Behavioral Science | The University of Chicago Booth …

Behavioral science focuses on how people use information and make decisions and how they interact with one another in dyads, groups, and organizations. Studies in this area draw on theory and research from cognitive and social psychology, economics, and other related fields.

Behavioral science applies these disciplines to the study of human behavior relevant to a range of different managerial contexts. Examples include:

Students may design their research based on their intellectual interests in business and other areas, as well as on their career intentions. Behavioral science students take courses in other departments such as psychology, sociology, public policy, and economics, depending on what is most relevant to their research.

The Behavioral Science program also offers theJoint Program in Psychology and Business,which is run jointly by the behavioral science dissertation area at Chicago Booth and theDepartment of Psychology in the Division of theSocial Sciences at the University of Chicago.

For more details about the PhD Program in behavioral science at Chicago Booth, see General Examination Requirements - By Area in the PhD Program Guidebook (PDF).

To learn more about the research being done by current PhD students, please view alisting of proposals and defenses across dissertation areas.

Meet the Faculty Explore research interests, publications, and course offerings of Behavioral Science Dissertation Area faculty.

Christopher Bryan Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: Psychological influence, behavioral decision-making, and political psychology with a particular interest in psychology as it relates to social and public policy Faculty Profile

Eugene Caruso Associate Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: Social judgment, group decision making and negotiation, egocentrism, perspective taking, and ethics Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Nicholas Epley John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: The experimental study of social cognition, perspective-taking, and intuitive human judgment Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Ayelet Fishbach Jeffrey Breakenridge Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing

Research Interests: Social psychology, with specific emphasis on motivation, emotion, and decision making Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Reid Hastie Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: Judgment and decision making (managerial, legal, medical, engineering, and personal), memory and cognition, and social psychology Faculty Profile

Christopher Hsee Theodore O. Yntema Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing

Research Interests: The interplay among psychology and economics, happiness, marketing, and cross-cultural psychology Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Ann McGill Sears Roebuck Professor of General Management, Marketing, and Behavioral Science

Research Interests: Consumer and manager decision making, with special emphasis on causal explanations, differences in judgments in public and private, and the use of imagery in product choice Faculty Profile

Ed O'Brien Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: Social cognition and hedonic processes Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Devin Pope Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science and Robert King Steel Faculty Fellow

Research Interests: Behavioral economics, with special interest in empirically testing the impact of psychological biases in economic markets Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Jane Risen Associate Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: Judgment and decision making, belief formation, magical thinking, stereotyping and prejudice, and managing emotion Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Anuj Shah Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow

Research Interests: How decision makers deal with limited resources Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Thomas Talhelm Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: How culture affects the way we behave Faculty Profile

Richard Thaler Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science Economics Faculty Director, Center for Decision Research

Research Interests: Behavioral economics and finance; the psychology of decision making Faculty Profile | Personal Website

Bernd Wittenbrink Robert S. Hamada Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: Experimental social psychology, specifically the influence of stereotypes on social judgments Faculty Profile | Personal Website

George Wu John P. and Lillian A. Gould Professor of Behavioral Science

Research Interests: The psychology of individual, managerial, and organizational decision making; decision analysis; and cognitive biases in bargaining and negotiation Faculty Profile | Personal Website

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Behavioral Science | The University of Chicago Booth ...

The B. F. Skinner Foundation Behavioral Science

Book Publication

The B. F. Skinner Foundation began as a publisher of behavioral books, mostly those written by Skinner. Recently we have begun to convert Skinner Books into eBook format that can be read on cell phones, tablets, Nooks, Kindles, and, of course, on computer screens. The Foundation is also exploring support for reprinting Skinners three volume autobiography with additional photos, notes, and (in an electronic version) video or audio clips. In 2013, the Foundation submitted a grant to the National Endowment for the Humanities to support that work.

As the population ages, many archival materials run the risk of being inadvertently discarded. Those in personal possessions may degrade from lack of proper storage. The Foundation is a recipient of many historical materials. We have a good relationship with the Harvard University Film Archives. Harvard stores the originals of films, videotapes, and other moving footage formats in the proper temperature and humidity. Professionals and students can access the footage, and the Foundation can borrow the originals to make professional quality Digi-beta copies when requested by television producers. An mp4 copy of each item is available at the Foundation office. A comprehensive data-base is under construction to help locate specific topics discussed and shown.

Each quarter, the Foundation sends its newsletter, Operants, to subscribers. This publication provides information on current work, interviews of professionals in the United States and elsewhere, analyses of important articles and topics, and a brief description of Foundation activities. It is written in an informal journalistic style to be as interesting, as possible. There is no cost to receive Operants.

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The B. F. Skinner Foundation Behavioral Science

Behavior Analyst Certification Board

ABOUT THE BACB

The Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Inc. (BACB) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation established in 1998 to meet professional credentialing needs identified by behavior analysts, governments, and consumers of behavior analysis services. The BACB adheres to international standards for boards that grant professional credentials. The BACBs certification procedures and content undergo regular psychometric review and validation pursuant to a job analysis survey of the profession and standards established by content experts in the discipline. The Behavior Analyst Certification Board's BCBA and BCaBA credentialing programs are accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies in Washington, DC. NCCA is the accreditation body...

The National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), which accredits the BACBs certification programs, requires key standards to be reviewed periodically for possible revision. At its annual meeting in 2013, the BACBs Board of Directors authorized further review and potential modification of a number of standards. In July 2014, a 10-person...

At its recent annual meeting, the BACBs Board of Directors voted to eliminate annual renewal requirements for the BCBA (including BCBA-D) and BCaBA credentials. This change is primarily being made to streamline credential maintenance and will go into effect at each certificants first certification cycle that begins on or after...

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Behavior Analyst Certification Board

Applied behavior analysis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is defined as the process of systematically applying interventions based upon the principles of learning theory to improve socially significant behaviors to a meaningful degree, and to demonstrate that the interventions employed are responsible for the improvement in behavior.[1] Despite much confusion throughout the mental health community, ABA was previously called behavior modification but it revised as the earlier approach involved superimposing consequences to change behavior without determining the behavior-environment interactions first. Moreover, the current approach also seeks to emit replacement behaviors which serve the same function as the aberrant behaviors.[2][3][4] By functionally assessing the relationship between a targeted behavior and the environment as well as identifying antecedents and consequences, the methods of ABA can be used to change that behavior.[3]

Methods in applied behavior analysis range from validated intensive behavioral interventionsmost notably utilized for children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)[5]to basic research which investigates the rules by which humans adapt and maintain behavior. However, ABA contributes to a full range of areas including: HIV prevention,[6] conservation of natural resources,[7] education,[8]gerontology,[9]health and exercise,[10]organizational behavior management (i.e., industrial safety),[11]language acquisition,[12] littering,[13]medical procedures,[14] parenting,[15]psychotherapy, seatbelt use,[16]severe mental disorders,[17] sports,[18]substance abuse, and zoo management and care of animals.[19]

ABA is defined as an applied natural science devoted to developing and analyzing procedures that produce effective and beneficial changes in behavior.[1] It is one of the three fields of behavior analysis. The other two are radical behaviorism, or the philosophy of the science; and experimental analysis of behavior, or basic experimental research.[5] ABA is also based on operant and respondent conditioning and social learning theory. While radical behaviorism forms the conceptual piece for behavior analysis and acknowledges the presence of cognition and emotions, methodological behaviorism only recognized observable behaviors; the latter was the basis behind behavior modification throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Contrary to popular belief, behavior analysts emphasize that the science of behavior must be a natural science as opposed to a social science.[20] As such, behavior analysts focus on the observable relationship of behavior to the environment, including antecedents and consequences, without resort to "hypothetical constructs".[21]

Although deriving from a similar philosophy, behavior modification only changed behavior by superimposing consequential procedures; instead, ABA seeks to understand environmental contingencies.[2][3] More specifically, it analyzes the function of behavior, such as what prompts that behavior (the antecedent) as well as promoting replacement behaviors and consequential strategies.[4] Typically, ABA is based on data collection and assessments to accurately examine a behavior's function and to discover the procedures that will produce measurable behavioral changes.

Much of the beginnings of ABA can be traced to a group of faculty and researchers at the University of Washington including Don Baer, Sidney Bijou, Bill Hopkins, Jay Birnbrauer, Ivar Lovaas, Todd Risley, James Sherman, and Montrose Wolf.[22] In the 1960s, Baer, Hopkins, Risley, Sherman, and Wolf became faculty in the Department of Human Development and Family Life at the University of Kansas.[23] They and their colleagues began a concentrated effort at developing and perfecting the application of behavior analysis to address a wide variety of human problems. They also founded the Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis in 1968 which publishes research examining the application of behavior analysis to socially relevant behavior.

ABA is a science used in a wide range of fields to change behavior with various subtypes, such as organizational behavior management, positive behavior support,[24][25][26] and clinical behavior analysis (including contingency management, acceptance and commitment therapy, and habit reversal training). Most of the time people use the subtype term early intensive behavioral intervention (including discrete trial teaching), a treatment procedure used for young children with autism, interchangeably with ABA. However, the latter is a distinct psychological science.[5]

Ole Ivar Lvaas is considered a grandfather of ABA and developed standardized teaching interventions based on those behavioral principals. Lovaas devoted nearly a half a century to groundbreaking research and practice aimed at improving the lives of children with autism and their families. In 1965, Lovaas published a series of articles that therapeutic approaches to autism. The first two articles presented his system for coding behaviors during direct observations and a pioneering investigation of superimposed antecedents and consequences that maintained a problem behavior.[27] The subsequent articles built upon these methods and reported the first demonstration of an effective way to teach nonverbal children to speak, a study on establishing social (secondary) reinforcers, a procedure for teaching children to imitate, and several studies on interventions to reduce life-threatening self-injury and aggression.

Lovaas was cited in his early career to use low dosages of electroshock therapy to children with extreme self injurious behavior.[27] In 1973, Lovaas published a long-term follow-up for the behavior modification intervention and was dismayed to find that most of the subjects had reverted to their pre-intervention behaviors. After these findings, Lovaas and his colleagues proposed several ways to improve outcomes such as starting intervention during the children's preschool years instead of later in childhood or adolescence, involving parents in the intervention, and implementing the intervention in the family's home rather than an institutional setting. Subsequent articles like the 1987 "Behavioral Treatment and Normal Educational and Intellectual Functioning in Young Autistic Children" reinforce this proposal of early and intensive interventionwithout the use of aversives (such as electric shocks)paired with continual therapy yields the most effective results for children with autism.[27] Lovaas highly believed that the support and involvement in parents applying therapy at home contributed to a higher success rate. Lovaas dedicated his life to the study of autism and was a strong advocate for people with autism even co-founding what is today the Autism Society of America.[27]

Baer, Wolf, and Risley's 1968 article[28] is still used as the standard description of ABA.[29] It describes the seven dimensions of ABA: application; a focus on behavior; the use of analysis; and its technological, conceptually systematic, effective, and general approach.

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Applied behavior analysis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction

For much of the past century, scientists studying drug abuse labored in the shadows of powerful myths and misconceptions about the nature of addiction. When scientists began to study addictive behavior in the 1930s, people addicted to drugs were thought to be morally flawed and lacking in willpower. Those views shaped societys responses to drug abuse, treating it as a moral failing rather than a health problem, which led to an emphasis on punishment rather than prevention and treatment. Today, thanks to science, our views and our responses to addiction and other substance use disorders have changed dramatically. Groundbreaking discoveries about the brain have revolutionized our understanding of compulsive drug use, enabling us to respond effectively to the problem.

As a result of scientific research, we know that addiction is a disease that affects both the brain and behavior. We have identified many of the biological and environmental factors and are beginning to search for the genetic variations that contribute to the development and progression of the disease. Scientists use this knowledge to develop effective prevention and treatment approaches that reduce the toll drug abuse takes on individuals, families, and communities.

Despite these advances, many people today do not understand why people become addicted to drugs or how drugs change the brain to foster compulsive drug use. This booklet aims to fill that knowledge gap by providing scientific information about the disease of drug addiction, including the many harmful consequences of drug abuse and the basic approaches that have been developed to prevent and treat substance use disorders. At the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), we believe that increased understanding of the basics of addiction will empower people to make informed choices in their own lives, adopt science-based policies and programs that reduce drug abuse and addiction in their communities, and support scientific research that improves the Nations well-being.

Nora D. Volkow, M.D. Director National Institute on Drug Abuse

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Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction

Academics | Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins enrolls more than 21,000 full-time and part-time students throughout nine academic divisions. Our faculty and students study, teach, and learn across more than 240 programs in the arts and music, the humanities, the social and natural sciences, engineering, international studies, education, business, and the health professions. No matter what their field of study, our students are active and engaged learners, fully immersed in the process of discovery.

Use ourinteractive program explorerto see what we offer. Sort by division and/or degree type, or use the keyword search to get started.

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For a more interactive experience, please upgrade your browser.

Master's Certificate

This area of academic emphasis addresses the needs of principals and other administrators, as well as those aspiring to move into effective leadership positions as department...

The discipline of media studies has emerged from the cultural studies, critical theory, and philological disciplines dedicated to historical, cultural, and linguistic...

Master's Doctoral

The African Studies Program offers an extensive curriculum covering development, governance and security across the continent. We draw on leading theories of international...

Bachelor's Major Minor

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Academics | Johns Hopkins University

Behaviorism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

One has to be careful with "ism" words. They often have both loose meanings and strict meanings. And sometimes multiple meanings of each type. Behaviorism is one of those "isms". Loosely speaking, behaviorism is an attitude -- a way of conceiving of empirical constraints on psychological state attribution. Strictly speaking, behaviorism is a doctrine -- a way of doing psychological science itself.

Wilfred Sellars (191289), the distinguished philosopher, noted that a person may qualify as a behaviorist, loosely or attitudinally speaking, if they insist on confirming hypotheses about psychological events in terms of behavioral criteria (1963, p. 22). A behaviorist, so understood, is someone who demands behavioral evidence for any psychological hypothesis. For such a person, there is no knowable difference between two states of mind (beliefs, desires, etc.) unless there is a demonstrable difference in the behavior associated with each state. Consider the current belief that is is raining. If there is no difference in my behavior between believing that it is raining and currently thinking that the sun is bright, there is no grounds for attributing the one belief to me rather than the other. The attribution is empirically unconstrained.

Arguably, there is nothing truly exciting about behaviorism loosely understood. It enthrones behavioral evidence, an arguably inescapable premise in not just psychological science but in ordinary discourse about mind and behavior. Just how behavioral evidence should be 'enthroned' (especially in science) may be debated. But enthronement itself is not in question.

Not so behaviorism the doctrine. It has been widely and vigorously debated. This entry is about the doctrine, not the attitude. Behaviorism, the doctrine, has caused considerable excitation among both advocates and critics. In a manner of speaking, it is a doctrine, or family of doctrines, about how to enthrone behavior not just in the science of psychology but in the metaphysics of human and animal behavior.

Behaviorism, the doctrine, is committed in its fullest and most complete sense to the truth of the following three sets of claims.

The three sets of claims are logically distinct. Moreover, taken independently, each helps to form a type of behaviorism. Methodological behaviorism is committed to the truth of (1). Psychological behaviorism is committed to the truth of (2). Analytical behaviorism (also known as philosophical or logical behaviorism) is committed to the truth of the sub-statement in (3) that mental terms or concepts can and should be translated into behavioral concepts.

Other nomenclature is sometimes used to classify behaviorisms. Georges Rey (1997, p. 96), for example, classifies behaviorisms as methodological, analytical, and radical, where radical is Rey's term for what I am classifying as psychological behaviorism. I reserve the term radical for the psychological behaviorism of B. F. Skinner. Skinner employs the expression radical behaviorism to describe his brand of behaviorism or his philosophy of behaviorism (see Skinner 1974, p. 18). In the classification scheme used in this entry, radical behaviorism is a sub-type of psychological behaviorism, primarily, although it combines all three types of behaviorism (methodological, analytical, and psychological).

Methodological behaviorism is a normative theory about the scientific conduct of psychology. It claims that psychology should concern itself with the behavior of organisms (human and nonhuman animals). Psychology should not concern itself with mental states or events or with constructing internal information processing accounts of behavior. According to methodological behaviorism, reference to mental states, such as an animal's beliefs or desires, adds nothing to what psychology can and should understand about the sources of behavior. Mental states are private entities which, given the necessary publicity of science, do not form proper objects of empirical study. Methodological behaviorism is a dominant theme in the writings of John Watson (18781958).

Psychological behaviorism is a research program within psychology. It purports to explain human and animal behavior in terms of external physical stimuli, responses, learning histories, and (for certain types of behavior) reinforcements. Psychological behaviorism is present in the work of Ivan Pavlov (18491936), Edward Thorndike (18741949), as well as Watson. Its fullest and most influential expression is B. F. Skinner's work on schedules of reinforcement.

To illustrate, consider a food-deprived rat in an experimental chamber. If a particular movement, such as pressing a lever when a light is on, is followed by the presentation of food, then the likelihood of the rat's pressing the lever when hungry, again, and the light is on, is increased. Such presentations are reinforcements, such lights are (discriminative) stimuli, such lever pressings are responses, and such trials or associations are learning histories.

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Behaviorism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news

Dam Removal Study Reveals River Resiliency

Apr. 30, 2015 More than 1,000 dams have been removed across the United States because of safety concerns, sediment buildup, inefficiency or having otherwise outlived usefulness. A paper finds that rivers are resilient and respond relatively quickly after a dam is ...

Apr. 30, 2015 Fishery improvement projects -- programs designed to fast-track access to the world seafood market in exchange for promises to upgrade sustainable practices -- need to first make good on those sustainability pledges before retailers and fisheries actually do business, researchers recommend. The findings are particularly important as major ...

Apr. 30, 2015 Within the past week, Thailand officials seized seven tons of ivory, representing the slaughter of hundreds of African elephants for illegal trade. While recent reports say that poaching far exceeds population growth, some conservation groups contend that population growth in some regions compensates for poaching losses in others, despite the fact that each area is populated by a different ...

Apr. 30, 2015 Behavioral conformity has been studied extensively and is commonly explained in terms of social pressure or impact. Surprisingly, however, recent research suggests that social factors may not be necessary to produce or explain conformity. According to their study people may simply confuse memories ...

Apr. 28, 2015 A lack of safety at school is one of the correlates of childhood obesity, say researchers. The researchers came to their conclusions by reviewing data provided by 1,234 Quebec youths who had just entered secondary school. The students were asked about their feelings of safety at school and whether they had been verbally, socially or physically bullied. This information was supplemented with data ...

Apr. 28, 2015 Most of the time, we learn only gradually, incrementally building connections between actions or events and outcomes. But there are exceptions--every once in a while, something happens and we immediately learn to associate that stimulus with a result. Scientists have discovered that uncertainty in ...

Apr. 28, 2015 Bullying adversely affects children in later life more than being maltreated, according to new research. A new study shows that children who have been bullied by peers suffer worse in the longer term than those who have been maltreated ...

Apr. 29, 2015 Logic would dictate that consumers receiving new market information would jump at the chance to adjust their investments accordingly. In practice, however, many people associate change with loss of control. They crave the idea of permanence or closure to such an extent that they would rather freeze decisions in place even if, ironically, this puts them more at risk, according to a new ...

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ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news

Franklin Science Fair open to the public Saturday

CHAMBERSBURG >> Young scientists from across Franklin and Fulton counties will showcase their experimental and technological achievements Friday and Saturday at the 33rd Annual Franklin Science and Technology Fair.

The exhibits will be up for public viewing noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at Chambersburg Area Middle School South, 1150 E. McKinley St.

Students in kindergarten through 12th grade were invited to participate in the annual event. The projects will be judged on Friday evening based on age and project topic.

The divisions of primary, intermediate and juniors will be judged in the categories of earth science, life science and physical science.

In the senior division for high school students, participants will be judged in behavioral and social science, biology/microbiology, chemistry/biochemistry, computer science and mathematics, earth/space/environmental sciences, engineering, medicine and health sciences and physics. Partner exhibits will also be judged.

In addition to awards in each category and division, special awards will also be announced. These awards come from local organizations and recognize projects on the topics of their choice.

The overall champions and grand champions will be announced on April 18. Students who receive top honors this Saturday qualify for the Championship Competition, where participants will be required to present their projects to jurors in the Chambersburg Area School District Administration Building. The award ceremony will take place after the judging is completed at noon.

For more information on the Franklin Science Fair, go to http://www.franklinscience.org/.

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Franklin Science Fair open to the public Saturday

Federal Bureau of Investigations: Behavioral Science

The Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit (BRIU)originally named the Behavioral Science Unitwas established at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia in 1972. The BRIUs vision is to inspire excellence and leadership in the applied behavioral sciences for the FBI and its partners in order to further the FBIs strategic priorities

Since its inception, the BRIU has pioneered the development of different tactics, techniques, and procedures adopted as industry standards in behavior-based programs supporting its clients within the law enforcement, intelligence, and military communities.

Behavioral science is concerned with gaining a better understanding of human behavior. The BRIU focuses specifically on criminal human behavior in an attempt to better understand criminalswho they are, how they think, why they do what they doas a means to help solve crimes and prevent criminal activity. The BRIUs team of professionals at the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) provides cutting edge training, high-impact research, and academic consultation in the behavioral sciences in support of the FBIs mission and the work of the broader law enforcement and intelligence communities.

The BRIU staff Supervisory special agents, veteran police officers/federal agents, criminologists, psychologists, criminal investigations instructors, crime analysts, and program management analysts who possess advanced degrees and similar experiences in the behavioral science disciplines of psychology, criminology, sociology, and conflict resolution.

Who the BRIU instructs Specialized, behavior-based training for FBI National Academy students, new agents, intelligence analysts, the FBI workforce, and Citizens Academies, as well as domestic and international field schools for the criminal justice, intelligence, military, and academic communities.

What the BRIU teaches Instruction on various topics related to the application of behavioral science for law enforcement operations, including: behavioral science for law enforcement; applied criminology; psycho-social aspects of criminal behavior; conflict and crisis management/communication; futuristics in law enforcement; youth violence; death investigations; psycho-social behavior and mindset of gangs; stress management in law enforcement; cyber criminals; and interpersonal violence. For New Agents, the BRIU provides basic instruction on personality traits, behavioral characteristics, and conflict resolution in order to help them better understand themselves and the action of others.

How to request training Submit a request in writing to the BRIU in coordination with your local FBI field office.

The BRIUs training commitments are based on resource availability and FBI training priorities.

Research performed by the BRIU Focuses on developing new and innovative investigative approaches and techniques that will assist the law enforcement and intelligence communities in their execution of operational and training activities. An emphasis is placed on identifying offenders behaviors and motivations using a variety of research methodologies. Much of the research conducted is with the collaboration of outside researchers in academia and interagency partners.

Current research projects include, but are not limited to: global hostage-taking; mass victimization, homicide clearance; gangs and gang violence; behavior in the cyber world and emerging technologies; future of law enforcement; firearm offenses; counterintelligence and the insider threat; violent and aberrant behavior; behavioral computer modeling for law enforcement; statement analysis; interviewing and persuasion; and law enforcement stress and stress management.

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Federal Bureau of Investigations: Behavioral Science

Behavioral Science Jobs | Education & Career Information

Education

A behavioral scientist must hold a four-year bachelor's degree, preferably in Behavioral Science. However, related degrees, such as psychology or sociology, can be used as a springboard. For example, candidates may elect for a degree as a registered nurse, a psychologist, or a social worker, and then go on to obtain a Master's degree or PhD in Behavioral Science.

For those interested in behavioral science, the coursework should include psychology, sociology, statistics, research methods and abnormal psychology. More often than not, a behavioral scientist will hold an advanced degree with some specialization.

Training

The bulk of the training for behavioral scientists is received through a degree program. However, depending on the candidate's area of specialization, he may receive substantial on-the-job training as well.

Licensing and/or Certification

In some cases, such as behavioral scientists who work as consultants, or for a business in an HR or marketing department, licensing or certification is typically not required. However, those who work with individual clients as behavioral counselors or social workers must be licensed according to their state's requirements. The National Board for Certified Counselors offers information on each state's licensing requirements.

Necessary Skills and Qualities

Successful behavioral scientists will have strong analytical, organizational and communication skills. For those who work with either individual clients or groups of people, good interpersonal skills are also important, particularly when working to change an individual's behavior.

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Behavioral Science Jobs | Education & Career Information

Barton Associates to Attend the National Council for Behavioral Health Conference

Boston, Massachusetts (PRWEB) April 11, 2015

Barton Associates, an industry leading physician, PA, and nurse practitioner locum tenens company, announced that it will be attending the 2015 National Council for Behavioral Health (NATCON) conference in Orlando, Florida, from April 20-22, 2015.

The NATCON Conference is the nations premier specialty health care conference, attended by executives, board members, and staff from the nations community mental health and addiction treatment organizations. The yearly conference features the latest innovations, science and business, and clinical best practices.

Jennifer St. Onge, Barton Associates Director of National Accounts, states, We are very excited to attend the NATCON conference. As a forum for the nations mental healthcare and addiction specialists, we are always eager to learn about the great new innovations and approaches to behavioral health, and how Barton Associates can assist in the future of mental healthcare.

Ms. St. Onge will be available for one-on-one meetings with the Behavioral Health community at Barton Associates booth during exhibiting hours. Attendees who wish to arrange a meeting outside of exhibiting hours are encouraged to contact Ms. St. Onge at (978) 998.7699.

To learn more about Barton Associates, the locum tenens industry, and to review current job openings, please visit http://www.bartoncareers.com.

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Barton Associates to Attend the National Council for Behavioral Health Conference

School notes: FCPS students take home prizes at state science fair

Two FCPS students take home grand prize awards at state science fair

Two Fairfax County public school students won grand prize awards at the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair.

FCPS students took first place in nine of the 17 categories in the fair, held March 27-28 at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington.

Ava Lakmazaheri of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology won the second grand prize in the fair and first prize for her project in the electrical and mechanical engineering category. Fellow TJ student Matthew Park won a grand prize runner-up award and first prize in the microbiology category for his project.

Both Lakmazaheri and Park qualified to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, scheduled for May 10-15 in Pittsburgh.

FCPS students from TJ, Madison, Marshall and West Potomac also took home first-place awards in seven other categories: behavioral and social science; computer science; earth and planetary science; energy and transportation; environmental management; physics and astronomy; and plant science.

The Unified Prevention Coalition will host two community forums on the dangers of alcohol abuse.

The forums will be held Tuesday, April 14, at 7 p.m. at Madison High School, and Wednesday, May 20, at 7 p.m. at the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College. Parents are encouraged to attend with their adolescent children.

The UPC is a nonprofit that partners with school and government officials and community groups to combat substance abuse. The events, under the headline The Perils of College Drinking Culture, will feature a screening and panel discussion of a documentary on binge drinking on college campuses.

Featured speakers and panelists will include Deputy Commonwealths Attorney Casey Lingan, Fairfax County Police Sgt. Dan Pang, and Inova Fairfax Hospital emergency physician Dr. William Hauda, among others.

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School notes: FCPS students take home prizes at state science fair

MAC's Math and Science Fair returns

PARK HILLS For the 32nd spring in a row, the creative genius of the areas math and science students will be put on public display at Mineral Area College's Math and Science Fair.

The event is being held from 2 to 3 p.m. Friday in the Robert E. Sechrest Sr. Field House on the Park Hills campus.

"There cant be a math and science fair without great entries and the titles on this years entries promise to be particularly interesting," said Nancy Petersen, Math/Science Fair coordinator. "Theres no fee to enter the fair, but there is a payoff for all students who participate. The academic reward is apparent, of course, but each student also receives a certificate and a T-shirt thats been designed by the previous years T-Shirt Design winner."

She added that past top winning entries have walked away with scholarships, cash prizes, certificates toward higher education classes, scientific equipment and even a piece of a space shuttle.

Petersen said each student needs a sponsoring teacher to enter the fair, which is open to grades 6-12. The categories are behavioral and social science, biology, chemistry, computer science, Earth science, engineering, mathematics, physics, and product testing.

Petersen can be reached for more information at 573-518-2227 or npeterse@MineralArea.edu.

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MAC's Math and Science Fair returns

A Water Data Startup That Helps To Fight Drought Raises $7M

WaterSmart, a software startup that uses meter data and behavioral science to nudge consumers to conserve water, has raised $7 million in equity, the company said Tuesday.

The San Francisco company creates a monthly or bi-monthly report that shows each water customer who much water he or she used in the previous billing period and compares that to prior months and years as well as to similar homes in the neighborhood. Research has shown that such comparison can effective modify behavior because people like to think they can use energy as efficiently as their friends and neighbors. The report also comes with water-saving tips.

A water bill historically tells people their water use, of course. But those numbers often dont come with context or language that helps to explain their significance and grabs consumers attention.

A pie chart that shows where your water is going helps to educate consumers and make them feel more informed, said Jeff Lipton, director of marketing at WaterSmart, explaining one of the ways to present data more effectively. That raises the level of engagement that leads to greater savings.

In a pilot project at the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Northern California, WaterSmart demonstrated that its home report could reduce consumption by an average of 5%. That result and the persistent drought in southwestern United States has helped WaterSmart lining up other utility customers. Its other customers include the California cities of Sacramento and Glendale and Park City, Utah.

For Park City, WaterSmart added a leak detection service. The company uses meter and property data, such as the size of the home, its occupancy and the number of bathrooms, to figure out a certain period of unusual or excessive use of water; from there it could surmise whether there might be a leak. The service includes tracking whether those who received leak alerts followed up to fix the problems.

WaterSmart has about 40 customers, though not all of them have rolled out the home report service across their territories. Its service covers 2 million water meters in North America, which has over 100 million water meters. The company and others like it will likely win more attention from water utilities in states such as California, where state regulators are instituting a mandatory water use cut of 25% (compared to the 2013 levels) and funding technology that could help water districts to cut wasteful consumption.

The startup has raised $13.5 million in equity total since inception in 2009. Its investors include the Westly Group, Apsara Capital, Physic Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

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A Water Data Startup That Helps To Fight Drought Raises $7M

Power poses might not be so powerful after all

The Superman stance probably won't boost your testosterone.

In 2010, researchers at Harvard Business School claimed to have found(PDF) that striking powerful poses caused hormonal and behavioral changes. "Power poses" seemed to raise testosterone, lower cortisol, and increase risk-taking behavior.

As with all research, replication was needed to check the validity of the results. An attempt at replication using additional controls, published recently in Psychological Science, found no behavioral or hormonal effects of power poses," although they did result in a boost in subjective perception of power. In other words, the original research did not hold up.

The idea that powerful poses could have hormonal effects ties in with a prominent idea in behavioral science: the hypothesis that physical interaction with the environment affects cognitive behavior. It would make sense that there should be a physiological vehicle (such as hormonal changes) for this effect.

A team of researchers led by Eva Ranehill at the University of Zurich tried to replicatethe original Harvard Business School study with some important tweaks. First, they used a bigger sample size. The original study used 42 participants; the replication used 200. Secondly, they controlled for experimenters bias, which is the possibility that subtle cues from the researchers could be affecting the results.

The basic methods of the study were the same. Each participant started out by providing a saliva sample. They then performed a filler task while in a series of two different poses, either powerful or powerless. The powerful poses took up space, like leaning back in a chair with feet up on a table or leaning across a desk. In contrast, the powerless poses were closed in, like having someone hold theirhands in their lap while hunched forward. The poses were the same as in the original study but were held for three minutes instead of the original one minute.

The replication deviated from the original study at this stage by giving the pose instructions via computer, which should prevent the researchers from subtly biasing their subjects. The experimenters' own biases were also handled because they didnt witness this stage, so they wouldnt know later on which poses the participants had taken. But, after the experiment was concluded, they reviewed footage of this step to ensure that participants had complied with the instructions.

Next, the participants played games that assessed their willingness to take risksgambling a sure payment on the chance of a higher paymentand their inclination to be competitive in a math task. They provided a second saliva sample, allowing the researchers to compare their hormone levels before and after the power stances. Finally, theyfilled in a questionnaire that asked about their feelings of powerand checked whether they had found their stances physically uncomfortable.

The results were very different from the original experiment. Participants who had taken powerful poses reported feeling more powerful, but there was no trace of this feeling in the behavioral tasks. Of course, its possible that these were just the wrong kinds of tasks and that a subjective feeling of power could influence behavior in circumstances other than risk-taking or competitiveness. Nonetheless, it representeda failure to replicatethe result seen in the original study.

There was also no difference in hormone levels between the powerful group and the powerless group. The researchers also analyzed the effect on each gender and checked whether it made any difference to exclude participants who had found the positions physically uncomfortable. There were still no significant differences in hormone levels.

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Power poses might not be so powerful after all