Henry D. (Hank) Schlinger Jr. received his Ph.D. in psychology (applied behavior analysis) from Western Michigan University under the supervision of Jack Michael. He then completed a two-year National Institutes of Health-funded post-doctoral fellowship in behavioral pharmacology with Alan Poling. He was a full tenured professor of psychology at Western New England University in Springfield, MA, before moving to Los Angeles. He is now associate professor of psychology and director of the M.S. Program in Applied Behavior Analysis in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Schlinger has published more than 65 scholarly articles and commentaries in more than 20 different journals. He also has authored or co-authored three books, Psychology: A Behavioral Overview (1990), A Behavior-Analytic View of Child Development (1995) (which was translated into Japanese), andIntroduction to Scientific Psychology (1998). He is a past editor of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior and The Behavior Analyst, and on the editorial boards of several other journals. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.

Selected Papers

2013. On the origin and function of the term "functional analysis." Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (with M. Normand). DOI=10.1002/jaba.6&ArticleID=1093926 

2012. Prediction and control: A commentary on Catania (1981). European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 13, 249-253.

2012. What would it be like to be IBM's computer, Watson? The Behavior Analyst, 35, 37-44.

2012. Using a lag schedule to increase variability of verbal responding in an individual with autism.The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 28, 125-130 (with C. Susa).

2012. The effect of joint control training on the acquisition and durability of a sequencing task. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 28, 59-71 (with A. Degraff).

2011. Verbally conditioning client behaviors in the therapeutic setting. Clinica y Salud/ Clinic and Health, 22, 245-255. (with G. Alessi).

2011. Skinner as missionary and prophet: A review of Burrhus F. Skinner: Shaper of behaviour. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 44, 217-225.

2010. Behavioral vs. cognitive views of speech perception. Journal of Speech Language Pathology-Applied Behavior Analysis, 5, 150-165.

2009. Auditory imagining. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 10, 77-85.

2009. Theory of mind: An overview and behavioral perspective. The Psychological Record, 59, 435-448.

2009. Some clarifications on the role of inner speech in consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 530-531.

2008. Listening is behaving verbally. The Behavior Analyst, 31, 145-161.

2008. Conditioning the behavior of the listener. International Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy, 8, 309-322.

2008. The long goodbye: Why B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior is alive and well on the 50^th anniversary of Its publication. The Psychological Record, 58, 329-337.

2008. Consciousness is nothing but a word. Skeptic, 13, 58-63

2008. What 50 years of research tell us about pausing under ratio schedules of reinforcement. The Behavior Analyst, 31, 39-60 (with A. Derrene & A. Baron).

2005. How the human got its mind: Debunking the last great myth in psychology. Skeptic, 11, 48-53.

2004. The almost blank slate: Making a case for human nurture. Skeptic, 11, 34-43.

2004. How psychology can keep its promises: A response to Lana. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 25, 277-286.

2004. Why psychology hasn't kept its promises. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 25, 123-144.

2003. The myth of intelligence. The Psychological Record, 53, 15-32.

2002. Not so fast Mr. Pinker: A behaviorist looks at the Blank Slate. Behavior and Social Issues, 12, 75-79.

1998. Of planets and cognitions: The use of deductive inference in the natural sciences and psychology. The Skeptical Inquirer, 22, 49-51.

1996. How the human got its spots: A critical analysis of the just so stories of evolutionary psychology, Skeptic, 4, 68-76.
Reprinted in Sussman, R. W. (1999). The biological basis of human behavior: A critical review (2^nd). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
and as Schlinger, H. D. (2002).  Evolutionary Psychology as Pseudoscience. In M. Shermer (Ed.), The Skeptic encyclopedia of pseudoscience, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Cleo, Inc.

1994. The effects of delayed reinforcement and a response-produced auditory stimulus on the acquisition of operant behavior in rats. The Psychological Record, 391-409 (with E. Blakely).

1993. Learned expectancies are not adequate scientific explanations. American Psychologist, 48, 1155-1156.

1992. Theory in behavior analysis: An application to child development. American Psychologist, 47, 1396-1410.

1990. Performance of children under a multiple random-ratio random-interval schedule of reinforcement. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 54, 263-271 (with G. Baxter).

1990. Pausing under variable-ratio schedules: Interaction of reinforcer magnitude, variable-ratio size, and the lowest ratio. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 53, 133-140 (with E. Blakely & T. Kaczor).

1989. Effects of Ro 15-4513 on schedule-controlled responding in pigeons. Pharmacology, Biochemistry & Behavior, 33, 777-780 (with D. Delaney & A. Poling).

1988. Determinants of pausing under variable-ratio schedules: Reinforcer magnitude, ratio size, and schedule configuration. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 50, 65-73 (with E. Blakely).

1988. Evaluation of a procedure to measure the time course of a drug's behavioral action. Journal of Pharmacological Methods, 20, 169-174. (with A. Poling).

Selected Books

Schlinger, H. D., & Poling, A. (1998). Introduction to scientific psychology. New York:Plenum.

Schlinger, H. D.  (1995). A behavior-analytic view of child development. New York:Plenum.

Poling, A., Schlinger, H., Starin, S., & Blakely, E. (1990). Psychology:  A behavioral overview. New York: Plenum.

Additional Information

Dr. Henry (Hank) D. Schlinger, Jr. on Teaching Verbal Behavior