Hayes, S. C. & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2004).
Relational operants: Processes and implications: A response to Palmer’s Review of Relational Frame Theory.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 82, 213-224.
Palmer has recently criticized Relational Frame Theory (RFT) on the grounds that it has
developed data in search of a principle. In this reply, we show that he has done so by
attacking fundamental concepts within behavior analysis itself, including the functional
nature of an operant and contingencies of reinforcement as a behavioral process. His
claim that RFT appeals to new behavioral principles to explain the development of
relational operants is shown to be incorrect: As with any operant, RFT appeals to a
history of contacted consistencies in contingencies across multiple exemplars to
explain them. New principles only emerge later as a logically necessary extension
of such operants if they exist-a view that Palmer failed to address or appreciate.
Palmer’s desire to see the use of methods other than matching-to-sample is proper
but already largely satisfied in the empirical literature on RFT. We show Palmer’s
defense of Skinner’s definition of verbal behavior to be illogical and unresponsive
to the empirical challenge behavior analysis faces. Palmer’s alternative common sense
mediational associationistic account is another in more than a century of such
accounts, all of which have failed empirically. At its root, Palmer’s criticism
is based on a mechanistic philosophy that is hostile to a traditional functional
behavior analytic approach.
Key words: Relational Frame Theory, verbal behavior, functional operants,
mechanism, contextualism