Arthur W. Staats (1924-2021)

Memorializes Arthur W. Staats (1924-2021). Arthur Wilbur Staats was arguably one of the most expansive proponents of behavioral psychology in the second half of the 20th century. He went to Arizona State University and helped make it a dynamic center for applied behavior analysis, then moved to the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in 1966 until his retirement in 1997. In his early theoretical work, he espoused three integrating principles, unique at the time. First, his A-R-D theory articulated how internal stimuli-symbols, thoughts, and mental images- performed three simultaneous functions: eliciting affect, reinforcing, and as discriminative stimuli. Second, he posited that responses prompt chains of further actions. The third unifying principle was that all basic responses involves a combination of instrumental and classical conditioning-of seminal importance to clinical behavior therapy methods as well as theory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).