Variables of which values are a function

Abstract

The ordinary-language concept of values has a complex history in psychology and in science generally. The traditional fact-value distinction commonly found in traditional scientific perspectives has been challenged by the varieties of philosophical pragmatism, which have similarities to Skinner's radical behaviorism. Skinner's challenge to the fact-value distinction maintained that the phenomena of both "facts" and "values" are a matter of contingencies of environment-behavior interaction, and both phenomena may be observed when a scientist does research or makes recommendations in applied settings based on that research. Some of the processes and variables relevant to an analysis of values as behavioral phenomena are described, and examples of both nonverbal and verbal contingencies are considered, along with implications for the values of an individual and a culture. If the various issues of methodology can be addressed successfully, then behavior analysis will be in the position to move beyond descriptive studies of values, such as those found in humanistic psychology, by providing analyses of the variables of which values are a function.