Howard Rachlin (1935–2021) was an American psychologist and the founder of teleological behaviorism. He is Emeritus Research Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...

in New York. His initial work was in the quantitative analysis of operant behavior in pigeons, on which he worked with William M. Baum, developing ideas from Richard Herrnstein's

matching law In operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement. For example, if two response alternatives ...

. He subsequently became one of the founders of

Behavioral Economics Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. ...

. His current research focuses on patterns of choice over time and how those patterns affect self-control (on which he worked with George Ainslie), including cooperation over time. His interests in Behavioral Economics include: decision making, the

prisoner's dilemma The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("def ...

, addiction, and gambling. He was one of the first board members of the

Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior The Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior was founded in 1978 by Michael Lamport Commons and John Anthony Nevin. The first president was Richard J. Herrnstein. In the beginning it was called the Harvard Symposium on Quantitative Anal ...

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rachlin, Howard American psychologists Behavioral economists 1935 births Living people Behaviorism