ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the general nature of rules and rule-governed behavior. In spite of the increasing attention being given to rule-like processes in psychological theorizing, there is no commonly accepted definition as to just what a rule is, or what kind of behavior knowing a rule makes possible. The chapter explains that all human behavior is basically rule-governed. Rule-governed behavior may occur in solving equations and, indeed, in solving many different kinds of simple problems. A basic problem for psychology is how to account for rule-governed behavior. Underlying rules, however, are constructs and probably more naturally thought of not as acting on effective stimuli themselves but on properties of the entities denoted by these effective stimuli. Essentially, rules are nothing more than algorithms for generating classes of responses from corresponding classes of stimuli. Unfortunately, there is no mechanical procedure by which one can devise a procedure which accounts for the behavior potential of an arbitrary subject.
