A Functional Analysis of Psychological Terms Redux

Abstract

In his seminal paper, "An Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms," Skinner (1945) offered the revolutionary suggestion that, rather than endlessly debating the meanings of psychological terms, psychologists should analyze the variables that control their occurrence as verbal behavior. Skinner's suggestion reflected the essence of his 1957 book, Verbal Behavior, wherein he argued that the behaviors of which language is composed (i.e., speaking and listening) are controlled by variables found in the social environment (which he called the verbal community), and that analyzing those variables would lead to an understanding of the behaviors. Although Skinner formally introduced his radical approach to language in 1945, it has yet to be fully realized. The result is that psychologists, including behavior analysts, still debate the definitions of terms. In the present paper, I review Skinner's functional approach to language and describe ways in which behavior analysts have already applied it to traditional psychological terms. I conclude by looking at other current terms in behavior analysis that engender some confusion and encourage behavior analysts to apply a functional analytic approach to their own verbal behavior.

Keywords: behavior analysis; functional analysis; psychological terms; verbal behavior.