Behavior and Social Issues

The primary intellectual framework for Behavior and Social Issues is the science of behavior analysis and its sub-discipline of cultural systems analysis, but contributions from contrasting viewpoints will occasionally be considered if of specific interest to behavior analysts. We recommend that potential authors examine recent issues to determine whether their work is appropriate to the journal. Appropriate contributions include theoretical and conceptual analyses, research articles and brief reports, dialogues, and research reviews. Behavior and Social Issues is an appropriate forum for the work of senior scholars in the field, many of whom serve on the editorial board, as well as for the work of emerging scholars, including students, who have an interest in the contributions of a natural science of behavior to constructing cultures of social justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability.

Behavior and Social Issues is an official publication of the Association for Behavior Analysis International.

For more related content, please see Behavior and Social Issues’ predecessor title, Behavior Analysis and Social Action.

Editor-in-Chief: Traci Cihon

BSI Call for Papers

Special Section: Natural Experiments Using Open Access Data

Invite submissions that contribute to the understanding of human behavior in real-world contexts and align with the journal’s mission to promote social justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability.

Guest Editor(s): Kathryn Roose, David J. Cox, Kristi Thompson, Albert Malkin

Target Issue: Fall 2026

See the full announcement HERE

Special Section: Cultural and Systemic Perspectives in Clinical Behavior Analysis

Behavior and Social Issues invites papers for a special section on Cultural and Systemic Perspectives in Clínical Behavior Analysis targeted for the fall 2027 issue. Cultural and systemic perspectives in behavior analysis are rooted in B.F. Skinner’s long-standing concern with social and cultural issues, which appeared early in his work and gained conceptual clarity in the later stages of his career. While his interest in systemic and societal dimensions of behavior was evident in Science and Human Behavior (1953), it was only in later works—particularly Selection by Consequences (1981) and The Evolution of Behavior (1989)—that Skinner formally proposed a third level of selection: the cultural level. This framework expands behavior analysis beyond the individual, emphasizing how cultural practices are selected over time. From this perspective, clinical practice is always embedded within larger sociocultural systems that shape and maintain both individual suffering and collective patterns of behavior.

Guest Editor(s): Claudia Oshiro, Virginia Amorim, Fabricio Souza, Ana Barbara Neves

Target Issue: Fall 2027

See the full announcement HERE