An assessment of social validity trends in applied behavior analysis

Research articles published during the first 31 years of Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis were assessed for reports of social validity measures. T wo measures of social validity (treatment outcome and treatment acceptabili ty) were assessed for each article. Tn addition, articles were assessed for the incorporation of analog versus naturalistic settings. Overall, treatme nt outcome and acceptability measures were reported in less than 13% of art icles. In addition, studies conducted in naturalistic settings were more li kely to report social validity measures than studies conducted in analog se ttings. Possible reasons for the deficit in the reporting of social validit y measures and potential outcomes of this deficit are discussed. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.