Trick or Treat! Behavior Theory and Crime, Dog Training and Beggars’ Night Becomes Halloween

Criminal Behaviorology

Criminal Behaviorology

Trick or Treat! Behavior Theory and Crime, Dog Training and Beggars’ Night Becomes Halloween

Three readings as a treat for this Halloween season. One segment from a criminology textbook and two articles on behavior analysis as it relates to this ghoulish time of the year.

Show Highlights:

- Behavior theory as seen by a criminologist. What is unique about behaviorism as compared to other fields in psychology. Why it is important for understanding the causes of crime. Criticisms of behavior theory.

- Operant conditioning and dog training. How our pets react can tell us something about the influence of the environment we have created for them. The importance doing good things without an incentive. The idea of altruism.

- How behavior analysis helped create the tradition of Halloween. Ugly realities of October in the 1930s. Police reports on vandalism and other mayhem in Des Moines, Iowa. How one woman started a campaign to establish an alternate behavior for children (perform a trick, stunt, sing a song, etc.) on “Beggars’ Night,” the legacy of these efforts today.

Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction, 5thEdition, by Frank Schmalleger (2008):

https://www.amazon.com/Criminology-Today-Integrative-Introduction-5th/dp/013513031X

Trick or treat? A look beyond operant conditioning in dogs and humans by John Spieser:

http://www.annarbor.com/pets/trick-or-treat-a-look-at-operant-conditioning-and-beyond/

Halloween in the 1900s: How Applied Behavior Analysis Shaped the Future of Trick-of-Treating by Emaley McCulloch:

https://bsci21.org/halloween-in-the-1900s-how-applied-behavior-analysis-shaped-the-future-of-trick-or-treating/

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