Episode 318 - Predicting and Preventing Mass Shooting w/ Dr. James Meindl

ABA Inside Track

Robert Parry-Cruwys

Behavioralscience, Education, Appliedbehavioranalysis, Autism, Social Sciences, Aba, Science, Specialeducation

4.6 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of the most exciting parts of any conference (shout out to BABAT!) is getting to see something new. And this week, we’re bringing that something new to the podcast with a behavioral hypothesis as to how fame-seeking mass shooters develop behavioral repertoires that can lead to tragedy. We’re excited to bring Dr. James Meindl’s work in this area to our audience as an amazing example of how behavior analysis can be supportive in the treatment of socially relevant causes. We review what information exists in the prediction of mass shooting behavior, how many of the reported patterns may function behaviorally, and, most importantly, what this could mean in the prevention of mass shooter behaviors actually resulting in violence.

This episode is available for 1.0 LEARNING CEU.

Articles discussed this episode:

Meindl, J.N., Ivy, J.W, Delgado, D.M., & Swafford, L. (under review). Towards a functional account of mass-shooting: Prediction and influence of violent behavior.

Meindl, J.N. & Ivy, J.W. (2018). Reducing media-induced mass killings: Lessons from suicide prevention. American Behavioral Scientist, 62, 242-259. doi: 10.1177/0002764218756918

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Welcome to ABA Inside Track, the podcast that's like reading in your car, but safer.
0:20.0	I'm your host, Robert Perry Cruz, and with me as always are my fabulous co-hosts. Hey, Rob, it's me, Diana Perry Cruz, being very close to you. You are very close. And it's me, Jackie, not Perry Cruz, McDonald. That should be my name now. And I'm going to change my middle name to not Perry Cros. And I'm far away from you.
0:39.2	I'm actually only, I'm 3.5 miles away from you today. Very far. Very far. We live very close.
0:45.2	It's very true. And if anyone noticed, I did stumble at the beginning. For some reason, I wanted to say I was my host, which doesn't make sense.
0:52.7	But, you know, it's our podcast and your podcast to listen to about behavior analysis
0:58.4	and behavior analytic research where every week we pick a topic and discuss it at length
1:02.8	as well as some relevant research articles.
1:05.3	And the episode we're going to do today is very different.
1:08.4	I think we're going down the list of what are episodes that we've
1:11.9	never done before, and this one definitely cropped to the top, which is predicting and preventing
1:17.6	mass shootings. Now, this stems from the work of a fabulous guest that we have on as well,
1:23.2	but a little backstory. I saw our guest at this year's Babbitt Conference, and I was able to fill up my bingo
1:28.9	card of topics I didn't think I was going to see at the Babbitt Conference. So I was very excited to mark that one off.
1:36.8	And after seeing it, it was just one of those topics of, yes, this is socially important. This should definitely
1:42.3	falls under the realm of behavior analysis. I can't
1:45.4	believe we don't have more about this topic. So we're very excited to talk with Dr. James Mindle about
1:52.0	this today. James, did I get it right or did I, I said I was going to get at the beginning of the
1:57.1	show and then I did I say it right or am I off? Well, You're good. But I've moved on from correcting anybody in my life anymore.
2:03.7	All right. Dr. James Vidal, thank you so much for coming on the show to talk to us about this topic.
2:08.8	We're very excited to have you here. Thanks. I'm very excited to be here and happy to speak with
2:14.8	you all today. Beautiful. So again, when we think of behavior
2:18.0	analysts and we think of all the fields that we, you know, we as professionals have moved into,
	...

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