Collective Editorial: Ten Guidelines for Strategic Social Action
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COMMENTARY
Collective Editorial: Ten Guidelines for Strategic Social Action José G. Ardila Sánchez 1 & Traci M. Cihon 2 & Maria E. Malott 3 & Mark A. Mattaini 4 & Richard F. Rakos 5 & Ruth Anne Rehfeldt 6 & Sarah M. Richling 7 & Kathryn M. Roose 1 & Holly A. Seniuk 8 & Jomella Watson-Thompson 9 Accepted: 12 October 2020 / Published online: 23 November 2020 # Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
This collective editorial was developed by the Behavior and Social Issues senior editorial staff, the Board of Planners for Behaviorists for Social Responsibility, and several other leaders in behavior science due to our deep concern that the need for strategic activism over the next months and possibly years, in the United States and beyond, may be extensive. In particular, issues like Black Lives Matter; responses to the COVID-19 pandemic; acknowledgment of, much less the response to, climate change; election controversies, and fears of “civil unrest” are only some of the social and environmental issues that many divided societies are currently struggling to address. The challenges being faced often include profound differences in relational responding among groups, often integrated with obvious differences in socioeconomic resources and levels of privilege. Unfortunately, extensive, potentially helpful empirical and historical data regarding strategic options for addressing these issues and sustaining activist patterns are not widely known, even within behavior science. Given the lack of
* Mark A. Mattaini [email protected]
1
Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA
2
College of Health and Public Service, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
3
Association for Behavior Analysis International, Portage, MI, USA
4
Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago, PO Box 1045, Paguate, NM 87040, USA
5
College of Sciences and Health Professions, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA
6
Department of Applied Behavior Analysis, Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, IL, USA
7
Department of Psychological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
8
Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Reno, NV, USA
9
Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
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Behavior and Social Issues (2020) 29:15–30
access to those resources, a great deal of activist energy is wasted; in fact, some actions meant to resist injustice can be damaging. Even though much more research is needed (and behavior scientists, largely absent from that research, could make substantial contributions if they engage in it), a great deal is already known about what must be, for scientific reasons, the overall strategic goal: nonviolently constructing and sustaining ecologies of social and environmental justice (Roose & Mattaini, in press). Gandhi noted that shifting the practices of unjust rulers could only occur “by a change of environment; but the environment are we—the people who make the rulers who they are” (Dear, 2002
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