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Adlerian Psychology as an Intuitive Operant System

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Abstract

Traditional accounts of the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler tend to sentimentalize his system and obscure its functional flavor. Six basic Adlerian positions on human behavior, including Rudolf Dreikurs’ “four goals of misbehavior,” are interpreted as a primitive statement of operant principles. Applied techniques long used by Individual Psychology practitioners strongly resemble interventions that applied behavior analysts have developed by more systematic means.

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This article is a revised version of a paper read at the meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, May 28, 1983, in Milwaukee.

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Pratt, A.B. Adlerian Psychology as an Intuitive Operant System. BEHAV ANALYST 8, 39–51 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03391911

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