Dickins, D. W. (2022). Bliss in that dawn: The beginnings of operant psychology in the UK History & Philosophy of Psychology, 23(1), 33-49. doi:10.53841/bpshpp.2022.23.1.33
[Abstract]Although the first research in the UK to achieve what amounted to operant conditioning (Grindley, 1932) was published in the same year as Skinner’s pioneer publication no similar procedure seems to have been carried out in Britain until Hurwitz founded an operant laboratory at Birkbeck, (then Birkbeck College), University of London, in the early 1950s, presumably inspired by his meeting with Skinner in 1951, and their subsequent friendship. It certainly was an import from America, fortified by local solutions for providing suitable control equipment. The author was a student of Hurwitz at Birkbeck (1957–1961) and was researching (1961–1964) close by at University College (UCL). There follows a largely biographical account of how operant conditioning, initially mostly in rats, spread around universities in the UK. Many of the people concerned, and others not mentioned, shared their ideas at meetings of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour Group (EABG) that informally sprang up in the early 1960s, initially without funding or its own journal. In coordination with the later emergence of the European Association for Behaviour Analysis (EABA) and its associated journal (European Journal of Behaviour Analysis) the organisation of the EABG has become established in Bangor, and holds regular biennial meetings at University College, London, alternating with those of the EABA in other parts of Europe. The EABG continues to attract many foreign attendees, including from the US, but some of its earlier enthusiasts no longer attend, whilst those attending mostly see themselves as Behaviour Analysts, reflecting changes both in the theory and practice of operant psychology. While operant technology remains a useful tool for those seeking a broad biological and authentic evolutionary understanding of behaviour, the philosophy of operant psychology as an all-encompassing approach to behavioural science has proved divisive.
[Citing Place (1956)]  [Citing Place (1981a)]  [Citing Place (1995/6)]  [Citing Place (1996a)]  [Citing Place (1998d)]  [Citing Place (1998e)]  

Leslie, J. C. (2001). Broad and deep, but always rigorous: Some appreciative reflections on Ullin Place's contributions to Behaviour Analysis. Behavior and Philosophy, 29, 159-165. [Ullin Place Special Issue] www.jstor.org/stable/27759425
[Abstract]Ullin Place's contributions to the literature of behaviour analysis and behaviourism span the period from 1954 to 1999. In appreciation of his scholarship and breadth of vision, this paper reviews an early widely-cited contribution ("Is consciousness a brain process?" British Journal of Psychology, 1956, pp. 47-53) and a late one which should become widely cited ("Rescuing the science of human behavior from the ashes of socialism," Psychological Record, 1997, pp. 649-659). It is noted that the sweep of Place's work links behaviour analysis to its philosophical roots in the work of Ryle and Wittgenstein and also looks forward to the further functional analysis of language-using behaviour.
[Citing Place (1956)]  [Citing Place (1981a)]  [Citing Place (1981b)]  [Citing Place (1982)]  [Citing Place (1983d)]  [Citing Place (1992f)]  [Citing Place (1997b)]  [Citing Place (1997d)]  [Citing Place (1998e)]  
Download: Leslie (2001) Broad and Deep but Always Rigorous - Some Appreciative Reflections on Ullin Place's Contributions to Behaviour Analysis.pdf