Variables of which values are a function

Abstract

The ordinary-language concept of values has a complex history in psychology and in science generally. The traditional fact-value distinction commonly found in traditional scientific perspectives has been challenged by the varieties of philosophical pragmatism, which have similarities to Skinner's radical behaviorism. Skinner's challenge to the fact-value distinction maintained that the phenomena of both "facts" and "values" are a matter of contingencies of environment-behavior interaction, and both phenomena may be observed when a scientist does research or makes recommendations in applied settings based on that research. Some of the processes and variables relevant to an analysis of values as behavioral phenomena are described, and examples of both nonverbal and verbal contingencies are considered, along with implications for the values of an individual and a culture. If the various issues of methodology can be addressed successfully, then behavior analysis will be in the position to move beyond descriptive studies of values, such as those found in humanistic psychology, by providing analyses of the variables of which values are a function.

The Bonobo and the Behaviorist: Frans de Waal’s Bottom-Up Morality

“…But, since the value is also an instance of verbal behavior, it is also factual (i.e., natural events amenable to a scientific analysis). Leigland (2005) described values as Ba function of certain variables found in environment-behavior interactions^(p. 134). When viewed in this context, values no longer need to be treated as internal or transcendental, but simply as the reinforcing effects of given stimuli.…”

In search of meaning: Values in modern clinical behavior analysis

“…In the case of value, Leigland (2005) suggests that, with respect to the context of nonverbal animal behavior, the term might be emitted in the presence of operant reinforcement, especially the establishing operation (EO; e.g., Michael, 1982) in which the actual reinforcing effect of a particular reinforcer is manipulated. The classic example of an EO in the behavioral laboratory is food deprivation, which might be said to increase the reinforcing power or, to lay observers, the value of food.…”

“…As Leigland (2005) indicates, ''moving into the interpretation and analysis of human values naturally involves a considerable increase in complexity, because verbal contingencies are involved in any distinctively human behavioral phenomenon'' (p. 137). He then describes a conception of human values that corresponds closely to the ACT-RFT approach.…”

“…There is now established empirical support for both these forms of augmental rule following (Hayes, Kohlenberg, & Hayes, 1991;Ju & Hayes, 2008;Whelan & Barnes-Holmes, 2004). Leigland (2005) suggests that in the case of augmental rule following, ''reinforcement may be a derived function established through participation in a network of relations among arbitrary stimuli' ' (p. 137). This is the contention of RFT, which explains verbal behavior, including augmental rule following, as a form of operant behavior and thus acts as a critical theoretical link to explain the exact difference between nonverbal and verbal forms of the EO.…”

“…The RFT analysis of language provided above allows an explanation at a process level of the difference between the nonverbal and the verbal EO, and thus explains a core process involved in what Leigland (2005) refers to as human valuing. However, the ACT-RFT definition of values is more specific than Leigland's conception of values.…”