ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that both contingencies and contextual interactants play primary roles in the prediction, control, and understanding of behavior change. It focuses on the contextual taxonomies and highlights several studies, mainly from the infancy literature, that may illustrate the function of the contextual variables. Behavior analysts, whenever possible, try to ensure that the potential sources of variability are kept constant. For some, initial boundary factors or conditions are not cited as components of the laws of behavior; they only provide the context for interpretation of those laws. If contextual determinants of stimulus function are to be investigated, some departures from the traditional methods may be necessary. In early intervention programs for infants of depressed mothers, the infants' nursery teachers were trained to promote positive interactions between the mothers and their infants. The inherent contextualism of behavior analysis can be identified in various research programs in basic and applied research.
