A SCIENCE-BASED STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE WORLD THROUGH OUR BEHAVIOR

The Wisdom Factor: Reducing the Control of Bias, Threat, and Fear while Building a Better World 

Dr. Darnell Lattal & Carlos A. Zuluaga

What is wisdom and how do we become wise? What makes us human? How can we, as individuals, make the world a better place?

Co-authors Darnell Lattal, Ph.D. and Carlos A. Zuluaga, M.S., BCBA address these questions, issues, and more in their new book, The Wisdom Factor: Reducing the Control of Bias, Threat, and Fear while Building a Better World [978-0578222127; KeyPress Publishing; June 2022]. Through the lens of behavioral science, Lattal and Zuluaga address some of the biggest societal challenges facing the Western World today while also exploring how each of us individually can make a difference that has lasting impact.

Using science and experience, the authors describe how a river of reciprocity connects us and how individual behavior holds the transformational power to create change, even in tough times. With The Wisdom Factor, you’ll broaden your understanding of what bias, threat, and fear do to a civilized society and how we can manage our own behavior in much better ways to have positive effects on one another.

“The Wisdom Factor is about how each of us shows up in our personal conduct,” Dr. Lattal says. “Do we feel at ease in addressing the conflicts and conditions around us? What helps us become the kind of person we want to be? Becoming who we want to be is a lifelong challenge for many of us.”

The first book to deeply explore these subjects, The Wisdom Factor will teach you:

• How to develop greater awareness of our own behavior and its effect
• What the science of behavior tells us about choices we make and where biases and myths about human behavior blind us to the good we can do
• Best practices in teaching wise acting to our children and ourselves, a most important topic to influence a wiser world
• Tools that increase individual skills in reflecting on personal beliefs, words, and deeds that are disruptive when striving to behave wisely
• Ways to develop skills in self-management and how we respond to others, handling strong emotions and aggressive behavior in effective ways and much more.

The principles in this book are of no practical value if they do not cause the reader to think about issues that need a little more wisdom,” Zuluaga says. “This is a journey of self-knowledge, of inviting others to help you see how well your actions match your words; to learn how to change to have the effect you want; and to learn to see the effects of consequences on our ideals and our immediate actions. Behaving wisely is not a distant or remote goal, nor is it a constant state. While daily actions do not always produce positive effects, your behavior at a given moment is of singular importance. It is these actions in context and at specific times when core values show up, in small or large ways.

Assessing your effects by your actions is at the heart of this book. These strategies will help you build a better world. Watch the ripple effect. That’s The Wisdom Factor.

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About the Authors

Dr. Alice Darnell Lattal has spent a lifetime on issues of coercion and its fallout across educational, health, mental health, and workplace settings. A behavior-analytic clinical psychologist by training, she spent her first decade of professional life in special education, adult clinical, and community mental health, while addressing the suppressive effects of poverty on infant development, child and spousal abuse, and literacy in rural America. She established her own consulting company, Context Management, Inc. in 1980. Joining several business-to-business consulting companies, she served as a coach for individual, group and leader development. She served as President and CEO of Aubrey Daniels International, Inc., for 14 years and was appointed as Board Chair of the Aubrey Daniels Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit for another two years before returning to her coaching and consulting work. Since March 2020, she has served as CEO and President of ABA Technologies, Inc. Her wealth of experience spans more than 50 years and six continents. She has published seven books, numerous articles, presented at conferences as both participant and keynote. Among her positions, Dr. Lattal served as President of her state psychological association, a trustee of a national board dedicated to reducing violence in America, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and the Association for Behavior Analysis International. She lives with her husband, Andy, in Hilton Head Island, together having raised three children, benefiting today from the wit and wisdom of their seven grandchildren. Follow her on LinkedIn.

Carlos A. Zuluaga, M.S. has been a Board Certified Behavior Analyst® (BCBA®) since 2007 and received his master’s in applied behavior analysis from Florida Tech in 2006. Carlos’s master’s thesis was published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. As a member of the ABA Technologies team, Carlos has been a co-instructor for the ABA Online program since 2010.

He loves teaching online courses because it allows him to share his passion for behavior analysis with students and colleagues. Carlos has helped translate some of the courses into Spanish to bring ABA to new audiences. Prior to joining ABA Technologies, Inc., Carlos worked for 7 years as a lead therapist at QuestKids, an early intervention agency. During that time, he learned to conduct various skill assessments such as the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP), to develop verbal behavior programs, and teach various skills to children with developmental disabilities, train caregivers, and provide supervision. Carlos enjoys reading, drawing, playing guitar, listening to music, and exercising during his free time. He is very excited to help disseminate behavior analysis around the world. Follow him on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

About ABA Technologies, Inc. and KeyPress Publishing

Our mission is to disseminate the science and technology of behavior. Our relentless effort to bring the science of behavior to the world began in 1992 with the founding of ABA Technologies, Inc. by Dr. Jose Martinez-Diaz. ABA Technologies, Inc. became a pioneer in developing and delivering online and professional education. In 2020, ABA Technologies, Inc. expanded our impact as a learning company by creating KeyPress Publishing. We combine experts from the field of behavior analysis in such areas as business strategy and cultural development, behavior-based safety, systems analysis, and instructional design, with carefully crafted project management, art design, and marketing to publish both print and digital books.

About Pacific & Court

Pacific & Court is a Brooklyn-based boutique publicity and digital marketing company specializing in promoting independent authors and book publishers. Together, the P&C team has over 30 years of experience publishing, promoting, and marketing bestselling books. Focusing on heavily tested and proven PR and marketing methods, P&C will reach the exact audience that will be receptive to your unique book. Follow P&C on social media @pacificandcourt.

Review copies of The Wisdom Factor are available upon request. For excerpts and/or interview queries, please contact Kourtney Jason at kourtney@pacificandcourt.com.

The Wisdom Factor: Reducing the Control of Bias, Threat, and Fear while Building a Better World by Alice Darnell Lattal, Ph.D. and Carlos A. Zuluaga, M.S., BCBA
KeyPress Publishing
Hardcover/Paperback; June 2022
ISBN: 978-0578222127
$42.95 (hardcover); $32.95 (paperback); ebook coming soon; 6 x 9; 300 pages

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