Emotional Overtones of Behavior Analysis Terms in English and Five Other Languages

It has been suggested that the language of behavior analysis is not always consumer-friendly, but the very limited empirical support for this claim comes from examining jargon in English. We consulted publicly available data sets to shed light on one specific aspect of the jargon problem: how non-English speakers may react emotionally to the technical vocabulary of behavior analysis. Previous research has suggested that English speakers may experience English technical terms as unpleasant. Here, we show that the same may apply when speakers of other languages (Egyptian Arabic, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish) encounter translated technical terms. Our results, although constrained by the availability of data for only a small sample of relevant terms, suggest that responses of English speakers to English terms may be a good predictor of emotional responding to translated terms. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study to address international ramifications of a so-called marketing problem in behavior analysis. Our main purpose is to call attention to the need for cross-language and cross-cultural studies on factors that affect public perceptions and acceptance of behavior analysis.