Talk:Relational frame theory

POV-section for Application
I added this because the second (main) paragraph of this section asserts some very biased opinions as fact, but I don't have enough expertise in this subject to separate the worthwhile content out of this paragraph and fix the problem. 24.21.193.138 01:49, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not see anything in the second paragraph that would constitute a "very biased opinion." If you read any of the published reviews of the research studies generated by Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior, you will see that they are, indeed, of very limited scope and primarily focused on teaching his basic verbal operants (mostly mands and tacts) to children with development disabilities. In a recent citation analysis by Sautter and LeBlanc (2006), the authors (who are *not* RFT researchers and are generally sympathetic to Skinner's analysis) note: "In addition to the restricted range of publication outlets, the range of operants studied and the target populations were also somewhat restricted with a majority of empirical studies still focusing on mands and tacts" (p. 44). In addition, Dymond, O'Hora, Whelan, & O'Donovan (2006) completed a citation analysis of Skinner's Verbal Behavior for the period of 1984-2004 and found that "the majority of citations of Verbal Behavior were from nonempirical articles" (p. 81).

Check these citation analyses out for yourself:

-- Dymond, S., O'Hora, D., Whelan, R., & O'Donovan, A. (2006). Citation analysis of Skinner's Verbal Behavior: 1984-2004. The Behavior Analyst, 29(1), 75-88.

-- Sautter, R. A., & LeBlanc, L. A. (2006). Empirical applications of Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior with humans. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 22, 35-48.

(Docfox 16:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC))

Article is too much "in code" for behavior analysis geeks - needs to be "translated" a bit more for the non-technical reader
As an interested reader and Wikipedia fan, but not an RFT expert, I have a suggestion to anyone coming here to edit this page: I think a high-level focus of revision should be on making sure that non-technical readers can grasp more of what is being talked about. This means doing more than just tweaking here and there, although of course tweaking is also welcome.

To take just a single example, the article as currently written (2/7/12) opens by talking about "language," but does not clarify what is meant by this term. And the first use of the term is linked to Wikipedia's topic for Language, which leads off by saying the following:


 * Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in any of its senses is called linguistics.

The problem is, in the context of RFT, this is more confusing than helpful - it will tend to orient the lay reader toward conventional grooves, e.g. that RFT is concerned with language as a system of labels for "real" objects, etc. It's true that the Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, and Roche book on RFT deliberately uses the term "language" early on "to orient the authors and readers toward a particular domain within the study of psychology" (p. 45). However, I think in this Wikipedia article must be careful about adopting a similar strategy. The RFT book was written for persons at least somewhat familiar with behavior analysis already, whereas many persons coming to Wikipedia may lack a BA background. It is just too easy for such readers to misconstrue "language" in all sorts of ways if the term is left hanging for very long. So it needs a pretty quick gloss, or some other strategy that can help the intelligent lay reader.

Likewise, even "verbal behavior" is not currently defined in a way that lay people can grasp. The link out to the article on Skinner's Verbal Behavior is useful for persons familiar with Skinner's work, but not so useful for laypersons. For example, it is not made sufficiently clear in the present article that Skinner's concern arose not because human beings talk, but because human beings think, and thinking at a certain point in the history of behaviorism was rejected as unfit for study. So even the term "language" from a lay point of view is much more concerned with "thinking." And i would suggest that "thinking" is a better term here than "cognition" because "cognition" is very abstract sounding to a lay reader, and at the same time just as fuzzy within the overall field of psychology as "language."

I hope these comments are helpful - I am not technically proficient enough with RFT to attempt a reworking of the sort I am describing, but I think it would be helpful. Whole Sight (talk) 12:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

As a student of behavior analysis, I would have to agree. In fact, some terms are difficult for me to understand as well. For example, I believe the article would benefit from an expansion of what exactly "functional contextualism" is as well as what it is used for, if it is at all relevant to relational frame theory. In addition, the term "language" could be further explained as communication. Jersey 1102 (talk) 18:43, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Efforts to make this article easy to read and understand and laudable, but this must be balanced with retaining accuracy. The opening line refers to RFT as also being known as social skills training and then as a form of ABA. Both statements are factually incorrect - RFT has never been referred to as such in the academic literature - RFT is a basic theory and not an application package. Ianhussey (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Please adopt a Wikipedia user name before editing - don't just edit by IP address
On another point, I would ask that if you edit the page, please create a user name and don't just edit by IP address! That is fairly confusing to anyone who wants to have a dialog on edits on this talk page. Creating a user name is easy to do and is good practice for any number of reasons. Thanks! Whole Sight (talk) 12:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Headings added under "Applications" for autism, evolution science; more cites needed "evolution science" in particular
I have separated out the material about RFT's application to Autism Spectrum Disorder so that it now falls correctly under a heading of its own, rather than being misplaced under the heading for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

Likewise I have added a heading for the application of RFT to "evolution science." However if anyone has specific cites, please add! I have inserted web links to two relevant pages, one at Binghamton University, the other at the ACBS web site, but cites of papers, presentations, etc. would be very helpful here to show further reliability. Whole Sight (talk) 11:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Little academic literature has been produced on evolutionary science/RFT, therefore I propose that this section is removed. That, or significantly expanded upon in a separate article on radical behaviorism as an extension of evolutionary biology (which is a Skinnarian idea). Ianhussey (talk) 19:42, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Page refresh - October 2016
Many of the above comments are very old, some nearly a decade. I propose to clear them up over the coming while and outline a clearer plan for the editing of the page, unless there are any objections. Ianhussey (talk) 23:08, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Potential appearance of unintended bias
The article does not seem to meaningfully address, or reference, any critical reviews by other researchers (e.g. Burgos 2003). Perhaps for this reason, the article also does not discuss, or reference, Hayes and Barnes-Holmes' 2003 response to such challenges. Therefore, among other things, I think the article would do well to specifically describe and reference one or more challenges to the theory as well as Hayes and Barns-Holmes' 2003 response. It seems to me that not referencing counter-arguments when they actually exist, could make an article appear biased whether or not that was the intention of its contributors.

Additional sources for consideration:
 * Burgos, José E. (2003). "Laudable Goals, Interesting Experiments, Unintelligible Theorizing". Behavior and Philosophy. 31: 19–45.
 * Dillard, J.P., Solomon, D.H., & Samp, J.A. (1996). "Framing Social Reality: The Relevance of Relational Judgements". Communication Research, 23, 6, pp. 703-723..
 * Galizio, M. (2004). "Relational Frames: Where Do They Come From? A Comment on Barnes-Holmes and Hayes (2003)". The Behavior Analyst, 27, pp. 107-112. ..
 * Hayes, Steven C.; Barnes-Holmes, Dermot; Roche, Bryan (2003-04). "Behavior Analysis, Relational Frame Theory, and the Challenge of Human Language and Cognition: A Reply to the Commentaries on Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition". The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. 19 (1): 39–54. . ISSN 0889-9401.
 * Hughes, S. & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2014). "Associative Concept Learning, Stimulus Equivalence, and Relational Frame Theory: Working out the Similarities and Differences Between Human and Nonhuman Behavior". Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 101, pp. 156-160.
 * Ingvarsson, E.T. & Morris, E.K. (2004). "Post-Skinnerian, Post-Skinner, or Neo-Skinnerian? Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, and Roche's Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition". The Psychological Record, 54, 497-504.

Dougok (talk) 17:18, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

New structure and update of the page
Hi, I'm quite new to writing on wikipedia, but I've been doing some digging into RFT in the last couple of years. I'm really thankfull for the work that has been done on this page. On the other hand, I think it's quite lacking some crucial information (for example Arbitrary applicable reslational responding, stimulus functions, transfromation/ transfer of stimulus functions, relational networks, etc.)

I would like to make some changes to this wiki page to reflect the depth of RFT.

I would like to make headings as (presumbly in this order):

Functions of Behavior Contextual Cues Stimulus Functions Arbitrairy Applicable Relational Responding (AARRing) Mutual Entailment Combinotarial Mutual Entailment Transformation and Transfer of Stimulus Functions Relational Frame Different types of Relational Frames Relating relations Relating relational networks History

Multi Dimensional Multi Level Design - Complexity - Flexibility - Coherence - Derivation

Applications - ACT

Functional Contextualism and Radical Behaviorism

I've noticed that earlier revisions were thought to be to technical. I would like this page to be technical and at the same time easy to read for newcomers. I think this goal is achievable. (I'm not a native english speaker, so please correct me if I make mistakes.)

RvR86 (talk) 10:20, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

I've added Contextual cues - transformation of stimulus function from the list above RvR86 (talk) 13:08, 3 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Welcome to Wikipedia. There are a number of problems with your recent changes: (1) Headings should be in sentence case not title case, per MOS:HEAD. (2) Boldface text is only used for special purposes in Wikipedia, not for emphasis, per MOS:NOBOLD. The boldface style that you used in the text should be removed. (3) Writing style on Wikipedia never directly addresses the reader, per MOS:WE and MOS:YOU. Your use of "we" and "let's" should be rewritten. (4) What you have written should be referenced to reliable sources, per WP:RS. All claims must be verifiable, per WP:V, to avoid original research, which is prohibited on Wikipedia, per WP:OR. See Help:Referencing for beginners if you do not know how to add references. If you know that some of what you have written is your own original research, you should remove it. Any claims that are not referenced to reliable sources can, and likely will, be removed by other editors. Biogeographist (talk) 18:25, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your advice. I will look in to the points you've given. In the mean time I have deleted my earlier contributions to clean up the text. I've found the sandbox in the mean time. So I'll experiment a little in there. RvR86 (talk) 19:11, 27 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I've changed the text so it's congruent with mentioned wikipedia regulations. If you have feedback I'm glad to hear so.


 * Thanks, that's much better. Your English is very good, by the way. The biggest problem remaining was punctuation (i.e., periods go before ref tags, not after), which I fixed. Biogeographist (talk) 16:13, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Good to know and thank you for changing the punctuation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RvR86 (talk • contribs) 10:41, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Evidence section
It's very hand wavy, to say the least. There's only 4 vague citations in the section, and about a dozen other claims that require a [citation needed]. Previously in the talk section a long list of references to critical evidence has been provided but still not included.

As it stands with this level of hand waving and lack of citations, the entire article could be summarised as "Here's the theory. It's wonderful. Trust us."