On paradigms and recycled ideologies: Analogue research revisited

Abstract

Bandura discusses how the traditional disease model, explicitly rejected by proponents of behavior modification, has been unwittingly endorsed in several different ways. The dichotomization of clinical and nonclinical populations, the global assessment of therapy outcome, and the methods of treatment delivery all embrace the traditional approach toward deviant behavior. Bandura illustrates how the notion of “analogue research” implies an adherence to the disease model. Analogue research ordinarily is viewed as a distinct category of research secondary to investigations with clinical populations in treatment settings. Yet, controlled research has several unique advantages, well illustrated by Bandura, and is central to developing effective therapy techniques. The present paper uses Bandura's position as a point of departure to elaborate the nature of so-called analogue research. The problems seemingly peculiar to analogue research are considered to characterize all experimental research. To criticize analogue studies in behavior modification is to fail to appreciate the purposes of experimental research in general. Moreover, laboratory investigation of a particular phenomenon does not entail any inherent restrictions on the external validity of the findings. External validity, or the generalizability of the results, is always an empirical question.