Los Horcones is an

intentional community An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...

located about 40 miles from

Hermosillo Hermosillo (), formerly called Pitic (as in ''Santísima Trinidad del Pitic'' and ''Presidio del Pitic''), is a city located in the center of the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the municipal seat of the Hermosillo Municipality, Her ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It has described itself "as the only true ''

Walden Two ''Walden Two'' is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. In its time, it could have been considered science fiction, since science-based methods for altering people's behavior did not yet exis ...

'' community in existence". The members of Los Horcones use techniques based on behavioral science to

shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external Surface (mathematics), surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, Surface texture, texture, or material type. A pl ...

their own and each other's behaviors. They use those behavior-shaping techniques in politically coordinated ways and they do so in order to ''continuously improve'' themselves and their culture. They are striving to build a culture "based on cooperation, sharing, non-violence, equality and ecological sustainability". ''

Experimentalism Experimentalism is the philosophical belief that the way to truth is through experiments and empiricism. It is also associated with instrumentalism, the belief that truth should be evaluated based upon its demonstrated usefulness. Experimentalism ...

'' and ''

continuous improvement A continual improvement process, also often called a continuous improvement process (abbreviated as CIP or CI), is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek "incremental" improvement over time or "breakth ...

'' are two of the most important doctrines of a Walden Two community.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. C ...

, author of the novel ''

'', expressed this in the following way. He wrote:

The members of Los Horcones refer to their community as a cultural laboratory and they regard themselves as cultural engineers. They will readily adopt new cultural behaviors when experimental evidence indicates that doing so will improve their lives. As a result of their cultural engineering efforts, they are unlikely to suffer from

cultural lag The difference between material culture and non-material culture is known as cultural lag. The term cultural lag refers to the notion that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, and the resulting social problems that are cau ...

. Los Horcones is listed in the ''

Communities Directory ''The Communities Directory, A Comprehensive Guide to Intentional Community'' provides listing of intentional communities primarily from North America but also from around the world. The ''Communities Directory'' has both anonline and a print ed ...

'' of the

Fellowship for Intentional Community The Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC), formerly the Fellowship of Intentional Communities then the Fellowship for Intentional Community, provides publications, referrals, support services, and "sharing opportunities" for a wide range of ...

An Experimental Community

Los Horcones can also be regarded as an

experimental community An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...

. When the members of Los Horcones encounter problems they design and conduct experiments to test possible solutions to their problems. Depending on the result of an experiment, they may collectively resolve to make an experimental behavior into a community-approved component of their behavioral culture. In this way, the Los Horconans try to exercise control over the evolution of their culture. Despite being sometimes referred to as an "utopian vision", a Walden Two community does not claim to be perfect. An experimental community attempts to thrive on its problems because its problems are seen as opportunities for experimentation. According to its proponents, an experimental community can be thought of as a ''eutopia'' (a good place) in which there is always room for experimentation and improvement.

Behaviorology Movement

The Behavior of Organisms ''The Behavior of Organisms'' is B.F. Skinner's first book and was published in May 1938 as a volume of the Century Psychology Series. It set out the parameters for the discipline that would come to be called the experimental analysis of behavior ( ...

'',

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. ...

's first book, was published in 1938. The research strategy that Dr. Skinner presented in that book was widely adopted and grew into a school of psychology named the

experimental analysis of behavior The experimental analysis of behavior is school of thought in psychology founded on B. F. Skinner's philosophy of radical behaviorism and defines the basic principles used in applied behavior analysis. A central principle was the inductive reasoning ...

. That school is today known as

Behavior Analysis Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual ...

. As Behavior Analysis grew larger, a growing number of scholars began to believe that Behavior Analysis had outgrown its place in

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

and that it was time to establish a separate discipline. Makram Khalil Samaan gave expression to this belief in 1973 when he wrote, "It is time now for the scientific analysis of behavior to call for its own scientific discipline. It is contradictory to its function, objective, methods and content to stay within the realm of psychology." Mr. Samaan suggested that the scientific analysis of behavior become a separate scientific discipline named "behaviorology". In 1974 the Los Horconans began using the term "behaviorology" to refer to "the natural science of behavior". Their summary of behaviorology reads as follows: "Behaviorology encompasses basic research, applied research and philosophy. Basic research includes (a) descriptive analysis of behavior (behaviography), (b) experimental analysis of behavior (experimental behaviorology), and (c) a theoretical or conceptual analysis of behavior (theoretical behaviorology). Applied research refers to behavior-analytic applications of the experimental analysis of behavior to the prevention and solution of social problems. As such, it includes (a) applied research in the form of experimental analysis oriented towards finding solutions to social problems and (b) behavioral technology, in the form of behavior-analytic procedures alone. The philosophy of behaviorology is that of behaviorism, which includes both, philosophical (or metatheoretical) assumptions and the philosophical implications of data obtained by the experimental analysis of behavior and its applications." The International Behaviorology Association (TIBA) was founded in 1987. TIBA's purpose statement reads, in part, "TIBA is a professional organization dedicated to representing and developing the philosophical, analytical, experimental, and technological components of the discipline of behaviorology, the comprehensive natural science of the functional relations of behavior including determinants from the environment, both socio-cultural and non-cultural, as well as determinants from the biological history of the species". In August 1988 three Los Horconans attended the first TIBA convention, which was held at

Clarkson University Clarkson University is a private research university with its main campus in Potsdam, New York, and additional graduate program and research facilities in the New York Capital Region and Beacon, New York. It was founded in 1896 and has an enr ...

in Potsdam, New York. The second TIBA convention was held at Los Horcones in January 1990. To accommodate that convention, the Los Horconans built a convention hall and several residential buildings. TIBA subsequently changed its name and is today known as the International Society for Behaviorology (ISB). The ISB describes itself as "an organization of behavioral materialists who hold that: (a) evolution from nonhuman to human behavior is a continuous physical, biological, and behaviorological process; (b) contingencies evoke, shape, and maintain behavior and its processes with no implied or inferred agency playing a causal role". The ISB's twenty-first annual convention was held in Newport Beach, California. That convention opened on March 18, 2009 and closed 2 days later on March 20, after a "Memorial Dinner" that celebrated the birth of

on March 20, 1904.

Legal Structure

From a legal perspective, Los Horcones is a corporation. The corporation's full name is Comunidad de los Horcones. It was organized in 1973 and it operates under the laws of the State of Sonora, one of the thirty-one states that together make up the

United Mexican States Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Los Horcones is a particular type of corporation: it is a

producer cooperative A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...

Location

The corporation owns a parcel of land that contains approximately 260 acres (105 hectares). That parcel is approximately 1,312 feet (400 meters) above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. The members of Los Horcones live in buildings which are located on that parcel. Most of those buildings are grouped together on the southern half of the parcel (see aerial photograph). The parcel is bounded on its northern border by Mexican Federal Highway 16 (Carretera Federal 16). The drive from

, capital of the State of Sonora, takes about 45 minutes.

References and notes

External links

Los Horcones website

''Brief Introduction Los Horcones'' (video)
loshorcones.org, September 15, 2008. Utopian communities Behaviorism Geography of Sonora