# About OperantConditioning.com

> Who publishes operantconditioning.com, how the content is written and checked, how the site is funded, and how to reach us.

- Source: https://operantconditioning.com/about/
- Author: Ryan Martinson (https://operantconditioning.com/about/)
- Publisher: Operant Conditioning Inc.
- Published: 2026-09-07 · Updated: 2026-09-12
- License: https://operantconditioning.com/terms/#copyright (quote with attribution and a link; free to reproduce for non-commercial teaching)

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*About*

OperantConditioning.com is a free, evidence-based reference on operant conditioning — the science of how consequences shape behavior — written for students, parents, teachers, trainers, clinicians, and anyone trying to change their own habits.

## Who publishes it

The site is published by **Operant Conditioning Inc.** and written and maintained by **Ryan Martinson**, the company's founder. The company also makes [Operant](https://operantconditioning.com/app/), a habit app for iPhone and Apple Watch built on Skinner's three-term contingency; building it required reading the primary literature closely, and this site is the reference we wished had existed while doing so.

## About the author

**Ryan Martinson** writes and maintains every page on this site. He holds a master's degree from UCLA, where he studied animal behavior in the lab of Daniel Blumstein (https://blumsteinlab.eeb.ucla.edu/), a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology whose research covers fear, anxiety, antipredator behavior, communication, and social variation in animals, and was part of UCLA's Evolutionary Medicine Program (https://www.evmed.ucla.edu/), which Blumstein co-directs. The program exists to take what evolutionary biology and the study of animal behavior have established and translate it into better human health. This site works from the same premise: the science of how consequences shape behavior was worked out with cats, rats, and pigeons, it applies to people, and when you say so it is worth getting the details right.

He is the founder of Operant Conditioning Inc. and built Operant (https://operantconditioning.com/app/), a habit app that runs a three-term contingency for each habit. Building it meant reading the primary literature closely, and this site is the reference he wished had existed while doing so.

## Editorial standards

- **Primary sources.** Claims about experiments, dates, people, and effect sizes are cited to the original papers and books — Thorndike, Skinner, Ferster, Azrin, Herrnstein, and the applied literature that followed — rather than to secondary summaries. The public-domain books behind the science are republished in full in the [library](https://operantconditioning.com/library/).
- **Functional definitions.** We use the technical vocabulary of behavior analysis consistently: reinforcers and punishers are defined by their effect on behavior; "positive" and "negative" mean added and removed.
- **Honesty about limits.** Every major page includes what the evidence does *not* show, where researchers disagree, and where the theory has been superseded.
- **Corrections.** If you find an error, email us. Corrections are made promptly and the page's "updated" date is changed.

## Expert review

We are actively seeking a credentialed reviewer — a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) or a PhD in behavior analysis or learning — to review the site's content. If that is you and you are interested, please get in touch.

## How the site is funded

The site is paid for by Operant Conditioning Inc. It carries no tracking and no paid placements, and everything on it — the guide, the glossary, the quiz, the lab — can be read, assigned, and linked without an account. On iPhone and iPad, Safari may show Apple's standard App Store banner for the company's Operant app at the top of the page; that banner, the App link in the navigation, and the app's [own page](https://operantconditioning.com/app/) are the only promotion on the site.

## Contact

Email: [hello@operantconditioning.com](mailto:hello@operantconditioning.com)

Publisher: Operant Conditioning Inc.