Sara Peck

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Education

BA in Psychology, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
Ph.D. in Psychology (Behavior Analysis), Utah State University

Research Interests

I am currently accepting MS and PhD students for Fall 2026.

My primary area of research involves interventions to promote adaptive decision-making and translation of those interventions to clinical populations, problems, and settings. I am particularly interested in choices that involve varying response efforts and delays to rewards.

My other research interests include: Applications of AI in ABA, statistics for single subject designs, ethics in ABA, remote behavioral services, the use of activity schedules to promote adaptive behavior, and the use of choice in clinical interventions.

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Courses Taught

PhD courses taught

  • PSY 630 – Descriptive & Inferential Stats for Behavior Analysts

Master’s courses taught

  • PSY 509 – Ethics & Professional Issues in Applied Behavior Analysis

Undergraduate courses taught

  • PSY 323 – Applied Behavior Analysis
  • PSY 414 – Experimental Analysis of Behavior Conditioning & Learning Lab
  • PSY 440 – Undergraduate Research

Selected Publications

Peck, S., O'Brien, C., Bourret, J., & Agostinelli, D. (2025) ChatGPT versus clinician responses to questions in ABA: Preference, identification, and level of agreement. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.70029

Peck, S., Madden, G.J. (2025). An episodic thinking intervention to reduce effort discounting. The Psychological Record. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-025-00657-w

Mahmoudi, S., Peck, S., Smith, K., Kelley, K., & Madden, G. J. (2025). Effect of dynamic social norm messaging on intent to idle. Journal of Environmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102635

Peck, S., & Madden, G. J. (2024). Validation of a novel effort-discounting assessment and evaluation of the effort‐delay confound on effort discounting. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.4214

Selected Presentations

Asterisk denotes student presenter

*Li, L., *Brennan, T., Peck, S. (2025). Episodic Thinking Interventions in an Academic Setting. Poster presented at the annual convention of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior, Washington, DC.

*Dineshbhai Patel, H., *Li, L., Shabanian, H., Peck, S., Butakov, S. (2025). Development of an AI-powered statistical tool for single-case design research. Poster presented at the annual convention of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior, Washington, DC.

Ramos, B., Murray, A., Del Rio, M., Jennings, A., Plessas, A., Collado, J. L., King, K., Britwum, K., Para- Cremer, M. L., Peck, S., Courtney, W. T. (2025). Navigating ethical challenges of artificial intelligence in behavior analytic practice: Risks, strategies, and decision-making. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, Washington, DC.

Peck, S., *O’Brien, C., Bourret, J., & Agostinelli, D. (2024). AI Responses to Clinical Questions in ABA: Preference, Identification, & Level of Agreement. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy, Worcester, MA

Preston, E., Peck, S., Preston, C. (2024). A virtual reality approach to episodic future thinking: Effects on impulsive decision-making. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy, Worcester, MA 

*O’Brien, C., Peck, S., Bourret, J., & Agostinelli, D. (2024). Preference for and discrimination of AI responses to clinical questions. Poster presented at the annual convention of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior, Philadelphia, PA.