On functional analysis and causal relations

Within applied behavior analysis, the term functional analysis is closely associated with functional analysis of some kind of problem behavior. A functional analysis is distinguished from direct and indirect assessments of the behavior in that an analysis requires an experimental design. Functional analysis is, however, is not restricted to problem behavior, but refers to is the application of the laws of operant and respondent conditioning to establish the relationships between environmental event(s) and any kind of behavior. In a broader sense then, the term functional analysis refers to the experimental investigation of a causal relationship in which a functional relation is concluded if a change in an independent variable produces a reliable change in the dependent variable. The aim of the presentation is to discuss how the term functional analysis is used and to discuss how “causes” in behavior analysis are different from “causes” in other branches of human affairs.