The Wiley Handbook of Contextual Behavioral Science E-Book

Robert D. Zettle

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Wiley Clinical Psychology Handbooks
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1442

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The Wiley Handbook of Contextual Behavioral Science describes the philosophical and empirical foundation of the contextual behavioral science movement; it explores the history and goals of CBS, explains its core analytic assumptions, and describes Relational Frame Theory as a research and practice program.

• This is the first thorough examination of the philosophy, basic science, applied science, and applications of Contextual Behavioral Science
• Brings together the philosophical and empirical contributions that CBS is making to practical efforts to improve human wellbeing
• Organized and written in such a way that it can be read in its entirety or on a section-by-section basis, allowing readers to choose how deeply they delve into CBS
• Extensive coverage of this wide ranging and complex area that encompasses both a rich basic experimental tradition and in-depth clinical application of that experimental knowledge
• Looks at the development of RFT, and its implications for alleviating human suffering

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

List of Contributors

1 Examining the Partially Completed Crossword Puzzle

Trends in CBS

References

Part I: Contextual Behavioral Science

2 Why Contextual Behavioral Science Exists

Why CBS Gradually Distinguished Itself from Traditional Behavior Analysis

The Chapters in Part I

References

3 Contextual Behavioral Science

Contextual Behavioral Science in Context: A Brief History

Philosophy of Science

Implications of CBS for Theory

Implications of CBS for Research Methods

Summarizing CBS

Conclusion

References

4 Functional Contextualism and Contextual Behavioral Science

Pragmatism: What is True is What Works

The Unique Event in Context

The Pragmatism of B. F. Skinner

Functional Contextualism

Precision

Scope

Depth

Alternative Strategies: Mechanism and Organicism

Why a Contextual Strategy is Valuable

The Material Causality of the Body

Private Events

Analysis is Itself an Act in Context

Implications of Functional Contextualism for Other Areas of Science

Functional Contextualism and Human Values

Conclusion

References

5 Contextual Behavioral Science

Precision and Scope in CBS

A CBS Metaphor from the History of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Scientific Generativity across Problem-Solving Contexts

New Terms in CBS

Summary

References

6 Pragmatism and Psychological Flexibility in the Research Context

Philosophical Context

Behavioral Barriers to Scientific Progress

Psychological Flexibility and Enhancement of Research Practices

Conclusion

References

7 A Functional Place for Language in Evolution

The Central Role of Behavior in Evolution

The Crucial Role of Language in Human Evolution

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Part II: Relational Frame Theory

8 Relational Frame Theory

Placing RFT in the Wider Context of CBS

Units of Analysis

Relating as a Unit of Analysis

A Multidimensional Multilevel Framework for the Analysis of Relational Framing

Conclusion

References

9 Relational Frame Theory

Introduction

Section 1: Background to the Development of Relational Frame Theory

Section 2: On the Origins and Properties of AARR

Section 3: The Rich Complexity of AARR

Section 4: Evidence for AARR as a Learned Operant Behavior

Section 5: Important Additional Features of AARR

Conclusion

References

10 Relational Frame Theory

Introduction

Section 1: RFT and Language

Section 2: From Simplicity to Complexity – Analogies, Metaphors, Rules, and Instructions

Section 3: RFT and Human Cognition

Section 4: Conclusion

References

11 Relational Frame Theory

Section 1: Prerequisite Skills for Derived Relational Responding

Section 2: Language and Derived Relational Responding

Section 3: Higher Order Cognition and Complex Relational Responding

Conclusions

References

12 RFT for Clinical Practice

Following Instructions

Interacting with Your Own Behavior

The Joint Venture of Complex Relational Regulation and Interacting with Your Own Behavior

A Simple Model of Psychotherapy, Informed by RFT

Concluding Remarks

References

Part III: Contextual Approaches to Clinical Interventions and Assessment

13 Contextual Approaches to Clinical Interventions and Assessment

Historical Overview

The Chapters in Part III

Summary and Conclusions

References

14 Contextual Approaches to Psychotherapy

Metaphors for the Emergence of Contextual CBTs

Contextual CBT: Distinguishing Characteristics

Approaches to Defining Contextual CBT

Philosophical Issues and CBT

Contextual Behavioral Science

Future Directions

References

15 Evaluating In-Session Therapist and Client Behaviors from a Contextual Behavioral Science Perspective

Targets of In-Session Assessment

The Challenges of Measuring In-Session Behavior

Assessing Changes in Client and Therapist In-Session Behaviors

Conclusion

References

16 Measures That Make a Difference

Section 1: Philosophical Approaches to Psychological Assessment

Section 2: Treatment Utility of Clinical Assessment

Section 3: Treatment Outcome and Process

Section 4: Mapping Interventions to Measures: A Field Guide

Section 5: Promising New Directions in Contextual Behavioral Measurement

Summary and Conclusions

Appendix: Process and Example Measures

References

17 The Role of Experimental Psychopathology and Laboratory-Based Intervention Studies in Contextual Behavioral Science

Bridging Basic Research and Applied Theories of Psychopathology and Intervention

Evaluating Treatment Components and Technologies

Limitations of Laboratory-Based Studies

Summary

References

18 Scientific Ambition

Contextual Behavioral Science: Progress to Date

Section 1: A Scientific Analysis of ACT’s Middle-Level Terms

Section 2: CBS: Toward a Unified Theory

Concluding Comments

Acknowledgment

References

Part IV: Extending the CBS Tradition

19 A Functional Contextualist Approach to Cultural Evolution

The Public Health Perspective

Nurturing Environments: Conditions that Appear to Be Fundamental to Human Well-being

An Agenda for Going beyond the Clinic

References

20 A Contextual Behavioral Science Approach to Parenting Intervention and Research

The Prevention of Psychological and Behavioral Problems

Coercion in the Context of Childrearing

The Contribution of Parents to Coercive Processes

Parenting is Stressful

Contextual Behavioral Science Can Build on Good Science

Relational Frame Theory

The Power of Rule-Governed Behavior

How Rule-Governed Behavior Can FuelCoercive Family Processes

The Role of Experiential Avoidance and Cognitive Fusion in Inflexible Parenting

Avoidant Behaviors Undermine Parent and Child Well-being

Bringing Parenting Behavior under Appetitive Contextual Control

Fostering Psychological Flexibility in Parents

ACT in Practice: An ACT-Based Parenting Intervention

Empirical Support for ACT Parenting Interventions

What Contextual Behavioral Science Can Bring to Parenting

Moving Forward

References

21 Contextual Behavioral Science and Education

Overview

Global Issues in Mainstream Education

Behavior Analysis in Education: Small Steps and Large

Educational Interventions Grounded in Behavioral Science

ACT in the Classroom

Recommendations for a CBS Educational Reform Agenda

Discussion

References

22 Psychological Flexibility and ACT at Work

ACT and Psychological Flexibility in the Workplace

Research on ACT at Work

Research on Psychological Flexibility in the Workplace

Delivering ACT in the Workplace

Overview of an ACT-Based Training Program

Techniques for Communicating the Program’s Rationale

Cultivating Defusion and Acceptance Skills

Cultivating Values-Based Action Skills

The Challenge of Getting ACT Principles into the Workplace

Psychological Flexibility and Organizational Behavior

The Six Characteristics of Organizational Flexibility

Conclusions: Process above Technology

References

23 The Potential of Community-Wide Strategies for Promoting Psychological Flexibility

Increasing the Prevalence of Psychological Flexibility in Entire Populations

A CBS Public Health Approach to Reducing Prejudice

References

24 The Evolution of Capitalism

The Impact of Capitalism on Human Well-Being

An Evolutionary Account of Capitalism

Influencing the Practices of Modern-Day Capitalism

ACBS as an Action and Advocacy Organization

References

25 A Functional Contextualist Analysis of the Behavior and Organizational Practices Relevant to Climate Change

The Behavior of Individuals

The Prediction and Influence of Organization Practices

A Summary of Necessary Actions

A Research Agenda for the Contextual Behavioral Science Community

Acknowledgments

References

26 The Future of the Human Sciences and Society

Contextual Behavioral Science as a Paradigm

The Human Sciences in the Future

The Evolution of Society

Conclusion

References

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 22

Table 22.1 Overview of an ACT-based workplace training program.

List of Illustrations

Chapter 08

Figure 8.1 A graphical representation of the interaction among three key dimensions of arbitrarily applicable relational responding as conceptualized within the multidimensional multilevel (MDML) analytic framework.

Chapter 09

Figure 9.1 A visual illustration of an equivalence relation between the spoken word “

DOG

” (A), the written word D-O-G (B) and a picture of a dog (C). The solid arrows (AB and AC) designate relations between stimuli that are explicitly taught while the dashed arrows (BC and CB) indicate derived relations that emerge without any training or instruction. Note that testing only the B–C and C–B relations has sometimes been used as an abbreviated method for assessing equivalence responding

Figure 9.2 A graphical representation of one possible hierarchical relational network.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 The analogy denoted as “PhD students:professors::apprentices:carpenters” and the relations between and among those elements.

Figure 10.2 Relational responding carved into four different categories as a function of the complexity and level of derivation that characterize the response.

Chapter 16

Figure 16.1 Hypothetical psychometric measurement model.

Figure 16.2 Choice point model and points of measurement and intervention.

Chapter 18

Figure 18.1 The contextual behavioral science model of treatment development. From Hayes et al., 2013, p. 872.

Chapter 21

Figure 21.1 Example of Day 124 of

ACT for Children with Autism and Emotional Challenges

(Dixon, 2014).

Figure 21.2 Example of Day 134 of

ACT for Children with Autism and Emotional Challenges

(Dixon, 2014).

Figure 21.3 Example of a personal hexaflex from

ACT for Children with Autism and Emotional Challenges

(Dixon, 2014).

Figure 21.4 Frequency of challenging behavior across three students before and after entry into Journeys School in Delhi, Illinois.

Chapter 22

Figure 22.1 a, b The two sheets of paper technique; used here to demonstrate the overreaching rationale of ACT-based training.

Figure 22.2 ACT’s hexaflex model.

Figure 22.3 Organizational flexibility model.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

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The Wiley Handbook of Contextual Behavioral Science

Edited by

Robert D. Zettle, Steven C. Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, and Anthony Biglan

This edition first published 2016© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

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The right of Robert D. Zettle, Steven C. Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, and Anthony Biglan to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Cover image: Eye spots on the outer hindwings of a giant owl butterfly, Caligo idomeneus, La Selva Reserve, Amazon Basin, Ecuador. Photo © Wild Horizons/UIG via Getty Images

List of Contributors

Mark Alavosius, University of Nevada, Reno, United States

Rob Archer, Director, The Career Psychologist, London, United Kingdom

Laura Backen Jones, Oregon Research Institute, United States

Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Ghent University, Belgium

Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, Ghent University, Belgium

Anthony Biglan, Oregon Research Institute, United States

Frank W. Bond, Goldsmith College, University of London, United Kingdom

Robert Brockman, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University, Australia

Joseph Ciarrochi, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University, Australia

Christine Cody, Oregon Research Institute, United States

Lisa Coyne, Suffolk University, United States

Mark R. Dixon, Southern Illinois University, United States

James Duguid, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University, Australia

Paul E. Flaxman, University of London, United Kingdom

Mairéad Foody, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland

Evan M. Forman, Drexel University, United States

Steven C. Hayes, University of Nevada, Reno, United States

James D. Herbert, Drexel University, United States

Peter Hitchcock, Drexel University, United States

Ramona Houmanfar, University of Nevada, Reno, United States

Sean Hughes, Ghent University, Belgium

Ian Hussey, Ghent University, Belgium

Todd B. Kashdan, Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, George Mason University, United States

Deirdre Kavanagh, Ghent University, Belgium

Jean Lee, Oregon Research Institute, United States

Michael E. Levin, Utah State University, United States

April Lightcap, University of Oregon, United States

Jason Lillis, Brown Alpert Medical School, Providence, Rhode Island, United States

Joda Lloyd, Goldsmith College, University of London, United Kingdom

Douglas M. Long, University of Nevada, Reno, United States

Carmen Luciano, University of Almeria, Spain

Ciara McEnteggart, Ghent University, Belgium

Jean-Louis Monestès, LIP Lab, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, and Epsylon Lab, Montpellier, France

Carol Murphy, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland

Donny Newsome, Fit Learning, Reno, Nevada, United States

Philip Parker, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University, Australia

Brandon T. Sanford, University of Nevada, Reno, United States

Baljinder Sahdra, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University, Australia

Brooke M. Smith, Utah State University, United States

Thomas G. Szabo, Florida Institute of Technology, United States

Niklas Törneke, Therapist in Private Practice, Kalmar, Sweden

Michael P. Twohig, Utah State University, United States

Matthieu Villatte, Evidence-Based Practice Institute, Seattle, Washington, United States

Koa Whittingham, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Australia

Kelly G. Wilson, University of Mississippi, United States

Robert D. Zettle, Wichita State University, United States

1Examining the Partially Completed Crossword Puzzle: The Nature and Status of Contextual Behavioral Science

Steven C. Hayes, Robert D. Zettle, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, and Anthony Biglan

The purpose of this volume is to describe contextual behavioral science (CBS) – its nature, origins, status, and future. The parts of the handbook deal in succession with its foundational assumptions and strategies, basic work in language and cognition, contextual approaches to clinical interventions and assessment, and extensions of CBS across settings and populations. Although presented sequentially, the chapters are deliberately interwoven: Philosophical issues arise in the basic science chapters, basic science issues appear in the intervention chapters, and so on. They form a kind of intellectual and practical web or network (thus the term “reticulated” for the overall strategy) that taken as a whole describes CBS and its current status, as well as providing some good hints about where this tradition may be going.

It is in the nature of books that topics need to be presented in a linear fashion. CBS did not develop that way in a historical sense, however. For example, the work on functional contextualism did not precede the work on relational frame theory (RFT), which then preceded the development of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). CBS rather developed more the way one might attack a complex crossword puzzle – sometimes successfully pursuing clues in one part of the puzzle led to hints for how to move forward in other parts; sometimes advancements were made in a corner of the puzzle that would be disconnected from anything else for a long time. Sometimes these leaps and jumps were strategic; sometimes they were more like a random walk, driven by whim and circumstance. But always the goal was the overall puzzle: How to create a behavioral science more worthy of the challenge of the human condition.

A puzzle of that kind is one that in all likelihood will challenge behavioral science for some time, so although progress has clearly been made over the last few decades, what CBS is deliberately focused on is how to create a knowledge development strategy that is sustainable and progressive over the long haul. What CBS brings to the table is a principle-focused, communitarian strategy of reticulated scientific and practical development, grounded in functional contextualistic philosophical assumptions, and applied at all levels of analysis in behavioral science. This vision builds on the historical fact that CBS gradually gathered together different kinds of professionals who were pursuing clues in one part of the puzzle with an eye toward what it suggested for how to advance in other parts. What once was an implicit strategy driven merely by breadth of interests has blossomed into a more conscious strategy of constructing a coherent intellectual and practical web of knowledge by proceeding in an interrelated and communitarian way all at once. Having a web of knowledge as a scientific product is what all forms of behavioral science aspire to, but CBS has adopted that end point as an analytic approach at the operational level, challenging all of the professionals involved to be always responsible for the whole of it when approached within common functional contextualistic assumptions. That is the deeper sense in which CBS is a communitarian and contextualistic strategy of reticulated scientific and practical development.

The CBS approach is quite different than a bottom-up strategy, in which basic scientists alone are given all of the duties of constructing principles of high precision and scope that can be applied by practitioners to complex human behavior. It is also different than technological applied work that leaps into the evaluation of applied ideas without a concern for basic principles or the scope of theories. That is one of the major differences between CBS and purely technologically oriented approaches. In a CBS approach, clinicians sometimes need to be responsible themselves for developing psychological principles, and “bench” scientists sometimes need to be responsible for learning how to apply the principles they have derived. This occurs both in the laboratories and the clinics of those who straddle that applied/basic divide, and across the crossword puzzle of content domains. Clinicians are working on social stigma or the empowerment of indigenous peoples; educators are working on relational fluency and the development of intellect; therapists are working on prevention or extending the flexibility of organizations; basic scientists are writing about evolutionary epistemology or are extending implicit measures to clinics. Over time that approach seems to be expanding the CBS community itself, not just in terms of size, where its growth has been rapid, but also in terms of its focus and professional interconnections. Cognitive scientists and evolutionary biologists are part of the CBS community, for example, and their students and colleagues are being drawn into the same communitarian approach. The list of professions, disciplines, and groups heavily involved in CBS is already long and continues to grow: social workers, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, nurses, prevention scientists, coaches, behavior analysts, educators. Development is broad at the level of language communities and nations as well, bringing new sensitivities and a diversity of topics driven by culture, intellectual traditions, and social needs. About half of the current members of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science are outside of North America, 20 chapters exist for countries outside of the United States, and 26 special interest groups pursue issues across the full range of behavioral science topics.

Now that a substantial body of interrelated work exists, it may seem to have emerged, in retrospect, from a coherent and predictable process. Students especially should not be deceived. Science is not only nonlinear, it is not predictable. Science is the behavior of scientists and as such it is sometimes systematic and is at other times an unsystematic social enterprise. It is ultimately self-organizing based on its purpose and knowledge criteria, but it is also constantly devolving and beginning anew. There is no reason to think that this naturally unsystematic or, at times, even chaotic quality will, or should, change. Simply because a body of work exists does not mean that it is finished, or that it could have only have turned out that way, or that developers had this end in mind all along.

Advancing an existing body of work requires the same kinds of risks and leaps that were required in its creation. Students may imagine or even be told that their scientific forbears knew what they were doing, saw a future, and then pursued it systematically. This can be a very inspiring story when it is applied to scientific heroes, but it is a secretly discouraging narrative because students in general do not see into the future and they often wait in vain for the touch of the muses they have been told visited their mentors. There is no such division between academic and practitioner generations – the apparent difference is an illusion imposed by the asymmetry of the impact of the known past versus unknown future on verbal processes. The purposive tales that surround established bodies of work are mostly reconstructions and reinterpretations, integrated into a coherent account that downplays or even hides from view the social, emotional, or accidental sources of progress that characterized the development of the tradition in real time.

CBS has moved forward fed not just by scientific studies and findings, and logical extensions of theories and principles, but also by personal commitments, leaps of intuition, friendships and alliances, the yearning to be of use, and by the “egos” of individual scientists, who, like most humans, seek to be heard and proven right in some way. While a mere verbal warning is unlikely to stem the tendency for scientific and clinical traditions to devolve into the safety of social agreement, we do not want this moment to pass without pleading with young scientists especially to accept nothing on faith. We would also urge them to politely refuse the appeals of the establishment to take anything as a given or as obvious, and thus as something that needs to be agreed to without further consideration. It does not matter if the establishment making this appeal is cognitively oriented or behaviorally oriented; psychological or biological in its approach; contextualistic or mechanistic in its assumptions. It does not matter if the establishment includes the very authors of this book. Doubt everything and hold it lightly – even doubt itself. Let CBS grow and change based on its successes, but be careful of adaptive peaks that could prevent this field from continuing to push toward its ultimate goals. The young, and others willing to take risks, will push this field forward, but not if they are turned into applauders or passive recipients of knowledge.

This book has a clear organization – which we will describe while that warning is fresh in our minds. In Part I of the book, edited primarily by Steven C. Hayes, we explore the idea that CBS is a strategy of scientific development, that is based on a core set of philosophical assumptions, and that is nested within multidimensional, multilevel evolution science as a contextual view of life. Chapter 3 (Levin, Twohig, & Smith), provides an overview of CBS; chapter 4 (Biglan & Hayes) provides a similarly broad summary for functional contextualism. Chapter 5 (Wilson) deals with the variety of terms and principles in a CBS approach, cautioning against the tendency for scientists and practitioners alike to reify and ontologize them. Chapter 6 (Long & Sanford) explores the reflective implications of a functional contextualistic approach for the actions of scientists themselves – essentially applying a psychological flexibility model to the doing of science itself. In chapter 7, the final chapter of Part I, Monestès examines the contribution of CBS to the study of human evolution, focusing especially on the role of human language.

In Part II, edited primarily by Dermot Barnes-Holmes, RFT is described and linked to other aspects of CBS. Hughes and D. Barnes-Holmes begin in chapter 9 by laying out the basic account and then continuing in chapter 10 to extend its implications for the study of human language and cognition as a whole. In chapter 11, Y. Barnes-Holmes, Kavanagh, and Murphy explore the implications of RFT for education and special education, and, in chapter 12, the final chapter of Part II, Törneke, Luciano, Y. Barnes-Holmes, and Bond relate RFT to the understanding and treatment of human suffering.

Part III, edited primarily by Robert D. Zettle, explores contextual approaches to clinical interventions and assessment. Chapter 14 (Herbert, Forman, & Hitchcock), provides an overview of the defining, distinguishing, and common features of contextual approaches to psychotherapy. Villatte uses RFT and CBS principles in chapter 15 to help understand the in-session actions of both therapists and clients. Chapter 16 (Ciarrochi, Zettle, Brockman, Duguid, Parker, Sahdra, & Kashdan) explores a pragmatic approach to psychological assessment, extending the implications of functional contextualism to the nature and quality of measurement. Levin and Villatte consider the role of laboratory-based intervention studies and experimental psychopathology studies in a CBS approach in chapter 17. In chapter 18, the final chapter of Part III, Y. Barnes-Holmes, Hussey, McEnteggart, D. Barnes-Holmes, and Foody examine the relationship between RFT and middle-level terms in ACT.

Part IV, edited primarily by Anthony Biglan, examines extensions of CBS into a range of nonclinical topics and areas. In chapter 20, Backen Jones, Whittingham, Coyne, and Lightcap examine CBS and parenting; in chapter 21 Szabo & Dixon examines CBS in education. Bond, Lloyd, Flaxman, and Archer describe the extension of ACT and the concept of psychological flexibility to the workplace in chapter 22. In chapter 23, Levin, Lillis, and Biglan consider the possibility of community-wide strategies for promoting psychological flexibility. Biglan, Lee, and Cody extend CBS thinking to the evolution of capitalism in chapter 24. In chapter 25, the final chapter of this part, Alavosius, Newsome, Houmanfar, & Biglan apply CBS to the environment.

Trends in CBS

This volume presents a partially completed crossword puzzle. It is one in which vast regions of the puzzle remain unaddressed. The future of CBS remains to be written, but there are a number of basic and applied topics that are beginning to be worked on now that seem imminent. In the epilogue we will look ahead as best we can, but at this point it seems most worthwhile to characterize the broad trends that will be evident as you read this volume.

At one time it was possible to think of CBS merely as an overarching term for ACT, RFT, and their relationship. Those days are quickly passing away, as this volume shows. RFT is being linked to modern work in cognitive science (DeHouwer, Barnes-Holmes, & Moors, 2013), ACT methods are being linked to principles drawn from evolution science (Wilson, Hayes, Biglan, & Embry, 2014), and a variety of evidence-based contextual interventions are being linked to psychological flexibility and other core CBS concepts (Hayes, Villatte, Levin, & Hildebrandt, 2011). RFT is guiding clinical work directly (Törneke, 2010; Villatte, Villatte, & Hayes, 2015) and psychological flexibility is being applied to larger and larger systems. We can see the beginnings of a contextual behavioral neuroscience, and a broader integration with contextual approaches to biology more generally (e.g., Barnes-Holmes et al., 2005; Fletcher, Schoendorff, & Hayes, 2010; Wilson et al., 2014). CBS is beginning to develop more contextual models of assessment and its evaluation, turning away from the elemental realist ontological assumptions that reside inside psychometric theory (Borsboom, Mellenbergh, & van Heerden, 2003) toward such methods as experience sampling (Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003) or radically functionalist concepts such as treatment utility (Hayes, Nelson, & Jarrett, 1987). RFT is developing methods that make clearer and clearer the differences between functional and structural models of cognition, and between relational and associative models of language and cognition (Hughes, Barnes-Holmes, & DeHouwer, 2011). A good example is the maturation of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) and its underlying theory, as this volume will demonstrate. Applied methods are now springing directly from RFT concepts more broadly, not just the middle-level terms of psychological flexibility (e.g., Cassidy, Roche, & Hayes, 2011; Rehfeldt & Barnes-Holmes, 2009) – a process that seems likely to continue.

These and other trends show that CBS is broadening and deepening. Although it came from behavior analysis, it is no longer tightly tied to behavior analysis as we have known it historically, and CBS is no longer just about ACT and RFT. Instead, CBS is about putting functional contextualistic assumptions into behavioral science writ large and building the bridges to allies and fellow travelers that are needed to make progress as measured against the grand aspiration of this tradition: creating a behavioral science more adequate to the challenge of the human condition.

References

Barnes-Holmes, D., Regan, D., Barnes-Holmes, Y., Comins, S., Walsh, D., Stewart, I., … Dymon, S. (2005). Relating derived relations as a model of analogical reasoning: Reaction times and event related potentials.

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Behavioral and Brain Sciences

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Part IContextual Behavioral Science: Nature, Strategy, and Current Status

Steven C. Hayes

2Why Contextual Behavioral Science Exists: An Introduction to Part I

Steven C. Hayes

The first part of this volume focuses on the big picture: What is contextual behavioral science (CBS), how does it differ from other approaches, and what are some of the contemporary issues involved in the progress of CBS? In a way it is historically backwards to speak first of CBS as a tradition or approach because, as it was lived, the sense that an approach was building came late. The first use of the term “contextual behavioral science” was after the beginning of this millenium – whereas the work and choices that lead to this distinct approach occurred decades earlier.

There are five chapters in this part that cover key features of CBS as a philosophical and strategic system. As a way of setting a context for them, a brief historical introduction seems warranted.

Most of the core elements of CBS were not assembled in an identifiably sequential way, but one aspect was. CBS emerged out of a content-focused issue: How can behavioral psychology address the issue of human language and cognition? In a historical sense that content issue led to a cascade of issues that are now central to the identity of CBS. The cascade was chaotic and included an interrelated set of basic developments, applied developments, and (perhaps most central of all), philosophical and strategic developments. But it had a core: understanding language and cognition from a contextual behavioral point of view.

Some day, that story may be told as it was lived. That day is not today – our purposes here are more summative and intellectual – but perhaps I can be forgiven a brief bit of history that sets the stage for the issues explored in this part (and in this book). Because this is early history, many of the citations are to my own work, which I note and apologize for in advance. It is unavoidable when dealing with these earliest days.

In 1972 or 1973, the late Willard Day, founder and editor of the journal Behaviorism, visited the Psychology Department at West Virginia and gave a colloquium on the importance to a behavioral perspective of understanding verbal behavior “as it actually occurs; as it is actually displayed by human beings.” A student in the audience, I took him to mean that we needed an analysis that was profoundly useful in predicting and controlling this kind of behavior. He was not arguing that such an account existed: Rather his claim was that it was essential to the very survival of behavioral thinking that such an account be brought into existence.

To explain why this thundered down upon me, you need to understand the mood of the times. Behavior analysis seemed to many of those inside of it to be incredibly fresh and exciting. It was subtle and challenging – not at all like the cartoons that nonbehavioral people often made of it. It had nothing to do with eliminating consideration of private experiences – rather it was focused on a functional understanding of these events. Day had written (1969), for example, about how close behaviorism was to phenomenology. Skinner (1948) had written a utopian novel, Walden Two, which had led me to become a behaviorist in the first place. He had explicitly overthrown the Watsonian prohibitions against introspection and the study of private events (Skinner, 1945). This was an exciting new form of behaviorism that could begin to speak to the deepest challenges of the human condition.

At the same time, however, behaviorism was under severe attack. Just a year or two earlier the movie A Clockwork Orange had conflated behavior modification with involuntary aversive conditioning. Skinner’s (1971) Beyond Freedom and Dignity had just appeared and was immediately and falsely taken to mean that behavioral science would try to eliminate freedom and dignity in order to create progress. Somehow, the cultural elite declared, behaviorism would create a society of robots.

To behavior analysts, the ones who felt the beating heart of a new way forward that would speak to issues of love, community, compassion, and purpose, it all felt so unfair. People did not understand. Aversive conditioning? Robots?

Willard Day’s colloquium thundered down in that context. Behavioral folks needed to explain how to foster freedom and dignity. We had to do so in a fashion that avoided the “mental way stations” that sometimes lurk inside such terms and that can block our ability to understand how to live better lives and to support the growth and prosperity of others. Doing great things in understanding human complexity required that we understand language as it actually occurs. The very survival of behavioral thinking was at stake.

Sitting there, before I stood up to leave the room, I made a mental promise. If it could be done, I would find a way.

The search for an adequate behavioral approach to the challenge of human language and cognition occurred within what we now think of as the contextualistic wing of behavior analysis. There was nothing particularly creative or risky about having functional contextual philosophical commitments guide this search – it is just what a functionally and contextually oriented behavior analyst would do.

It dawned on me only slowly that even many behavior analysts were not in agreement about these philosophical commitments, and that, in order to proceed with clarity, the philosophical approach needed to be explicated. That process of refinement had two aspects.

As I began to search for a solution as a young academic, it became obvious that an interest in language and cognition meant that behavior analysts were going to be studying how one kind of action impacted another. Later on, RFT would explain more fully how and why that happened, but from the beginning it was apparent that studying language in a pragmatic way led naturally to a thorny issue of how to think about behavior–behavior relationships. From a contextualistic point of view, that in itself raised profound questions. If language and cognition were important, they were important because of the relations they established with other actions. At the same time, allowing actions to assume the role of independent variables in an experimental analysis would essentially create a form of mentalism that would fundamentally undermine the pragmatic commitments of behavior analysis.

These issues were addressed in detail in the mid-1980s (Hayes & Brownstein, 1986). By explicating the dangers of such mentalism to a behavioral view of the purposes of behavioral science, a kind of bracket was drawn around the pursuit of an adequate account of language and cognition. No, thoughts were not independent variables, but yes, relationships among behaviors need to be understood. The solution was that they needed to be understood in context. The pragmatic demands of prediction and influence as goals demanded nothing less, because only context could be changed directly.

The work on contextualism (Hayes, Hayes, & Reese, 1988) and the distinctive nature of functional contextualism (Biglan & Hayes, 1996; Hayes, 1993) embedded this issue of behavioral causes into a larger set of assumptions about the proper unit of analysis in a contextual behavioral account. The purposes of functional contextualism were distinguished from the purposes of other forms of contextualism such as social constructionism. The assumptions of a contextual world view were stated.

Why CBS Gradually Distinguished Itself from Traditional Behavior Analysis

What this philosophical work did was to specify how contextualism linked to radical behaviorism, but it also began to distinguish the two. This process was not merely an act of translation, as if functional contextualism was nothing more than a matter of avoiding the unfortunate terms Skinner sometimes chose that made it almost impossible for him to be heard without distortion. It was an exercise in extension and explication. Prediction and control was replaced by prediction and influence – a small, but needed, step. Precision, scope, and depth were added as key outcome dimensions. The social nature of science was made more foundational. The psychological level of analysis was defined. The truth criterion was carefully specified. The a-ontological nature of evolutionary epistemology was laid out. (These points are not referenced here because there is no need – the story is well told in this part of the book.)

The work on contextualism laid the foundation for CBS is a particular form of behavior analysis, with a particular set of assumptions and purposes. Gradually, this philosophical work allowed intuitive extensions of Skinnerian thinking construed as a form of radical pragmatism to be replaced by deliberate extensions founded on a clear and stated set of assumptions.

One reason this philosophical work was so necessary is that Skinner himself was not clear. Behavior analysis contained (and does to this day) two very different ideas about psychology. Unfortunately, both of those ideas were in Skinner’s work, and their contradictions were neither noticed nor resolved.

Consider, for example, the only place Skinner ever clearly defined “behavior.” In his treatment of the topic in the The Behavior of Organisms, Skinner (1938) defined behavior as “the movement of an organism or of its parts in a frame of reference provided by the organism itself or by various external objects or fields of force” (p. 6). This is an entirely topographical definition. It is deeply mechanistic. It carried no sense of function. Its only link to context was the frame of reference needed to define movement. It is impossible to use such a definition to directly address thoughts, or feelings, or urges. None of these are “movements.”

But wait. A few lines later Skinner (1938) defined behavior as “the functioning of an organism which is engaged in acting upon or having commerce with the outside world” (p. 6). This is an entirely different approach. It is functional and explicitly contextual. It treats behavior and the context in which it occurs as an integrated phenomenon. It contains nothing that we cannot apply with equal relevance to thoughts, or feelings, or urges. Two fundamentally different definitions; same paragraph.

Over and over again the same problem occurs in the canonical works of behavior analysis. On the one hand, Skinner (1953) criticized the idea that understanding stimuli required “metaphysical speculations on what is ‘really there’ in the outside world” (p. 138) and said:

Responses to some forms of stimulation are more likely to be “right” than responses to others, in the sense that they are more likely to lead to effective behavior … but any suggestion that they bring us closer to the “real’” world is out of place.

(p. 139)

On the other hand, Skinner (1953) defined stimuli formally rather than functionally when he spoke of “those energy changes at the periphery which we designate as stimuli” (p. 449). Two fundamentally different views of stimuli; same book.

The end result was predictable. Yes, behavior analysis contained a vigorous community of functional and contextually oriented behavioral scientists and practitioners. But it also contained a large (perhaps even larger) community of reductionistic elemental realists who disliked contextualistic thinking. These inconsistencies (see Hayes et al., 1988 for a more detailed list) initially drove the need for clarity about functional contextualism, but over the long run they were part of what drove CBS into its own association, with its own journal and conference.

Behavior analysis as an organized field ultimately could not adequately house CBS. That is a painful sentence to write after decades of trying to reach another conclusion. Nevertheless, it needs to be said and be explained.

First and foremost it could not do so because behavior analysis as a field is philosophically divided. I have just suggested that this division occurred because its founder was philosophically unclear, but, regardless of why it is the case, it is the case. No objective observer could fail to agree.

Beyond issues of philosophical clarity, CBS eventually needed its own identity because the substantive work that needed to be done and cooperative alliances that needed to be built could not happen without fundamentally altering Skinnerian ideas, approaches, and cultural traditions. That proved to be impossible to do within traditional behavior analysis. Thus, as CBS as a research strategy developed, the need to define CBS as a distinct area grew.

An example is contained in the creation of relational frame theory (RFT) as a behavioral approach to language and cognition and its subsequent empirical progress. About the same time that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) was emerging (Hayes, 1984; 1987), and contextualism was being explicated (Hayes & Brownstein, 1986), RFT as a behavioral account of stimulus equivalence and derived relational responding finally took shape (Hayes, 1986, first published as Hayes, 1991).

It was immediately apparent that relational framing led to new forms of behavioral regulation (Hayes, Devany, Kohlenberg, Brownstein, & Shelby, 1987; Wulfert & Hayes, 1988). Relational framing could create reinforcers, augment or diminish their impact, alter classically conditioned stimuli, or establish forms of stimulus control that did not fit any other previously identified forms. This was both exciting and horrible news. It was exciting because a vast set of new research questions opened up, many of which led directly to questions of central importance to mainstream psychology. It was horrible because the hard-won knowledge about direct contingencies that behavioral psychology had spent a good part of a century creating now had to be reworked with verbal humans. Decades of difficult experimental and conceptual work lay ahead. It was not possible to do that work inside the animal learning tradition, insofar as nonhuman animals have not yet been clearly shown to do the core elements of relational framing with sufficient robustness for it to be used as a preparation.

The criticisms of RFT within behavior analysis were immediate and vigorous (e.g., see the criticisms published in the Analysis of Verbal Behavior, volume 19, 2003), but they were not intellectually telling (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2003). What followed, unfortunately, was a response that avoided conflict at the cost of progress. To explain what I mean, here was the conclusion of our response to several of these early criticisms (Hayes et al., 2003, p. 53):

If behavior analysis, as a field, is to face the challenge that RFT presents, the following questions will need to be answered: 1. Are we satisfied that an operant is a basic behavioral process? 2. If so, can we define and empirically identify operant behavior? 3. If we can, can we define and empirically identify traditional relational responding (based on formal properties of relata) as operant behavior? 4. If so, can we define and empirically identify arbitrarily applicable relational responding (as defined in our book) as operant behavior? 5. If so, is it the case empirically that this relational operant modifies stimulus functions established by other learning processes?

If the answer is “Yes” to each of these questions, then the field as a whole will have to deal with the wide-ranging and revolutionary implications that arise from this relational operant. Behavior analysis will have unquestionably entered the “post-Skinnerian” era because, in effect, behavioral psychology will have to re-examine the impact of a wide variety of behavioral processes in verbal organisms that have hitherto provided the bedrock upon which our science is built. Stepping up to this challenge is exactly what RFT attempts to do, but stepping up to the challenge of these five questions is something that the entire field of behavior analysis can no longer comfortably avoid.

In the more than 10 years since, not a single article has appeared in a behavior analytic journal providing data that suggest that relational operants do not exist. Well-crafted arguments about the logical impossibility of relational frames are also absent. Instead, the challenge of RFT to the hegemony of Skinnerian thinking about verbal behavior has largely been met in traditional behavior analysis by a refusal to engage with the issues.

ACT further created the need for CBS as a distinct tradition. Clinical domains are excellent areas in which to explore ideas about language and cognition. Part of the need for a contextualistic account of language and cognition came because clinical psychologists needed basic accounts that worked. If they did not exist, they needed to be created.

This very idea changed the research strategy of behavior analysis. Instead of a bottom-up approach, in which basic principles would suggest applications (a word that etymologically means “to bring into contact with” as if the primary issue is bringing foundational principles into contact with complexity), CBS adopted a strategy in which all parties were responsible for progress. So-called “applied” workers might need to bring clinical realities “into contact with” the search for high precision/high scope ways of speaking about phenomena – not just the other way around. In other words, practitioners might have the responsibility to drive basic developments that serve their needs, not merely learn how to make use of whatever basic developments have occurred. The mutual interest of basic and applied professionals in progress in a pragmatic approach to language and cognition fundamentally altered the dynamic inside behavior analysis. Animal laboratories were immediately much less important, for example. That was a bitter pill for basic behavior analysis to swallow.

The centrality of a psychotherapy approach in CBS also challenged behavior analysis in another way. As board-certified behavior analysts were established throughout the United States to do professional work with those struggling with developmental disabilities, there was less room for traditional psychotherapy work within the institutional confines of applied behavior analysis, which became more and more dominated by developmental disabilities and autism.

The radical pragmatism of functional contextualism created another kind of disconnect with traditional behavior analysis in the willingness to use terms that are useful in some areas and not others. This is evident in the embrace of the use of “middle-level” terms: high scope, but lower precision terms that orient the field toward domains. This issue first appeared in an article that attempted a detailed analysis of the term “spirituality” (Hayes, 1984). The core of the argument was that we needed to take seriously terms that carved out domains in which distinctive functional accounts applied, even if the terms literally contradict behavioral assumptions. Said in another way, if “meaning is use,” then we cannot look in the dictionary for approved behavioral terms, because such an approach violates a behavioral perspective on language. Yes, taken literally, the term “spirituality” contradicts the monistic assumptions of behavioral psychology, but when it is examined functionally there appear to be good reasons for the term, based on relational learning and sense of self.

That article (Hayes, 1984) proved to be prescient in areas such as perspective-taking and deictic framing, as well as acceptance-based psychotherapy. Much of what later becomes CBS was foreshadowed there, 30 years ago. Ironically, the core step was to take seriously a phenomenon that literally contradicts behavioral assumptions. That is a step that even today most behavior analysts are unwilling to make.

As ideas about functional contextual approaches to language and cognition began to take shape, and functional contextual thinking itself became clearer, a more radically pragmatic perspective on theory and conceptualization emerged. If truth was getting things done, we needed to be more catholic about concepts because sometimes highly technical accounts were needed, and sometimes accounts were needed that merely oriented analysts to a domain.

It was only when all of these elements (and more) came together, that it was possible to stop and look back and notice what was happening. The abandonment of bottom-up behavior analysis and the embrace of a reticulated research program happened because intuitively useful steps were taken. The rationale for these steps came later. Creating a new approach to language and cognition changed how behavioral principles were thought about, researched, and applied. The pragmatic embrace of multiple ways of speaking opened up new ways to think about theories and models.

As CBS has consciously formed as a scientific tradition, that clarity has gradually broadened the vision of the field. CBS is moving into applied forms of RFT, education, attitude change, and other areas. CBS has in the last half dozen years consciously placed itself under the umbrella of multidimensional and multilevel evolution science (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Wilson, 2012; Wilson, Hayes, Biglan, & Embry, 2014a; 2014b), beginning to fulfill a long hoped for vision (Skinner, 1981). This has in turn linked CBS to other evolutionary ideas such as those of Elinor Ostrom (Wilson, 2014). It has begun to build a bridge to cognitive science as well (DeHouwer, 2011).

The Chapters in Part I

The chapters in Part I lay out the nature of CBS and situate it in its larger intellectual context. Chapter 3, by Levin, Twohig, and Smith, provides a point-by-point overview of CBS and its features. Chapter 4, by Biglan and Hayes, does a deep dive into functional contextualism – its nature, linkage to pragmatism, and its scientific implications. Wilson thinks through the implications of middle-level terms in chapter 5. In chapter 6 Long and Sanford explore the strategic impact of applying CBS thinking to the behavior of scientists. Monestès, in chapter 7, shows both that the theoretical and metatheoretical features of CBS fit spectacularly well with evolution science and that CBS’s historical and contextual approach to language and cognition alters how we think about human evolution itself.

These chapters are dominantly strategic and philosophical. They are meant to ground the more substantive chapters in the parts that follow into a set of philosophical assumptions and strategic choices that are named and clarified. Metaphorically, this part allows the reader’s feet to be firmly placed in core analytic choices, so that, as the book explores how CBS researchers and practitioners deal with human language and cognition, or how CBS approaches issues of human suffering and human prosperity, there can be a greater appreciation of the overall attempt.

The purpose of CBS is to make progress toward a psychology more worthy of the challenge of the human condition. This book will allow the reader to assess whether any progress is being produced within the tradition defined by this first part of the book.

References

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