Sociedad Mexicana de Analisis de la Conducta

By Rosalinda Arroyo

The Mexican Society for Behavior Analysis (MSBA) is a non-profit organization established in 1975 whose purposes were a) disseminating behavior analysis among psychologist and other disciplines; b) establishing links with similar associations in Mexico and foreign countries; c) advising institutions and associations regarding behavior analysis issues; d) publishing the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis; and e) organizing seminars, scientific events, and annual meetings, promoting communication among behavior analysts in Mexico.

Despite to the fact that Mexico, like many other countries had strong COVID-19 restrictions, the MSBA was able to hold its annual conference. This conference went fully virtual and was the 30th edition, which means that the MSBA celebrated 46 years of existence.

Even though this was the very first time ever that MSBA had a fully virtual conference, we are glad to report that was a very successful effort. The annual conference took place September 20–22 and included 11 speakers and gathered 152 activities (symposia, paper, and poster sessions). In this occasion, Juan José Irigoyen Morales was the recipient for the MSBA Applied Behavior Analysis Award, who sadly passed away recently.

On the other hand, the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis (MJBA), which is edited by this Society, was able to overcome the challenges from the first year of the pandemic and published its two volumes with both conceptual and experimental papers (http://rmac-mx.org).

Happily, new board members have been appointed for the next two years: Rosalinda Arroyo (president), Felipe Patron (secretary) and Juan Carlos Romero (treasurer), who are looking to develop new initiatives in our Society such as the creation of its first ever Women’s Special Group in Behavior Analysis (WSGBA), this group has as its main goal the promotion, development and dissemination of the knowledge and research carried out by mexican behavior analists women as well as to make visible the role and leadership of women and serving as a link between women practitioners and students with a scientific interest.

In addition, they will work to increase our online presence as well as our participation with other associations, without excluding the celebration of our annual conference. The next conference is tentatively being planned for the fall of 2022. More information about these projects will be available in our web page www.smac.org.mx .