title: The fruits of a functional approach for psychological science.
abstract: The current paper introduces relational frame theory (RFT) as a functional contextual approach to complex human behaviour and examines how this theory has contributed to our understanding of several key phenomena in psychological science. I will first briefly outline the philosophical foundation of RFT and then examine its conceptual basis and core concepts. Thereafter, I provide an overview of the empirical findings and applications that RFT has stimulated in a number of key domains such as language development, linguistic generativity, rule-following, analogical reasoning, intelligence, theory of mind, psychopathology and implicit cognition.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Stewart
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007804:Language Development; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013850:Thinking
keywords: Cognition; Functional; Language; Psychology; Relational frame theory