Updated: 08/26/2006

    Icelanders are a nation of 290.000 people. On August 15th 2004, 35 of them founded the Icelandic Association for Behavior Analysis (ICEABA). ICEABA’s purpose is to increase the influence of behavior analysis in Iceland and it is open to everyone willing to work towards its goals. Among the goals of ICEABA is to increase the number of students who get graduate degrees in behavior analysis; offer workshops and lectures; increase research; design a website about ICEABA and behavior analysis and create and maintain an Icelandic lexicon of behavior analytic terms. This last goal is important because it is public policy in Iceland to invent and use constructs in Icelandic instead of using terms from other languages with little or no modifications.
    Today, 13 Icelanders have a graduate degree in behavior analysis and 6 are currently studying in the field, abroad. The influence of behavior analysis is increasing because most of these graduates return to Iceland and start using behavior analysis at their workplace. Icelandic behavior analysts work in the private and public sectors; mainly in educational services and for people with disabilites. This group shares information on a listserve they founded in 1999. So far this list has generated 2100 letters.
Today, three universities have offered courses with behavior analytic content.
    In 1974, undergraduates in psychology at the University of Iceland (UI) were for the first time required to take an introductory course in behavior analysis. Since 1985, an elective course in the research methods of behavior analysis has also been offered there. Some other undergraduate and graduate courses at the UI have heavy behavior analytic content. Last March, psychology students at the UI commemorated the 100th anniversary of B.F. Skinner's birth with a one day symposium on behavior analysis. The symposium lectures will be published in a book. A SABA awarded website for Icelanders seeking information about graduate programs in behavior analysis was designed and is maintained by the only UI faculty member with a PhD in behavior analysis.
    The Icelandic University of Education (IUE) offered a summer course in programmed instruction in 1975. This course was preceded with several instances of behavior analysis being introduced to students at that school and later with courses in behavior principles. Today, the influence of behavior analysis at the IUE is negligible.
The University of Reykjav’k (UR) is showing signs of exposing its students more to behavior analysis. Currently, organizational behavior management is a topic in some courses there. Two faculty members and the UR dean have PhD«s in behavior analysis.
Icelandic behavior analysts have given talks, workshops, seminars and website consultation on various topics like child rearing methods; performance management; teaching methods and classroom management. Several articles on diverse behavior analytic topics have been published by Icelanders in domestic and foreign periodicals and journals like JEAB and JABA and in Icelandic newspapers. Since 1987, many prominent scientists of behavior analysis have given talks, lectures and workshops in Iceland.
Further information about behavior analysis in Iceland can be obtained from Ragnar S. Ragnarsson at irores@centrum.is.