Dr. Aubrey Clise Daniels

It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of Dr. Aubrey Daniels on March 1, 2025. A visionary in the field of behavior analysis, Aubrey was a steadfast supporter of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies from its inception in the 1980s. Over the years, he served in multiple leadership roles, delivered keynote addresses at our conferences and forums, and made lasting contributions to our mission.

Learn more about his remarkable life and services through his obituary on Dignity Memorial.

Memories from the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies

Aubrey Daniels was my colleague and my friend. I admired his total commitment to behavior analysis, his brilliant insights into its applications in organizations, his entrepreneurial acumen, his warmth as a human being, his wit, and, most of all, his genuineness. I did not meet Aubrey until relatively late in both our careers, but our shared interests and histories ensured a mutual and relatively quick bond. He subsequently honored me with the title of scientific consultant to the Aubrey Daniels Institute, where at its website he encouraged both my blogs on matters far and wide and the development of what was the first virtual museum of behavioral research apparatus. Hanging out at Aubrey Daniels International was a great pleasure. One never knew when Aubrey would drop by for a chat or an invitation to join him for lunch. I especially appreciated Aubrey’s respect for and insights into the basic science of behavior analysis. He was an easy person to talk with. He listened to the ideas of others as well as he generated his own. We enjoyed trading stories about classic cars as much as talking about whether it really took 10,000 hours of intense practice to master a new skill or whether there was really a difference between a fixed interval 1-min schedule and a tandem fixed-time 1-min fixed- ratio 1 schedule. Much is made these days about translational research in behavior analysis. Aubrey deserves the title of “the father of translational behavior analysis.” Nobody started with the basic science and whittled it down something digestible and oh so useful while never losing its essence like Aubrey. What a fine example of everything good in behavior analysis was Aubrey for all of us.

Kennon “Andy” Lattal
Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies
Board of Directors

Aubrey Clise Daniels. Ph.D.
Pioneer in Applying Behavior in the Workplace
Darnell Lattal, Ph.D.
With special thanks to members of Dr. Daniels’s Family

Aubrey C. Daniels died on March 1, 2025, at age 89. While his passing was not unexpected, I was struck by how dim the morning light appeared out my window. Another giant of our field was gone. He was my colleague, a professional partner in business, and a friend. He wanted the world to see what could come from the science of behavior that he loved.

He leaves behind the values found in humor, kindness, generosity, and humility. Working with him was a never-ending delight—exploring how best to translate the basic science into consumable morsels for those far removed from behavior analysis but quick to understand both its utility and its power as a science. In particular, he is well known for introducing those outside the field to the pragmatic power of positive reinforcement (R+) in accelerating and sustaining good outcomes for individuals and their organizations. His was not a simple application of what sounds like a simple concept. As clients worked with Aubrey, they explored in detail concepts of behavior analysis, including findings from the experimental analysis of behavior. He helped his clients learn how to address complex and interconnected consequences across corporate operations and their own lives. He wanted to increase independent and skilled applications of this most optimistic science to accelerate desired performance and value-laden enrichment of the conditions that surround such accomplishments.

Affectionately known as the Father of Performance Management, Aubrey became a sought-after speaker and served on many boards, including the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, and was an associate at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The author of six best-selling books, his works were widely recognized as international classics of business management. His textbook, Performance Management, is in its fifth edition and has sold more than 700,000 copies. His book, Bringing Out the Best in People, now in its third edition, is considered a seminal work in business literature. In 1977, he founded the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, a peer-reviewed academic journal that continues to be published and is the main source in the field today. His books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and French, and licensed in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Romania, and Saudi Arabia.

Aubrey’s way of teaching the science of behavior to anyone who would listen often ended up turning them into passionate advocates of the science and its implications in application. He liked to see where behavior might go once in contact with the elements that build persistence and passion in striving to reach clearly defined and measured goals.

He was a scientist, and his lab was the workplace, developing conditions and outcomes of behavior at work that were profound. He developed simple translation tools and, in that application, created ardent advocates of the science. If we continue his honest, direct, and positive teaching methods, understanding the depth by which the power of positive reinforcement can improve how we treat one another and ourselves, that would be, as he expressed to me, a very good thing for how his contributions would be remembered– a treasured legacy.

With Tom Freeman’s permission, I am sharing a note he wrote to me on hearing of Aubrey’s death. It captures so much about why this man was loved.

“We were all fortunate to have had the chance to spend even a short amount of time with this man. How much light has this one person brought to a world so often plagued by darkness? A life of such consequence, with a natural elegance yet a kind of authentic down-home sophistication that one found oneself drawn into his sphere of wisdom and easy humor without even realizing that your view of the world was being shifted towards both the truth of things and the light of service — for what he had to say always seemed grounded in a deep commitment to benefitting the lives of others. I did not know him well, but this is the man as I saw him, and I am grateful to the universe for having allowed me to share my time on this planet with such a phenomenal human being.”

If you have not read his books, take a look. His writing offers a wise, humorous, and insightful view of behavior analysis in action, and ultimately conveys to all of us our common humanity.

If you would like to contribute a memorial writing about Aubrey for publishing on behavior.org and in our newsletter, contact Rebekah Pavlik.