The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 

About: The Analysis of Verbal Behavior is an academic journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Tact & Mand. It has an ISSN identifier of 0889-9401. Over the lifetime, 500 publications have been published receiving 11207 citations. The journal is also known as: Anal. verbal behav. & TAVB.

Dysfunctional control by client verbal behavior: The context of reason-giving.

Abstract: Dysfunctional control exerted by reason-giving in adult psychopathology is interpreted from a radical behavioral perspective. Verbal-social contingencies which support the establishment of reason-giving and its control over maladaptive actions are reviewed. A contextual approach to psychotherapy, comprehensive distancing, which attempts to weaken dysfunctional verbal control is described briefly. Data relevant to therapeutic process are presented. The overall results suggest that comprehensive distancing facilitates therapeutic change through a process consistent with a behavioral analysis of reason-giving. Suggestions for further research and radical behavioral approaches to psychotherapy are discussed.

Teaching mands by manipulating conditioned establishing operations.

Abstract: Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior suggests the functional independence of the verbal operants. However, only a few empirical studies have directly examined the nature of these operants, and their independence. The present study evaluated whether teaching topographies as tacts would lead to their emission as mands. The results indicated that manding only occurred reliably after direct mand training, which consisted of the use of imitative and tact prompts, and fading those prompts, to transfer stimulus control from nonverbal stimuli to conditioned establishing operations. The results contribute to the existing data on the functional independence of mands and tacts, as well as demonstrate the value of manipulating conditioned establishing operations for mand training.

Establishing operations and the mand.

Abstract: In Verbal Behavior Skinner identifies a small number of elementary verbal relations, one of which is the mand Because its introduction is at first in terms of unlearned motivative variables, and because the mand's relation to prior controlling events is quite complex, its general significance has probably been underestimated An extensive treatment of establishing operations, including the warning and the blocked-response conditioned establishing operations is provided, followed by a description of the mand in terms of such operations The importance of the mand for language training programs is suggested, as well as the reasons why it is typically neglected in such programs

Equivalence class formation in non-hearing impaired children and hearing impaired children.

Abstract: The relationship between verbal behavior and stimulus equivalence was examined using three sets of children differing in chronological age and verbal ability: (1) non-hearing impaired three and four year olds who had verbal skills generally consistent with their chronological ages; (2) partially hearing (severe to profoundly deaf) children who were rated with verbal ages of above 2 years; and (3) partially hearing children (also severely to profoundly deaf) who were rated with verbal ages of below 2 years. All children were taught a series of four conditional discriminations using unfamiliar stimuli. The children were then tested to determine whether classes of equivalent stimuli had formed. Although all the children were able to learn the conditional discriminations equally well and all the verbally-able children (normal and partially hearing) formed equivalence classes, only one of the verbally-impaired children reliably demonstrated stimulus equivalence formation. These results are consistent with the suggestion that stimulus equivalence and human verbal behavior are closely related.

The multiple control of verbal behavior.

Abstract: Amid the novel terms and original analyses in Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, the importance of his discussion of multiple control is easily missed, but multiple control of verbal responses is the rule rather than the exception. In this paper we summarize and illustrate Skinner’s analysis of multiple control and introduce the terms convergent multiple control and divergent multiple control. We point out some implications for applied work and discuss examples of the role of multiple control in humor, poetry, problem solving, and recall. Joint control and conditional discrimination are discussed as special cases of multiple control. We suggest that multiple control is a useful analytic tool for interpreting virtually all complex behavior, and we consider the concepts of derived relations and naming as cases in point.