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Review
. 2021 Sep 29;15(2):592-607.
doi: 10.1007/s40617-021-00642-z. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Women in Behavior Analysis: A Review of the Literature

Affiliations
Review

Women in Behavior Analysis: A Review of the Literature

Katarina Rotta et al. Behav Anal Pract. .

Abstract

Women have played, and continue to play, an important role in behavior analysis. Their participation as authors of journal articles and as journal editors was first quantified in 1983 and has been the topic of several subsequent articles. Other articles have addressed other aspects of women's participation in the discipline, but no review of articles concerned with women in behavior analysis has appeared. The present review (a) describes articles that quantified the participation of women, (b) presents a novel data set providing an updated overview of women's participation in eight behavior-analytic journals, (c) reviews suggestions from prominent female behavior analysts, (d) discusses other topics that pertain to the participation of women, (e) presents data describing the gender of authors who have written about women in behavior analysis, and (f) makes suggestions for future research. Women's participation in behavior analysis has increased greatly over the past half-century. The articles we review clearly document that increase and may have contributed to it, although that contribution is speculative.

Keywords: authors; behavior analysis; editors; gender; women.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Timeline of Studies Devoted to the Participation of Women in Behavior Analysis. Note. The studies (author, year) are depicted in chronological order from 1958 through 2020. The timeline begins in 1958, which was the inception of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Dependent Variable Values for Each Journal Alone and for the Group Means (2017–2020). Note. JEAB = Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior; JABA = Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis; BAP = Behavior Analysis in Practice; BARP = Behavior Analysis: Research and Practice; PBS = Perspectives on Behavior Science; TAVB = The Analysis of Verbal Behavior; TPR = The Psychological Record; JOBM = Journal of Organizational Behavior Management
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Percentage of Editorial Board Members for Each Journal Alone and for the Group Means. Note. JEAB = Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior; JABA = Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis; BAP = Behavior Analysis in Practice; BARP = Behavior Analysis: Research and Practice; PBS = Perspectives on Behavior Science; TAVB = The Analysis of Verbal Behavior; TPR = The Psychological Record; JOBM = Journal of Organizational Behavior Management

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