Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science (JCBS)
Volume 27, January 2023, Pages 16-25
Authors
Jamie Cummins, Maura Nevejans, Dylan Colbert, Jan De Houwer
Abstract
Relational Frame Theory (RFT, Hayes et al., 2001) predicts that some topographies of relational responding should map onto one another more closely than others. By extension, training one type of relational responding should differentially improve other relational responses as a function of their relatedness to the trained relation. We investigated these predictions in two experiments. Using an elaborated version of the Relational Abilities Index (Colbert et al., 2020) in Experiment 1, we investigated the correlations between various types of relational responding. In Experiment 2, we then provided targeted relational training to two separate groups. Both groups trained on a different relation (either difference or containment relations). We found that this training not only increased performance on the directly trained relation, but also performance on other related relations.