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The abstracted operant: a review of Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition, edited by S. C. Hayes, D. Barnes-Holmes, and B. Roche

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Abstract

Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, and Roche (2001) have edited a series of tightly integrated articles that present the relational frame theory (RFT) approach to the study of complex human behavior. The book provides a well-elaborated account of RFT and reviews the literature on stimulus relations that bears on the approach. Several articles examine extensions of RFT to a variety of issues ranging from language and cognition to psychotherapy and religion, and these provide illustrations of the comprehensiveness of the approach. Although RFT is a paradigm developed within the behavioral tradition, it is not a traditional behavioral paradigm, and thus has been controversial. Problems and puzzles in the study of stimulus relations and research directions needed for their solution are considered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina, 28403, USA

    Mark Galizio

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  1. Mark Galizio
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Correspondence to Mark Galizio.

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Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, B. (2001). Relational frame theory: A post-Skinnerian account of human language and cognition. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

I thank the Stimulus Relations Lab Group at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington for many productive discussions of the issues reviewed here. Special thanks are due to Kate Bruce for her comments on this paper.

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Galizio, M. On books. BEHAV ANALYST 26, 159–169 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392074

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