The psychological present.
Treat every mention of ‘history’ as a present-moment interaction you can see and change today.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Capaldi (1992) wrote a theory paper. He asked: Where is a client’s history?
He said history is not a file inside the head. It is the way the person and the room are interacting right now.
No kids, no rats, no data sheets—just a think piece for clinicians.
What they found
The paper “found” a rule: if you can’t see it today, don’t use it to explain today.
So “he has a history of escape” really means “right now the task is too hard and leaving is paying off.”
How this fits with other research
Neuman (2004) took the same idea and aimed it at the word ‘intention.’ He showed you can keep the word if you point to present cues that make observers say “He meant to do it.” The two papers share one roadmap: stay in the now.
Lattal (1984) warned that lab researchers who ignore real-life problems will fade into irrelevance. Capaldi (1992) answers that call by giving clinicians a way to talk about ‘history’ without leaving the real-life moment.
Critchfield (2018) later adds a tool: teach stimulus relations so clients learn faster in the present. All three papers chain together—past is useless unless it changes what we do today.
Why it matters
Next time you write “Client has a long history of tantrums,” stop. Describe what in this room, right now, makes tantrums work. Change those pay-offs and you change “history” without opening a single file.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present paper compares behavior-analytic and cognitive treatments of the concept of psychological history with regard to its role in current action. Both treatments take the position that the past bears some responsibility for the present, and are thereby obligated to find a means of actualizing the past in the present. Both do so by arguing that the past is brought to bear in the present via the organism. Although the arguments of the two positions differ on this issue, neither provides a complete account. An unconventional treatment of psychological history is proposed, the logic of which is exemplified in anthropological, biological, and psychological perspectives. The unconventional treatment in psychological perspective holds that (a) the organism's interaction with its environment, not the organism itself, changes with experience; and (b) the past interactions of an organism exist as, and only as, the present interactions of that organism. This solution to the problem of psychological history provides obligations and opportunities for analysis that are not available when the more conventional positions of cognitivism and behavior analysis are adopted.
The Behavior analyst, 1992 · doi:10.1007/BF03392596