Announcements
Creativity as Behavior: Advancing the Experimental Study of Generative Responding
The Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Bulletin invites submissions for a special issue dedicated to the experimental study of creativity from a behavior analytic perspective. Despite the centrality of novel behavior to any account of human action, the behavioral mechanisms of what is typically referred as creativity have received comparatively little systematic experimental investigation with human participants. Behavior analysis offers conceptual and methodological tools with a distinctive advantage over other fields to study this concept. By treating novel responding as operant behavior (e.g., Marr, 2003), shaped by learning histories and contingencies, it becomes possible to identify the conditions under which new behavior is produced, to arrange those conditions experimentally, and to derive testable predictions about when such behavior will and will not occur. This topic, however, remains substantially underdeveloped relative to what the field's conceptual apparatus would support.
A behavior analytic approach situates generative behavior within the domain of operant behavior, emphasizing variation, selection, and complex stimulus control (e.g., Sloan et al., 1980; Winston & Baker, 1985). From this perspective, creativity may be understood as operant responding that is novel and selected by its consequences, produced under conditions in which the controlling variables were established by prior training context other than the one in which the so-called “creative” behavior appears. This framing encompasses a broad range of phenomena. It includes operant variability reinforced as such, as in procedures in which differential reinforcement of innovation or Lag n schedules are used to shape increasingly variable responding (Neuringer, 2004; Page & Neuringer, 1985). It includes problem solving in which a relevant learning history is present but no established response is directly evoked by the situation, as in problem-solving (Skinner, 1966). And it includes the emergence of behavior via function transfer between stimuli that share functional properties acquired in independent learning histories, the process that the earlier problem-solving literature named without specifying (Rodrigues & Garcia-Mijares, 2025; Tonneau, 2001). This last line of inquiry is of particular theoretical interest because it bears directly on an important empirical distinction. Behavior that emerges via automatic chaining of previously trained repertoires and behavior that is produced by the transfer of discriminative function across stimulus classes trained independently may be topographically indistinguishable at the moment of test, yet they arise from different training structures and require different experimental designs to be studied rigorously. Whether a given procedure is likely to produce one phenomenon or the other is determinable from an analysis of the training arrangement, not from the surface features of performance at test. Submissions that engage with this level of analysis are especially welcome, as are conceptual papers that contribute to the formation of operational definitions that distinguish among phenomena currently grouped under the labels of creativity, insight, and novel behavior.
Relevant lines of inquiry include, but are not limited to, precurrent repertoires and their relation to generative behavior or problem solving under complex contingencies, emergent transfer of stimulus control and function transfer between independently trained repertoires, operant variability and its role in generative responding, and the identification of training variables that reliably produce or prevent responding beyond what was directly trained. Research employing virtual environments and digital game-based paradigms have recently demonstrated methodological promise for this line of work with human participants, offering quantitative tracking of response sequences, response allocation, and stimulus control that is difficult to achieve with physical apparatus (Pessoa Neto & Garcia-Mijares, in preparation; Rodrigues & Garcia-Mijares, 2025; Young et al., 2026). Tabletop free-operant preparations such as PORTL (Rosales-Ruiz & Hunter, 2019) may also provide tractable platforms for research with human participants. Alternatively, researchers may be exploring methods for mapping and analyzing networks of stimulus relations. Investigators working with relational frame analyses and verbal behavior approaches to generativity are likewise encouraged to submit, particularly where the emphasis is on the emergence of functional behavior beyond what was directly trained.
We are particularly interested in empirical investigations that arrange conditions to evoke and measure generative responding in humans, with outcome measures that extend beyond directly trained responses and that provide a clear account of the training conditions responsible for the behavior observed. Any questions can be directed to the Guest Editors, Drs. Miriam Garcia Mijares and Adrienne Jennings.
References
Marr, M. J. (2003). The stitching and the unstitching: What can behavior analysis have to say about creativity?. The Behavior Analyst, 26(1), 15–28.
Neuringer, A. (2004). Reinforced variability in animals and people: Implications for adaptive action. American Psychologist, 59(9), 891–906. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-
Page, S., & Neuringer, A. (1985). Variability is an operant. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 11(3), 429–452. https://doi.org/10.1037/0097-
Pessoa Neto & Garcia-Mijares, in preparation. Developing a Framework for Studying the Impact of Learning Histories and Problem Solving for Humans.
Rodrigues, R. S., & Garcia-Mijares, M. (2025). Fostering creativity: The role of operant variability on problem-solving and insight. The Psychological Record, 75, 83–103. https://doi.org/10.1007/
Rosales-Ruiz, J., & Hunter, M. (2019). The Portable Operant Research and Teaching Lab. Behavior Explorer.
Skinner, B. F. (1966). What is the experimental analysis of behavior? Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 9(3), 213–218. https://doi.org/10.1901/jeab.
Sloane, H. N., Endo, G. T., & Della-Piana, G. M. (1980). Creative behavior. The Behavior Analyst, 3(1), 11.
Tonneau, F. (2001). Equivalence relations: A critical analysis. European Journal of
Behavior Analysis, 2(1), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/
Winston, A. S., & Baker, J. E. (1985). Behavior analytic studies of creativity: A critical review. The Behavior Analyst, 8(2), 191–205.
Young, M. E., Hancock, P. M., Watson, L., Howatt, B., Southern, R., & Payne, K. (2026). Video game engines as the new "virtual" Skinner box. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 125(1), e70081. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.
