CBS

Scientific progressivity: Choosing a path

Contextual Behavioral Science (CBS) is the research paradigm underlying the development of ACT and RFT. It is a coherent, multi-leveled system of philosophical assumptions, scientific values, and methodological commitments that drive theory and technology development. It reflects an appreciation for our place in the history of science and specifies standards against which progress is assessed. What becomes clear from the history of science is that there is no such thing as The Scientific Method and no one measure of scientific progress. In such a context it is essential to take ownership of the foundations of your work.

Science is a relatively recent development in our evolutionary history, and for much of it methodology was guided by sets of assumptions that would now seem absurd to us. Up until the mid to late 17th century, for example, scientists in the Western world were committed to maintaining theories that placed the Earth at the center of the universe (Kuhn, 1957). Amazingly such systems enjoyed a great deal of success. Perhaps scientists of the future will look back upon 21st century science and see our work as similarly absurd and inexplicably successful. Studying the history of science can indeed be rather humbling. Were not those early 17th century scientists just as certain about their methods as we are about ours?

A healthy skepticism about science does not entail that no measure of progress is possible (Laudan, 1977). Instead it leads us to recognize that we must choose a measure of progress. We must choose a scientific tradition to work within. And we must take ownership of these choices as the world will not tell us which path to follow. CBS is one such path, complete with its own values and measures of progress. Papers have been published that explicate this system, for example:

Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Contextual behavioral science: Creating a science more adequate to the challenge of the human condition. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 1(1), 1-16.

A book-length introduction can be found here:

Zettle, R. D., Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Biglan, A. (Eds.) (2016). The Wiley Handbook of Contextual Behavioral Science. West Sussex, UK: Wiley & Sons.

For a basic introduction, it is useful to understand the following points (click each one for more information).

CBS:

- Is based on a pragmatic worldview known as functional contextualism.

- Grows from behavior analysis in its methodology and assumptions.

- Is committed to developing basic behavioral accounts of complex behaviors.

- Aims to apply these advances in the alleviation human suffering and the advancement of human well-being.

Click here for a list of general purpose books on CBS

Douglas Long July 8, 2011 - 5:14am

Contextualism

Philosophy consists of the pre-analytic assumptions and rules of evidence (or criteria for truth) that are used to create, assess, and evaluate knowledge claims and theories. There are many different ways to describe, interpret, and understand the events of our world, and philosophy guides how we choose to speak about these events. While philosophical assumptions are often left unstated, particularly in science, being clear and open about one's philosophical position can improve coherence, reduce misunderstandings, avoid pointless debate, and allow more productive comparisons and evaluations of theories.

The brand of psychology presented on this website is based on a philosophical worldview known as contextualism. In particular, it is based on a philosophy of science known as functional contextualism. Click on the links below to learn more about this philosophy and how it guides our science.

Eric Fox May 21, 2005 - 11:03pm

About Contextualism

In his 1942 book World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence, philosopher Stephen Pepper noted that philosophical systems tend to cluster around a few distinct "world hypotheses" or "world views." Each world view is characterized by a distinctive underlying root metaphor and truth criterion. Root metaphors are based on seemingly well-understood, common-sense, everyday objects or ideas, and serve as the basic analogy by which an analyst attempts to understand the world. Truth criteria are inextricably linked to their root metaphors, and provide the basis for evaluating the validity of analyses. While the details of Pepper's analysis are open to debate, his framework can prove very useful for revealing the essential components, assumptions, and concerns of different discourse communities. Pepper identifies only four "relatively adequate" world hypotheses, with adequacy determined by the world view’s degree of precision and scope. Precision refers to the number of ways a particular phenomenon can be explained by a world view’s concepts (the fewer, the better), and scope refers to the number of phenomena that can be explained using those concepts (the more, the better). All world hypotheses strive to achieve complete scope with absolute precision, but none fully reach this ideal. These four world views, however, come the closest: formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism. The vision of psychology represented on this website is based on contextualism. It is a world view in which any event is interpreted as an ongoing act inseparable from its current and historical context and in which a radically functional approach to truth and meaning is adopted. These two aspects represent contextualism’s root metaphor and truth criterion, respectively. Contextualism has its roots in philosophical pragmatism, and is also closely related to the view known as selectionism. To learn more about contextualism, clink on a link below.

Eric Fox May 21, 2005 - 11:05pm

Root Metaphor

The root metaphor of contextualism is often called the act-in-context or the historic event (Pepper, 1942, p. 232), and refers to the common-sense way in which we experience and understand any life event. Consider the simple event of brushing your teeth. What is our common-sense understanding of such an event? First, the event consists of a host of related features that all mutually define the event.The root metaphor of contextualism is often called the act-in-context or the historic event (Gifford & Hayes, 1999, p. 289). Of course, we could also analyze the act of "brushing your teeth" as a collection of individual components. But our everyday experience and understanding of the act is one of a complete and whole event, inseparable from its context. Our common-sense understanding of an event also includes a sense of the purpose, meaning, and function of the event, and all of these depend on past events—or the historical context of the present event. For example, you probably brush your teeth because you’ve been told that doing so will prevent tooth decay, or because not doing so has resulted in painful visits to the dentist, or because you are getting ready for a date, or because your mother or father asked you to clean your teeth. Likewise, you may brush your teeth in the bathroom because you’ve found it convenient to do so in the past, and you’ve probably learned that a toothbrush and toothpaste are good equipment to use for this task, and that a circular motion is effective. All of these past events or life experiences, and more, contribute to an everyday understanding of why and how you brush your teeth. This is why context in contextualism refers to both the current and historical context of an act. It seems Pepper was basing his use of the term "context" on Dewey’s notion of context as "the historical situatedness of the meaning and function of behavior" (Morris, 1997, p. 533). Contextualists analyze all phenomena as acts-in-context. Events and their contexts are separated into different parts by contextualists only to achieve some practical purpose. truth criterion of contextualism.

Eric Fox August 5, 2009 - 7:37pm

Truth Criterion

An analysis based on contextualism’s root metaphor essentially consists of a description of some event or phenomenon and its current and historical context. Such an analysis is evaluated by examining—not surprisingly—the context in which it was generated. In particular, contextualists determine the validity or "truth" of an analysis by looking at the purpose or function of the analysis. If the analysis includes enough features of the context to successfully achieve the goal of the analysis, then it is deemed "true." In other words, for contextualists the truth and meaning of an idea lies in its function or utility, not in how well it is said to mirror reality. The truth criterion of contextualism is thus dubbed successful working, whereby an analysis is said to be true or valid insofar as it leads to effective action, or achievement of some goal.

This notion of truth reveals contextualism’s roots in philosophical pragmatism, a tradition heavily influenced by the work of figures such as Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey. Pragmatists and contextualists are not concerned with the existence of absolute, foundational truths or assumptions about the universe. As James wrote, "the truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events" (1907, p. 161).

For the contextualist, ideas are verified by human experiences, with an idea’s "meaning" essentially defined by its practical consequences, and its "truth" by the degree to which those consequences reflect successful action. Contextualism’s extremely functional approach to meaning, with a heavy emphasis placed on the empirical consequences of ideas, reveals the influence of another figure who greatly affected the development of pragmatist thought: Charles Darwin. Pragmatism can be seen as an application of Darwin’s selectionism to epistemology: In pragmatism, ideas are "selected" (to be retained as true or valid) if they lead to successful action, just as in natural selection traits are "selected" (to be retained by the species) if they lead to reproductive success. This influence is not surprising, as Darwinism was just gaining widespread appeal among scholars during the era in which the early pragmatists were cutting their intellectual teeth (Menand, 2001).

Eric Fox August 5, 2009 - 7:39pm

Varieties of Contextualism

Analytic goals are vitally important to the contextualistic world view. This is because the analytic tools of contextualism—its root metaphor and truth criterion—both hinge on the purpose of the analysis, and neither can be mounted effectively without a clearly specified analytic goal. (Reese, 1993, p. 77).

Likewise, the root metaphor of the "act-in-context" is rendered meaningless in an analysis without an explicit goal because there would be no basis on which to restrict the analysis to a subset of the infinite expanse of the act’s historical and environmental context (Hayes, 1993b). Without a clear analytic goal, the contextualist could analyze the endless context of an act in perpetuity, without ever knowing when the analysis was complete or good enough to be deemed

Contextualists can, and do, adopt different analytic goals, and the many different varieties of contextualism can be distinguished by their goals. Based on their overarching analytic goals, contextualistic theories can be divided into two general categories: descriptive contextualism and functional_contextualism

	Descriptive Contextualism	Functional Contextualism
Example	Social Constructionism	Behavior Analysis
Analytic goal	To understand the complexity and richness of a whole event through an appreciation of its participants and features	To predict and influence events with precision, scope, and depth using empirically-based concepts and rules
Knowledge constructed	Personal, ephemeral, specific, local, and spatiotemporally restricted (e.g., a historical narrative)	General, abstract, and spatiotemporally unrestricted (e.g., a scientific principle)
Content and focus	Individual-in-context	Behavior-in-context
Preferred methods	Qualitative and narrative	Quantitative and experimental
Disciplinary type	Natural history	Natural science

Eric Fox August 5, 2009 - 7:42pm

Descriptive Contextualism

Descriptive contextualists seek to understand the complexity and richness of a whole event through a personal and aesthetic appreciation of its participants and features. This approach reveals a strong adherence to the root metaphor of contextualism and can be likened to the enterprise of history, in which stories of the past are constructed in an attempt to understand whole events. The knowledge constructed by the descriptive contextualist is personal, ephemeral, specific, and spatiotemporally restricted (Morris, 1993).Descriptive contextualists seek to understand the complexity and richness of a whole event through a personal and aesthetic appreciation of its participants and features. This approach reveals a strong adherence to the root metaphor of contextualism and can be likened to the enterprise of history, in which stories of the past are constructed in an attempt to understand whole events. The knowledge constructed by the descriptive contextualist is personal, ephemeral, specific, and spatiotemporally restricted (Morris, 1993). Like a historical narrative, it is knowledge that reflects an in-depth personal understanding of a particular event that occurred (or is occurring) at a particular time and place. Most forms of contextualism, including social constructionism, dramaturgy, hermeneutics, and narrative approaches, are instances of descriptive contextualism. Descriptive contextualism is strong in its adherence to contextualism’s root metaphor of the act-in-context, but suffers from several weaknesses. The analytic goals of descriptive contextualists are somewhat ill-defined, and it is difficult to determine when such goals gave been accomplished. This problem is openly acknowledged by many descriptive contextualists (e.g., LeCompte, Millroy, & Preissle, 1992, p. xv). In addition, a personal, holistic appreciation of a specific event and its context may or may not yield any practical knowledge or benefits (Hayes, 1993b).

Eric Fox August 5, 2005 - 12:03am

Functional Contextualism

Functional contextualists seek to predict and influence events using empirically-based concepts and rules (Biglan & Hayes, 1996; Hayes, 1993b; Gifford & Hayes, 1999). This approach reveals a strong adherence to contextualism’s extremely practical truth criterion and can be likened to the enterprise of science or engineering, in which general rules and principles are used to predict and influence events. Rules or theories that do not contribute to the achievement of one’s practical goals are ignored or rejected. Knowledge constructed by the functional contextualist is general, abstract, and spatiotemporally unrestricted (Morris, 1993). Like a scientific principle, it is knowledge that is likely to be applicable to all (or many) similar such events, regardless of time or place.

In psychology, functional contextualism has been developed explicitly as a philosophy of science (Biglan, 1995; Gifford & Hayes, 1999; Hayes, 1993b). Specifically, it has been offered as the philosophical basis of the field known as <em>behavior analysis</em>. From the perspective of functional contextualism, behavior analysis is a natural science of behavior that seeks "the development of an organized system of empirically-based verbal concepts and rules that allow behavioral phenomena to be predicted and influenced with precision, scope, and depth" (Biglan & Hayes, 1996, pp. 50-51). By studying the current and historical context in which behavior evolves, behavior analysts strive to develop analytic concepts and rules that are useful for predicting and changing psychological events in a variety of settings. These same concepts and rules can also be used to describe and interpret psychological phenomena for which prediction and influence are presently impractical or impossible (Biglan & Hayes, 1996; Skinner, 1974).

The behavior-analytic approach to studying psychological events can be described as selectionistic. Essentially, "behavior analysts think of the shaping of behavior as working in just the same way as the evolution of species" (Baum, 1994, p. 64). In biological evolution, contingencies of survival in a given environment select which genetic traits will persist in a species; in behavioral evolution, contingencies of reinforcement in a given context select which class of responses will persist (or be likely to occur) for an individual. Both the evolution of species and the evolution of behavior can be described as selection by consequences (Skinner, 1981), and the same process has also proven useful for interpreting the evolution of cultural practices (Biglan, 1995; Harris, 1979; Skinner, 1981). Indeed, behavior analysts consider human behavior to be "the joint product of (a) the contingencies of survival responsible for the natural selection of the species and (b) the contingencies of reinforcement responsible for the repertoires acquired by its members, including (c) the special contingencies maintained by an evolved social environment [a culture]" (Skinner, 1987, p. 55). Contextualism and selectionism are closely related concepts, with selectionism being the causal mode inherent to contextual philosophy. Selectionism involves an emphasis on the role historical context and consequences play in shaping the form and function of the phenomenon of interest in the current setting—an emphasis that clearly reflects both the root metaphor and truth criterion of contextualism.

Implications of Functional Contextualism's Analytic Goal

Adopting the analytic goal of the prediction and influence of psychological events leads to several important ramifications for a psychological science. In fact, many of the distinctive characteristics of behavior analysis as a contextualistic science developed directly from this overarching goal. Behavior analysts’ rejection of mentalistic and cognitive explanations for behavior, emphasis on functional relations between behavior and environmental events, and preference for experimental research methods can all be linked to the field’s ultimate purpose. It is important to recognize that prediction and influence form a single goal, and functional contextualists thus value analyses that allow both the prediction and influence of psychological events. They seek to identify variables that "predict the event in question and would, if manipulated, affect the probability, incidence, or prevalence of the event" (Biglan, 1995, p. 34). Analyses which only allow the prediction of behavior, or which rely on variables that are not manipulable (at least in principle), are considered inadequate or incomplete.

Much of the research in psychology and education is based on the development of models that describe how hypothetical constructs and mediating cognitive (or neural) mechanisms determine overt behavior (Biglan & Hayes, 1996). These models generally attribute behavioral events to factors such as a person’s cognitive schema, information-processing mechanisms, brain activity, learning style, attitudes, expectations, knowledge constructions, emotions, thoughts, or feelings. Although these models can be quite accurate predictors of psychological events, they are not very helpful to those who also wish to know how to influence or change psychological events. When one type of psychological event is said to cause or explain another, with limited reference to the impact of environmental or historical variables, we are left with little knowledge of how to change or influence either type of psychological event. To change or influence the behavior or psychological events of another person, we must search for manipulable variables in the environment. Why? Because we are part of that other person’s environment. Anything we could possibly do to affect the performance of an individual, such as deliver psychotherapy or education, occurs in the environment of that individual—in the context of his or her behavior (Hayes & Brownstein, 1986).

In addition, the purported "causes" of behavior in cognitive and mentalistic models are themselves psychological events that require explanation. What caused the attitude, for example, and how can we change it? Once again, behavior analysts search for the answers to such questions in the environment, or—more specifically—in an individual’s lifelong history of interacting with his or her environment. Cognition and other internal events are interpreted by appealing to a person’s learning history, rather than assuming they are underlying processes causing and controlling overt behavior. To put this perspective in terms that may seem less controversial, behavior analysts simply believe that people learn how to think, reason, plan, construct meaning, problem-solve, and more through interactions with their natural, social, and cultural environments. Thus, behavior analysts attempt to identify aspects of the manipulable environment that influence the occurrence, incidence, prevalence, or probability of both private and overt psychological events.

The most effective strategy for identifying variables that both predict and influence behavior is controlled experimentation: events in the context of the behavior are manipulated in a systematic manner, and the resulting effects on the behavior’s occurrence are observed (Biglan, 1995; Hayes, 1993b). This orientation allows researchers to isolate which features of the context are functionally related to changes in the psychological event; purely descriptive or correlative research generally does not provide such knowledge. In behavior analysis, these procedures have traditionally involved the intensive study of individual organisms with time-series (or repeated measures) methodology (e.g., Barlow & Hersen, 1984; Sidman, 1960). While functional contextualists favor experimental techniques, they encourage the use of a diverse set of methodologies, provided that value is always measured against pragmatic goals (Biglan & Hayes, 1996). Group designs using between-subject comparisons can be employed effectively for the purposes of functional contextualism, for example, and even correlational or predictive research of the sort described above can provide clues about contextual variables that might impact behavior. Qualitative methodologies also have their uses in functional contextualism, but are not as effective as experimental procedures for testing the influence of environmental variables on behavior or for verifying the general utility of principles.

Eric Fox August 5, 2009 - 7:45pm

A Silly Poem About Contextualism and Behaviorism

Behaviorism is Dead, Long Live Behaviorism (A verbal painting) Steven C. Hayes University of Nevada What we used to think of as Behaviorism died a few decades ago. Well....in a way it died. If a position is alive and doesn't know it, is it dead? (Don't know. Think so.) So....behaviorism died a few decades ago. I'm not here to declare what is behaviorism and what isn't. (Who cares? Do you?) This is not about the ins and outs; the haves and the have nots. It's about the is and the isn'ts. Its about getting clear. It's about where we are. Behaviorism was born in a rejection of introspectionism. It was born in a naive embrace of reflexology and reductionistic biology. It was born in operationism and positivism. It was born in mechanical man. Push, pull. Click, click. Push, pull. Click, click. A psychological system of separate pieces. "The stimulus." "The response." The parts, disconnected. A psychological system of mechanical links. Association. Stamping in. The hip bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the knee bone. A psychological system of forces to make the parts go. Drives. Habits. Arousal. Inhibition. Push down on de lever and de other end move. Push down on de lever and de other end move. See dat steamboat come roun' de bend. Big wheel keep on turnin'. Chug a chug. Chug a chug. Chug a chug. But the machine had a flaw. It was incomplete. It didn't have.... A soul er, a mind .... er, a brain .... that is .... oh hell, it didn't have a soul! John B. said there wasn't one, don't worry about it. And then he said, well maybe there was, but forget about it. And then he said, well even if there was one, a machine couldn't have one. It wouldn't be proper. What would the scientific neighbors say? The behaviorists stuck to their agenda. For awhile. But the machine was incomplete. So it didn't last. It couldn't last. "What's in the box, Daddy?” “What's in the box, Daddy?" Dirty little boys with their dirty little fingers. One camp said, We can fix it! We can fix it! Really, we can! Stupid behaviorists! We'll give it soul. We'll engineer one! It'll be great. It'll have huge memory banks, the latest CPU, (maybe two!), parallel processing networks, a 327 V8, and fine Corinthean leather." The irrational belief's connected to the thigh bone. The schema is connected to the knee bone. Push, pull. Click, click. Push, pull. Click, click. But another camp said, not so clearly, "There is no machine at all." [Gasp from the audience. What's the matter? You don't believe in machine's souls?] "It's all an interaction between whole organisms and context. There is no machine. No machine." [Mindless bastards. Idiots. Why can't we look in the machine's box?] "There are no hard and fast parts. No forces. No mechanical links." [The machine won't like you taking out its soul, man. It won't like that at all.] "It's a dynamic whole. We break it up, for our pragmatic purposes. Acts in context. History. Selection. Everything you actually see in the mind you can find there." [How do these chumps think a complicated machine like ours can run without a soul?!] Behaviorism was a motorcycle gang, building the ultimate hog. Bobby Behaviorism and his Maniac Mechanics. But a better group of machine builders rebelled from within. They put on new colors. They got on their choppers. They grabbed their computer metaphors. And they blew the behaviorists away. Except... except... except... Except they're still the motorcycle gang, building the ultimate hog. Behaviorism died a few decades ago. Well, in a way it died. If a position is alive and doesn't know it, is it dead? "Page 2." The behavior therapists were the 6 year olds, looking up to big brother .... Wearing his old black leather jacket, with colors faded, dirty and torn. The club was already disbanding. But they were too young to know it, or understand what it meant. When they came of age most eventually realized that the old club was no more. Some never did get the message. Some said to hell with colors. Some tried to mimic the colors of the new gang. (Pathetic pretenders with their home made insignias.) But the new gang didn't want them. Not really. Punk kids. Besides, they were too busy having wet T-shirt contests at MIT. An easy rider's girlfriend lifting her shirt to the Nobel Committee and asking "Will these win a prize?", "could I please win a prize?" So behavior therapy is a disorganized gang now. Some wear one set of leathers. Some wear others. Some wear none at all. Everyone knows we need more unity to make a difference. Everyone has a different solution. Put aside the mimics, aping the new gang. Most of the rest of the behavior therapists say "to hell with colors. Look at what it got the last generation. We don't need a blueprint. We'll figure it out as we go. Empiricism will hold us together." But where is it, my friend? Where's the progress? Another line says we don't need an "ism" at all. Behavior will hold us together. But what's our task then? Are we building a machine? That's an "ism." Are we not building a machine? That's an "ism," too. Now for a joke from your local sponsor. The gang that said "there is no machine" and couldn't be heard, That one? They borrowed Bobby Behaviorism's old colors. They say they're behaviorists, even radical ones. Funny thing, though. They get upset when people take Bobby's outfit seriously. Well, what the hell did they expect? That's my gang. Those nutballs. Those goombahs. Those behavior analysts So I wear the colors, out of loyalty I suppose, though I think it was an insane decision. Fred, are you listening? This gang is about the only real source of philosophical vitality left in the "behavioral" community. What they're up to is rarely appreciated, hardly understood. Be clear on one thing though: They'll never produce the ultimate hog. That's not their goal. To those behavioral and cognitive therapists who are getting tired of mechanical engineering, I say, this Bud's for you. Come on over. Take your shoes off. Set a spell. It's a funny situation. The behaviorists died, but they're still alive, but they don't know they're behaviorists. And a new group emerged, with a new agenda, antithetical to click, click. They call themselves ... behaviorists. Sigh a heavy sigh. A heavy goddamn sigh. Behaviorism is dead. Long live behaviorism. Steven C. Hayes University of Nevada

Steven Hayes December 25, 2005 - 3:32am

Why is Contextualism "a-ontological" and Why is Behavior Analysis Contextualistic?

Dermot Barnes-Holmes's fun PowerPoint (the BA pdf) below describes answers to both of these questions.

For a detailed paper on this general topic you might start with Hayes, S. C., Hayes, L. J., & Reese, H. W. (1988). Finding the philosophical core: A review of Stephen C. Pepper's World Hypotheses. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 50, 97-111. Like most key ACT / RFT / CBS publications it can be downloaded from the publications list on the site but for convenience it is attached below.

Steven Hayes June 12, 2008 - 1:31pm

Contextualism FAQ

Click on a question below to view its answer!

ACBS Members: To suggest a question for someone to answer, click on the "add new comment" link at the bottom of this page and enter your question. To provide a question and an answer to this FAQ, click on the "add child page" link at the bottom of this page.

Eric Fox May 2, 2005 - 10:02am

Is contextualism synonymous with functional contextualism?

No. There are different types of contextualism based on their specific goals. Many forms of contextualism (such as hermeneutics, dramaturgy, social constructionism and so on) are forms of descriptive contextualism which seek to appreciate the participants in the whole. Functional contextualism has as its goal the prediction and influence of behavioral interactions with precision, scope, and depth. The best way to understand the difference is to go to the publications pages and download articles on contextualism. You need to be an ACBS member to do that, but it is cheap so the best thing to do is just to click here to learn how to join.

Steven Hayes August 5, 2009 - 7:46pm

Education

The contextual approach to psychology presented on this website has important implications for educational practices. For example:

Functional contextualism provides a coherent framework for developing a pragmatic science of learning and instruction. It also shares the same philosophical world view as most forms of constructivism, a perspective that dominates the educational landscape in America (Fox, 2006).
Relational Frame Theory (RFT) outlines the kinds of core processes that may be key to the intellectual and social development of humans, and provides a technical language for analyzing most forms of complex human behavior. As such, RFT has important implications for both what we teach and how we teach. While RFT-based approaches to education are only recently beginning to be explored (e.g., Ninness et al., 2005; Strand, Barnes-Holmes, & Barnes-Holmes, 2003), the theory and its related research hold tremendous promise in this area.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) is sometimes called Acceptance & Commitment Training when used in an educational context to emphasize its applicability beyond traditional therapeutic settings. At its core, ACT is focused on teaching people to be psychologically flexible and to live valued, meaningful lives. This focus overlaps broadly with several common educational goals, including the teaching of critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, values, and "life skills." In addition, ACT may enhance instruction by helping individuals of all ages learn to "sit with" the discomfort of learning new or difficult things (e.g., Bond & Bunce, 2000) and by helping them value education as it relates to their own life goals and values.

Eric Fox June 25, 2005 - 10:35pm

Related Philosophical Systems

This webpage is for information and links on philophical systems that are related to contextualism.

Jason Luoma November 23, 2005 - 11:49pm

Chaos Theory versus control and univocal understanding of human beings. La théorie du chaos versus le contrôle

Thanks to Dr Pierre Cousineau who brought me on the explorative track of the Chaos Theory. Even if there are differences with contextual psychology, there are also similarities. Thanks to the mind too for those derived relational frames. Cannot do without it, so useful sometimes!

This video talks about seeking control, unpredictability, present moment and ..... It is summarizing chaos theory with some links to psychology. In english subtitled in french (approximately 9 minutes)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5y2jh_la-theorie-du-chaos_news

Merci à Dr Pierre Cousineau ne m'avoir mise sur la piste de la théorie du chaos. Même s'il y a des différences avec la philosophie contextuelle, certains éléments s'en rapprochent. Ce vidéo est sous-titré en français et donne une vue d'ensemble de la théorie en lien avec la psychologie.

Cristel Neveu December 6, 2009 - 11:41am

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a largely American system of philosophical thought popularized by William James. It is related to contextualism in that it shares the same truth criterion of successful working. Feel free to add to this page if you are a fan.

Links

The BBC has recently run a radio show on pragmatism that is pretty interesting and a good introduction to pragmatism. You can listen to it online if you are interested in the theory or a bit of its history.

Jason Luoma November 23, 2005 - 11:58pm

Teaching Resources

Below you will find resources for teaching contextualism, functional contextualism, and philosophy of science in general. Please note that many of these resources include file attachments that are only visible/downloadable to ACBS Members.

ACBS Members: To contribute additional resources to this section, click on the "add child page" link below.

Eric Fox August 5, 2009 - 7:48pm

A Philosophy of Science for Psychology

This is a presentation on philosophy of science I use for my courses at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

Dermot Barnes-Holmes December 2, 2005 - 5:16pm

Introduction to Basic Assumptions

These materials were developed for the second day of a undergraduate learning class. Many times during the semester a student will try to argue statements from the book (Catania, 1997) or class. Some of the time, these arguments are not about the data or statements but rather they are about differences in basic assumptions. I wanted a short-hand way of pointing this out (e.g., “yellin’ across islands”) so we can get back on track quickly – without having to spend a lot of class time telling them they could be right, just not in the context of the basic assumptions for the class. This is my attempt to accomplish that. Much of the material and slides are, as Eric put it, "blatantly stolen" from other people, including: Steve Hayes, Kelly Wilson, & Eric Fox. Your suggestions, comments, and criticisms are welcomed.

kkellum December 3, 2005 - 9:17am

Role of Theory and Philosophy in Behavior Analysis

This is a PowerPoint file I used when teaching my Skinner's Behaviorism graduate course here at Western Michigan University. I used it at the end of the class when students' heads were swimming with words like ontology, epistemology, contextualism, truth criteria, theory, philosophy, etc. and wondering what the hell the purpose and relevance of it all was. :) It was sort of my attempt to summarize the role and importance of theory and philosophy in behavior analysis. I should note that this was presented at the end of the course, and summarizes key issues we had been discussing and reading about all semester. It is probably less effective as a first-time introduction to these topics. Much of the content of the slideshow is based on Steve Hayes's work, and some of the examples are blatantly stolen from lectures he gave in an applied research methods course I took with him at the University of Nevada. I'm a damn academic bandit. A pedagogical pilferer. A scholarly shoplifter. A pedantic plunderer. A person who needs to get more sleep before posting weird things to this website.

Eric Fox December 2, 2005 - 5:06pm

Behaviorism and Private Events

How can you be a behaviorist and embrace private events?

Behaviorism was originally a movement against consciousness as the subject matter of psychology and introspection as the method of its investigation. Watson (1924, e.g., p. 14) claimed behavior as the subject matter of psychology and defined it by its form: behavior was muscle movements and glandular secretions. From his perspective, all activities of the organism could be reduced to these events (a kind of metaphysical behaviorism); and even if mental or other non-movement activities existed, they could not constitute the subject matter of a scientific psychology because public agreement as to their occurrence was impossible (a kind of methodological behaviorism). Thus for Watson, scientific legitimacy was an issue of public observability.

Skinner deviated considerably from these views. Skinner distinguished the subjective/objective dichotomy (which he thought to be of fundamental scientific importance) from the private/public dichotomy (which he thought was not fundamental). Skinner, in his 1945 paper on operationism, defined scientific observations as those under the control of a certain kind of contingency. Only when an observation was controlled by particular stimulus events (largely those of a nonverbal sort) and a general history of reinforcement for speaking under the control of those events, as opposed to control by audience factors, states of reinforcability, and so on, was the observation scientifically valid. As such, observations could be private and objective (scientifically legitimate) or public and subjective (scientifically illegitimate), depending upon the contingencies controlling the observations. This is the sense in which "radical behaviorism" is radical or "to the root": Even its core concepts and observations are defined in terms of contingencies, specifically, those bearing on the behavior of the scientist. Skinner rejected methodological behaviorism because he did not believe that public agreement provided assurance of proper contingency control.

As in the example above, it is easy to find instances where whole groups of observers are similarly influenced by motivational states and other subjective conditions. But in solving this problem by way of contingency analysis, Skinner opened up behaviorism to the very thing Watson was trying to eliminate: Introspective observations of private events. For example, Skinner said that radical behaviorism "does not insist upon truth by agreement and can therefore consider events taking place in the private world within the skin. It does not call these events unobservable" (Skinner, 1974, p. 16).

In a fundamental sense, radical behaviorism is not part of the tradition of "behaviorism" at all because all psychological activities that are contacted in a scientifically valid manner are subject to analysis. Thus contextual behavioral psychologists use the term "behavior" to mean something more like "psychological activity" than "behavior as distinct from thoughts and feelings." Skinnerians did not move rapidly to investigations of thinking and feeling for another reason, however. Skinner felt that an understanding of private events was not necessary for a scientific understanding of overt activity. He made that claim in essence because of his analysis of language in which the behavior of the listener is not verbal. From an RFT prespective this was an error and RFT corrects it. According to RFT, understanding thinking in the form of relational operants is essential to an understanding of overt human activity in most situations.

Steven Hayes August 14, 2005 - 11:28am

CBS and Behavior Analysis

In essence, Contextual Behavior Science is part of an effort to create a new form of what has traditionally been called behavior analysis. We could just use that label, but unfortunately it is so widely misunderstood that ears simply close. The word "behavioral" can be a huge barrier.

Furthermore, it is dangerous to use that label because behavioral psychology contains conflicting elements. It is possible and even easy to find well-known behavior analysts who believe and say things that are fundamentally at odds with functional contextual psychology or any of the other behavioral sciences. Furthermore, behavior analysis itself begins to take on a very different appearance when you add in a comprehensive functional contextual account of language and cognition. RFT research is showing that almost every behavioral principle we know can be transformed by relational operants. As the work deepens, it is becoming more and more obvious that the new behavior analysis that emerges in the wake of RFT is at times almost unrecognizable, not because that was the purpose but because that is how profound the implications are to that tradition of an adequate account of language and cognition.

Nevertheless, it seem important to note that much of the work in the tradition represented by this site has been done within behavior analysis. The first RFT and ACT talks ever given were given at the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI), and the ABA program is filled with ACT and RFT work. We invite people who would never think of themselves as "behaviorists," and yet for whom the world of ACT and RFT resonates, to come to a ACBS World Conference or a conference of similar societies world wide. You will be very comfortable with the contextualistic work presented at such meetings.

That is one reason we do not simply present the ACT / RFT work as behavior analytic, and why we have created the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) to further this work. The wheel is still in spin and it is not yet clear if behavior analysis writ large will fully embrace what it has produced. And there is no reason to have to be responsible for everything that goes on under that label, and to accept the barriers and misconceptions that come along with it. For example, why accept the almost universal belief that behavior analysts don't care about cognition, when RFT is one of the most viable and productive empirical approaches to cognition in modern psychology?

Nevertheless, teaching in behavioral concepts has gotten so weak that even very bright and open psychologists can go through their training without grasping the meaning of behavioral principles viewed contextualistically. You do need to know behavioral principles to understand ACT and RFT. In this section of the site we will help begin that process for those with limited contextual behavioral training.

ACBS has a Clinical Behavior Analysis Special Interest Group (SIG) that ACBS members can join.

Steven Hayes July 7, 2011 - 3:39am

Resources for Learning About Behavior Analysis

Below is a working list of resources available to learn about behavior analysis. If you know of other helpful resources please add a sub-page to this one with the relevant information.

Resources on this website:

What is Behavior Analysis?
Provides a basic description of behavior analysis.
Behavior Analysis Books
Provides a list of recommended books on behavior analysis, including texts that you may find useful in studying for the BCBA exam.
Empirical RFT Studies
Provides a list of empirical RFT studies (pre-2010) with links to the articles for downloading.
Publications Database
There are hundreds of articles on RFT and Behavior Analysis. (Filter by topic = RFT)
Contextualism
This section of the website provides a variety of resources to learn more about contextualism, which is strongly linked to radical behaviorism.
ACBS Clinical Behavioral Analysis Special Interest Group
ACBS members can join the ACBS Clinical Behavioral Analysis SIG and the SIG email listserv. The SIG has resources webpage that contains a list of books, articles, and other resources.

Other Websites:

The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.
You can find a lot about behavior analysis at the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, which is the oldest, best established, and best known publicly focused foundation in behavioral psychology.
Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI).
This is the main website for ABA.

admin April 15, 2008 - 9:42am

Functional Analysis

Classical functional analysis has the following components: 1. Identify potentially relevant characteristics of the individual client, his or her behavior, and the context in which it occurs via broad assessment. The purpose of the step is simply to collect data from which the beginnings of analysis might emerge. Exactly what occurs at this step is dictated by the philosophical and theoretical assumptions (usually implicit) of the assessor and informal prejudgments made about the case based on referral information, preliminary interviews, and the like. 2. Organize the information collected in Step 1 into a preliminary analysis of the client's difficulties in terms of behavioral principles so as to identify important causal relationships that might be changed. The process of functional analysis has been described as a funnel (Hawkins, 1979). The opening is wide at the top but then begins to narrow down. Step 2 in functional analysis, traditionally conceived, is to begin to narrow the focus of assessment. Certain features (e.g., forms of behavior, motivational operations, contexts in which behavior occurs) are tentatively selected as more important than others. Characteristics of the case are organized into classes. The guiding principles are behavioral in the catholic sense of that word, but with a special emphasis not simply on the structure of the phenomena observed but on their function -- what they do or affect in a dynamic system. 3. Gather additional information based on Step 2 and finalize the conceptual analysis. As features of the case coalesce, additional information is gathered relevant to the analysis. Specific assessment devices may be selected or created to examine particular features of the case as conceptualized in Step 2. In this process, the analysis may be refined and modified. Eventually the assessor has a stable conceptual analysis of the relation between actions of the client and its context, with measurement data on the primary components of that analysis and assessment procedures in place for a continuing evaluation of the case. 4. Devise an intervention based on Step 3. One dominant characteristic of behavioral assessment is the close link, at least conceptually if not often empirically, between assessment and treatment. Because behavioral principles are explicitly pragmatic (their confirmation is usually based on the ability to predict and influence behavioral events through their use), a functional analysis often points to concrete events in the life of the clients that have established and are maintaining the problem of interest. If these events are manipulable in the practical world of clinical intervention, a thorough-going functional analysis often directly suggests a particular intervention. Thus, in Step 4 a treatment is devised that is linked to Step 3. 5. Implement treatment and assess change. Assessment, to most behavioral assessors, is not something done only at the beginning of treatment. It is an ongoing process. Thus, a functional analysis contains within it the ongoing assessment of clients' progress. 6. If the outcome is unacceptable, recycle back to Step 2 or 3. If treatment is not successful, usually this is taken as an indication that the conceptualization phase of the functional analysis itself is flawed. Thus, a failure to see the kinds of changes that are desired leads directly to a reexamination of the conceptualization, either in the form of a minor adjustment or, at times, a complete overhaul of the analysis. ACT and RFT are fully compatible with this approach. RFT provides a generic functional analysis of relational operants, and ACT provides a generic functional analysis of some of their impact, but you still need to fit this into an overall functional analysis of the problems you are working with, some of which may be based on direct contingencies.

Steven Hayes August 14, 2005 - 11:16am

CBS