Behavior analysis and psychology

The existence of basic differences between psychology, neuroscience, and behavior analysis implies that they should be considered as different sciences. These different sciences seem to have a lot in common, because they are all concerned with questions about why behavior occurs. However, this is a very superficial similarity. The three different sciences apply their own specific methods for answering their distinct Why questions. It is possible that behavior-analytic research will be more visible and more widely acknowledged if it uses experimental group and inferential statistics. It is also possible that such «experimental designs generate more information than simpler designs». However, an important question is whether the information that the behavior analyst then adorns him- or herself with having made more visible and more widely acknowledged is worthy of the increased visibility and acknowledgement. The relation between neuroscience and behavior analysis is another important subject, but behavior analysis will be useful to neuroscience only to the extent that it works as an independent science of behavior as a function of independent variables in the environment.