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)

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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)

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)