Report of the ACBS Task Force on the strategies and tactics of contextual behavioral science research

Central Thesis and Objectives

This article presents the report of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) Task Force on the strategies and tactics of research in Contextual Behavioral Science (CBS). The central thesis asserts that CBS is a modern behavioral science that integrates the functional behavioral tradition with evolutionist approaches, applied research, behavior analysis, and multiple levels of analysis. The fundamental objective is to provide a progressive roadmap for CBS research that clarifies how strategies and tactics can be applied to contemporary behavioral problems, establishing a coherent and multidimensional pathway for future research in this field.

The Task Force was established in 2018 by the ACBS Board of Directors following the Association's World Conference. Its purpose was to create consensus among researchers, representative producers and consumers of research about the best pathway forward for CBS. The report was developed during a two-year process with multiple meetings, revisions, and feedback from the ACBS community, resulting in 33 recommendations to advance research and practice in CBS.

Theoretical Framework

CBS is grounded in contextual philosophical assumptions dating to the early twentieth century, including functionalism, mechanism, and subsequent intellectual developments that integrate behavior analysis, empirical research, and practical applications. The theoretical framework recognizes that CBS is designed to be multi-dimensional, multi-level, and prosocial in purpose. The authors emphasize that CBS is not defined by a single theory, method, or specific practice, but rather by an evolving set of philosophical assumptions, growing research practices, and methods that are relevant to virtually all aspects of human functioning.

The CBS approach is characterized by its commitment to precise, analytic, and comprehensive analysis of relationships among events that permit the prediction and influence of actions. CBS research proceeds from explicitly defined goals, functional analyses, iterative comparisons, and processing of multiple levels of analysis. The authors underscore that CBS is both a scientific and practical approach, with historical roots including the establishment of ACBS and the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, as well as development in basic and applied research contexts.

CBS is conceptualized as an approach integrating functional contextualist approaches within additional analytical contexts. The authors highlight that context in CBS refers to relational variables influencing the historical, situational, and temporal meaning of behaviors, providing a framework for understanding how actions, public and private, occur within manipulable contexts.

Argumentative Development

The report structures its argument around six primary dimensions characterizing CBS research:

1. CBS as a Multi-level Approach: The authors emphasize that CBS recognizes that all human life phenomena are situated within increasingly complex levels of organization, from individual to sociocultural. CBS analysis must examine relevant variables at all levels while recognizing that the prediction and influence of behavior requires consideration of historical, situational, and temporal contexts. This multi-level approach avoids reductionism and emphasizes that principles at one level can scale hierarchically across complex systems.

2. CBS as a Process-Based Approach: CBS focuses on behavioral change processes that allow psychological events to be predicted and influenced toward analytical, procedural, and pragmatic goals. Change processes can be conceptualized at different levels of precision, from basic behavioral processes to evolutionary, therapeutic, and cultural processes. The report distinguishes basic processes (reinforcement, extinction), evolutionary processes, and therapeutic processes of change.

3. CBS as a Multi-dimensional Approach: The report recognizes that human behavior is complex, involving biological, psychological, and sociocultural dimensions. Key analytical dimensions are presented: affect, cognition, motivation, behavior, dyadic-social-cultural dimensions, biophysiological dimensions, and self dimensions. These dimensions operate at multiple levels of analysis and are all relevant to CBS research and practice.

4. CBS as a Pragmatic Approach: The pragmatic purpose of CBS research means that research standards and tactics must always be tempered by practicality and measured against human progress in a fundamentally iterative manner. CBS maintains a reticent relationship between basic science and practical application, allowing scientific discoveries to be simultaneously linked with practical changes.

5. CBS Prosocial in Purpose: The authors emphasize that CBS has an explicit prosocial purpose, recognizing that contextual research must exist in pursuit of social progress and analysis of influence on psychological actions, emphasizing that any behavioral analysis can be practically useful for achieving prosocial change.

6. CBS as Explicitly Prosocial Approach: Finally, CBS must be explicit about its prosocial purpose and seek scientific knowledge fostering social justice. The report establishes that CBS research must address issues of diversity, inclusion, bias and injustice, recognizing that context in CBS is complex and influenced by sociocultural variables.

The central argument develops through 33 specific recommendations organized around these themes. Recommendations include emphasis on complementary basic research, examination of contextual variables at multiple levels, development of behavioral and biophysiological measures of change processes, pursuit of more sophisticated adaptive and longitudinal research designs, integration of idiographic and nomothetic methods, adoption of evolutionary perspectives, and explicit prosocial focus.

Implications

The report's implications are profound and multifaceted for behavioral research and practice:

For Scientific Research: The recommendations establish a research agenda requiring greater sophistication in research designs, including adaptive approaches, longitudinal methods, idiographic analyses, network research, real-time ecological behavioral measures, and integration of multiple analytical methods. Research must move toward greater clarity in how basic processes relate to applied problems, recognizing that lack of research in these areas has limited prosocial progress.

For Clinical Practice: The recommendations imply that therapists and practitioners need CBS training extending beyond specific treatment protocols toward functional and contextual understanding of how to identify and apply intervention "kernels" that are flexible, idiomatic, and context-sensitive. This requires greater integration of change process analysis in clinical practice.

For Policy and Social Justice: The recommendations emphasize that CBS research must lead to advances in understanding how to create prosocial change at multiple levels, including individual, community, organizational, political, and cultural. This implies expansion of CBS research toward international contexts, diverse cultures, and issues of inequity, inclusion, and justice.

For Interdisciplinary Integration: The recommendations suggest that CBS can benefit from greater integration with evolutionary sciences, biology and neuroscience, as well as with sociology, economics, and political science, to understand how change processes function across multiple levels of analysis and diverse sociocultural contexts.

Significance and Contribution

This report is of significant importance to the field of behavioral science for several critical reasons:

1. Conceptual Clarification: The report provides a clear, comprehensive, and coherent conceptual framework for understanding what CBS is, how it differs from other behavioral approaches, and how the multiple strategies and tactics of CBS relate to each other. This clarification is essential for community consensus and scientific progress.

2. Research Roadmap: By providing 33 specific recommendations, the report creates a clear roadmap for researchers in directing future CBS research in a manner that is progressive, coherent, and leads toward greater prosocial impact.

3. Synthesis of Diverse Fields: The report synthesizes understanding from multiple behavioral and contextual fields, including applied behavior analysis, behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment research, Relational Frame Theory research, and cultural behavioral approaches. This synthesis is valuable for researchers working in any of these areas.

4. Emphasis on Prosocial Purpose: The report emphasizes in novel fashion that scientific research in behavior must be explicitly oriented toward prosocial change, social justice, equity, and human wellbeing. This recognizes that science cannot be conducted in an ethical vacuum.

5. Attention to Human Complexity: The report argues convincingly that behavioral research must attend to the multidimensional, multi-level, and contextual complexity of human phenomena, avoiding reductionism and emphasizing integration.

6. Community Consensus: The report represents a significant effort to create consensus among CBS researchers, practitioners, and consumers of research, facilitating collaboration and preventing field fragmentation.

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