S4 E3: Understanding Human Behavior | Leadership, Crime, Trauma, and Systems Change with Dr. Timothy J. Templin

Intro
Welcome to Behaviorally Speaking: Leadership for Change-Makers—where leadership is grounded in behavior, guided by dignity, and designed for change. I'm your host, Dr. Esther Bubb. Let's dive into today's episode.
Interview
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Hi, Tim, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you for joining. How's your morning going so far?
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Timothy: It's going well, and I'm very happy to be here, Esther.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Thank you so much. So, I'm excited, you know, to your responses, you know, to our conversation, you know, what I can learn from you. We've done some work, you know, in criminal justice in the past, and then I kind of segued more into, you know, education, but it doesn't matter what field you're in.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Tim, I realized, you know, the behaviors are everywhere, and certain levels of behaviors could lend themselves to, you know, future criminal behaviors. So I'm really excited for our conversation today.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: So let's start off, kind of just talking about your leadership journey, Tim, so people could know a little bit about you? Like, how did your early interest in, like, psychology, criminology, and, you know, my favorite behavior analysis eventually evolve into your work in forensic behavior analysis and criminal behaviorology?
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Timothy: Well, I can tell you, when I was very young, I took an early interest in human evolution, and I didn't have a lot to go on then, but that, of course, led me into psychology, and when I was in an undergraduate in psychology.
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Timothy: I don't think there was anything of significance of behaviorism, except maybe from a historical presentation. I think our psychology
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Timothy: textbook on introductory psychology, had maybe just a page on B.F. Skinner saying it was, and Pavlov, of course, and that was about it. But I soon started to take an interest in forensic psychology, and you might see
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Timothy: I don't know this to be certain, but for those of us in crime and behavior analysis, excuse me, a whole lot has started out
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Timothy: in behavior analysis, and then found the need for forensics. But I did start in forensic psychology and started getting into behavior analysis long after that. So, I did work at a forensic
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Timothy: psychiatric facility for about 13 years. Okay. And it was there that I, while I was working there, I went to a conference of Brian Iwata.
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Timothy: And he talked a lot about reducing restraints, about inpatient care. It's a lot of things you wouldn't normally see in some of these ABA or functional analytic learning seminars, and I thought that was, well, that's exactly what we need. I believed a lot of our problems in the hospital were environmental.
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Timothy: And, so I went back to the hospital, I started some programs, started to get a program going.
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Timothy: introducing behavior analytic principles with varying degrees of success. I realize that had been tried before, that had been discussed long before me, and then it… which is a theme where you see some of these
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Timothy: Some of these, apparatuses of behavior interventions put into place for a while, and then they just go away.
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Timothy: But we did have some success with some resistance, at the hospital, but my study of behavior analysis led me to becoming a BCBA ultimate.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Okay. Okay.
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Timothy: And it was from there that I, you know, I ended up.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: in the, SIG, the Special Interest Group of ABAI, that is now Forensic Behavior Analysis. And, I'm also, I, am in a few couple other organizations
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Timothy: And I started my own, my own podcast, Criminal Behaviorology.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Just to get.
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Timothy: the word Thank you, you know, just to find any way I could to further this sub-specialty.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. You know, I just…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: It always intrigued me. It's a very unique field. It's one that's not going to go anywhere. It's one that's definitely needed, because it touches so many aspects. It doesn't matter the country, the region, whatever, it touches it. So thank you for all your work, you do, Tim, and I appreciate your commitment. I really appreciate your commitment to that field. Thank you so much.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: So, having said all of that, right, how was your understanding of human behavior over the years, what it was then, what it is now, how has that influenced how you define leadership and how you lead?
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Timothy: Yeah, I… I would say my understanding now is that I think behavior… behaviorism is the only area that I… I think makes full sense.
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Timothy: As far as practice of leadership. In other words, that you have an understanding of your environment, and what reinforces people to do the things they do. That has to be in the equation
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Timothy: Somewhere, that they are either being drawn to or something, or perhaps they're trying to escape some type of stimuli, whether it's logical to me or not, or it's desired by me or not.
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Timothy: there is that motivation, and you gotta find some kind of a way, and pretty much feel good about the environment that you're in. Yes. And if there's problems, steadily.
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Timothy: start to make changes. You may find
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Timothy: Making a few key changes, makes some big difference.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: I think when you have a system that's in place where it is understood, not necessarily
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Timothy: agreed to, but understood by the people involved, then you've made a lot of progress, and you may not see the full benefit
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Timothy: Until time goes by a little bit. We, at our special interest group, it's been quite a struggle to get… to get things going, to be,
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Timothy: functional, in a general sense, you know, to have a system in place, to have officers, to have a bank account, you know, we've gone through a lot of things, but we've started to get that
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Timothy: put in place where people can be part of that system, but anyway.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah, wonderful. Yeah, Tim, thank you for that. I totally agree with you, because you mentioned, you know, creating those environmental contingencies, whatever those are.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And it really… I always say leadership is behavior. It really… we need the understanding of behaviorism, you know, behavior analysis to be effective leaders, but just as you said, I think of it as creating those conditions, or those contingencies where people can be successful, right? So everything that you said.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And it's really been intriguing to me. Tim, I'll tell you, a lot of the reasons is because there are young behavior analysts, they're young educators, it doesn't matter who, Tim, are coming into the field, but then also assuming leadership positions, they're not really taught, right, you know, how to be leaders, and so that's why it's intriguing to me. People are not sure what to do. And I'll say the same for myself, Tim. Like, no one taught me, you know, it's like you learn as you go.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And so… so thank you for sharing that.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: But I want to segue into your specialty, right? Crime, behavior, and leadership. And I want to start off… so I've had a couple of guests on, we've had these conversations, you know, youths back in Grenada, you know, even my brother, things like that. I recently had, you know, one of the doctors back home on… on that, we went to school together, but we've been talking about
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Back home in Grenada, there's this recent surge in gender-based violence, right? And so…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: we've been talking about, you know, all of the things, you know, that could be impacted and whatnot, and then, you know, you'll have those rallies, and you know, they're short-lived and, you know, whatnot, but how do we really address the problem? So, from a behavioral perspective, Tim, and from your experience, right? How do experiences, the environments, and consequences shape criminal or antisocial behavior, such as gender-based violence? And before we started recording, I was talking about, I was listening to your recent episode with Dr. Brown, and he was sharing a lot of intriguing insights
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Dr. Esther Bubb: insight, you know, which I would love to share, you know, with people back home, too. So I'm curious to your thoughts.
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Timothy: Right, well, first of all, for… and I have had a couple episodes on domestic violence.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Okay.
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Timothy: And if they… On my podcast, or any of these.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: shows that you can look that stuff up about, you know, looking at the behavioral economics of domestic violence to see, because you have… Bell and Noggle had a good article on what's called the stay or go, leave or go.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Stay or go phenomenon.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: about what you often are seeing about should someone, you know, if a woman's in a domestic violence, why would she leave and then come back? And just start looking at that in a behavioral, economic standpoint, that you may actually be taking a loss in a lot of ways, and then if.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: There's a lot to it, and so when you start looking at it that way, and it's actually quite intriguing.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Also, from… of the perpetrators, and you have to be a little bit careful when you talk about these things.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yes, yes.
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Timothy: excuse that's in a.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right.
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Timothy: of what's happening, and that all the potential that all crime could be looked in that way.
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Timothy: But I would say, you know, around the world, and about the data that we get on crime, if we see an increase, you know, is it an increase in accurate reporting, data collection?
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Timothy: Has there been a change in the, you know, some of these problems were dealt with in other kinds of customs and institutions previously that just aren't there anymore, or are not.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: functioning in the same way, and then we get this result. We… you could say some similar things about
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Timothy: mass shootings, about what is the increase about that.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: There's a lot to be considered about society has changed, and maybe things were dealt with in previous ways in a different… in a different manner, but now, the environment has changed, the contingencies have changed, and now we're…
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Timothy: we're getting this result. So, I'd look at the, you know, what is the data collection?
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Timothy: And then to see, you know, what are the environmental changes that have happened that maybe we need to take a serious look at?
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Timothy: And, maybe some interventions can be brought to bear in that sense. But, yeah, it brings, domestic violence, I think has a lot to do, similarities in that. Also, we had an episode on, with Dr. Brandon Green about
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Timothy: family reunification and interventions, CPS-type interventions into homes, that there was a lot of behavior analytic work that can be done about, you know, keeping the home.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: clean about, you know, following certain protocols in the home to get the family, you know, it's a little bit of behavioral momentum.
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Timothy: being put in there to stabilize the family, as opposed to the opposite effect, which.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right.
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Timothy: They had seen a lot in a lot of the child welfare cases, but that's where I digress on, but yeah, that's, that's a very good, it's a very good area to cover as far as around the world is, the gender-based and the domestic or interpersonal violence areas.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah. You raised a really good point, Tim, in terms of, you know, is there an increase in reporting? And even if we just think of social media, like, everything is on social media anymore, so things that we perhaps wouldn't have heard of before, we're hearing of now. And it's a really valid point, because even in thinking of autism, we hear of it a lot more just because people are more aware, right? And it's being reported, and it's being diagnosed more, right?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: I think it's a really good point, that you've raised in terms of data. So then, Tim, also from a behavioral perspective, how should leaders, so if we think of the leadership of it now, right, in Grenada, Caribbean, here, wherever, right, think and act differently regarding crime, aggression, or harmful behavior, such as gender-based violence?
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Timothy: Yeah, well, so essentially, we're thinking, what should leadership do.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: as an intervention.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right.
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Timothy: And I would,
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Timothy: Speaking, probably my own bias here is to start educating the public about behavior analytic principles.
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Timothy: Because if they're not aware of them, they're not going to be able to understand these types of interventions. And the kind of education that I only got in graduate school ought to be…
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Timothy: Many, many years before that should be in high school or before, that people can understand the basics of reinforcement.
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Timothy: Or a lot of people have trouble with respondent conditioning, but the distinction between respondent and operant conditioning. These things can be brought forward, and it's not as if these mechanisms are not in place in our daily lives. We are subject to advertising every day.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Which, those in charge of that, the leaders in charge of that are very well versed in behavior analytic principles.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Exactly.
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Timothy: also in animal training, and a lot in IO psychology, those types of areas. It's not that we are untouched by these principles, but I'm not sure the public's being made aware. So the first thing I would do is
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Timothy: Is make sure the leadership has the public and the people under them,
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Timothy: Have a certain level of competence in understanding these principles.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yes.
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Timothy: And then to help them see the benefit of it. Okay. I think that would be… would be real leadership in that sense.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, no, I definitely agree, because… and you're 100% right, it's what I say, Tim, and it's why I love ABA, it's like, we live and breathe it every day, right?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: I think when we're aware, like myself and yourself, we know when we see it, but the average person perhaps wouldn't. So I totally agree with that perspective on, you know, educating the community and leaders on applied behavior analysis.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And so, Tim, with all of these things we're talking about, there's trauma, and I try to, you know, really adopt and keep to and preach, you know, a trauma-informed approach, but also a trauma-insumed assumed, Tim, where we're just assuming there might be trauma, right? Whether we know it or not. So I'm really big on that, especially, you know, because I work with the littles, like, you know, preschoolers and then staff, who then deal with challenging behaviors, you know, so they might have
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Dr. Esther Bubb: traumatic experiences, but… so let's talk a little bit about trauma ethics and human behavior. How does trauma influence behavior, decision-making, and behavioral regulation, Tim?
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Timothy: Well, the… an important thing to keep in mind for a behavior analytic view of trauma, that it's not just an incident, or a series of incidences, it is that experience, and then everything that has come subsequent to that. You've had a shaping of behavior
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Timothy: Post any kind of traumatic incident or incidents.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: If you… there is, now, I'm not… I'm blanking on the name of the author, but the title was Too… Too Scared to Cry, and then there is another book about the, what was called in California the Chowchilla
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Timothy: kidnapping, kidnapping case where children were, it would make a dramatic movie now, but children from a school bus were actually kidnapped and, and…
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Timothy: hidden away as hostages for a while. A pretty in-depth view of how… of the effect of trauma
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Timothy: From their lives from that point on.
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Timothy: That you could really see the impact of it, and at that place and time, that time and culture, that the idea was to just move on from it. Don't dwell on it. But the impact of it subsequent to that really affected their lives. It kind of affected the entire community.
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Timothy: Quite a bit.
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Timothy: Yeah. So, you know,
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Timothy: it's how trauma shapes over time, and why this is, this is a mechanism that you, perhaps we could say your nervous system, I don't know, you know, others in the neurocriminology area, that they have just as much a voice in this.
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Timothy: Two, about how it may, may shape our, physiology.
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Timothy: And response to…
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Timothy: stimuli in the environment that relate to these original incidences, and the purpose, of course, ultimately is to protect us. But our reaction is, you know, often a kind of a negative reinforcement, an escape maintained.
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Timothy: process where we're trying to avoid certain stimuli.
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Timothy: And it can have very detrimental effects on people's functioning, and if you're… if you find yourself being…
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Timothy: limited.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: certain… in certain spheres, you know, why is that? What is it that's limiting you?
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Timothy: And it may be your own experience. And we have all kinds of beliefs around that, and but it may be… if it's something that can be learned, can it be… can it be relearned? I won't say unlearned, can it be relearned?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: so that the individual can become more functional. So, that answer, I don't know if that's quite what's being looked for, as far as… it's pretty general in tone, but that's kind of what we're looking at behavior analytically for trauma.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely, that's a good perspective, and then it just reminds me, Tim, of, you know, behavior analytically, like, instead of asking what… or saying, what's wrong with you, right? What experiences shaped what you're doing, right? What were those contingencies, and then what can we change? What supports can we offer? What can we do differently?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: to help you to be successful, right? So I think it's, you know, behavior analytically, that's how we would look at it, right? Instead of looking at just the behavior itself, what else is actually happening here, and how can we support this person? Yeah.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: So, seeing all of that.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Tim, I'm thinking of ethics, right? So, again, I work, you know, primarily in special education now, so…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: you know, we have to really think about making sure we're not restraining kids, you know, or intentionally or unintentionally, any of those things, like making sure everybody's psychologically safe, all of those things, and then ethic… ethics, then, is very important. So what ethical considerations become especially important, Tim, when applying behavior analysis in forensic or correctional settings?
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Timothy: Okay, this is… this is getting huge as far as the ethical considerations. I've got one particular example here that needs to be considered, but anywhere, you know, the correctional setting and the… any kind of
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Timothy: judicial setting, people's liberty has been potentially or has been taken from them. So where is our… where is our assent or consent for treatment?
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Timothy: And I did discuss this in my own thesis on.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Okay.
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Timothy: area of competency to stand trial. So here you have… this is competency to stand trial, not insanity, not diminished capacity. This is simply, can an individual… this is much more in…
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Timothy: Anglican Western law that they…
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Timothy: I can't speak a whole lot for outside this area, but… Okay. …have a person has been charged, and can they actually participate in their own defense? And a decision is being made by the court, by the judge.
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Timothy: that they may not be able to. And then that kind of puts a pause on their prosecution, which is still hanging over their head, at least for a period of time. Right. Well, what kind of intervention can be brought in? Can they be helped to be competent? And this is going on for a number of years, and in most cases, they get sent to a hospital, like where I worked at, a psychiatric.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Okay.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Under some way or another, treat their mental illness in the hopes that once that's treated, then they will be restored to competency.
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Timothy: But even for many years, without any help from behavior analysis in a direct way, we had what we called legal education classes, you know, to help them learn the terms.
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Timothy: about what's going on, and it's a logical idea that they would be able to then work with their attorney. I did a little study on competency using some discrete trial teaching methods, that they would learn courtroom terms.
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Timothy: either using matching, or with tacting, or with, some intraverbal type of techniques, with some degree of success, but you asked about ethics. I mean, if
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Timothy: This was simply done as part of a study with volunteers, but what if you had real
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Timothy: People found incompetent to stand trial, and an intervention was being brought in
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Timothy: For the purpose of their own prosecution.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Where is the consent? Are there guardians to be brought in, if they have guardians? Is the state that's now prosecuting them their guardian? They could be a ward of the state.
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Timothy: So we're stepping into some, some very pertinent ethical issues. Yeah. Probably, I can't say, have been resolved at the time of this speaking, but to have them, at the…
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Timothy: When they are incompetent, you know, not fit to stand trial, we could say.
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Timothy: They are already in a state where their liberty has been curtailed.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And it's our duty to help them be able to defend themselves.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: But that right there is an intervention that the individual may not want, or have a hard time…
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Timothy: consenting to…
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Timothy: Yeah. And you could have an attorney or someone in the ethical sphere consulting on a case like that to say, hey, is the rights of the individual
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Timothy: Even though… even though this is being done, under the auspices of helping them with their own case, is this in their… is this in their interest? Is this something they are having informed consent to?
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Timothy: So that, that would be, that's a prime example, but there's many examples.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Because if they are using… this was discussed on contingency management programs in juvenile and adult corrections. Where's the consent?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah.
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Timothy: And any of the other capacities in court, by the way, about to be able to, sign a will, about…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: about medical… agreeing to medical procedures. All of these things have a form of consent to them, and have ethical issues surrounding them.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, you're so right, and the part that stood out to me, what you said, you said we have to support them to be able to defend themselves, right? Right, yeah. And then, Tim, that requires, you know, I just kind of want to segue into compassion. It requires a lot of compassion, right? It requires seeing the person still as a person, their respect, their dignity, right? And so, Tim, thinking of all of that, your experiences, you know, I have to think about it a lot, too, because
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Again, several challenging behaviors occur, and we have to be compassionate at the end of all of it, right? So, what does compassionate leadership look like when working with difficult or dangerous behavior? You know, how do you help people to just be compassionate?
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Timothy: Yeah, well, of course, I think it's the same compassion, even for the most dangerous.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: So, Tim, in thinking about compassion and compassionate leadership, like, I really stress compassion a lot because
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Dr. Esther Bubb: it's easy for us to get into a state, emotional state, where we're overwhelmed, right? And then we may respond as we may not usually respond, or to judge, well, this is the level of behavior, why do I need to be compassionate? But I still see people as individuals, as humans, they need ding, they need, they need respect. So, and from your perspective, what does compassionate leadership look like when working with
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Dr. Esther Bubb: You know, difficult or dangerous behavior.
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Timothy: Well, I will, I will refer back to the, Morrison-Brockman when they had, in 87, when they had written about the seven dimensions of the same as, Beowulf and Risley, the seven dimensions of behavior analysis. This is the seven dimensions
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Timothy: for crime and behavior analysis, that it could be… it can be a very inconvenient area.
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Timothy: to work in because of the… the behaviors can be infrequent, they can be severe, and it can be difficult to measure and difficult to determine the function. That being said, the compassion applies to the most dangerous
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Timothy: individuals, as much as it does the least dangerous. We just have to have an apparatus in place to protect the person and to protect the other people as well.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: In a setting like a forensic psychiatric setting, I would see some of the biggest problems would be… and I use this, I want to be careful about this concept.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: of behavioral contrast that you may have in some… on certain shifts, you may have some things allowed that other… other times wouldn't be allowed. Certain staff would do things one way, and then others would do it another way, and it's for all kinds of reasons, have to do with safety, exhaustion.
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Timothy: Confusion about how.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: So to… to reduce the problems, all the net problems that come from some kind of
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Timothy: behavioral contrast, different stimuli coming in, and then this, the awareness of the environment. And if this…
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Timothy: If the people that work with someone that is difficult and hard to manage know that they have a set of steps they can go to. They can go to their own leaders, they can depend on each other, and they have a protocol they can follow.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And it makes it much less likely that you're gonna have an acceleration of a dangerous environment, where they either feel they can't take certain steps for safety, or they have to be much more assertive or aggressive
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Timothy: Than is necessary Which it actually ends up working against them, to secure the environment.
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Timothy: You know, there's a… there's a lot to be said about,
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Timothy: sec… making, looking at something from a systems perspective about, you know, where is the breakdown? If… oftentimes.
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Timothy: they were not really told what to do.
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Timothy: If a dangerous situation came about, or if they…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And then at the same time, because of that, there was very little reinforcement when the individual was doing the things that we wanted.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right, right, right.
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Timothy: So, and that may be because they felt, well, things are going well, we don't want to rock the boat, we don't want to do anything.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yes.
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Timothy: Cause us a lot of problems, when that really was our very opportunity to reinforce.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: behaviors.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: that we wanted. So, you know, to me, it's, I did see a lot of that in psychiatric care.
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Timothy: Where I thought the people at the frontline level were put into a position
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Timothy: Where they had to find a way to protect themselves, and then it's really causing a set of, a set of environmental factors where somebody could easily get hurt.
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Timothy: Or someone could be held responsible.
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Timothy: First, for injuries happening, for things that could happen in restraint.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: I mean, it really was… it really shouldn't have come to that. There should have…
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Timothy: There should have been a systems perspective in place to avoid that to start with.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah. You raised a number of good points, but one that stood out to me was when you said, you know, sometimes interventions are in place, but they're not implemented because people are like, oh, it's all good now, right?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And I see it a lot in education, where, you know, we would recommend strategies, and a teacher would say, well, no, not doing it, everything is good, and then all of a sudden, right, the
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Dr. Esther Bubb: happens, and then, you know, everybody wants everybody to come running, so it's important, you know, that we follow through. And I think that's part of being compassionate. Like, if we all agreed, you know, this is what we're going to do to help this individual, that we're all doing it, and then if we found it to be successful and we can, you know, start to wean the intervention off, then let's do that together.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And I think a lot of what you said lends itself to this idea, Tim, that, okay, I'll hold you accountable, but I'm still going to recognize your humanity, right? We have to hold people accountable. I have to have those difficult, tough conversations with staff quite often. You know, if behaviors didn't go as we expected or didn't follow policy or procedure, I have to hold them accountable, but I'm still talking to them as a human, you know what I'm saying? So I think it's really important that, you know, we recognize that's something that we all need to be able
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Dr. Esther Bubb: to do.
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Timothy: Yeah, and holding people accountable is recognizing
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Timothy: If it's done in the right way, it is recognizing their humanity, that they may.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: That they could make decisions that are in favor of a good outcome or a bad outcome.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yes.
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Timothy: And that we're aware of that, you know.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right.
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Timothy: You know, it's a much… a little bit of an aside, but apparently there were studies in the Air Force…
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Timothy: About, reducing, reducing suicides, and they found.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Commanders on a unit that had the higher number of write-ups, had lower suicide rates.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Hmm.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: is… Seemed a little counterintuitive, but it could be that the commanders there were more aware of what.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Oh, right.
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Timothy: on under them, and that was the end result of that, was maybe a.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: More write-ups, or something like that.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: What the hell.
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Timothy: It's a… it's an interesting.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: It is.
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Timothy: about how things might turn out and how leadership might have a benefit for those under them, but…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's quite intriguing, yeah, yeah, I love that kind of information. So, let's talk, Tim, about advice and the future, right? So.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: As you know, you know, behavior analysis, you know, most of the behavior analysts I know are, like, in education, special education, you know, clinical setting, things like that. So, fields like yours, like criminology and just other fields, we don't see it as much, right? So.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: What advice, then, would you give for behavior analysts interested in applying their skills, right, beyond traditional clinical settings? What are some of the things that they could do?
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Timothy: Well, first of all, my advocacy has been that that's the most important thing those working in behavior analysis can do, is to work, to start progressing outside autism.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: disabilities, and also not even in any kind of
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Timothy: pathology or intervention for treatment, although there's plenty that can be done for that. The whole… if you read Walden II.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: then B.F. Skinner's book, you would see it's the application of behaviorism in daily life for everyone. Yeah. So, you know,
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Timothy: I think we have to accept, although not entirely, but we can accept that you can end up in the workforce, and you may not be
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Timothy: have a job title of BCBA, but you can be applying behavior analytic principles wherever you go in human resources, in finance.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: in wherever you're at, and we can have the same ethical principles, the same task list that we follow in whatever field that we're in, and be able to see the benefits of using behavior analysis. So that,
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Timothy: maybe there's more that we're looking for with that question, Esther, you go ahead and let me know. What else do you think we should talk about there?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: I mean, I think so, like, for example, I'll give you an example. So, when I had my brother on, he's a civil engineer, and so we were talking about, you know, I'm in ABA, but, like, I gave him several examples of how he could apply those principles in his practice, right, as a civil engineer with his employees, things like that, and he was like, hmm, never thought of that made sense. So, I think, to your point, even when you said earlier about educating the public, right, about ABA,
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Dr. Esther Bubb: when we talked about crime and domestic violence. I think the more we get it out there, Tim.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: the more, not just behavior analysts, but the world, the public realizes, first of all, moving away from this bad rap of ABA, right? I'm just… ABA is more than what
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Dr. Esther Bubb: the public, you know, often portrays it to be. I had someone respond recently, because, you know, I've been doing, like, you know, my posts and reels and shorts, like.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Esther, you need to get out of ABA, it has a bad rap, it doesn't do any good, and I'm like, this… this is still a thing, you know? But I think… I think the more, like, people like you, people like me get it out there, talk about it, so I'm, like, linking it a lot to leadership now, because there's so much to be said for how we can, you know, support others, but really lend… how it lends itself to applied behavior analysis. So, like, helping students, the people we support, whoever it is…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: it is, or whoever it may be, Tim, just as you said, help them see, you don't have to have the title of BCBA, that's not my title.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: But I really embed and talk about the principles of ABA in everything that I do, right? You know, it doesn't matter whether it's a staff behavior, or a student behavior, or it's just, you know, parent behavior, it doesn't matter, I always… I always bring it in. And I think the more we can talk about it that way and help people see, just as you said, Tim, I always say.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: it happens in everyday life, so even when I'm talking or teaching, whatever it is, I always give, like, everyday examples.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: So then, behavior analysts, or students, or whomever it is, can start to see, okay, well, it doesn't have to be in education, doesn't have to be in special education, doesn't have to be in a clinical setting.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: with whatever I'm doing, I can promote ABA, I can promote, you know, basic principles of behavior, reinforcement, you know, things like that, and how I can just help people succeed. And I think, you know, so whether it's criminology, whether, you know, I'm in education, I, you know, do a lot with leadership, things like that, just some of the things that I do. Even with my daughter, right? I was talking to my daughter yesterday, she was having a moment. So, but then, again, I'm not coming to her as a BCBA, but in my head, I'm thinking.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: These are all the things I know, here are all the principles, and how can I help her, you know, walk through what she's experiencing, you know?
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Timothy: Well, the first episode on my podcast was about the earlier article on hostage negotiation using behavioral.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Timothy: So, you know, and I'm not going to go to professional hostage negotiators and say, hey, you're gonna.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: You guys need to start doing this, but it is something to be aware of.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: any, any area.
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Timothy: that we, there's probably every area that we're somehow involved in without even realizing it. Yeah. And, there's a lot going on where we're referred to
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Timothy: Whether, we actually get referred to by our true name or not.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: A little while ago, it still comes up now and then, but they, they mentioned the use of,
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Timothy: of, rats, African rats, to find mines in a demining program, to find, explosive mines. Yeah. And the article mentions that science
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Timothy: Is being used to train rats.
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Timothy: to find minds to save people's lives. Well, that science is behavioral science.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: didn't know to call it that. That's okay. It's being implemented. Now, if I talk about that, maybe other behavior analysts will say, well, that's just, you know, animal training and things like that. You know, so it's kind of like, in some ways, I feel we can't win. We can't talk about our successes.
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Timothy: Without a little bit of… Of insecurity about our… our place in this world.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: I think there needs to be less insecurity about us.
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Timothy: Less concern about mistakes or misperceptions.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right.
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Timothy: of the past.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Exactly.
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Timothy: That every field has, and I've just come to terms with, and much more, you know, future-oriented.
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Timothy: Forward thinking.
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Timothy: Of how we can, make these applicant… we're gonna be needed. We have been needed all… already, and…
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Timothy: With help with the space program, with worker safety, with traffic safety, with all kinds… we're gonna be… we're gonna be called upon.
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Timothy: Yeah. To help by, and the criminal justice area is just… is just one example, though.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yes.
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Timothy: you know from education, they'll call upon us. We'll probably only be…
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Timothy: As big as our last hit was, you know?
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Well, oh, we really love those guys.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yes.
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Timothy: BC, A, B, whatever those people were.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: appreciated him.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: I know.
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Timothy: whether, but the next time, I don't know that we'll be as, we'll be as wanted until we can show the work we do is beneficial.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, you know, in my view, Tim, behavior analysts belong everywhere. Behavior occurs everywhere, right? And so I really…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: I think it's less of the question of.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: can behavior analysis fit here, and more of, what are the behavior problems that are occurring in my environment, where I work, where I live, whatever, and what are the principles that I can rely on to help solve those problems? And I think a lot of it, too, Tim, just from working in education, you would often hear staff say, the child with the behaviors.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: We all engage in behaviors, right?
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Timothy: Yeah, yeah.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: there's a little bit of the misconception there, the labeling, you know, and so a lot of what I do is just try and
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Dr. Esther Bubb: you know, yes, I'm at work, but it's beyond what I'm obligated to do. It's, like, just educating people. We all have behaviors. It's anything we do. So it's not just this child, because this is the behavior he or she's engaging in. We all engage in behaviors. Like, how we're responding? You know, so a lot of it, for me, it's really… it's really that, Tim, helping people understand that, you know, ABA moves beyond just what they see it as, and it's… it's everywhere.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: what's the word? Ubiquitous.
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Timothy: ubiquitous, yeah.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, it's everywhere.
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Timothy: It's all over the… well, I would hear… at the hospital, they would say, well, is that patient's behavior really just… is that patient's… is what they're doing, is it just behavioral?
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Timothy: Which came to mean that it wasn't attributed to a standard psychiatric diagnosis, whatever that means, in some kind of way. And colloquially, it became, you know, it's their choice.
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Timothy: They're just… they're doing it, and we presume maybe thinking about it.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And doing it, instead of saying all these actions that these patients take is behavioral. Even their reduction.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: As we've seen in other studies, even in their reduction to response to unseen stimuli, or hallucinations, or whatever you call them. You know, we'd have… we would have…
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Timothy: Patients come in from corrections that,
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Timothy: I don't know, what's the… what's the old, nursery, or the old, fable of Rip Van Winkle, was it? You know, it looked like he'd been in a cave or something for 20 years, but he'd been in corrections, unbathed, just hair everywhere.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Pretty much not in a state of communication.
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Timothy: And in many cases, unable to take most antipsychotic medications. They would have liver damage or other kinds of medical problems. It wasn't even an option. A lot of these guys would get a haircut, often forced by order to get a haircut, and then they'd start to communicate. They'd get better, you know.
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Timothy: Does something about less hair or hygiene? Maybe so. It helps them out, but it could be…
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Timothy: they look… I thought it was a new patient in some cases, like, who's this.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: God.
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Timothy: But it was the same guy that cut all his hair off of him. Yeah.
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Timothy: Our reaction to them is different, so it's a new stimuli, and then.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: Their reaction starts to become different.
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Timothy: anything we do, then, can have an impact, and if we're seeing something positive, that's the thing to look out for. We gotta keep an eye out for when something might benefit our mission, even if it's a small.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah.
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Timothy: Gold.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Tim. So, what leadership behaviors
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Dr. Esther Bubb: do you think are most necessary for changing institutional culture? So myself as a leader, you know, in my role, you as a leader in your role, what, you know, a simple one that comes to mind is, like, modeling, right? Model the desired behavior that we want, you know, our staff to engage in. What are the behaviors you believe are most necessary for changing institutional culture?
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Timothy: I have become more of an advocate of at least some form of behavior skills training to actually get with
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Timothy: To be out there, with the staff, the people you're working with.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And the truth is, a lot of… if you are a supervisor, you're probably not going to do the job as well as those that do it every day.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: That doesn't mean you can't be out there to do some kind of behavior skills training.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And then it helps fix up a lot of little problems about documentation, about, you know, positioning of items, about keeping consistent with a program. And the actual… I mean, I do like…
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Timothy: I do like contingency management, or token systems.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Okay.
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Timothy: which are not, which, you know, the actual sum total of success is moderate. It's not…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
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Timothy: But, what I really like is the process of training that the staff go, okay, this is what we're doing, this is the step-by-step, and then you get feedback from them.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And you can get people on the same page as far as how things are done, and potentially reduce the kinds of extraneous stimuli or behavioral contrast that can be in place. So, being out there.
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Timothy: If it's in the field, or wherever you're at, you know, being out there with the people, a type of behavioral skills training, or a type of modeling.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Hmm.
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Timothy: be in pri… and you can do train the trainers, you know, you can train one person that's in the group and see how they do. But I reiterate, it isn't just…
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Timothy: the training, it's the reinforcement for learning the job that you can… and then when problems come up later on, you know.
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Timothy: You get to hear about them, because they're gonna…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Right.
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Timothy: a certain form of feedback to you later in the day. It sets up a good learning culture, that kind of leadership.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: You know, Otherwise, you know, I think a reinforcement for the staff, just like it is with
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Timothy: Our patients reinforced…
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Timothy: make sure you reinforce when they're doing well, and don't be afraid to rock the boat, and say, well, things are going fine, I'll just let them do it, you know, make sure that that is in some way being reinforced
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Timothy: recognized, And if they respond well to public…
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Timothy: Praise, use that when you can.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you brought that into the conversation, Tim, the event.
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Timothy: disco.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: training, training.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: train the trainer, because I love me some behavioral skills training, I do, we do, you do, and then when I do it, I also involve my other staff. So, like, you know, you know, I could recall training a particular teacher on parent communication using, you know, our parent communication portal, but I really set it up just as you said, the I do, we do, you do, but then had other leadership staff
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Dr. Esther Bubb: support in that process, so then they were also learning it, so then, you know, they can replicate it. And then to your point, it's like they'll come back to us, you know, when things happen, so we know what's happening.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: But I think, you know, just as you said, it's not the training alone, but that coaching, that follow-up, right? Because the standalone training, you know, research shows it doesn't do much. We have to continue that follow-up and those check-ins and just that coaching to make sure, you know, that's happening. So I totally agree with you there. You know, getting out there, getting in the field, getting on the floor, interacting.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And then, as much as I can, Tim, I try to do, like, group contingencies, right? So reinforcing behaviors, you know, and then I bring staff in, so I'll start modeling, and I'm like, alright, so now we have a board now where I'm like, alright, let's just nominate staff, you know, who we see engaging in the behaviors we want to see.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: So I think those are some of the things, but I'm happy to hear you brought in behavior skills training. I'm really big on it, yeah.
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Timothy: Yeah, yeah, the, you know, the group contingencies, it's, you know, that whole, it almost gets forgotten about, the value of that.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: interdependent, and then the.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: How those could be applied.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: We're dealing with large groups of people, and you think, well, how can.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Damn.
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Timothy: manage all of this, and then you realize, well, there's ways…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: And there's ways to do that. Yep.
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Timothy: That, were taught a long time ago that we can use for our benefit.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah. Mine was a little bit easier, I just went classroom by classroom. You know, those are my groups. But, you know, it's just the part of, you know, thinking about it, offering it to staff, and they were all motivated and interested in doing it. Of course, you know, obviously, you know, making sure they're reinforced with the rewards, but yeah, yeah.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Thank you for sharing that. So, to close us out, Tim, what is one… I've been calling them, like, Monday morning move, right? But, like, some, you know, scale or strategy listeners can implement immediately to become more, behaviorally aware leaders. You know, when we talked earlier about, you know, ABA is everywhere, like, you know, what can they do? One simple thing.
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Timothy: I would find out, Where people can become informed
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Timothy: And it does not have… that does not mean we're gonna go through a glossary and they're gonna learn terms like reinforcement. Yeah. But there's ways that they can become informed that behavior interventions can be effective. And when I… when I worked in jail.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: I worked with the jail commander on a… we could say it's a behavior plan, but it was more about if we had an inmate that was flooding his cell, that the staff were told, you know, they're not there to… don't…
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Timothy: taunt him or redirect him while he's in his cell. It does no good. We weren't… we weren't there talking about, you know, extinction or anything like that. We were talking about what they could do differently.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: And then set aside a time where we would actually meet with that inmate and actually ask them, well, what do you want? He said, no one had asked him that before, but
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Timothy: You know, to do things differently, so we could inform the staff of what to do, and a basic understanding of why, without drawing out a functional analysis or a set of terms to go over with them.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: I… I think it can be done when you… you use a little… we got a lot of creativity.
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Timothy: Yeah. And that has to do with communication, but in that particular case, there was some success. You know, we're talking about dealing, you know, the ethics of dealing with a dangerous person or a dangerous environment. Well, there it was, but the behavior analytic principles of,
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Timothy: extinction.
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Timothy: And not reinforcing negative behavior were there.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Yeah.
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Timothy: So, I wouldn't say that, I don't think that we are, necessarily up against it, where it's like, okay, if we… all we got to do is autism, they won't let us do anything else.
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Timothy: They can't really stop us if we're using a little creativity and implementing our programs in a way that's effective.
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Timothy: Whether it be called behavior analysis or not.
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Timothy: I think people can become… they can become informed in using these basic principles.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Wonderful.
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Timothy: So…
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Tim, thank you so much for closing us out with that. Yes, we can all become informed in using those basic principles. We can start somewhere, start small. You know, I love it. And, you know, again, congrats on your accomplishments, and, you know, thank you for everything you're doing, getting the word out there, and sharing that knowledge. So, have a lovely day.
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Timothy: Yeah, and thank you, Esther, for getting, doing this, getting the word out. I appreciate the chance to do this.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Thank you so much, you're very welcome.
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Timothy: Alright, take care.
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Dr. Esther Bubb: Alright, take care.
Outro
Thank you for listening to Behaviorally Speaking: Leadership for Change-Makers. Be sure to visit esthercbubbabaservices.com/blog for today's companion blog and additional leadership resources. Until next time, create the conditions for growth wherever you lead. I'm Dr. Esther Bubb. Stay inspired.