Kennon Lattal, Ph.D.

Andy Lattal is Centennial Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University. He received his Ph.D. degree in experimental and clinical psychology from the University of Alabama, joining the WVU faculty in 1972. 

He has authored 140 research articles and chapters on conceptual, experimental, and applied topics in behavior analysis and edited seven books and journal special issues, including the American Psychological Association’s (APA) memorial tribute to B. F. Skinner. He has mentored 40 doctoral students and served as Coordinator of WVU’s Behavior Analysis Program from 1982 to 2012. 

Dr. Lattal has also held every major Departmental administrative position at one time or another during his tenure in the Department. 

A former President of the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis (SABA), the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Division for Behavior Analysis, the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and the Southeastern Association for Behavior Analysis, he also served on the oversight and various working committees of these organizations. 

He has served on the editorial boards of eight professional journals, and is a former Editor of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and current Editor for English Language Submissions of the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis. 

His activities have been acknowledged through several awards, including major teaching awards from WVU, APA’s Division for the Teaching of Psychology, and ABAI. In addition to his named professorship, WVU recognized his scholarly work with its Benedum Distinguished Scholar Award and APA’s Division for Behavior Analysis with its Distinguished Contributions to Basic Research Award and its Don Hake Award for Translational Research. 

His service has been recognized by the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis Distinguished Contributions to Behavior Analysis Award. In addition to his work at WVU, he has taught and conducted research at several US universities and in six other countries, most recently spending the 2012-13 academic year at Université Charles de Gaulle in Lille, France as a Fulbright Research Scholar. He is a fellow of APA, ABAI, and the American Psychological Society.

Dr. Lattal is widely published in the area of Behavior Analysis. His recent empirical contributions have focused on the effects of delayed reinforcement on operant responding, temporal patterns of operant conditioning, facets of Pavlovian and operant extinction, and the effects of reinforcer magnitude, response requirements, and prior experiences on say-do correspondence. He has also examined the role of self in behavior analysis and published work describing the history of the cumulative recorder. Dr. Lattal is always looking for undergraduate psychology majors who are interested in conducting research projects on topics broadly related to learning and behavior change, comparative psychology, and the history of psychology. If you have an interest in pursuing topics in these areas, don’t hesitate to contact him.