A Behavior Analyst Talks About Guns and Multiple Causation aired 07/11/23

Abstract

by A. Charles Catania, Ph.D. this session will apply behavior analytic thinking about multiple causation to the accelerating rate of mass shootings in the United States over recent decades. Cumulative records illustrate the magnitude of the problem. When many causes come together, the effect of each is diluted and it becomes more difficult to establish any single causal relation; this poses a challenge to political solutions. But whatever the causes of any particular instance some may be more likely than others to raise the violent behavior about threshold. It may be useful to substitute arguments for how each variable may raise or lower the threshold for behavior such as gun violence for arguments that appeal to the primacy of some causes relative to others.