Back to Basics I: A Mediational Account of Equivalence Relations belongs in serious BCBA study because it shapes whether behavior-analytic decisions stay useful once they leave a clean training example and enter clinical documentation, payer communication, supervision records, and leadership review. In Back to Basics I: A Mediational Account of Equivalence Relations, for this course, the practical stakes show up in service continuity, accurate reporting, and defensible clinical decisions, not in abstract discussion alone.
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Join Free →In this presentation, I propose a mediational account of so-called "emergent" or "derived" relations that appeals only to behavior at the moment of reinforcement. In verbal humans, such mediating behavior is usually, but not necessarily, verbal. But mediating behavior also occurs in a variety of nonhumans in whom emergent relations have been claimed. The mediational account is consistent with other theories of complex responding, such as naming, but without mentioning untrained relations or proposing a higher-order operant. I consider examples of matching-to-sample experiments with humans and nonhumans and propose that all so-called "emergent" behavior results from direct, though not explicit, training of behavior. I conclude that equivalence can be accounted for in terms of basic behavioral processes: the function-altering effects of reinforcement (see Schlinger & Blakely, 1987, 1994) on the stimulus products of the mediating behavior. The implications of this mediational account are profound: derived relational responding may be an illusion and consequently concepts such as equivalence (including symmetry and transitivity), relational framing, and naming may be unnecessary.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
| COA | 1 | — |
Henry D. (Hank) Schlinger Jr. received his Ph.D. in psychology (applied behavior analysis) from Western Michigan University (WMU) under the supervision of Jack Michael. He then completed a two-year National Institutes of Health-funded post-doctoral fellowship in behavioral pharmacology also at WMU with Alan Poling. Dr. Schlinger was a full tenured professor of psychology at Western New England University in Springfield, MA, before moving to Los Angeles in 1998. He is now professor of psychology and current director of the ABA Specialization Option and BCaBA course sequence, and former director of the M. S. Program in Applied Behavior Analysis in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Schlinger has published approximately 100 scholarly articles, chapters, commentaries, and book reviews in more than 35 different journals and books. He also has authored or co-authored four books, Psychology: A Behavioral Overview (1990), A Behavior Analytic View of Child Development (1995/2024) (which has been translated into Japanese), Introduction to Scientific Psychology (1998), and, most recently, How to Build Good Behavior and Self-Esteem in Children (2021) (which has been translated into Italian). He is past editor of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior and The Behavior Analyst (now Perspectives on Behavior Science) and sits on the editorial boards of several other journals. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and on the Advisory Board of The B. F. Skinner Foundation and The Venus Project (https://www.resourcebasedeconomy.org/advisory-board/). Dr. Schlinger received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Psychology at Western Michigan University in 2012, and the Jack Michael Award for Outstanding Contributions in Verbal Behavior from the Verbal Behavior Special Interest Group of the Association for Behavior Analysis International in 2015.Hank is also an accomplished song writer and guitarist, whose album, One More Invention, can be found on Spotify. He is also a reviewer of classical music concerts and recordings, and his reviews can be found at Culturespotla.com
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
258 research articles with practitioner takeaways
225 research articles with practitioner takeaways
224 research articles with practitioner takeaways
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.