Experimental analysis of behavior

The experimental analysis of behavior (EAB) is the name given to the school of psychology founded on B. F. Skinner’s philosophy of radical behaviorism. A central principle was the inductive, data-driven examination of functional relations, as opposed to the kinds of hypothetico-deductive learning theory that had grown up in the comparative psychology of the 1920–1950 period. Skinner's approach was characterized by empirical observation of measurable behavior which could be predicted and controlled. It owed its early success to the effectiveness of Skinner's procedures of operant conditioning, both in the laboratory and in behavior therapy—what is now called applied behavior analysis