Mark P. Alavosius

Gamification: The Intersection between Behavior Analysis and Game Design Technologies

Deterding et al. (Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, USA 15: 9–15, 2011) report a recent rise in popularity of video game inspired software designed to address issues in a variety of areas, including health, energy conservation, education, and business. These applications have been based on the concept of gamification, which involves a process by which nongame activities are designed to be more like a game. We provide examples of how gamification has been used to increase health-related behavior, energy consumption, academic performance, and other socially-significant behavior. We argue that behavior analytic research and practice stands to benefit from incorporating successful elements of game design. Lastly, we provide suggestions for behavior analysts regarding applied and basic research related to gamification.

Functions of Organizational Leaders in Cultural Change: Financial and Social Well-Being

Social responsibility looms as a key feature of leadership decision making and citizenship behavior as the world’s resources are depleted, health and education crises increase, and communities, societies, and cultures adapt to a new context shaped by emerging technologies, political upheavals, global warming, and other drivers of behavior change. In this article we call for future work in behavior analysis, emphasizing the importance of organizational leaders’ decision-making behaviors in establishing organizational practices that support prosocial behavior and eliminate aversive conditions within cultural systems. The discussion expands on recent behavior analytic literature on cultural change and leadership behavior by first providing a summary of popular definitions of human well-being and relating this concept to prosocial behavior. By drawing upon these definitions, we then summarize the behavior analytic concepts of metacontingencies and macrocontingencies as a framework from which behavior analysts can continue work to promote prosocial behavior and human well-being writ large.

Use of a Cooperative to Interlock Contingencies and Balance the Commonwealth

Cooperatives are systems organized along key principles to balance the distribution of wealth across organizational members. The cooperative movement has an extensive history and has contributed to the design and operation of a large variety of endeavors that seek to maximize returns to a maximum number of stakeholders. While cooperatives are ubiquitous in commerce and community organizations, the designs of the contingencies that define a cooperative have rarely been subject to behavioral analyses. We report a large-scale examination of a safety incentive program enabled by cooperatives of small businesses that applied some of their financial resources to an incentive system organized to sustain active safety management within co-op members. The evaluation indicated that the frequency, severity, and cost of work-related injuries were reduced when safety incentives were applied. High return on investment indicates that the program was cost effective. User satisfaction with the procedures was also high, and the program became an enduring feature of the operation of the safety cooperatives.

“Beyond the Skinner Box”: Expanding Behavior Systems Analyses

W. B. Abernathy’s “Beyond the Skinner Box: The Design and Management of Organization-Wide Performance Systems” is a welcome example of sustained, systemic behavior management across many organizations and provides a rare description of the logic and logistics involved in designing large-scale initiatives. A common observation about behavior analysis is that researchers take a methodology (i.e., single-subject, molecular analyses) that is absolutely right for identifying and articulating basic processes and tend to dogmatically adhere it in their approach to applied problems. We applaud Abernathy’s recognition that the aims of the basic researcher are distinct from those of the practitioner and that applying the principles derived from laboratory research does not entail preserving all of those methods.

The Nurture Effect: A Book Review

Reading local, national, and international news may lead to a pervasive sense that we humans are masters at undermining our collective well-being across the globe and inept at organizing our way out of the turmoil stressing so much of humanity. Wars, climate change, terrorism, economic inequality, social injustice, poverty, ineffective education, and more inhumane activities harmful to others suggest that despite how much we know about human behavior, the problems humanity faces overwhelm attempts at solutions. Government leaders spend more time opposing alternatives to their views than seeking pragmatic solutions, and stalled governments squander resources, time, and goodwill. The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World by Anthony Biglan is a masterful counter-argument to the pessimism that can plague us as we consume breaking news accounts across the planet of yet more mayhem, hostility, and human suffering. This book offers a coherent account of behavior science and what it offers humanity spanning from behavior analysis at the level of individual behavior out to cultural practices affecting populations. It is a book that educated readers not trained in behavior science can appreciate, as it conveys behavior science in a blend of personal anecdotes and readable descriptions of research and applications. Studies and demonstration projects are referenced to the literature so that those interested in the details can delve deeper. Readers will understand that scientific advances, especially over the past 50 years, provide parents, teachers, managers, policymakers, and others who are agents of behavior change with evidence-based solutions that can

Leadership and Crew Resource Management in High-Reliability Organizations: A Competency Framework for Measuring Behaviors

ABSTRACT High-reliability organizations (HROs) have emerged across a number of highly technical, and increasingly automated industries (e.g., aviation, medicine, nuclear power, and oil field services). HROs incorporate complex systems with a large number of employees working in dynamic, and potentially dangerous environments. Effectively managing contingencies in HROs, to simultaneously promote safe and efficient behaviors is a daunting task. Crew Resource Management (CRM) has emerged in HROs as a highly effective approach to training and sustaining essential skills within work teams operating across a large workforce. CRM provides a competency framework that enables adherence to standard work instructions while, at the same time, encourages adaptive variance in responding to effectively manage current environmental circumstances that depart from normal routines. This paper considers the development of CRM across several high-reliability industries, develops a behavior analytic account of CRM behaviors, and describes an approach to measuring behaviors within simulated and actual work environments.