Abstract
Through the application of behavioral principles, behavior analysts seek to produce socially meaningful behavior change, defined as alterations in behavior that yield important outcomes immediately beneficial for the direct consumers of interventions and key stakeholders. Behavioral practitioners and researchers often engage in assessment and reporting of the meaningfulness of behavior change using social validity assessments. These assessments ensure that target behaviors are appropriately selected, intervention procedures are acceptable, and satisfactory outcomes are produced. The purpose of this review is to identify the current state of social validity within behavioral literature. We reviewed eight peer-reviewed journals between 2010 and 2020. We found that 47% of the intervention studies reviewed included a social validity assessment. Social validity assessment across journals has increased over time, with a significant rise from 2019 to 2020. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future work are discussed.
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Rachelle Huntington completed this work at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa but has since moved to Northern Arizona University.
Research assistance provided by the Supporting Transformative Autism Research (STAR) program at the University of Virginia
Alice Bravo completed this work at the University of Washington but has since moved to Seattle Pacific University
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Huntington, R.N., Badgett, N.M., Rosenberg, N.E. et al. Social Validity in Behavioral Research: A Selective Review. Perspect Behav Sci 46, 201–215 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-022-00364-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-022-00364-9