About functional contextualism

Once I wrote this draft for the Wikipedia entry of functional contextualism. However, Eric Fox came first

Functional contextualism

Functional contextualism is a philosophy of science, underlying the behavioral account of language and cognition, Relational Frame Theory, which is the theory used to explain the core components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It is also argued that functional contextualism can act as a coherent philosophical basis for behavior analysis.

Functional contextualism was first articulated by Stephen Hayes (1993) who describes FC as a ”radically pragmatic, monistic set of scientific assumptions”. It is described as a contextualistic reinterpretation of Skinners radical behaviorism. Skinner was seldomly explicit with his philosophical assumptions, but he claimed that the goal with a science of human behavior was to achieve prediction and control (Skinner, 1974). All varities of contextualism are similar in that they have explicitly formulated goals (Hayes, Hayes, Reese & Sarbin, 1993), and thus the goal of functional contextualism is to ”predict and control behavior”.

The ontology and epistemology of functional contextualism

Functional contextualism is critical to realist world views and claims that the ”root metaphor” is the act-in-context, that is a historical act as a whole. Any further divisions of the act into its parts, are only abstractions.

Skinner was explicit that he rejected the correspondence truth criterion from logical positivism by including thoughts and emotions as ”behavior reportable only by one person”. Skinner emphasized workability, and so does the functional contextualists, by having focus on the pragmatic truth criterion. This means that according to functional contextualism an act is ”true” if it takes the analyst closer to the goal of prediction and control.

Functional contextualism and natural science

Functional contextualism aims to act as a philosophical basis for behavior analysis, the natural science study of behavior. The aim is to achieve prediction and control with scope and depth, using empirically based concepts and rules. This doesn’t imply a mechanistic world view though, as used in natural science in general – ”the machine metaphor is only used in a contextualistic agenda” (Hayes, Hayes & Reese, 1988).

The use of functional contextualism

Foremost, functional contextualism is mentioned in the same contexts as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. But it was recently argued that FC could be used as a philosophical basis for Instructional Design and Technology (Fox, 2006). Other uses of FC include Anthony Biglan’s (1995) work on how to change cultural practices, for example, the attitude to smoking among teenagers.

References

Biglan, A. (1995). Changing cultural practices.

Fox, E. (2006). Constructing a Pragmatic Science of Learning and Instruction with Functional Contextualism. Educational Technology Research and Development, Volume 54, Number 1

Hayes, S. C., Hayes, L. J., & Reese, H. (1988). Finding the philosophical core: A review of Stephen C. Pepper’s World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence. J Exp Anal Behav. July; 50(1): 97–111.

Hayes, S. C., Hayes, L. J., Reese, H., & Sarbin, T. (1993). Vareties of scientific contextualism.

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