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Article ID: CBB000671028

The Social Control of Behavior Control: Behavior Modification, Individual Rights, and Research Ethics in America, 1971--1979 (2006)

Rutherford, Alexandra (Author)

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Volume: 42
Pages: 203--220
Publication date: 2006
Language: English

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Human rights Ethics Behaviorism Psychology Research methods Behavioral sciences 20th century, late

In 1971, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights began a three-year study to investigate the federal funding of all research involving behavior modification. During this period, operant programs of behavior change, particularly those implemented in closed institutions, were subjected to specific scrutiny. In this article, I outline a number of scientific and social factors that led to this investigation and discuss the study itself. I show how behavioral scientists, both individually and through their professional organizations, responded to this public scrutiny by (1) self-consciously altering their terminology and techniques; (2) considering the need to more effectively police their professional turf; and (3) confronting issues of ethics and values in their work. Finally, I link this episode to the formation of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, whose recommendations resulted in changes to the ethical regulation of federally funded human subjects research that persist to the present day.

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