Psychology Press Authors of the Month February 2013: W. David Pierce and Carl D. Cheney

W. David Pierce, Ph.D., is a behavior analyst, social psychologist and Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of Alberta, Canada. His awards include a Graduate Fellowship from the Canada Council and post-graduate support by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is a member of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. Dr. Pierce was appointed as honorary Fellow of the American Psychological Association in recognition of outstanding and unusual contributions to the science and profession of Psychology, and received the Research Award of the Faculty of Arts in 2000 for extraordinary research accomplishments while at the rank of Professor. He is the Director of the Behavioral Research Unit at the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases Research Laboratory, Alberta Institute of Diabetes. Dr. Pierce’s research has focused on the experimental analysis of choice and preference, conditioned taste aversion learning, rewards and intrinsic motivation and a biobehavioral model of activity anorexia. He has published more than 150 scientific articles, abstracts, books and book chapters and given invited presentations at a variety of professional, scientific meetings. His research has been published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, The Behavior Analyst, Behavioural Processes, and recently in the journals of Obesity and the International Journal of Obesity. David’s research on activity anorexia and obesity has received coverage by the media, including the Canadian Press, BBC News and Time Magazine. Dr. Pierce is actively involved in research on anorexia and obesity, and is currently funded by a grant from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Carl D. Cheney, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, Utah State University, Logan, UT. He taught and conducted research there for over forty years. He also taught at Eastern Washington University, Gonzaga University, and the University of Indiana, South Bend. His work has involved more than twenty-five different species as subjects and he has over 200 publications. The core philosophical basis of his experimental analysis has always been objective selection by consequences. He has participated in the investigation and widespread application of the principles of operant and respondent conditioning from rats pressing levers to accounting for the use of human shields as immoral misbehavior. Some of the basic and practical research to which he has contributed includes enriching zoo animal activity exhibits, management of predation on livestock in the field by avian and mammalian predators, diet selection to avoid toxic plants by herbivores, teaching basic behavior science and applications to elementary school children, linkages to neurophysiological and chemical mechanisms underlying behavior, and laboratory simulations of complex learning processes. He has been an active participant in such professional organizations as the Association for Behavior Analysis International, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, the B.F. Skinner Foundation, the American Psychological Association, and The International Behaviorology Association. His students have become university professors, college administrators, basic researchers, businesspersons, clinical therapists, entrepreneurs, educators, physicians and many other careers involving the direct and systematic application of behavior science. Carl’s current activities include writing and consultation concerning pet and zoo animal management, teaching reading, taste aversion projects, and small animal production.

Frank Epling and David Pierce worked together on a model of activity anorexia and were authors of the first two editions of Behavior Analysis and Learning. Frank was the undergraduate student of Carl Cheney’s at Eastern Washington State College and, some time ago, introduced Carl to David at the meetings of the Association for Behavior Analysis where they became close friends. When Frank died unexpectedly, David asked Carl to become his coauthor for the third and subsequent editions of the textbook, of which we are sure Frank would have approved.