Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Verbally-governed and event-governed behavior

  • Published:
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A number of statements prescribe behavior: apothegms, maxims, proverbs, instructions, and so on. These differing guides to conduct present varieties of the dictionary definition of “rules.” The term “rules” thus defines a category of language usage. Such a term, and its derivative, “rule-governed,” does not address a controlling relation in the analysis of verbal behavior. The prevailing confounding of a category of language with a category of verbal behavior appears related to a lack of understanding as to what distinguishes verbal behavior from other behavior. Verbal behavior is a behavior-behavior relation in which events are contacted through the mediation of another organism’s behavior specifically shaped for such mediation by a verbal community. It contrasts with behavior that contacts events directly, and shaped directly by the features of those events. Thus we may distinguish between two large classes of behavior by whether it is behavior controlled by events, or behavior controlled verbally. However, the functional controls operative with both classes of behavior do not differ.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Cautela, J. R. & Kearney, A. J. (in press). Overview of behavioral treatment. In M. E. Those, B. A. Edelstein, & M. Hersen (Eds.), Handbook of outpatient treatment of adults. New York: Plenum.

  • Goldiamond, I. (1962). Perception. In A. J. Bachrach (Ed.), Experimental foundations of clinical psychology (pp. 280–343). New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grnbaum, A. (1987/1988, Winter). Secular humanism in American political culture. Free Inquiry, 8, 21–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hekmet, H. (1972). The role of imagination in semantic desensitization. Behavior Therapy, 3, 223–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Juliá, P. (1983). Explanatory models in linquistics. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, V.L. (1981). Terminological and conceptual revision in the experimental analysis of language development: Why. Behaviorism 9, 25–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sidman, M. (1986). Functional analysis of emergent verbal classes. In T. Thompson & M. D. Zeiler (Eds.), Analysis and integration of behavioral units (pp. 213–245). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sidman, M. & Cresson, O. (1973). Reading and cross-modal transfer of stimulus equivalences in severe retardation. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 77, 515–523.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sidman, M. & Tailby, W (1982). Conditional discrimination vs. matching to sample: An expansion of the testing paradigm. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 37, 5–22.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Skinner, B. F. (1961). The concept of the reflex in the description of behavior. In B.F. Skinner (Ed.), Cumulative record, 3rd ed. (429–457). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Skinner, B. F. (in press). Introductory remarks. In S. Hayes, (Ed.) Rule-governed behavior: Cognition, contingencies, and instructional control. New York: Plenum.

  • Spradlin, J. E., Cotter, V. W, & Baxley, N. (1973). Establishing a conditional discrimination without direct training: A study of transfer with retarded adolescents. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 5, 556–566.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stoddard, L. T., Sidman, M., & Brady, J. V. (1988). Fixed interval and fixed ratio schedules with human subjects. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 6, 33–44.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Sundberg, M.L. (1987). Teaching language to the developmentally disabled: A course manual. Prince George, B.C.: College of New Caledonia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vargas, E. A. (1986). Intraverbal behavior. In L.J. Parrott & P.N. Chase (Eds.), Psychological aspects of language (pp. 128–151). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vargas, E. A. (in press). Verbal behavior and artificial intelligence. In L.J. Parrott, & P.N. Chase, (Eds.), Verbal relations. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

  • Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. West Virginia University, USA

    Ernest A. Vargas

Authors
  1. Ernest A. Vargas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

I would like to thank Guy Bruce, Barbara Kaminski, Ted Hoch, Lawrence Fraley, Albert Kearney, and Julie Vargas, for a reading of this manuscript in draft.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Vargas, E.A. Verbally-governed and event-governed behavior. Analysis Verbal Behav 6, 11–22 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392825

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392825

Search

Navigation