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The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) is the only journal focused on theoretical and empirical research in verbal behavior. An assessment of authorship trends can provide a critical perspective on practices in verbal behavior analysis (e.g., participation by non-US institutions, contributions by female authors). The present study examines authorship trends in all articles published in TAVB since its inception (between 1982 and 2016). All authors and their affiliations were listed and the first authors denoted as such. Authors were characterized as follows: prolificacy, new vs. frequent contributor status, number of co-authors, editor status, fellow status in a professional organization, and gender. Institutional affiliations were characterized as follows: academic vs. nonacademic institutions, prolificacy, and location (country). The review included 383 articles by 487 authors from 200 institutions. Our findings revealed areas in which TAVB is reaching maturity (e.g., author gender) and areas in which further action by contributors and editors is needed (e.g., international participation).

The form of a verbal response allows for reinforcement mediation and language transmission across cultures. Reinforcement, in turn, plays a decisive role in learning verbal forms. The present work addresses methodological limitations of previous studies, providing further evidence of the role of automatic reinforcement in achieving parity with vocal models. In the first experiment, 4 preschool-age children heard the experimenter describe drawings of different actions in the passive voice. Participants were then asked to describe analogous drawings. They used the passive voice after the model was presented and continued to do so even when preferred explicit consequences followed diverging descriptions (i.e., in the active voice). To further investigate the effects of explicit reinforcement and of the passive-voice model, in Experiment 2, we altered the number of trials with explicit reinforcement and with the model. Three of four participants used the passive voice to describe the drawings, despite greater exposure to explicit consequences following descriptions diverging from the model.

Recent studies have stressed the importance of disseminating behavior analysis to a more diverse audience and have provided ways to do so effectively. General science publications offer an attractive venue for communicating with a scientifically educated public. The present study examines behavior analysis research published in Science Today and Research Fapesp, monthly general science publications published by the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science and Sao Paulo Research Foundation, respectively. Behavior analytic terms were searched in issues published from 2003 to 2014, along with psychoanalytic terms as a comparative measure. Only 13 behavior analysis articles were found, while psychoanalytic articles totaled 150. Six of the behavior analysis articles misconstrue fundamental concepts of behavior analysis. The study recommends that behavior analysis researchers extend the dissemination of their findings outside the box.