Ethical Behavior Analysis: Evidence-Based Practice as a Framework for Ethical Decision Making

• Published in: Behavior analysis in practice Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 619 - 634
• Main Authors: Contreras, Bethany P., Hoffmann, Audrey N., Slocum, Timothy A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.06.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavior; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Consumers; Decision making; Discussion and Review Paper; Education; Evidence-based practice; Human subjects; Pragmatism; Principles; Professional ethics; Professions; Psychology; Ethics; Decision making; Evidence-based practice
• ISSN: 1998-1929; 2196-8934
• DOI: 10.1007/s40617-021-00658-5

As the number of applied behavior analysts continues to grow, ethical practice and decision making become increasingly important. Specifically, improving behavior analysts’ ethical decision-making repertoires is critical to effective and ethical behavioral service delivery within the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA). This article proposes that the evidence-based practice (EBP) of ABA (Slocum et al., 2014 ) provides a framework to support fluent ethical decision making. The purpose of this article is to (a) review the importance of ethical decision making related to the practice of ABA, (b) introduce and summarize EBP of ABA, (c) review the three main components of EBP of ABA, and (d) discuss the broader role that EBP of ABA can play in the field of ABA. We tie the EBP of ABA to current Behavior Analyst Certification Board ethical standards and present actions that behavior analysts can engage in to support their ethical decision making throughout.