C. Northcote Parkinson, in his book "Parkinson's Law," noted a strange phenomenon concerning human behavior in meetings. He states that the time spent discussing a subject is in inverse proportion to the dollar value of the subject. Parkinson explains this phenomenon by suggesting that people deal rapidly with topics beyond their expertise. At the Comprehensive Mental Health Center, an interesting ramification of this technological intimidation was noted. When the behaviorists gather and begin to discuss conjunctive schedules and respondent discrimination, the social workers turn pale and begin to leave the room. Being polite fellows, they rarely leave in groups, but they leave with regularity predictable at the .05 level of significance. Nowhere in the archives of psychology is there more esoteric nomenclature and more mathematical formulation than in the behaviorist's repertoire. To understand what is being said in the inner sanctums of behavioral psychology, one must simply master twenty-five words.
