as the next figure shows, it didn’t have nearly the positive impact that PB had on the students
career goals.

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But, in all three cases, the students saw the textbooks as relevant to their current interests.

Why isn't the first chapter the introductory chapter?
We omitted the traditional intro chapter because we find that general intro summaries of a discipline
make great logical sense to the professional but little pedagogical sense to the novice. By being broad,
summaries must be too general, too abstract, and too vague to alter effectively the repertoire of the
beginning reader or to act as a discriminative stimulus that will increase the likelihood the novice will
rush to the next chapter. We find it best to start right off with case studies that will effectively reinforce
reading the book. And no students have said they missed the intro chapter.
Then, why isn't the first chapter on research methods?
Because that’s a great way to kill the interest of all but the most neurotic of students, students like you
and I were. We introduce the issues of research methods in small units in the Intermediate Enrichment
sections throughout this book. And we do the same thing for philosophical concepts. We do so for two
reasons. First, we can introduce the issues in the context of the research to which they are crucial. But
more important, we can avoid combining all the methodology issues in one chapter too early in the
book—an approach most students find deadly. When you start with the research methods first, students
don’t know what the heck they’re researching and could care less about the methodology.
In short, we think a pedagogical sequence differs from a logical sequence. Often they even go in
opposite directions. So we recommend an analog to backward chaining. Start with what interests most
students—saving the world through behavior analysis. Spice it with small doses of methodology. Then
have them review the whole area once we’ve got them irrevocably committed to our cause!
Incidentally, we think much the same about the history of a discipline. Students appreciate it more at the
end of a course than at the beginning. At the beginning, they could not care less about where the
discipline came from, because they may not care all that much about the discipline itself. But if the

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course has succeeded in helping students appreciate our field, then they may become more interested in
its history. In this book, we integrate a small amount of history as we go along. We included ethical
issues in the intermediate enrichment sections throughout this book, as we’ve done with the research
methodology issues, for much the same reasons.
But, spreading research methodology in small chunks throughout the book may cause a problem if you
want your students to do research projects from the beginning of the semester and you feel they need to
know some basic design concepts. So to reduce this problem, at the back of this book we’ve also
provided Chapter 29, Research Methods. This will then give your students a more coherent view.
Furthermore, Chapter 29 is divided into three main sections, the last two being the ones most relevant to
actual research methods and the last two also being accessible after the students have read the first
couple chapters of PB. So you can assign the last two sections of Chapter 29 more or less anytime you
want.
Then why isn't the first chapter on respondent conditioning?
We don’t get to respondent conditioning until Chapter 21, for two reasons: first, respondent conditioning
is not fundamental to our treatment of operant behavior, so putting it early would break the cumulative
flow of the concepts and principles. Second, we think students need a good grounding in operant
procedures before they can discriminate between operant procedures and respondent procedures. It ain’t
easy. (Most grad students and some faculty members can’t discriminate between a conditioned eliciting
stimulus and a discriminative stimulus, a discrimination failure exacerbated by the common practice of
calling them both antecedent stimuli.) Introducing respondent conditioning before students have a firm
grounding in operant conditioning puts the students at great risk of erroneously classifying every
behavior they see as respondent when it’s probably operant. Students have an almost genetic tendency to
respondently, reflexively, immediately say respondent conditioning or reflexive whenever confronted
with a novel instance of operant behavior. This latent Pavlovianism might best be attenuated by the
students reading many chapters of operant analyses, before the Pavlovianism can be unleashed and
extinguished.
But instructors who think otherwise can assign the first nine sections of the respondent-
conditioning chapter right after Chapter 2 with as much ease as if the chapters were physically placed
early in the book. The ninth section of the respondent conditioning chapter should wait until after the
extinction chapter. And the Intermediate Enrichment Section should wait until after Chapter 13. One
size fits all.
Why do you use the first names of the authors in your references?
When we first introduce specific behavior analysts in this book, we normally do so formally, with their
last name and professional title. But then we usually move into an informal first-name style. We do this
for three reasons: We think this style makes for more pleasant reading about real people with real first
names. We think this style may suggest that professional behavior analysts are just regular human beings
and that being a professional behavior analyst is a reasonable goal to which the reader might aspire.
Finally, a first-name style correctly suggests that behavior analysts form a small, close-knit, warm, and
friendly family whose members know each other on a first-name basis. On the other hand, we don’t
intend to suggest presumptuous familiarity.
Why do you make fictional use of the published research?
We feature fictional heroes and heroines in this book. They are Max, Sid, Dawn, Juke, the students from
Sid’s seminar, and some of the clients. We use this fictional approach to increase the readability of the
text. Graduate students, as well as undergraduate students, like this approach.

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However, our heroes and heroines refer to the original research. We use their referencing to
illustrate that a good practitioner checks the published research before intervening. We also use
referencing and associated comments to help the reader appreciate the real people who did the real work.
(All the data and graphs we present are based on the actual data from the cited research.)
Why is your writing style so informal?
Years ago, I taught a section of intro psych for the honors college, using the second edition of
this book (now, my grad students teach that course). All of the intro students were also taking an honors
section of English lit. At the end of the semester, they did an anonymous ranking of this book and the
great classics they’d read in their English course. The students loved this book, which got the top rating
and completely trashed Shakespeare’s King Lear, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Charles Dickens Great
Expectations, and Thomas Hardy’s Tess du Uberville. This scientifically proves three things at the .05
level of significance:
1. I know a lot more about how to communicate with today’s college students than
Shakespeare et al.
2. English teachers don’t know diddlysquat about how to teach the appreciation of
great literature to those who don’t already have that appreciation.
3. And in spite of any misgivings you may have personally about its informal,
occasionally smart-aleck style, both your undergrad and grad students will love this book.
(Incidentally, when I was bragging about these results to my colleague Wayne Fuqua, he said,
“Yes, but did you compare your book to Silence of the Lambs (a movie-induced best seller of that
time)?” I still haven’t forgiven him for that ego-crushing question—actually, a pseudo question, as it
was really a disguised, tactless tact.)

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By the way, all eight independent reviewers of PB5e said the readability of this text is one of its
main strengths.
Why do you use footnotes rather than APA references?
Because readers aren’t going to flip to the back of the chapter to check them out, at the time
they’re relevant; and they don’t have to glance at the bottom of the page if they don’t want.
Why is the lay out of your text so busy, with so many different elements?
Because the students value those different elements, and so do I, and so might you.

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As another example, the unique form of contingency diagramming and its extensive use evolved
over a few years, until it has become a very effective tool to help students understand behavioral
contingencies from the simplest to the more complex, if not the most complex. It would seem like we
shouldn’t have to diagram the really simple contingencies like [The Rat Has No Water] [The Rat
Presses The Lever] [The Rat Has Water] in that really simple way, but it helps with even these most
basic examples and, of course, prepares the students for the more complex examples. And the students
agree. Furthermore, they seem to work better than the traditional SD  R  SR diagrams. I can’t say

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why it’s so important to diagram the fact that the rat has no water, but it really seems to help and, again,

not just with the complex contingencies.

And, though having the definitions boxed off was much more important for the undergrads than
the grads, most grads also appreciate the boxes.

And I sort of like it that the students are closer to lukewarm on the division of the definitions into
their bulleted components, because it may properly indicate to you that they aren’t rating PB so highly
just to make kindly, old Uncle Dickie feel good. Over the years, I’ve found students to be brutally,

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almost savagely honest in their anonymous evaluations and sometimes in their non-anonymous

evaluations when they’re unhappy with something.

Other Cool and Unique Details
The Fundamentals and Enrichment Sections
Here’s the audience to whom we’ve aimed each level: the Basic level—beginning students who will do
no further work in behavior analysis, and the Intermediate level—juniors, seniors, and others who will
be doing further work in behavior analysis. We assume anyone reading the Intermediate level also will
read the lower-level. The Advanced level is for true scholars. For access to other advanced enrichment
sections, visit DickMalott.com.
By the way, we find the enrichment sections work well, in allowing us to fine-tune the book for
different course levels. In the course syllabi, we tell our students which sections will and won’t be on
their quizzes.
In the Skinner Box
To illustrate many of the basic behavioral contingencies and procedures, we go to hypothetical examples
in the Skinner box. We find the simple life of the rat or pigeon in the Skinner box helps us understand
the complex life of the human being in the normal environment. We also visit the Skinner box to
emphasize the phylogenic continuity of the principles of behavior. But we put most of these Skinner-box
visits in the Enrichment sections, so teachers can omit it if they wish to play down that continuity.
(Incidentally, we’ve found phylogenic continuity of behavior doesn’t put off most students. Students are
amazingly open to new ideas. However, their professors in the humanities and social sciences aren’t
always so open!)
Simple Rigor
We’ve tried hard to make this book easy—readable, clear, interesting, and entertaining. But we’ve also
tried hard to make it rigorous. We have tried not to compromise rigor in the name of popularization or
simplification. Furthermore, we’ve tried to provide the basis for a solid conceptual mastery of the
principles of behavior. As part of this effort, we’ve included compare-and-contrast sections where we
help the student compare and contrast confusing concepts and to make important distinctions—for

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example, escape versus punishment, reinforcer versus reinforcement, time out versus response cost,
penalty versus extinction, and differential reinforcement versus reinforcement.
Flexibility
We’ve included a few sections on the structure of the book, for example “How to Use the Study
Questions” and “In Defense of Mickey Mouse Questions.” Most reviewers said they appreciated them.
That’s just one more thing they wouldn’t have to worry about telling their students. But some instructors
might not want to use them. And probably some instructors will not want to use all the material in all the
Enrichment sections. When we use the book, we vary the sections we assign depending on the level of
the course, Basic Enrichment for freshmen, plus Intermediate Enrichment for upper classmen, plus
Advanced Enrichment for grad students. One reviewer who doesn’t use PB thought this division into
sections would be awkward for the students; so I checked it out. (Incidentally, this question might have
been a little ambiguous for the grad students who may have confused the enrichment sections in PB with
the separate Advanced Enrichment Section booklet they use.)

By the way, my classes meet twice a week for 14 weeks and I usually assign one chapter
per meeting, though we have to hustle a little to cover the whole book. A few pages back, I indicated
how you might combine assignments to accommodate a 14-class semester and still cover the whole
book. I’m open to suggestions on this one, as well as everything else.
Rule-Governed Behavior
I asked a non-random sample of our colleagues what they thought were the most important issues to hit
our field in the 20 some years between EPB1e and EPB2e. Many pointed to the issues of rule-governed
behavior and the control of behavior by delayed outcomes. I agree. But some think these issues are
passing fads! And few seem to agree on the theoretical analysis of these issues. So I make a big deal out
of it, but at the end of the book. This postponing helps: The student can approach complex rule-
governed behavior, after mastering the basic concepts and principles. But this postponing also hinders:
While reading the first part of the book, students risk doing simplistic analyses of complex
contingencies, for example in organizational behavior management. I have tried to reduce this problem
of simplistic analysis by restricting the first part of the book mainly to research based on immediate

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reinforcement and punishment. In theory, the students can read those later chapters on rule-governed
behavior early in the course. But I’ve tried that, and that theory doesn’t work too well; the rule-governed
behavior chapters seem too difficult without reading the preceding chapters. So here’s how I cope:
When a student raises an example in which a delayed outcome seems to control behavior, I say, “Put it
on the back burner, until we get to the advanced chapters; then we’ll deal with it.” If we really get our
act together, as teachers, we might actually set up a back-burner section, where we store the students’
examples, until the burner is hot; but for me, that hasn’t happened yet.

Changes from PB 5e to PB 6e
The changes in this edition were largely based on feedback from reviewers, users, students, and
assessment of student performance in seminars and on quizzes, as part of our empirical, continuous
quality-improvement process. For this edition, our evaluation process revealed sections I needed to
revise or remove to improve clarity; and I tried to do so.
Those sections were:
o Chapter 1 and elsewhere: A Behavior Analysis of Sexuality. Almost all students and professors
greatly appreciate this material. But those who don’t really don’t. So I’ve moved all of this
material out of the paper version of PB6e and put it on DickMalott.com, with the title Chapter
26A. Sexuality.
o Chapter 1 and elsewhere: Reluctantly removed immediate from the definitions of reinforcer,
reinforcement, etc. so that the definitions wouldn’t conflict with the concepts of immediate
reinforcement and delayed reinforcement. I tried prompt, quickly, etc.; but they were too
awkward.
o Chapter 1 and other early chapters: Reluctantly added positive and negative to the chapter titles,
as in Chapter 2. Reinforcement (Positive Reinforcement) and Chapter 3. Escape (Negative
Reinforcement) and throughout the chapters. This was to accommodate those instructors who
feel that they are able to use the traditional positive and negative terminology more effectively
and without confusing their students. It was also done to facilitate the students’ interaction with

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that terminology in other contexts. I did this, even though Skinner himself, later regretted
introducing that confusing terminology.
o Chapter 2: Tried to clarify Circular Reasoning and the Error of Reification. Here’s hoping.
O Chapter 2: Reshaped our whole approach to objectivity and subjectivity, in a way I’m fairly
happy with, and moved this topic from the highly over-crowded Chapter 2 to the not-quite-so-
over-crowded Chapter 13, where we can treat this topic as examples of complex stimulus control
and relate subjectivity to intuitive stimulus control.
o Chapter 4: Added the following brief rant: Controversy: The myth of the ineffectiveness of
punishment.
o Chapter 6: Briefly introduced the distinction between extinction and satiation.
o Chapter 7: Briefly introduced response induction.
o Chapter 7: Clarified the distinction between response dimension and response class.
o Chapter 7: Clarified the distinction between response class defined in terms of effects on
behavior and in terms of function.
o Chapter 7: Moved Variable-time Stimulus Presentation to the Advanced Enrichment Section on
DickMalott.com. Important though this complex control procedure is, it was just too difficult to
get across to most undergrads, in spite of repeated revisions; so I’ll print it out as a supplement
when I use PB6e for my grad seminars.
o Chapter 7: Moved Differential Punishment vs. Differential Avoidance to Chapter 15. Avoidance;
so the students would be better prepared to deal with those subtleties.
o Chapter `8: Added examples to help students distinguish between fixed- and variable-outcome
shaping based on aversive control.
o Chapter 9: Updated the terminology from establishing operation as the generic concept to the
more current motivating variables as the generic concept to encompass both establishing and
abative operations, which also makes more intuitive sense to the students and makes it easier to
master this difficult concept. And in that context, I added a small section on the effects of
deprivation and satiation on penalty contingencies.
o Chapter 11: Added Learned Reinforcers and their Motivating Operations.
o Chapter 12: Attempted to clarify and then, in frustration, removed from the book the confusingly
subtle Prompts vs. Discriminative Stimuli section and moved it to the separate Advanced
Enrichment Section on DickMalott.com.
o Chapter 12: Added a humble, but morally nice, little section on parent blaming, which even
behavior analysts tend to do when the autistic child tantrums in the classroom.
o Chapter 12. Added Does a Learned Reinforcer Need to Be a Discriminative Stimulus?
o Chapter 13: A more expanded treatment of objective and subjective measures, with a mildly
novel analysis.
o Chapter 16. Moved the confusingly subtle Jimmy’s Head Banging section to the Advanced
Enrichment Section on DickMalott.com.
o Chapter 18. Moved Example of Limited Hold from Don Whaley’s Land Of Fantasy-- The Pit to
Advanced Enrichment Section on DickMalott.com. The only reason we introduced limited hold in
the first edition of this book was to correctly analyze Whaley’s example of a variable-interval
schedule, once we’d figured out that it was really a variable-interval schedule with a limited
hold. And though the students love the example, the limited hold analysis is more complex than
it might be worth, at least for undergrads.
o Chapter 18. Added a critique of the concept of response strength, illustrating its problems with
resistance to extinction and concurrent schedules.
o Chapter 20. Moved Differential Punishment of High Rates to the Advanced Enrichment Section
of DickMalott.com, because it’s too difficult and too esoteric for most undergrads.

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o Chapters 22 through 25. Further clarified the role of analogs to avoidance contingencies rather
than analogs to reinforcement in the maintenance of productive rule-governed behavior.
o Chapters 24 and 25. Replaced the analysis of rules as motivating (establishing) operations with
an analysis of rules as analogs to pairing procedures.
o Chapter 28. Reanalysis of the Modification of a Child’s Multiple Behavior Problems to make it
less mentalistic, and it wasn’t easy.
o DickMalott.com. Relevant links to DickMalott.com are at the end of each chapter.
o Oh yes, and this preface. Undoubtedly, it now sets the record for the world’s longest preface,
with the world’s most social validity data.
Though, as always, more could be done, I’m happy with the way PB 6 has evolved. Hope you will be
too.
DickMalott.com
You and your students can find a lot of free, relevant material in the Principles of Behavior section of
DickMalott.com, for online reading or downloading. (We do continuous quality improvement, so much
of this material is updated every semester.) For my classes, we provide printed versions and a CD in the
students’ course packs that they buy at the bookstore, along with the text; but sometimes, I just tell them
to go on line and check something out, either reading on line or downloading it, as they wish, and, of
course, that it will be on the next quiz .
You should feel free to modify any of these materials to suit your needs--cut and paste city, or
take it off the rack, as you wish.
Chapters 26A, 26B, and 30.
Because not all professors will have the time in their courses to cover these chapters, we’ve
moved them from the book itself to DickMalott.com in order to reduce the size of the book and thus the
cost to the student. However, our experience has been that, even when formatted for the Web, most
students print the chapters because they’d rather read a paper copy than a computer screen. So for my
courses, I print the chapters and have them reproduced to include in the students’ course packs, which
they buy at the bookstore. But, either way works well.
Flash Cards
The term is printed on one side of the card and the definition on the other. One card for each concept,
principle, and rule of thumb in the book. Ideal for memorizing the definitions so students can ace the
tests. Has a big impact on quiz scores. And students greatly appreciate them.

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Advanced Enrichment Sections
This booklet contains some Advanced Enrichment sections and Conceptual Question sections that will
challenge graduate students in behavior analysis but might not be appropriate for any but the most
masochistically inquisitive undergrads. (As I only use this with grad students, they are the only ones
who filled out this evaluation.)

Advanced Study Objectives
Heavy-duty stuff. Appropriate for grad students only. I give my grad students oral as well as written
quizzes over these objectives with much repeated review and practice over the most crucial and difficult

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ones, so they can fluently explain such confusing issues as why withholding shock from an escape
contingency is not a form of extinction and why the warning stimulus in an avoidance contingency is not
an SD. And I explain to them that once they’ve mastered to fluency these 60 some advanced study
objectives they’ll be conceptually hipper than the majority of PhD members of ABA. But, as you can

see, not all of my grad students treasure the advanced study objectives as much as I do.

Rat Lab Manual
A complete beginning rat-lab manual for use with a Skinner box (not provided). Appropriate for
use in a lab course or by the individual student, or teacher for that matter. The following is an evaluation
of the rat lab itself, more than our manual. And I think, as a motivator and clarifier, the rat lab is worth
the pain in the butt it is to set up and run.

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Paper-Based Programmed Instruction (Homework)
Reading and listening are wonderful, but best when supplemented with doing. So, for most of the
chapters, we have a set of conceptual homeworks the students complete and bring in for a show and tell
at each class. In the homeworks, the students identify examples and non-examples of the basic concepts,
explain them, and generate their own original examples, complete with contingency diagrams. The
classes are structured as seminars; and most of each class is devoted to the students explaining their
answers and giving their original examples for the other students to comment on.
While I use these homework assignments with both my undergrad and grad classes, they are
most useful for the undergrads; for the grads it might suffice to have them simply generate original
examples rather than go through the entire homeworks.
Again, as with all these materials, we print them out and put them in the students’ course packs,
though the students could download them themselves.

`

Computer-Based Programmed Instruction
Some behavior-analysis concepts are really difficult and lend themselves to programmed
instruction. So we’ve developed the following supplemental programs, and info on how to get a free
copy is on DickMalott.com:
Work Show Corresponding Chapter
1. Pink sheet part 1 1. Chapter 1
2. Pink sheet part 2 2. Chapter 1
3. Sick Social Cycle (Victim’s Escape Model) 3. Chapter 3
4. Sick Social Cycle (Victim’s Punishment Model) 4. Chapter 4
5. Shaping 5. Chapter 8
6. Stimulus Generalization Gradient 6. Chapter 13
7. Stimulus Equivalence 7. Chapter 13
8. Discrete-Trial Procedures vs. Free-Operant Procedures 8. Chapter 17
Incidentally, the authoring tool we use is the humble MS PowerPoint; and it works real well.
These programs were originally developed by Jason Otto, along with several other grad and undergrad
students in conjunction with his dissertation. And now, still other students are working on their
continuous quality improvement.

`

Definition Changes
I’ve done a fair amount of fine tuning on the definitions of behavioral terms, nothing dramatic,
but just enough to be a pain in the rear for past users of PB; so you can check out the changes on
DickMalott.com.
PB Social-Validity Questionnaire
If you’d like to see the latest version of our PB social validity questionnaire, you know where
you can find it. And if you want to download it and use it, wonderful. And, if you want to email me the
results, wonderfuler.
The PB Usersʼ Group on the Web
If you are a teacher using PB, drop an e-mail note to DickMalott@DickMalott.com; and I’ll put
you on the PB emailing list, a nice way to stay in touch. Also, if you send a file with your syllabus or
comments about how you use the web materials, such as supplementary readings or classroom topics,
I’ll put it on line for others to see.
Instructors Manual
To get our Instructor’s Manual with Tests, contact your local Prentice Hall representative.
Reviewers
o We owe much to the following reviewers for their helpful suggestions based on their reviews of
earlier editions of this textbook:
o Reviewers for PB6e: Brad Donohue, University of Nevada - Las Vegas; Michele Lease,
University of Georgia; Gerald Mertens, St. Cloud State University; Susan Smith Scott, North
Carolina State University; Kathryn Hoff, Illinois State University; Henry Schlinger, California
State University - Los Angeles and Northridge; Matthew Kirkhart, Loyola College in Maryland;
Michael Leftwich, Emporia State University; Tracy Thompson, Prairie View A&M University;
Joseph Montuori, Radford University; Rodney Clark, Allegheny College; Carol Smart,
University of Dubuque; Brian Simmons, CSU Monterey Bay.
o Reviewers for PB5e: Kent Johnson, Bram Goldwater, Scott Gaynor, Philip Hineline, and
Thomas Waltz.

`

o Reviewers for EPB4e: Centa David, Scott Gaynor, Bram Goldwater, Philip Hineline, and Dave
Sidener.
o Reviewers for EPB3e: Stanley H. Holgate, Gerald C. Mertens, David C. Palmer, and Randy Lee
Williams.
o Reviewers and commentors for EPB2e: Bill L. Hopkins, Kenneth E. Lloyd, Randy L. Williams,
Robert Hoff, Janet Ellis, Max Brill, Kenneth Wildman, Jay Alperson, Robert Newman, Don E.
Williams, Gerald C. Mertens, Thomas E. Billimek, Stephen Ledoux, Terry McSween, Fred R.
Malott, Edward K. Morris, James T. Todd, Susan Schreider, Bryan D. Midgley, Carol Pilgrim,
Janet Ellis, William Crowder, Loren Acker, Bram Goldwater, Joseph Parsons, Jack Michael, and
Stephen A. Graf.
Thank Yous
Thanks to Erin Carey and Rebecca O'Gorman for their help with the formatting of the manuscript for
PB6e and thanks to Rebecca for her preliminary copyediting and compilation of the data for this preface.
History of Principles of Behavior
In 1967, Roger Ulrich, Donald Whaley, and I received a contract from Appleton-Century-Crofts to write
a textbook on the experimental analysis of behavior to replace the classic Principles of Psychology by
Keller and Schoenfeld, which had gone out of print. Don and I ended up writing the book (Elementary
Principles of Behavior1e), but the focus shifted from experimental analysis, the orientation of the Keller
and Schoenfeld's book, to the principles of behavior, with applied, everyday, and laboratory examples.
Prentice Hall acquired Appleton-Century-Crofts and published EPB1e in 1971. The book was one of the
first textbooks in behavior analysis and especially one of the first textbooks to emphasize applied
behavior analysis, at a time when the field of applied behavior analysis was just coming into its own.
Therefore, it was a great success, selling an unheard of 20,000 copies during each of its first three years.
Prentice Hall repeatedly asked Don and me to write a second edition, as the sales very slowly fell. And we
repeatedly and sincerely agreed to do so. As a result of our procrastination, by 1986 the sales had dwindled to a
few hundred a year and the book was on its way to being history.
At that time, a friend and colleague at another university proposed to Prentice Hall that he write the second
edition. They said fine but check with Malott first. Well, I felt as if they had accused me of child neglect and were
going to take custody of my baby. So Maria Malott, who was just finishing her Ph.D., agreed to co-parent, I mean
coauthor, EPB2e. And Prentice Hall published it in 1992. Of course 21 years after EPB1e, the field had plenty of
excellent behavior-analytic textbooks, so EPB2e never approximated the stratospheric sales records of EPB1e;
but I believe authoring and coauthoring successive, improved and updated editions of EPB/PB remains one of the
most important contributions I can make.
I revised EPB3e by myself and then persuaded a graduate student, Beth Trojan, to coauthor EPB4e. She did
this as part of her PhD dissertation,3 perhaps producing the first dissertation ever to be based on the systematic,
empirical, scientific evaluation and revision of a textbook and at the same time producing perhaps the first
textbook ever to have been revised with such systematic, empirical, scientific rigor.
Beth has since changed her name to Suárez and put the letters PhD after it, but she remained the coauthor on
PB 5, which also formed part of her dissertation.
Oh, yes, the most conspicuous change in the fifth edition was the name change from Elementary Principles of
Behavior to Principles of Behavior (The Textbook Formerly Known as Elementary Principles of Behavior). Why
change a good thing? A colleague who was using the book as a graduate text thought his students would be
more comfortable carrying a textbook that didn’t have Elementary in its title, and though the book is basic, it has
always been far from elementary.
Authors, Past and Present
Donald L. Whaley
Don received his BA in psychology from Indiana University in 1961, his MA in 1963, and his PhD in clinical
psychology from Florida State University in 1966. He taught at Western Michigan University (WMU) until 1969
and at the University of North Texas from 1969 to 1983.
Maria E. Malott

`

Maria received her licenciatura in clinical psychology from Catholic University (Caracas, Venezuela) in 1980, her
MA in industrial psychology in 1984 and her PhD in applied behavior analysis from WMU in 1987. She is an
adjunct faculty member at WMU, the University of North Texas, the University of Nevada, Reno, the University of
Veracruz, and the Veracruz Pedagogical Institute. She is executive director of the Association for Behavior
Analysis and a consultant in organizational behavior analysis.
Elizabeth Trojan Suárez
Beth received her BA in psychology from Michigan State University in 1993 her MA in behavior analysis in 1998
and her Ph.D. in behavior analysis in 2001 from WMU. She has been progressing toward her full licensure as a
psychologist in the State of Michigan and working as a Mental Health Therapist at Riverwood Center. Beth's
th th 1
dissertation formed the basis for the 4 and 5 revisions of this box.
Richard W. Malott, Current Author
Dick (DickMalott@DickMalott.com) received his BA in psychology from Indiana University in 1958 and his PhD in
experimental psychology from Columbia University in 1963. He taught at Denison University from 1963 to 1966;
and since then, he has been teaching behavior analysis at Western Michigan University, where he works with
students interested in becoming practitioners, rather than researchers. He trains students to work with autistic
children and to apply behavior systems analysis and organizational behavior management to human-services
settings. He concentrates on training MA students but also trains PhD students. Every summer, he runs the
Behavioral Boot Camp, an intense 15-class-hour-per-week, eight-week, graduate-level, behavior-analysis seminar
for students from WMU and around the globe. Originally, he taught an intro behavior-analysis course to 1000
students per semester, who produced 1000 lever-pressing rats per year. Now, his students only condition 230 rats
per year, but they also do 130 self-management projects and provide 13,500 hours of training to autistic children
each year. Since 1980, he has been working on a textbook called Iʼll Stop Procrastinating when I Get around to It.
He has presented in 15 countries and has received two Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards. In 2002, he also
received ABAʼs Award for Public Service in Behavior Analysis. For more information, please see DickMalott.com.

Richard W. Malott
July 15, 2006

1
Suárez, E. T. (2001). A Behavioral Systems-Analysis Approach to Textbook Quality Improvement. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

`

Principles of Behavior: Preface

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Principles of Behavior: Preface