Studies in the History of Psychology: CVI. An Appreciation of Fred S. Keller, 1899–1996

Abstract

To casual acquaintances, Fred S. Keller may have been known chiefly for his excessive humility, his deadpan wit, his winning way with words, and his propensity for noting and reinforcing the best of the behavior of everyone with whom he came into contact. But to those familiar with the history of the experimental analysis of behavior he was also known as an innovative figure who introduced the use of nonverbal organisms as the laboratory material for the first course in psychology, as coauthor with W. N. Schoenfeld of the classic textbook in the analysis of behavior, as an academic progenitor of something like half of the first generation of behavior analysts, as the founder of scientific psychology in Brazil, and as the principal author of a teaching procedure known as the Personalized System of Instruction.