As a behavior analyst, one of the things I have to constantly remind myself is that scientific concepts do not reflect “the real world,” but rather are terms that have been constructed because they allow us to interact with the environment around us (including other people). in a more effective way. That is, they are useful. Take, for example, the image below. What is it?
Most people would say it is “a bee.” By naming it “bee”, we can better interact with other people and influence their behavior, for example, helping a friend protect her drink by saying “be careful, there is a bee near your coffee”; or regulate our own behavior, staying away from it (because bees get stings) but not necessarily leaving the room, unless you are allergic to bees (because bees are not aggressive). In short, naming it “bee” helps us influence the behavior of others and our own in a useful way.
But you wouldn’t be wrong if the answer you gave to my question was “an animal”, “an insect” or even “an Apis mellifera”. All of these terms are appropriate responses. The difference between the four is their degree of precision. The image actually shows an animal, but so would an image of an elephant, a salmon, or your pet. Therefore, calling it “an animal” has a low degree of precision. Alternatively, naming it “Apis mellifera” reduces it to the scientific name of the species and therefore has a high degree of accuracy, distinguishing it from other bee species.
What is interesting to note is that the varying degrees of language precision described above are more or less useful depending on the context. When a toddler is expanding her vocabulary, saying she is “a bug” can be an important developmental step in teaching her to discriminate between different types of animals. When our friend is drinking coffee, saying that he is “a bee” will help him look into the air and not at the ground to protect the drink from him, as he would if the threat were “an ant”; but he doesn’t know what species of bee it is to be able to do it. And when a biologist is conducting an ecological assessment of an ecosystem, it is important for him to discriminate between Apis mellifera and other bee species. Therefore, it is crucial to be able to flexibly switch between different levels of language precision, because one will be more useful than the other in specific contexts.
All of this is probably very intuitive, but when we look closer at behavioral science, the ability to flexibly switch between different levels of language precision is currently at the center of a heated debate. As a scientific community, behavior analysis has historically favored the use of concepts with high precision, such as “positive reinforcement” and “simple discrimination,” arguing that such precision would lead to better prediction and control of behavior. That is, they are more useful for behavioral analysts. But recently, other behavioral scientists, aligned with the (CBS) scientific strategy, have been arguing in favor of adopting concepts with less precision, which would be more useful in the context of the application and dissemination of behavioral principles: level terms half.
If you value articles like this, consider supporting us by becoming a Pro subscriber. Subscribers enjoy access to members-only articles, materials, and webinars.
When we look closer at behavioral science, the ability to flexibly switch between different levels of language accuracy is currently at the center of a heated debate.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a contextual behavioral therapy that has been at the center of this debate because its model is most commonly presented through six mid-level terms: acceptance, cognitive defusion, contact with the moment. present, the self as context, values and committed action. Despite the strengths of these terms in terms of their dissemination to a broader public, not linking them to basic processes, with higher levels of linguistic precision, can hinder their integration with functional-analytical reasoning, which is the core of philosophy. and behavioral-analytic theory. But, if such a link is explicitly established, the speaker can flexibly switch between different levels of language precision to communicate with a lay audience, create sound scientific lines of inquiry, and integrate ACT concepts within a functional case conceptualization. analysis adapted to each case.
For the last few years, our laboratory at the University of São Paulo, in collaboration with external researchers, has been investigating how behavior analysts have been using the term cognitive defusion to evaluate the existence of the link between this average level. term and basic behavioral process and, therefore, allow flexible use of concepts, enhancing their usefulness.
Examining the literature on ACT, what we initially found was a lot of conceptual ambiguity in how behavioral scientists were using the term cognitive defusion. Sometimes it referred to specific procedures used by therapists. From time to time, he described the behavioral process by which these procedures worked. And here and there, it was used to specify the clinically relevant results produced by these processes. Sometimes all three uses of the term were seen mixed up in the same paragraph. All in all, it was a clear case of conceptual ambiguity, in which one concept refers to three different types of phenomenon. At the end of the day, claiming that cognitive defusion procedures work through cognitive defusion processes to promote cognitive defusion is not very helpful. Can you imagine a doctor explaining to his patient that he will use chemotherapy procedures that promote chemotherapeutic processes that lead to chemotherapeutic results? It would be very confusing, to say the least.
In order to improve conceptual clarity, we begin by separating the procedures, processes, and outcomes related to cognitive defusion, as outlined in the literature. First, we outline that the desired outcome is to reduce verbal control of the client’s thoughts over his or her behavior. Clinically speaking, that is especially important when such verbal control is promoting response patterns that are rigid and lead you away from your values, called fusion in ACT terms. In other words, cognitive defusion is not intended to repress thoughts or change their content, but rather to reduce their ability to regulate our behavior: to think but not necessarily act according to what we think, creating a gap to choose what we really want to do in reality. the moment.
This psychological experience is similar to the posture we learn to develop with dreams. When you were a child and you had a nightmare and woke up scared, what did your parents often say? Probably something along the lines of “it was just a dream.” This phrase does not deny that the experience was real or uncomfortable, just that we should not take them so seriously: do not argue with your partner if they cheated on you in your dream. Cognitive defusion aims to construct a similar experience with our own thoughts: just because you’re thinking that people will judge if you express yourself, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it anyway if it’s important to you.
Moving away from the desired outcome, we identified a wide range of procedures related to cognitive defusion. To some people, they may seem very creative or extremely strange. Either way, evidence is accumulating that at least some of them may be effective. To summarize, six categories of procedures were outlined:
- Playing with thoughts by repeating them for 30 seconds, singing them to a familiar melody, or saying them very slowly.
- Objectify thoughts, attributing physical properties to them.
- Observe the stream of thoughts, often with the help of objectifying them, like leaves flowing down a stream.
- Interrupt the link between thought and action, creating and drawing attention to experiences of incongruence between the content of the thought and the person’s actions, when they clearly disobey them.
- Identify components of thinking, naming them bluntly as thoughts or evaluations, for example.
- Question the process by which people construct their personal narratives and the reasons for their behavior.
But the part that interested us most was how the literature conceptualized what was happening, behaviorally speaking, when clients went through these types of procedures, what the behavioral processes involved were. After all, if we understand how these procedures work, we will be in a better position to optimize their effectiveness in clinical practice; flourish the therapist’s creativity and personal style when designing new and exciting procedures; and disseminate this knowledge in the training of therapists.
The most widespread explanation of the process involved in cognitive defusion was that thought is capable of controlling behavior under specific stylistic and structural parameters of speech. These parameters were called literal context. Therefore, eliminating such parameters would reduce thought’s control over behavior. However, this definition is based on the assumption that because cognitive fusion and defusion are opposites in outcome, they should also be opposites in processes. However, this is not necessarily true. Human behavior is complex, to say the least, and there is not always symmetry between outcome and process. This means that if you see a child who is afraid of a dog, you cannot tell from this scene alone whether this behavior was learned because he was previously bitten by a dog, saw someone being bitten by a dog, or was told that dogs are dangerous animals. Similarly, even if the learning process was acquired verbally (i.e., the child was told that dogs are dangerous), the aversive functions of dogs can be reduced through multiple processes, including direct exposure to dogs. dogs or new instructions on how friendly dogs are.
To account for such complexity in everyday human behavior, the conceptual proposal of our laboratory is that there are different ways through which the objective of reducing the control of thought over behavior can be achieved. We differentiate three main processes that underlie the variety of procedures found in the literature. For…