The Behavior Analyst 1986, 9, 147-156 No. 2 (Fall)

The Challenge of Technology Transfer:Buying in Without Selling Out

H. S. PennypackerUniversity of Florida and The Mammatech Corporation

Highly effective technologies flowing from the discipline of behavior analysis have not been widelyadopted, thus threatening the survival of the discipline itself. An analysis of the contingencies underlyingsuccessful technology transfer suggests the need for direct, empirical involvement in the marketplace inorder to insure that the maximum demonstrable benefits reach the ultimate users. A successful exampleofthis strategy oftechnology transfer is provided. Three areas ofintense national concemr-urban violence,illiteracy, and declining industrial productivity-provide immediate opportunities for the technologies ofbehavior analysis to secure the place of the discipline in the intellectual mosaic of the 21st century.

Nearly five years ago, Skinner (198 la)confronted us with the the question, "Wehappy few, but why so few?" Since 1981,our discipline, and particularly the As-sociation for Behavior Analysis (ABA),have made progress toward answeringthis question, or at least diminishing theneed to ask it. Moreover, in the last cou-ple of years, the sphere of influence ofbehavior analysis has broadened bothwithin and outside the academy.For instance, a healthy synergism is de-

veloping between behavior analysis andcultural anthropology. The provocativecontributions of Glenn (1986) and Mal-agodi (1986) from our side have now beenreciprocated by Marvin Harris' invitedaddress at the 1986 ABA convention(Harris, 1986). The invitation to Profes-sor Harris was activated in large part bythe thoughtful yet soothingly reasurringreviews of his work published by Lloyd(1986) and Vargas (1985). I believe wehave forged an alliance that is likely toendure to our mutual benefit.With respect to the culture at large,

ABA has taken some definitive steps tobegin helping the press educate the publicas to who we are and what we have tooffer. This is beginning to bear some pos-itive fruit as Matt Israel's recent mediaexposure demonstrates (Sherr, 1986). In

Adapted from the Presidential Address to theAssociation for Behavior Analysis, Milwaukee,Wisconsin, May 24, 1986. Reprints may be ob-tained from the author, c/o Mammatech Corpo-ration, 930 N.W. 8th Ave., Gainesville, FL 32601.

addition, Paul Chance, in a recent piecein Psychology Today, eloquently discred-ited the obituary for behaviorism thatmany conventional psychologists seemto have a compulsion to recite. Finally,a "watchdog" committee has been formedwithin ABA to respond to published in-accuracies concerning behavior analysis(see also Morris, 1985); the task of thiscommittee is continuous and its work-load heavy, but its function is vital.

THE GREATER CHALLENGEIn the fall of that same year, 1981, it

was my privilege to introduce ProfessorSkinner to approximately 6,000 adoringundergraduates and assorted others at theUniversity ofFlorida. There he posed thequestion, "Why are we not acting to savethe world?" (Skinner, 198 lb). With re-spect to this challenge, our achievementsin the last five years have not been assalutory. By and large, the innovationsproduced by our field are at least as ef-fective, and almost as widely ignored, asthey were five years ago. There has beena change in this period, however, and itis a change I find deeply distressing. AsI talk with both the established leadersand the young new contributors to ourfield, I am occasionally struck by a newsense of pessimism, of weariness, thatborders on apathy. My purpose today isto tell you that I believe I understand whythat sentiment exists. I also want to tellyou why I do not share it. On the con-trary, I believe that the political and eco-nomic changes in the United States since

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1981 are just now coalescing in a waythat is handing this field, almost on asilver platter, a set of unprecedented op-portunities. Ifwe can only seize these op-portunities, I believe we can be well onthe way to making behavior analysis thedominant intellectual force of the 21stcentury. To do so, however, I believe wemust revise slightly the methods by whichwe conduct some of our basic affairs.My entire analysis is predicated onjust

one assumption which Johnston and Itried to articulate in the first chapter ofStrategies and Tactics ofHuman Behav-ioral Research (Johnston & Pennypack-er, 1980). That assumption is simply this:The extent to which a culture accepts, in-corporates, and reflects a body ofdiscov-ered knowledge varies directly with thetechnological benefits derived from thatbody of knowledge. Renaissance Europecame quickly to appreciate the Coper-nican and Galilean revisions of classicalastronomy once their implications forimproved navigation, and hence for en-hanced commerce, became available.Today, notwithstanding the oppositionof Rifkin (1985), we are seeing the emer-gence ofa major surge ofsupport for mo-lecular biology and genetics because theirtechnologies have arrived. If we seek toestablish behavior analysis as a seriousintellectual force in this culture, we mustinsure that its technologies are adoptedin ways that benefit the culture in un-mistakable ways.A large body ofliterature exists on the

topic of technology transfer, knowledgeutilization, innovation diffusion-call itwhat you will. I have sampled just enoughofthis literature to be assured ofone thing:It is woefully naive with respect to thecontingencies that operate in the realworld. Put in its simplest terms, this lit-erature seeks to formalize the relation be-tween innovators and adopters in waysthat would make the most casual behav-ior analyst cringe. Rather than mock theimprecision of such terms as "needs as-sessment matrix," "hierarchical diffu-sion network," and the like, it is sufficientto point out the lack ofany analysis spec-ifying the contingencies responsible forthe behavior of either the innovator or

the adopter. Such an analysis, when per-formed even superficially with respect tosome of the more notable innovationsfrom behavior analysis, illuminates afundamental problem.Our technologies have almost uni-

formly been service-oriented. Appliedbehavior analysts have typically assumedthe role of service providers, whether inthe traditional mental health field, busi-ness and industry, or education in all ofits subvarieties. Many contemporary be-havior analysts-and I include Lindsley,Ayllon, Michael, Houghton, Azrin, Baer,Risley, Keller, Wolf, Englemann, Vargas,the list goes on and on-came out of thelaboratory with more precise and moreeffective ways of managing the behaviorof selected populations. These innova-tors, and I include myselfon this dubioushonor roll, tried to provide a better ser-vice. Not surprisingly, we were treatedlike servants, perhaps because we be-haved like servants. We went on bendedknee to the lords ofthe manor and beggedthem to try our innovations. In virtuallyevery case, the innovations did what wesaid they would. Psychotic patients be-gan to behave normally (Ayllon & Azrin,1965; Lindsley, 1956). The untrainablewere trained to perform simple tasks andthen later more complex tasks (Baer, Pe-terson, & Sherman, 1967; Fuller, 1949).The educationally disadvantaged weregiven a head start that persisted throughelementary school and removed theirdisadvantage (Becker, 1978; Williams &Evans, 1972). Juvenile delinquents havebeen restored to integrated functioningand are now leading the lives of produc-tive citizens (e.g., Phillips, Phillips,Fixsen, & Wolf, 1971). The chronicallyunemployed have learned to seek and se-cure jobs (Jones & Azrin, 1973). Collegestudents recruited solely for their athleticprowess learned college-level materialand earned degrees (Keller, 1968; Pen-nypacker, Heckler, & Pennypacker,1978).Why, then, have not these innovations

transformed the institutions in which theyoccurred and revolutionized their re-spective domains ofservice delivery? Theanswer, I believe, is deceptively simple:

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The behavior of the potential adopters,the lords for whom we were the servantswas, and is, controlled by a set of me-tacontingencies, largely ceremonial,which bear no necessary relation to anybehavior change we might have engi-neered. To recall the analogy ofpre-Ren-aissance Europe, we made the mistake ofexpecting the Church not only to adoptour innovations, but to alter their ownconduct to conform with the world viewupon which the innovations were pred-icated. Galileo learned first-hand theconsequences of that mistake. We are re-learning it in the case of Project FollowThrough (Becker, 1978; Carnine, 1984;Greer, 1982; Watkins, 1986).One of the most distressing, and in-

structive, phenomena attendant to be-havioral innovation is that instead ofbeing ignored, it is often systematicallydismembered and rendered impotent bythose whom we would have adopt it. AsLindsley is fond of pointing out, appli-cation of our two most basic behavioralprocesses- reinforcement and punish-ment-has essentially been declared il-legal in facilities that derive their supportfrom state or federal sources (e.g., Linds-ley, 1984, 1985; seeFriedman, 1975). Ourthird most powerful tool, our objectivemeasurement strategies, have in the nameofexpedience and economy been so com-promised that their current use is usuallymore ceremonial than functional (John-ston& Pennypacker, 1980, pp. 327-374).It is as though we gave our masters anintricate timepiece and then watched ap-provingly as they removed the back, ex-tracted the mechanism and threw it away,but retained the case, with the hands andface in a conspicuous place, available forexhibition on demand. Some accuracy,of course, is retained-even a stoppedclock is right twice a day.What must we do to change this situ-

ation? How are we to avoid this fate forfuture innovative behavioral technolo-gies? I hope you agree that unless we finda way to avoid it, our discipline itself isat risk. The economies ofboth the UnitedStates and the world are adjusting to thejoint perils of expanding population anddiminishing natural resources and will not

long provide sustenance to an intellectualendeavor that is irrelevant to both.My answer to this question should by

now be obvious. We must change the wayour technologies are transferred. Some ofus must be willing to undertake the pro-cess of technology transfer ourselves, ifonly to learn how to do it correctly. Wemust stop waiting for or trying to per-suade others to do it for us. We must setas our highest priority the delivery ofthefull measure of benefit of our technolo-gies. In accepting this challenge, we mustbe prepared to identify, analyze, and con-vert to our own use the real contingencieswhich operate in our culture. Some ofthese contingencies, though very pow-erful and pervasive, may be a little un-familiar.

THE CONTINGENCIES OF THEMARKETPLACE

We live in a capitalistic society. I statethat as a fact, not as a resolution subjectto debate. I would also suggest that to anincreasing degree, the rest of the world isbeginning to move in the same generaldirection. Again, it is not my purpose todebate the philosophical merits of thisstate of affairs. I simply observe, alongwith Harris (1981), that cultures gravi-tate toward practices that maximize thedensity of reinforcement for the individ-ual members. In general, the unrestrictedmarketplace constitutes an environmentin which effective technological variationis differentially selected by more-or-lessnatural contingencies. That is, a product,process, or procedure that is incremen-tally reinforcing, either positively or neg-atively, will tend to survive at the ex-pense of its less reinforcing competitors.To be sure, the system is less than per-fectly efficient, but its elements are es-pecially effective with respect to the evo-lution of technologies. Put another way,ifbehavior analysis is to survive, its tech-nologies must survive-in the market-place. We must, therefore, design ourtechnologies with this type of survival asthe objective and we must be preparedto do whatever is necessary to get themdirectly to the consumers where their

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competitive advantage can be realized. Ibelieve that the failure to date ofour tech-nologies to have the impact we wouldhave anticipated is a direct consequenceof our failure to insure their survival atthis level.

Let me attempt to clarify certain as-pects ofthis analysis. When I use the termmarketplace, I am not referring to theoffice of the university dean, the super-intendant of the state-run retardationcenter or mental hospital, or the staffs ofeither departments of health and humanservices or departments of education. Iam referring to any environment in whichour product, process, or procedure is se-lected over alternatives because it pro-duces demonstrably greater benefit to theselector. When we speak ofbenefit in thiscontext, it should be clear that often weare speaking primarily ofeconomic ben-efit: Gaining or avoiding loss of money.At some future time, it may be possibleto address the question of political ben-efit as a consequence for adopting effec-tive behavioral technologies. I am afraidthat for the moment, however, it is alltoo clear that in this society politics andeconomics are inseparable. Ifwe wish tohave a lasting political impact, we mustfirst have an economic impact. To an in-creasing degree, the political system iscontrolled by the agents of economicpower and influence (Goldstein, 1986).

ECONOMICS AND BEHAVIORANALYSIS

According to classical economic the-ory, three ingredients are required for asuccessful economic enterprise: Land, la-bor, and capital. I submit that, as behav-ior analysts, we have nothing to beashamed of with respect to the mannerin which we create and manage the firsttwo -land and labor. Land, or more gen-erally raw resources, is well representedby our inexhaustable supply of innova-tions. At this very moment, I am awareof at least a half dozen excellent, inno-vative new behavioral technologies thathave been created by members of ABA(e.g., Schulman, 1984). Undoubtedly,

there are many more. Our problem is notlack of a viable resource.

Labor, the next item on the list, isslightly more problematic. With ourabundant presence in colleges and uni-versities, we have access to a potentiallylarge and certainly talented labor supply.We must continue, as we have, to de-velop that resource in support ofour dis-cipline and its enterprises. In particular,we must protect the positions ofbehavioranalysts in the universities. There is pres-sure to make departments more cogni-tive, social, or clinical. We must resistthis pressure at all costs because, accord-ing to recent manpower projections, ashortage of academic talent will exist inthe early-to-mid- 1 990s. We should in-tensify our efforts in graduate student re-cruitment and training now so that be-havior analysis will be represented whenthat shortage is filled. In other words,graduate students entering now will havejobs when they get their degrees. It is im-portant that they are our graduate stu-dents.We are also blessed with the skills and

basic technologies for effectively man-aging indigenous labor supplies. The con-tribution of organizational behaviormanagement to the success of other peo-ple's ventures can be cited without hes-itation as proof of this assertion (seeFrederiksen, 1982).

It is the third area, capital, where we,the servants, have been almost totallyimpotent. Lacking capital ofour own, wehave adopted, modified, and in some in-stances glorified the complex repertoiretraditionally known as begging. Thosewho are following the budget delibera-tions of congress, particularly since thepassage of Gramm-Rudman, will agreethat the begging industry has fallen onhard times and that a massive turn-around is probably not imminent. Itherefore believe that what federal mon-ey there is should be directed to basicresearch and I applaud the efforts ofBranch, Catania, Iwata, Thompson, andall the others who are making sure theneeds of behavior analysis are beingheard. In the applied area, however, we

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should reconsider the strategy of tryingto get government to subsidize the trans-fer of our technologies.

Fortunately, there is an alternative. Wehave shown that we can create and val-idate technologies that can generate eco-nomic benefits. There exists in this coun-try a vast number of people, with evenvaster amounts of money, who are will-ing to risk some of that money if a rea-sonable probability exists for a positivereturn. These people are called investorsand, as some ofmy colleagues and I dis-covered, a fairly orderly system existswhereby these individuals can be in-duced to participate with great eagernessin the process of technology transfer. Tobe sure, the ideals that you and I sharefor the greater glorification of the disci-pline ofbehavior analysis are not the ba-sis on which a commitment ofsubstantialinvestment money is made. Rather, thatbasis is simple greed or, as the Wall StreetJournal might phrase it, the "realizationof the American dream." No matter, thefinancial markets are a source of fundingwhich we, as a discipline, have largelyignored. In my view, we can no longerignore them ifwe are to survive. Now letme share with you an illustration ofhowthis process works and how, if carefullymanaged, it can support the widespreadadoption of an effective behavioral tech-nology that might otherwise have lan-guished in some bureaucratic purgatory.

MAMMACARE:AN ILLUSTRATION

A group of us at Florida have beeninvolved for the past several years in thedevelopment and distribution of a tech-nology for teaching breast self-examina-tion (BSE) as an aid to early detection ofcancer (e.g., Adams, Hall, Pennypacker,Goldstein, Hench, Madden, Stein, & Ca-tania, 1976; Bloom, Criswell, Penny-packer, & Catania, 1982; Hall, Gold-stein, & Stein, 1977; Hall, Stephenson,Adams, Goldstein, Pennypacker, & Stein,1980; Pennypacker, Bloom, Criswell,Neelakantan, Goldstein, & Stein, 1983;Pennypacker, Goldstein, & Stein, 1983).

Over the years, we have made a numberof scientific and technical presentationsof this work that need not be reiteratedin toto (e.g., Saunders, Neelakantan,Criswell, Bloom, & Pennypacker, 1982).Let me simply summarize the essentialfeatures of the technology and then de-scribe briefly how its transfer is beingmanaged through application of the con-tingencies of the marketplace.MammaCare is an individualized pro-

cedure for teaching BSE that was derivedfrom a psychophysical and behavioralanalysis of detecting small tumor simu-lations in a life-like facsimile of the hu-man breast. There are four essential ele-ments to the technology; each is uniqueto MammaCare, each contributes to theultimate proficiency of the learner, andeach is subject to being severed or com-promised on the grounds of cost or per-ceived inefficiency:

(1) A series of patented, life-like breast modelsare used to establish the tactile discrimination be-tween normal, nodular breast tissue and potentiallyharmful lumps (Madden, Hench, Hall, Pennypack-er, Adams, Goldstein, & Stein, 1978).

(2) A technique ofpalpation and search providesmaximally thorough examination of the breast tis-sue by the fingertips (Saunders, Pilgrim, & Penny-packer, in press).

(3) A system of precise direct measurement aidsthe trainer in shaping the skill to mastery level evenas it provides documentation of the learner's pro-ficiency (Pennypacker et al., 1983).

(4) A take-home kit contains a model matchedto the user's own breast tissue characteristics offirmness and nodularity. This model provides re-inforcement for the correct performance of the pal-pation and search skills and contributes to skillmaintenance (Saunders, 1986).

When the basic research' was com-pleted in 1981, we faced the problem ofwhat to do with the products and results.Ordinarily, one would proceed to a clin-ical trial and thus postpone the issue ofdissemination, but a proposal to accom-plish that was not funded. Being sensitiveto the fate of other effective behavioraltechnologies that had not transferred well,

I The basic research was supported by Grant No.CA-20791 from the Division of Cancer Control,National Cancer Institute, to the University ofFlor-ida.

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we elected to undertake the task our-selves, setting as our objective the deliv-ery of the benefits of the research to themaximum number of women, while al-lowing the minimum possible dilution inquality.We formed the Mammatech Corpo-

ration late in 1981, raised a small amountof capital through private placement ofstock in 1982, and completed a publicoffering of the stock early in 1983.2 Suf-ficient capital was raised to support ap-proximately five years of a novel under-taking-using the experimental methodto teach ourselves how to transfer a be-havioral technology to the marketplacewithout destroying it.Our early experiences were both ex-

hilarating and enlightening. Because ourtechnology deals with a serious healthproblem of very high visibility, and be-cause any publicly-owned company at-tracts a certain amount of media atten-tion, we were, and continue to be,recipients ofa great deal offavorable me-dia exposure. This has been particularlyinstructive to the extent that it reflectspublic perceptions of what is valuable.For example, our measurement system,which I had expected would be the mostfragile element to transfer, was recentlyemphasized in a Self Magazine (1986)feature.Our first attempt at dissemination was

a public relations triumph but a financialdebacle. We launched a company-ownedMammaCare Center in mid-town Man-hattan, complete with national press (e.g.,Nemy, 1983) and TV coverage (NBC's"Today Show" and CBS's "MorningNews"), but quickly learned thatMammaCare could not be priced afford-ably and delivered at full quality (about1 1/2 hours per patient) to generate enoughrevenue to offset the overhead that wouldhave to include a major advertising bud-get.We therefore shifted to a franchising

strategy, licensing the technology to qual-

2 My colleague, Mark Kane Goldstein, is pri-marily responsible for both conceiving and execut-ing this strategy.

ified healthcare providers under agree-ments which specified strict adherence toour standards of quality. Through thismechanism, MammaCare is slowlyspreading across the country; our basiclicensing strategy has been broadened toinclude corporate medical departmentsand is now being supplemented by a ver-sion of MammaCare that can be rentedby the licensees to patients for home use.This program is expected to increase vol-ume while retaining quality controlthrough the requirement ofmeasurementand evaluation of each patient's profi-ciency by the licensee. Eventually, Mam-matech might actually become profit-able.

Let us now consider the three criticaleconomic factors as they are manifest inthe example we have been discussing.First, land -in this case, this is repre-sented by our technology, MammaCare,which is owned by the Mammatech Cor-poration in the form of patents, trade-marks, servicemarks, etc. Because webrought it directly to the marketplace, weretain control over its destiny. This isimportant because one of the ways weinsure quality control is by carefully ar-ranging the contingencies, through the li-censing agreements, in which the right toshare in the economic benefits is conju-gately contingent upon proper utiliza-tion. As a discipline, we must constantlysearch for ways to convert our intellec-tual property in this fashion ifwe are toprotect its integrity. Otherwise, as we haveseen, anyone who can read can copy aneffective behavioral technology, modifyand dilute its essential elements until itis no longer effective, and then cite theresult in support ofarguments against us.With respect to labor, Mammatech has

concentrated its most intense efforts onthe training of our licensees' employees.The quality of delivery of MammaCareto the public will never be better than thetraining we give the deliverers whom wethen certify as MammaCare Specialists.To an unknown degree, we have also in-doctrinated a cadre of budding behavioranalysts in hospitals and clinics acrossthe country. We have done this by ar-

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ranging for them an experience that oc-curred for each of us. I have had morethan one nurse tell me that the transfor-mation in the behavior of patients as shewas teaching them MammaCare had aprofound change on the way she viewedlife in general and education in particu-lar. To paraphrase Fred Keller, when theteacher's behavior comes under the con-trol of the positive behavior change ofthe student, the rest is easy (Keller, 1977).Just to make sure we retain some con-sequent control over the performance ofour specialists, however, we have in placea corporate policy whereby the specialistreceives a check for $1,000 from thecompany whenever one of her patientsdiscovers a breast cancer smaller than 1cm.The novel aspect of this whole opera-

tion is that, because we are a public com-pany, the technology is literally ownedby the shareholders. Through our stockoffering, the investors gave us the moneyto carry out our business plan which, asyou may properly assume, requires us todistribute MammaCare in such a way thatthe investors may realize a return on theirinvestment. We have arranged matterssuch that this will only happen ifMammaCare achieves its intended ob-jective of reducing breast cancer mortal-ity. This point is critical. Had we yieldedto financial temptation and sold the tech-nology to the highest bidder or diluted itand marketed some of its components indrugstores, it is doubtful that manywom-en would have been helped, although agreat deal of money might have beenmade. If we are truly concerned aboutthe future of our discipline, I caution allof us to resist the temptation to releaseour technologies solely for material gain,even as we have all learned not to entrustthem to bureaucrats who have no vestedinterest in seeing the discipline flourish.A technology simplified or dismantled forshort term profit is no less damaged thanone consigned to the corrosion of bu-reaucratic neglect.By maintaining our position ofcontrol,

however, we have created with Mamma-Care an opportunity to demonstrate to

the world the economic benefits of aneffective behavioral technology. We areunder no illusions that hospitals or phy-sicians take MammaCare licenses solelybecause they wish to save lives. The sim-ple fact is they do so because they wishto make, or at least avoid losing money.Almost without exception, they attemptto negotiate an exclusive territory andsome have even refused to proceed with-out that provision in their contract. Theyare quite forthright in their justificationfor these demands: They want a com-petitive edge with respect to other health-care providers in the community. Ourpractice is to grant such exclusives in ex-change for guarantees of larger numbersofwomen trained. Failure to meet theseguarantees results in the loss of the ex-clusivity, but not in loss of the license.Other economic advantages result from

early detection ofbreast cancer, and henceadditional incentives exist to adoptMammaCare. Health insurance carriersand companies who self-insure have afinancial incentive to detect the occur-rence ofbreast cancer among the insuredas early as possible. Schwartz and Rollins(1985) present data derived from theirexperience at ARCO, a major oil pro-ducer with headquarters in the Los An-geles area. Briefly, the marginal cost toARCO, which was self-insuring, of fail-ure to detect earlier the six breast cancerswhich occurred in its workforce of ap-proximately 10,000 women during oneyear was $561,200. MammaCare couldhave been provided to this workforce forapproximately $150,000, thus generatinga savings forARCO ofroughly $410,000.To assure these saving, of course, the

complete benefit of MammaCare wouldhave to have been available to all of thefemale employees. As the ultimately re-sponsible source for MammaCare, we atMammatech must constantly act to in-sure the full effectiveness of our trainingor else we cannot assure these benefits.Conversely, to the extent that we can as-sure these benefits, we can assure the ul-timate success of the enterprise and, Ihope, of the discipline to which it owesits existence. As I have said before, ifyou

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can show how to save lives, you can getpeople to listen and talk. Ifyou can showthem how to make or avoid losing mon-ey, you can get them to act.

Finally, there is the financial benefit toour investors which we must consider. Itake very seriously my obligation to makethis company financially successful fromthe standpoint of the investors so thatothers among us will find it easier to usethe same mechanism to bring effectivebehavioral technologies into widespreadusage. Again, however, it will be up toall ofus to insure the effectiveness ofthesetechnologies; we simply cannot entrustthat responsibility to others who lack ourtraining and perspective. The rest of theworld will know only what happened;only we will know what was possible.

CONCLUSIONI would like to conclude by calling at-

tention to some areas of critical oppor-tunity for those who share my entrepre-neurial zeal and behavior-analyticidealism. Three items ofintense nationalconcern have emerged on the publicagenda. All three have shown themselveshighly resistant to the traditional socialscientific solutions of the past, notwith-standing substantial federal efforts andfunding.The first of these is urban violence. In

America Now, Harris (1981) attributesthis to chronic unemployment within theurban subculture and suggests that onlyeffective education and training will breakthe cycle. I agree. The second crisis in thenational consciousness is the alarmingand increasing adult illiteracy rate, aspopularized by Kozol (1985). Again theobvious solution is effective education andtraining. The third area contains evenmore immediate opportunities for be-havior analysts because of the direct andimminent threat to the economic healthof the industrial elements of our society.The following quote is from a workingpaper currently being circulated by PaulBraden (1984), an Economist with theU.S. Department of Commerce.There are major barriers to the full application oftraining technology that should be reduced or re-

moved. Recommended actions include reducing themarket fragmentation barrier by promoting moreResearch and Development Limited Partnerships(RDLP's); avoiding the insufficient transfer oftrain-ing technology by supporting a revised TrainingTechnology Transfer Act; mitigating the threat ofantitrust actions by publicizing the new antitrustlegislation and the formulation of a training tech-nology clearinghouse; and allaying the reluctanceof those in charge of education and training to ac-cept new technology by providing improved pre-and in-service training programs in the use of thistechnology. Supporting the application of appro-priate individual or combination actions to ad-vance education and training technology should beundertaken by the DOC Human Resource Devel-opment Task Force. Across the nation there is arising consciousness about the importance of thehuman element in making U.S. firms more com-petitive. Still, the message is not widely endorsed,nor are the actions needed to bring it to fruitionwell understood. By upgrading human capital in-vestment, by retraining and reintegrating olderworkers into the workforce, by making training fundsmore accessible to individuals and by bringingmodem technology to bear on the training problem,significant progress in productivity is possible. Intraining, reskilling and upgrading human resourcedevelopment, it is apparent that the private sectorand the Federal government need to form a collab-orative partnership in overcoming the problemshighlighted. (p. 1 1)

The Department ofCommerce has quiteproperly recognized that the ascendencyof the United States in the world eco-nomic arena has all but disappeared. Wehave squandered our resources and haverelinquished to others our advantages intechnological know-how and manufac-turing efficiency. Like the declining An-cient Roman Empire and the modemBritish Empire,3 ours is rapidly becominga service economy that imports more andmore of the manufactured goods neededfor survival. We have now become theworld's largest debtor nation. Americanindustry is prepared to spend vast sumsof money to improve the training of itsworkforce in an attempt to recapture itslost position as the world's supplier ofmarkets for manufactured goods. Underthe guidance ofthe Department ofCom-merce, it is also prepared to lavish theseresources on the so-called cognitive sci-ences. I need not tell you what the con-

3 I am indebted to Professor Richard T. Schnei-der of the University of Florida College of Engi-neering for bringing this to my attention.

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sequences of that misjudgement will be,either for our discipline or for our culture.We are being presented with an op-

portunity like none other in our history.A set of acute national needs exists thatwe are uniquely qualified to satisfy and,to an appalling degree, this fact is notknown outside this audience. The effi-ciency and effectiveness of our trainingtechnologies can have an immediate eco-nomic impact which even the most re-calcitrant bureaucrats would be forced toacknowledge. More importantly, our po-sition in the mainstream ofAmerican lifewould be guaranteed, if we can musterthe courage to manage our technologiesas we know they must be managed iftheyare to be effective. We have mature, thor-oughly validated technologies such as Di-rect Instruction (Englemann & Carnine,1982), Personalized Systems of Instruc-tion (Keller, 1968; Sherman, 1974), andPrecision Teaching (Lindsley, 1971) thatare fully capable of building behavior toquantitatively defined functional speci-fications. I believe this is a golden op-portunity for behavior analysis to showwhat it can do. As Skinner might put it,we have an opportunity to help save theworld. Let us seize this opportunity. Letus buy in without selling out.

REFERENCESAdams, C. K., Hall, D. C., Pennypacker, H. S.,

Goldstein, M. K., Hench, L. L., Madden, M. C.,Stein, G. H., & Catania, A. C. (1976). Lumpdetection in simulated human breasts. Perception& Psychophysics, 20, 163-167.

Ayllon, T., & Azrin, N. H. (1965). The measure-ment and reinforcement of behavior of psychot-ics. Journal of the Experimental Analysis ofBe-havior, 8, 357-383.

Baer, D. M., Peterson, R. F., & Sherman, J. A.(1967). The development of imitation by rein-forcing behavioral similarity to a model. Journalof the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 10,405-416.

Becker, W. C. (1978). The national evaluation offollow through: Behavior-theory-based programscome out on top. Education and Urban Society,10, 431-458.

Bloom, H. S., Criswell, E. L., Pennypacker, H. S.,Catania, A. C., & Adams, C. K. (1982). Majorstimulus dimensions determining detection ofsimulated breast lesions. Perception and Psycho-physics, 32, 251-260.

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The United States Department of Commerce (with AT&T) sponsored a teleconfer-ence on the Retraining ofAmerica, broadcast on May 22, 1986. A six-hour videotapeof the conference is available through the ABA central office for $25 (plus postageand handling). For information, please write or call the ABA office, Department ofPsychology, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008 (616-383-0452).