JEAB Tables of Contents

The Founding of JABA

Founding of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA)

The question of a home for applications research was first raised within the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior in 1959, nine years before JABA appeared. In October, 1959, just 18 months after the first issue of JEAB, Murray Sidman suggested to Charles Ferster, JEAB's first editor, that he publish this notice:

With this issue, J.E.A.B. inaugurates a new section, 'Applications of Behavioral Principles and Technology.' We have been receiving an increasing number of papers, some experimental, some clinical, some combinations of both, which do not add new information or systematization but which demonstrate or investigate new applications of existing knowledge and techniques. We feel that such papers represent a healthy trend. They constitute a sign that our science is something more than a laboratory exercise. More importantly, they provide a source of validation for laboratory-derived principles and techniques. Publication of such papers represents a logical outgrowth of one of our chief editorial criteria - actual or potential interest on the part of our readers.
Examples of the kind of work that is likely to fall within this category:

Much of Lindsley's work with psychotics.
Goldiamond's work on stuttering.
Ferster's work with autistic children.
Ayllon's work on the establishment of self- feeding behavior in psychotic patients.
Long's work with children.
Sidman's work on aphasia.

Nothing apparently came of the idea. No such notice appeared in JEAB, although occasional papers on applied topics were published. Of course, a basic sympathy towards applications was not surprising; the first three editors of JEAB - Ferster, Boren, and Azrin - were subsequently to spend a good part of their careers in the applied area. The actual founding of a second journal was first discussed by the SEAB Board of Directors on April 6, 1967. Here is how Kay Dinsmoor, who served as Assistant Secretary-Treasurer of SEAB as well as JEAB's Business Manager, recorded the event in the minutes:

A discussion of the need for a journal with high scientific standards for publication of applications to behavior modification was initiated by B. F. Skinner. After discussion of the advantages of the Society's sponsoring such a publication and of using the established publication mechanism of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.
Upon motion duly made seconded and carried, it was RESOLVED that N. H. Azrin investigate the possibility of initiating such a publication under the auspices of the Society, and that he report on his findings at a September 1967 meeting of the Board of Directors.

Azrin, who had finished his three-year term as JEAB's editor in 1965, conducted a telephone survey of about a dozen likely contributors of hard-data articles and found that there were as least 23 manuscripts that would be promised to the new journal if it were started. He also met with a lot of enthusiasm for a new journal, with the potential contributors all promising to consider it their first choice as an outlet for their work.

The APA meeting that year was in Washington. On September 3, 1967, at the Division 25 Hospitality Suite in the Shoreham Hotel, the Board met again. Present and constituting a quorum were Chairman of the Board and Editor of JEAB, A. Charles Catania, and Directors Azrin, Boren, Dews, Ferster, Holz, Laties, Pliskoff, Sidman, Skinner, Verhave, and Weiss. After discussion of a wide variety of other topics - of reprinting the back volumes in paperback format, of back issues sales, of subscription figures, of the policy on reviews and theoretical papers, of the length of time a student should be allowed to purchase JEAB at the heavily discounted student rate, and of some invited book reviews - the meeting finally turned to the question of a second journal. After some discussion, a motion establishing the new journal was adopted, simply stating that the second journal would publish "applied behavioral studies." Further discussion led to the establishment of a committee charged with the task of nominating the new Editor and then acting in an advisory capacity to him during his three year term. The three former editors of JEAB - Ferster, Boren and Azrin - comprised the committee. The meeting adjourned for 20 minutes while they met in one corner of the room. The Board then reconvened and, acting upon the recommendation of the committee, unanimously elected Montrose M. Wolf of the University of Kansas as Editor of the new journal. Wolf soon chose the members of JABA's first Board of Editors, which included the three men who, in turn, succeeded Wolf as Editor: Baer, Risley, and Agras.

The first issue of JABA was published just in time for 1,000 copies to be distributed free at the Spring, 1968 meeting of EPA in Washington, DC. The new venture's financial success was assured when most of JEAB's subscribers signed up for the second journal and a strong demand for JABA quickly developed in completely new audiences. JABA finished 1968 with 4,271 paid subscribers; at that time, JEAB had only 3,005. It had obviously been a timely move to start the applied journal.

Adapted from Laties (1987). For more details, consult that article plus reminiscences by many of JABA's editors (especially Wolf, 1993). These papers are listed in: References on the history of JEAB and JABA. Many of these papers appeared in a special section of the November, 1987 issue of JEAB, "Anniversaries in Behavior Analysis" (Volume 48, pp. 439-514), and in a section of the Winter, 1993 issue of JABA, "Celebrating JABA's 25th Anniversary" (Volume 26, pp. 513-630).