Is translation the problem? Some reactions to Critchfield (2011)

Abstract

The crux of Critchfield’s (2011)article is that there have not beenenough translational contributions,and as a result societal support forbasic research in behavior analysis iswaning. Critchfield suggests, there-fore, that to remain viable as aresearch enterprise, more attentionneeds to be paid to the translational(read ‘‘immediate practical’’) impli-cations of basic research in behavioranalysis. I hope that is the case, butthere are reasons to doubt that it is.As noted by Critchfield, most basicresearch in science in general does notlead to any obvious societal benefit(cf. Wade, 2010). That becomesclearer when one considers sciencesother than psychology. Consider asthree examples, astronomy, paleon-tology, and mathematics. The firsttwo are sciences that produce knowl-edge that most assume will almostnever have practical benefit. Mathe-matics has produced benefits for thesciences, but now modern mathemat-ics is centuries ahead of the othersciences in the techniques beingdeveloped, so certainly there is littlesoon-to-be-felt benefit. Society, nev-ertheless, continues to support re-search in those fields. Any account ofwhy basic research in behavior anal-ysis is not being supported has torest, therefore, at least to a significantextent, on considerations other thanthe fact that it is perceived as tooesoteric and disconnected from prac-tical concerns. Perhaps, however,because behavior is at the root ofmany, many of the world’s problems,the public may be more demandingof practical outcomes of researchaimed at understanding it.A first point of possible disagree-ment with Critchfield is the degree towhich research in the tradition of theexperimental analysis of behavior(EAB) has yielded translational ben-efit. Critchfield argues not much; I, incontrast, would argue a heck of a lot,a view I base on a longer historicalperspective. In fact, I would wagerthat no other area of psychology hasproduced as much translational ben-efit as has EAB. For example, I lookat more than 40 years of publicationsin the Journal of Applied BehaviorAnalysis (JABA)(nottomentionavery large number of publications inmyriad other outlets) as being essen-tially all translation of EAB. It isuseful to remember that JABA wascreated by the Society for the Exper-imental Analysis of Behavior precise-ly to help illustrate the translationalpotential of research in EAB. Theresulting body of research publishedin JABA not only has illustratedtranslation that is of high societalvalue in clinical and other practicalrealms, but it also has revealed thebroad generality (e.g., the wide arrayof events that can serve effectively asreinforcement) of concepts based ona limited number of exemplars(mainly food or water presentation)in the basic research literature. Thus,I see no lack of translation ofresearch from basic research labora-tories to nonlaboratory environ-ments.If lack of translation is not aproblem, then what is the problem?