Fred S. Keller and William Schoenfeld taught at Columbia University when this book was written. They designed the content for their Introductory psychology course, a course that included a lab in which students taught rats the processes described. The book follows topics typically taught in Psychology courses, explaining them using the scientific analysis first developed by B. F. Skinner. The principles described form the basis of Applied Behavior Analysis today. Keller continued his interest in education and developed the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI).