In Torneke's words, the insight of Skinner's thinking when he differentiated shaped and rule-governed behaviors is now expressed more clearly.
The vision of this book is unique in conceptualizing complex behavior as thinking and rule-governed behavior in a behaviorist way, with a special emphasis on RFT.
The analysis of analogies, metaphors, and the experience of the self are core elements to giving a clear definition of thinking and rule-governed behavior.
Torneke uses the difference between rule-governed behavior (rule following) and that which is contingency shaped.
She argues that metaphors provide another way of expanding how we analyze
rule-governed practices in society.
For example, a question that asks, "With examples, distinguish between
rule-governed and contingency-shaped behavior" is broken into the following three components for assessment purposes: (1) An example of
rule-governed behavior; (2) an example of contingency-shaped behavior; and (3) a clear distinction made between the two types of behavior.
Rule-governed behavior has been defined as actions controlled by means of verbal stimuli (i.e., spoken or written instructions, self-talk, etc.) that describe contingencies of reinforcement (Skinner, 1953, 1969), and researchers have attempted to describe differences between behaviors controlled directly by contingencies and rule-governed behaviors controlled indirectly with descriptions of contingencies (rules).
Two competing clinical theories have related rule-governed behavior and depression.
An alternative account posits that depression (and other psychopathology) may result from excessive rule-governed behavior, particularly excessively following rules that dictate experiential avoidance (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999).
This is a somewhat curious fact, given Michael's (1984) observation that many experimental studies of rule-governed behavior were inspired by the accumulation of evidence that schedule control of behavior in human subjects is much more difficult to achieve than in infrahumans (Cerutti, 1989; Hayes et al., 1989; Vaughan, 1989).
Far more collateral consequence control than is generally reported in the rule-governed behavior literature was observed.
(1991) compared to much of the rest of the rule-governed behavior literature.