Relational Frame Theory: The Basic Account

This chapter introduces the origins of, as well as arguments and evidence for, relational frame theory (RFT). It presents the study of arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR) to its historical roots and explains why this phenomenon has occupied the attention of behavioral scientists for over 40 years now. The chapter highlights a number of features of relational responding that becomes important when linking RFT to language and cognition later on. It examines how RFT carves this type of operant behavior into two different varieties (nonarbitrarily and arbitrarily applicable) and discusses how the latter may not only provide an explanation for stimulus equivalence, but for other types of derived stimulus relations as well. The chapter focuses on relational coherence, complexity, and levels of derivation in RFT is serving to inject a much needed emphasis on the role of reinforcement contingencies in understanding AARR.