Relating as operant behavior: The ROE-M
In my last blog posts, I talked about the HDML, and the dimensions of relating as an operant—like all complex operant behavior, relational framing is characterized by a number of different dimensions of responding. We can conceptualize relational framing as involving a range of developmental levels from simple early forms to more complex responding involving networks of relations; derivational patterns that are more or less complex; responding that is more derived vs practiced; a greater or lesser ability to respond flexibly to changing requirements; and responding that is more or less consistent or coherent with one’s past learning history (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2020). These different dimensions of relational framing also give rise to the variability and generativity that is characteristic of language in general.
But let’s dig into the concept of relating as an operant a little more. Starting off with some basics, like all operants, relational framing develops through multiple learning opportunities (i.e. through a history of reinforcement)—the natural and extensive multiple examplar training provided by interactions with caregivers and others throughout early childhood. Relating, like all operants, also comes under the control of antecedent variables—contextual cues that indicate what pattern of relation to respond to and what functions are relevant. Because relational framing comes under antecedent contextual control, it also demonstrates another hallmark of operant behavior, flexibility—responding to a particular set of stimuli will change depending on the context (e.g., in the context of where an animal lives, chickens and cows go together because they live on a farm, but in the context of types of animals, they do not—a chicken goes with other birds, and a cow goes with other mammals).
Once established, all operant behavior continues to be influenced by consequences (i.e., reinforcement and punishment), and so too does relational framing. For example, punishment of newly established relational framing repertoires results in the suppression of those responses and a resurgence of previously learned relations (Wilson and Hayes, 1996). Delaying feedback for responding can disrupt the emergence of derived relations (Healy et al., 2000). In general, experimental work over many decades has shown that relational responding is highly sensitive to its consequences (see Hughes & Barnes‐Holmes (2015) for a good summary).
And finally, generalized operants are defined functionally, rather than topographically (imitation is a good example of this—we can imitate any topography of motor actions); relational framing may take numerous forms, but all function as an operant unit. As a complex, generalized operant, relational framing is dynamic, involving the interaction of events within the environment. As with all operants, we cannot separate out and analyze one part of it in isolation, as with a linear sequence of separable events—no behavior can be understood except in terms of its function in relation to the antecedent and consequent variables that influence it. Barnes-Holmes and colleagues (Barnes-Holmes & Harte, 2022; Barnes-Holmes et al., 2020) suggest that the operant of relational framing does not involve simply responding to the relations between stimuli, but rather involves a dynamic interaction among a number of co-occurring elements. Once relational framing repertoires are acquired, relating (i.e., arbitrarily applicable relational responding as defined within RFT) orienting (the extent to which a stimulating event is noticed or “stands out”) and evoking (the extent to which a stimulating event is appetitive or aversive) functions all interact within a motivational context; as such, the operant can be termed the “ROE-M”. Relating, orienting, evoking, and motivation cannot be meaningfully examined in isolation any more than a singular response in a traditional antecedent-behavior-consequence model can be examined without regard for its context—the operant is a whole unit of analysis. We have found this model of relational framing as an operant to be helpful in understanding and analyzing how languaging behavior operates differently in different contexts, and this is the analytic unit that is embedded within the Hyper-Dimensional Multi-Level (HDML) framework.
In my book with Evelyn Gould and Julia Fiebig, Understanding and Applying RFT, we illustrate the ROE-M with an example of RBTs chatting about a client, Charlie, with the experienced RBT telling the new RBT all about how sweet Charlie is and how much fun they are to work with—but then warning, “But watch out! When they get too excited, they bite!” If you’ve ever experienced such a warning, you know how quickly stimulus functions transform! Now the RBT is relating “Charlie” and “danger,” which is likely to increase the salience of and orienting to any relevant stimulus events (such as proximity to Charlie) as being more aversive (i.e., transforming the function of those stimuli) and evokingavoidance or escape responses.
In the Charlie case, the way in which stimuli are related increases particular orienting and evoking responses. In other situations, stimulus relations may be more salient in the environment for a variety of reasons, and orienting toward them increases particular types of relating. Experimental work has shown differential responding to happy versus sad emojis (Schmidt et al., 2021) and to color words versus shape words (Finn et al., 2018); such findings extend the implications of research on nonarbitrary relational responding, such as identity or oddity matching, in which stimulus salience has long been identified as a relevant variable (e.g., Mackay et al., 2002). Children have been shown predispositions to attend (i.e., orient) to one dimension (e.g., form, color, or size) more than another during matching tasks, thus relating the stimuli in different ways, depending on what dimension was oriented to—and this changes over time. When given no other instructions except to match, before four years old, children tend to match items based on color rather than form, while after age six, they tend to match based on form rather than color (e.g., (Suchman & Trabasso, 1966).
And motivation of course interacts with everything—as a simple example, preference for particular stimuli or features of stimuli may have a critical influence on what young children orient and respond to when engaged in sorting tasks—just as it does for other kinds of tasks. Color in particular may have strong functions that influence the behavior of young children—as just one example, children learn color words for less-preferred colors like brown or gray much later than for more-preferred ones (Pitchford and Mullen, 2005).
In my next posts, I’ll dive deeper into how we consider the aspects of the HDML and the ROE-M in terms of our framework for assessing and training relational operants. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about these concepts!
Interested in training on applying RFT in early intervention? Check out the courses I run through Constellations.
References
Barnes-Holmes, D., Barnes-Holmes, Y., & McEnteggart, C. (2020). Updating RFT (More Field than Frame) and its Implications for Process-based Therapy. The Psychological Record. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-019-00372-3
Barnes-Holmes, D., & Harte, C. (2022). Relational frame theory 20 years on: The Odysseus voyage and beyond. J Exp Anal Behav. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.733
Finn, M., Barnes-Holmes, D., & McEnteggart, C. (2018). Exploring the Single-Trial-Type-Dominance-Effect in the IRAP: Developing a Differential Arbitrarily Applicable Relational Responding Effects (DAARRE) Model. The Psychological Record, 68(1), 11–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-017-0262-z
Healy, O., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Smeets, P. M. (2000). Derived relational responding as generalized operant behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 74(2), 207–227.
Hughes, S., & Barnes‐Holmes, D. (2015). Relational Frame Theory: The Basic Account. In R. D. Zettle, S. C. Hayes, D. Barnes-Holmes, & A. Biglan (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of contextual behavioral science (pp. 129-178). John Wiley & Sons.
Mackay, H. A., Soraci, S. A., Carlin, M. T., Dennis, N. A., & Strawbridge, C. P. (2002). Guiding visual attention during acquisition of matching-to-sample. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 107(6), 445–454.
Ming, S., Fiebig, J., & Gould, E. (2023). Understanding and Applying Relational Frame Theory: Mastering the foundations of complex language in our work and lives as behavior analysts. Context Press.
Pitchford, N. J., & Mullen, K. T. (2005). The role of perception, language, and preference in the developmental acquisition of basic color terms. J Exp Child Psychol, 90(4), 275–302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2004.12.005
Schmidt, M., de Rose, J. C., & Bortoloti, R. (2021). Relating, orienting and evoking functions in an IRAP study involving emotional pictographs (emojis) used in electronic messages. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 21, 80–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2021.06.005
Suchman, R. G., & Trabasso, T. (1966). Color and form preference in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 3(2), 177–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0965(66)90092-0
Wilson, K. G., & Hayes, S. C. (1996). Resurgence of derived stimulus relations. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 66(3), 267–281. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1901/jeab.1996.66-267