A Functional Analysis of Language
*This blog post is based on material in the book Understanding and Applying RFT by Siri Ming, Evelyn Gould, & Julia Fiebig.
We should not ask what the words mean, as though they contained secrets, but what they are doing, as though they embodied actions.
—Denis Donoghue
We cannot speak of language as a “thing” that someone may or may not possess—rather, it is a complex set of skills, a repertoire of operant behavior. The skills commonly referred to as “language” or “cognition” develop in much the same way as any other behavior—through an individual history of interactions with the environment. And, as behavior, language cannot be examined except as an act within a particular context. That is, we cannot examine single words or phrases or sentences in isolation, based on their topography. We cannot identify what a behavior “means”—whether in the form of speaking a sentence or running out of a room—except in terms of its function.
“Successful Working”: The aim of our analysis
Every functional analysis must have a purpose—an analysis “works” if it allows us to predict and influence behavior, but to what end? We take the explicit stance that our work as behavior analysts must maintain a focus on psychological flexibility and prosociality.
A functional analysis of languaging allows us to identify the problematic sources of verbal control that lead to inflexibility and suffering and that present barriers to prosociality. Once these sources of control are identified, we can develop interventions to promote alternative behaviors, just as you would proceed from any of the functional analyses that you’re already familiar with as a behavior analyst. We are simply now looking at many more sources of control and many more paths to take.
A key to any approach designed to support psychological flexibility (such as ACT) is thus to begin with a broad functional analysis. As we discussed in a previous blog post, this means considering the influence of the immediate environment on an individual but also consider one’s self as part of the context, scale out to incorporate the interlocking contingencies between and among members of a group, and scale up to consider how individual-, group-, and systems-level variables interrelate and are themselves influenced by (and, in turn, influence) the interaction of organizing agencies and culture.
Psychological Flexibility and Prosociality
We appreciate that psychological flexibility does not emerge in a vacuum: it is established and supported within cooperative contexts for change - the relationships that surround us all. As languaging develops, the opportunity for relationships to develop expands. The composite skills involved in psychological flexibility establish and promote prosociality between individuals and further the opportunity to establish prosociality in and across groups. Words, and the way in which we choose to use them, matter at all levels, and a functional analysis of language is relevant at all levels—from the individual to the cultural level.
We invite you to get a sense of how language influences your behavior (in both helpful and unhelpful ways) and how you might undermine problematic sources of verbal control by completing the “noticing” exercise in our free tools. This exercise gives you a glimpse into the psychological flexibility skill of observing and shifting your attention between various aspects of your current context; sometimes we refer to this as the skill of “broad purposeful attention.” This skill of paying attention is an important one for behavior analysts to strengthen and to teach—it can undermine verbal control and increase sensitivity to current contingencies, thus increasing the likelihood that variability and flexibility will occur. It should not be hard to convince you that paying attention to what you are doing is a good idea! Without sensitivity to current contingencies (what is happening right now) it is hard to behave effectively. A metaphor to illustrate this point is offered by founder of DBT, Marsha Linehan (2015, p. 177). Imagine that you are trying to walk across a room with your eyes closed with only a mental image of where all the furniture is to guide you—this is what it is like when you are living your life in your head (in your verbal world). You’d obviously navigate the room more quickly, safely, and skillfully with your eyes open. The skill of present-moment awareness is like walking across the room with your eyes open, so you can actually see where all the furniture is. It is living your life awake.
Self-reflection
It’s this idea of ‘living your life awake’ that’s foundational to promoting prosociality and psychological flexibility within and across groups. Whether you are a beginner or expert in RFT and ACT, we invite you to consider how language influences your daily interactions and experience of the world. How much of the time are you living your life “awake” versus lost in the sea of language? How might being more present support you to create positive change in your work and community?
