Symposium: The Future of Aversive Control Research

Abstract

Given the limited attention to aversive control currently granted by contemporary behavior analysis, no consideration of this topic would be complete without a view to the future. If behavior analysis is ever to approximate Skinner’s vision of a comprehensive treatment of the psychological world, much remains to be done in the study of aversive control. This special issue closes with a “symposium” consisting of four essays that address intriguing future directions for research on aversive control. Investigators who are actively pursuing questions about aversive control were invited to introduce the general thrust of their work and to discuss its implications, including in revealing important unfinished business for an experimental analysis of aversive control.