Harte Colin, Barnes-Holmes Dermot, Barnes-Holmes Yvonne, Kissi Ama
Department of Experimental, Clinical, and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan, 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
School of Psychology, University of Ulster, Coleraine, UK.
Perspect Behav Sci. 2020 May 21;43(2):361-385. doi: 10.1007/s40614-020-00256-w. eCollection 2020 Jun.
The concept of rule-governed behavior or instructional control has been widely recognized for many decades within the behavior-analytic literature. It has also been argued that the human capacity to formulate and follow increasingly complex rules may undermine sensitivity to direct contingencies of reinforcement, and that excessive reliance upon rules may be an important variable in human psychological suffering. Although the concept of rules would appear to have been relatively useful within behavior analysis, it seems wise from time to time to reflect upon the utility of even well-established concepts within a scientific discipline. Doing so may be particularly important if it begins to emerge that the existing concept does not readily orient researchers toward potentially important variables associated with that very concept. The primary purpose of this article is to engage in this reflection. In particular, we will focus on the link that has been made between rule-governed behavior and derived relational responding, and consider the extent to which it might be useful to supplement talk of rules or instructions with terms that refer to the dynamics of derived relational responding.
在行为分析文献中，规则支配行为或指令控制的概念已被广泛认可数十年。也有人认为，人类制定和遵循日益复杂规则的能力可能会削弱对直接强化偶然性的敏感性，并且过度依赖规则可能是人类心理痛苦的一个重要变量。尽管规则的概念在行为分析中似乎一直相对有用，但不时反思科学学科中即使是已确立的概念的效用似乎也是明智的。如果开始出现现有概念不能轻易引导研究人员关注与该概念相关的潜在重要变量，那么这样做可能尤为重要。本文的主要目的就是进行这种反思。特别是，我们将关注规则支配行为与派生关系反应之间的联系，并考虑用指代派生关系反应动态的术语来补充规则或指令的讨论可能会有多大用处。
