A Quick Look At the Life of a Behavioral Analyst | To understand what the daily life of a behavior analyst might look like, you’ll first want to understand what behavior analysis is. If you’re someone with an interest in psychology or who enjoys the study of human behavior, you may already know that the field of behavior analysis is a big one that can involve many aspects of human behavior, developmental stages and cross over into several types of psychology theories, modalities, and areas of interests. If you’ve ever wondered about what the day of a behavior analyst might look like or are considering entering a behavior analysis degree program, read on to learn more about this fascinating field of study.
What is behavior analysis?
Behavior analysis is as straight-forward as it sounds. Behavior analysis is simply the study of human interactions and behaviors. A specialized and specific field falls under education, psychology, and health; behavioral health professionals are trained to predict and modify predictable human behaviors to obtain better behavioral outcomes.
Maybe you’ve always had a curiosity about studying psychology and have a particular interest in adolescents and peer pressure. If you were to become a behavior analyst, you would be trained to use applied behavior analysis to help youth in addiction treatment facilities like Umbrella. One of their top-rated treatment centers in the Silicon Beach Treatment Center, located in California, has successfully used behavioral therapy to help many people attain and maintain recovery. That is because human behaviors show up in everyone’s daily life; there are many ways a behavioral health professional can apply their unique behavior change skill sets toward most situations. One behavioral health analyst might work in a residential facility; another could work in a public school with at risks or children with behavioral challenges.
What could I do with a degree in behavior analysis?
With a graduate degree from a behavior analysis program, you could find yourself like most ABA therapists and working independently as a behavior consultant in a school, therapy office, or another group setting. Jobs are not limited to the field of psychology or social work, either. You could also find yourself in a position involving organizational behavior management where your study of group dynamics could help business leaders in corporate environments looking to make changes in employee culture.
How can behavior analysis positions help people?
One of the great things about earning a masters in behavior analysis online is that it can mean many options for your overall career and ability to make a difference. Some behavioral health professionals even spend their days jumping from one end of the field to the other for the sake of variety and to make a bigger difference in people’s life. For example, a behavioral health analysis might spend the morning holding an intervention for a person with opioid addiction, afternoon in an addiction treatment center, and evening helping writing a treatment center for a child on the autism spectrum.
How we as humans behave says a lot about who we are. However, our behavior is never the full picture of a person’s personality, intellectual, or developmental skills. With more research coming out every day in psychology and human behavior, this field will continue to gain the interest of both psychology students and researchers alike.
If you might be interested in learning more about the average day in the life of a behavior analyst, consider contacting a graduate program that offers the study of behavior in their education or psychology departments. Somewhere out, a person is waiting to benefit from all the ways you could potentially make a big difference in their life.
