Arbitrarily applicable derived relational responding has been argued by relational frame theorists to be a form of operant behavior. The present study examined this idea with 4 female participants, ages 4 to 5 years old, who could not perform a series of problem-solving tasks involving arbitrary more than and less than relations. In a combined…

This paper presents a summary of behavior concepts that together provide the outline of a possible developmental theory of prosocial motivation. These concepts, based on human role-taking capacities, include empathic distress, sympathetic distress, personal guilt, and existential guild. At first, a child cannot discriminate between himself and…