RATIONAL-EMOTIVE BEHAVIOR-THERAPY AND THE FORMATION OF STIMULUS EQUIVALENCE CLASSES

Stimulus equivalence is a behavioral approach to analyzing the ''meani ng'' of stimulus sets and has an implication for clinical psychology. The formation oi three-member (A --> B --> C) stimulus equivalence cla sses was used to investigate the effects of three different sets of sa mple and comparison stimuli on emergent behavior. The three stimulus s ets were composed of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)-related words, non-REBT emotionally charged words, and a third category of neu tral words composed of flower labels. Sixty-two women and men particip ated in a modified matching-to-sample experiment. Using a mixed cross- over design, and controlling for serial order effects, participants re ceived conditional training and emergent relationship training in the three stimulus set conditions. Results revealed a significant interact ion between the formation of stimulus equivalence classes and stimulus meaning. indicating consistently biased responding in favor of reach: ng criterion responding more slowly for REBT-related and non-REBT emot ionally charged words. Results were examined in the context oi an anal ysis of the importance of stimulus meaning on behavior and the relatio n oi stimulus meaning to behavioral and cognitive theories, with speci al appraisal given to the influence of fear-related discriminative sti muli on behavior. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons.