A Sociobehavioral Model of Racism against the Black Community and Avenues for Anti-Racism Research
Racism can be plotted as stacked RFT networks; target the network at the person, community, or policy level and you can weaken the whole frame.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Belisle et al. (2022) built a new map of racism. They used Relational Frame Theory, or RFT. RFT says people learn to link words, people, and feelings in tight networks.
The team placed these networks inside three rings: one person, one community, one policy. They then listed where future ABA studies could attack racist contingencies at each ring.
What they found
The paper does not give data. It gives a blueprint. Racist acts are held in place by layered rules and rewards. If you change the rules at any layer, the whole frame can shift.
How this fits with other research
Watson-Thompson et al. (2022) extend the same idea. They take the RFT map and drop it onto the Social-Ecological Model. They add check-lists you can use in your agency today.
Kremkow et al. (2022) open the 2022 emergency series that holds both papers. The editors say behavior analysts must treat racism as a core practice issue, not a side topic.
Malagodi (1986) and Malagodi et al. (1989) are the grand-parents. Thirty years ago they begged the field to study culture. Belisle et al. answer with a full model aimed at anti-Black racism.
Kostet (2026) sounds a warning. Autism work often uses race as a simple label. The new model must avoid that trap or it will repeat the same disparities it tries to fix.
Why it matters
You now have a behavior-analytic lens for racism. Use it to pick your next project. Ask: Which ring am I targeting? What relational frames keep the harm alive? Share the plan with Black stakeholders and let them edit the contingencies before you intervene.
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Pick one agency rule that may harm Black clients. Map the words, outcomes, and authority links that keep it in place. Draft one change and ask two Black stakeholders to revise it.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Sociological researchers have made immense strides in understanding systemic racism, privilege, and bias against Black people. Relational frame theory provides a contemporary account of human language and cognition that intersects within complex external contingency systems that may provide a provisionally adequate model of racial bias and racism. We propose a reticulated model that includes nested relational frames and external contingency systems that operate at the level of the individual (implicit), communities (white privilege), and system policies (systemic racism). This approach is organized from within the framework of critical race theory as an area of sociological scholarship that captures racial disadvantages at multiple levels of organization. We extend this model by describing avenues for future research to inform anti-racism strategies to dismantle this complex and pervasive sociobehavioral phenomenon. At all levels, police violence against the Black community is provided as a case example of negative social impact of racism in our society.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40617-022-00702-y