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Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition

by: Steven C. Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Bryan Roche
en

0306466007  9780306466007  9780306476389 

 


Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition
By Steven C. Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Bryan Roche


 


Product Description:

 

Human language and our use of it to communicate or to understand the world requires deriving relations among events: for example, if A=B and A=C, then B=C. Relational frame theory argues that such performances are at the heart of any meaningful psychology of language and cognition. From a very early age, human beings learn relations of similarity, difference, comparison, time, and so on, and modify what they do in a given situation based on its derived relation to others situations and what is known about them.
This volume goes beyond theory and gives the empirical and conceptual tools to conduct an experimental analysis of virtually every substantive topic in human language and cognition, both basic and applied. As the term `post-Skinnerian' suggests, this volume challenges behavioral psychology to abandon many of the specific theoretical formulations of its most prominent historical leader in the domain of complex human behavior, especially in human language and cognition, and approach the field from a new direction.

The need for a pragmatically useful analysis of language and cognition is as enormous and varied as its extensions and applications. This volume will be of interest not only to behavior theorists but also to cognitive psychologists, therapists, educators, and anyone studying the human condition.

 



Summary: Excellent psychological science
Rating: 5

Psychologists who think behaviorism has little or nothing to offer to a scientific account of cognition and emotion should read this book. Through coherent, conceptually pure theory and consistent empirical research, Hayes and colleagues have developed an account of these pivotal topics that may bring behaviorism back onto the main stage in psychology. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) makes a small handful of parsimonious additions to traditional Skinnerian radical behaviorism that appear to account for an impressively broad variety of clinical, social, and educational phenomena. RFT builds on the traditional strengths of behaviorism by bringing a small, core set of directly observable principles to bear on broad-ranging topics like language, cognition, and emotion. While Skinner's (1957) account of verbal behavior arguably minimized the importance of cognition and emotion, RFT recognizes their pivotal importance and points the way toward some novel and clever psychological interventions (most notably, Hayes Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is firmly grounded in RFT principles). In the process, RFT avoids the tenuous inferences and mechanism-postulating pitfalls of (for example) cognitive and psychodynamic theory, and avoids the scientific progress-retarding inconsistencies of theoretically eclectic approaches like cognitive-behaviorism. The biggest question that remains for the viability of an RFT approach to language, cognition, and emotion is: Is there predictive and influential utility in the approach? That is, does thinking about psychological and educational issues from an RFT perspective result in increasingly effective interventions? The answer to this question should unfold, empirically, over the next decade or two. This book is not for the casual reader-while RFT is at heart an elegantly simple set of principles, it is initially difficult to get one's head around the concept. But for psychologists & other social scientists with an abiding interest in solid scientific accounts of language, cognition, and emotion, this book is well worth the read. Coherent conceptual accounts based on good empirical data, like RFT, are very few and far between in psychology-and, collectively, are the best argument for psychology being classifiable as a science I have seen.