Professor and Author
Stephen F. Ledoux
In 1990, soon after “behaviorology” became the name for the independent natural science of behavior, the number of readers (e.g., students, professors, interested others) of explicitly behaviorology books started out too small to fill the profit margins demanded by regular publishers. So Dr. Ledoux founded the small publisher, ABCs (Applied Behaviorology Consultants) to provide appropriate books by informed authors for these readers, without profit being a main criterion for publication. In the last 30 years, ABCs has provided dozens of books this way. Today, other publishers (especially, for example, BehaveTech Publishing, of Ottawa, Canada) also publish behaviorology books.
All the books below are described in greater detail at behaviorology.org and can be ordered by following the order link beside each book below.
What Causes Human Behavior
Stars, Selves, or Contingencies
By Stephen F. Ledoux
In 2017 BehaveTech Publishing (of Ottawa, Canada) released the book, What Causes Human Behavior—Stars, Selves, or Contingencies? This book, by Stephen F. Ledoux, derives from the author’s longer, more comprehensive and detailed 2014 book, Running Out of Time—Introducing Behaviorology to Help Solve Global Problems. Traci Cihon (a professor in the Department of Behavior Analysis at the University of North Texas in Denton) explains this derivation in her Foreword. This new book, available only in soft–cover and eBook versions, serves as a more general–audience primer presenting many of the same basic topics as the earlier book, but with less technical language. This new book also includes helpful, reviewer–style comments, on the back cover and first few pages, from a dozen early professional readers (e.g., Lawrence Fraley and Richard Malott).
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Running Out Of Time
Introducing Behaviorology to Help Solve Global Problems
By Stephen F. Ledoux
Published in 2014. In his courageous book, The Demon–Haunted World, Carl Sagan referred to science “as a candle in the dark.” Here we start turning that candle into a floodlight, to better illuminate solutions to global problems, by introducing Behaviorology, the natural science of behavior. This book describes what natural scientists of life functions have discovered about human nature and human behavior over the first 100 years of experimental investigations and applications. They are particularly interested in sharing their discoveries, because the success of the efforts of the natural scientists of energy, matter, and life forms, to solve major problems in a timely manner, hinges on a broader science–team effort that takes these discoveries into account. This especially applies to overpopulation and global warming, to prevent humanity from having to experience their worst effects. And we are running out of time!
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Origins and Components of Behaviorology, Third Edition
By Stephen F. Ledoux
In 2015, BehaveTech Publishing, of Ottawa Canada, published another behaviorology title, the 394–page book, Origins and Components of Behaviorology—Third Edition, by Stephen Ledoux (with contributions from Lawrence Fraley, James O’Heare, and Glenn Latham). Much has happened since the Second Edition came out in 2002. (The Second Edition is now out of print, and this Third Edition replaces it.) While the historically unique papers in this collection remain essentially unchanged, the references and terminology used in other papers has been updated for consistency with other behaviorology books, and several new papers appear in this edition for the first time.
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An Introduction to Verbal Behavior, Second Edition
By Norm Peterson & Stephen F. Ledoux
In 2014, ABCs (Canton, NY) released the book, An Introduction to Verbal Behavior—Second Edition, by Norman Peterson and Stephen Ledoux. The range of disciplinary terminology developments since the first edition appeared in 1978 (by Norman Peterson, from Behavior Associates of Grand Rapids, MI) showed the value of an updated edition, and this is it. This book introduces readers to the basics of B. F. Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior (speaking, writing, signing, etc.), which prepares them to get the most out of going on to read Skinner’s 1957 book, Verbal Behavior.
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Explaining Mysteries of Living (Expanded)
By Stephen F. Ledoux
The Mysteries of Living article set is based on this book. Behaviorologists have long recognized a need to increase understanding of the natural science of behavior among the general population whenever, wherever, and however that is possible. In response to this need, Stephen Ledoux prepared a set of 72 short newspaper columns that describe some basic principles and practices of behaviorology in a format appropriate to online or in–print, daily or weekly newspapers. (Contact the author for how you can offer them to your local newspaper!) The columns feature numerous, substantial, everyday examples of mostly ordinary human normal behavior. Each column features its own title, while the title of the set is “Exploring Mysteries of Living.”
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Science Is Lovable—Volume 2 of Explaining Mysteries of Living (Expanded)
By Stephen F. Ledoux
The Science Is Lovable article set is based on this book. In this book, the columns deal with deeper topics in the science. Most of these topics concern initial scientific answers for some of humanity’s ancient questions, because the ancient—and many current—answers to these questions remain inadequate. The ancient–question topics include values, rights, ethics, morals, language, consciousness, personhood, life, death, and reality. Some more recent topics also receive some coverage, topics such as the Law of Cumulative Complexity, robotics, evolutions, and experimental and applied research methods.
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Work Takes a Holiday—Confessions of a Natural Scientist of Behavior
A natural scientist of behavior provides an autobiographical account of what caused his (and can cause others') participation in science and its beneficial applications.
By Stephen F. Ledoux
Published in 2022, this book introduces the possibility of a new grammar, one that by design provides more support for science, especially natural behavior science, by reducing reliance on the personal pronouns, especially “I” that in our culture too easily imply inner agents purportedly responsible for behavior. As the author says, these pronouns are best treated (i.e., reacted to) as verbal shortcuts for longer, inconvenient, but more accurate phrases like “DNA–based carbon–unit locus of contingency effects.” (Aren’t verbal shortcuts nice?)
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A World of Our Own Making (Expanded)
A Sequel to Walden Two
By Michael Shuler
In a story that brings the famous twentieth–century novel, Walden Two, into the twenty–first century, a group of journalists visits a utopian community. They learn about its way of life, not knowing that one of them has a secret agenda. As they become familiar with the varied innovative aspects of the network of Walden Two communities, they become intrigued with its views about community structure, infant care, and education, as well as how ethics are taught in a rational society and the ways the community frees itself from the constraints of the larger society.
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Dignified Dying
A Behaviorological Thanatology
By Lawrence Fraley
In 2020 BehaveTech Publishing of Ottawa, Canada published this 2020 softcover edition of original 2012 book by Lawrence Fraley. Behaviorological Thanatology reveals how behaviorology, the natural science of human behavior, enables a powerful new conceptualization of death and dying. It is especially relevant to episodes of protracted dying. This book analyzes the unnecessary mistreatment that our traditional cultural practices visit on both the dying and their survivors, and develops new scientifically grounded cultural practices for the conduct of the dying and their survivors, practices that not only avoid abuse but also increase dignity.
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The Science and Technology of Animal Training
By James O’Heare
In 2014, BehaveTech Publishing, Ottawa Canada, published another applied–behaviorology book by James O’Heare. With the title, The Science and Technology of Animal Training, O’Heare expands his earlier dog–training book to cover several additional species, namely cats, birds, horses and, yes, humans, because the book is about training humans to train their companion animals. This longer soft cover book contains extended coverage of similar topics. The book builds mastery of advanced techniques for training more complex behaviors, and would be a good reference for established professional trainers as well as for those becoming skilled professionals.
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Some Intersections of Science, Coercion, Equality, Justice, and Politics
A Teapot Tempest Stirs Sciences
By Stephen Ledoux & James O'Heare
Several science–oriented authors have created a book on more of the connections between science and politics. Some historically repetitious and tragic developments occurred in the summer of 2020 (e.g., the police murder of George Floyd) and these prompted some serious and controversial discussions among some of the members of TIBI, some of whom saw a need for the natural science of behavior, that they call behaviorology, to stand up against the use of coercion in society, where coercion, they say, supports the divisiveness that is hurting society so much.
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Behaviorological Rehabilitation and the Criminal Justice System
By Lawrence Fraley
In 2019 BehaveTech Publishing of Ottawa, Canada published this 2020 softcover edition of original 2013 book by Lawrence Fraley. Over the last century, a comprehensive natural science of human behavior has developed. However, that science emerged within a human culture that, since antiquity, has been heavily invested in organized superstitious and mystical alternatives with respect to behavioral phenomena. As a result the natural science of behavior remains largely absent from academic curricula. Few people are thus prepared to study and manage human behavior through this natural science, although doing so would lead expeditiously to solutions for seemingly intractable socio-cultural problems. From this natural science perspective, this book offers a preview of such outcomes by revisiting just one aspect of culture, namely, law and the criminal-justice system. The often-radical differences from traditional practice that emerge in this book reveal how an appropriate natural science can bring a satisfactory end to some long cultural frustrations. The new basic behavior science, along with the naturalistic philosophical foundations that inform it, is known as Behaviorology.
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Science Works on Human Behavior
By Stephen F. Ledoux
In August 2018 BehaveTech Publishing (Ottawa, Canada) released a new book of behaviorology readings by Stephen Ledoux. Entitled Science Works on Human Behavior, this book features a selection of over a dozen papers spanning the author’s 45–year career of teaching and writing behaviorology (begun with teaching behaviorology classes—under a different title—to high school sophomores and seniors in the spring of 1972). While about half of the papers have appeared in different behaviorology journals over the years (some rather hard to find today) none of the other papers in the book have appeared in print until now.
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Beautiful Sights and Sensations
Small Collections of Native American and Other Arts
By Stephen F. Ledoux
In 2016 ABCs (of Canton, NY) released the book, Beautiful Sights and Sensations—Small Collections of Native American and Other Arts. Authored by Stephen F. Ledoux, this book’s relevance to behaviorology stems from its connecting the science to the arts through its provision of a behaviorological definition of art: “…scientifically, art is the novel products of, and the conditioned production of, responding induced by a wide range of environment–behavior contingencies, in an equally wide range of media, that may or may not produce reinforcing effects from its uses (i.e., its functions) but that indeed produce emotionally reinforcing effects, for others as well as the artist, that typically evoke the human verbal response of beautiful.”
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Curious Visual Fun
Photo Arts from a Scientist
By Stephen F. Ledoux
The publisher, ABCs, of Los Alamos, NM, has allowed the early release, for 2023, of an art book by a scientist. The book’s full title is Curious Visual Fun—Photo Arts from a Scientist. This 126–page book displays and discusses a substantive range of the composed photographic arts that accumulated across the lifespan of the author and photographer, Stephen Ledoux. Most of the included compositions, however, happened between the years 1975 and 2000, after which science writing took increasingly more of the author’s time and energy than did photography.
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