Psychological flexibility: An attempt to remove theoretical elements from the estimation

Abstract

Psychological flexibility is an important concept that has long been addressed in basic and clinical domains. However, as noted in many comprehensive reviews, it needs more conceptual clarity and measurement reliability and validity. Any use of this concept necessarily requires consideration of a theoretical or conceptual framework. Therefore, measuring or estimating psychological flexibility that removes these theoretical elements would help understand psychological flexibility in increasingly complex situations. Based on the concept of unit price created in behavioral experiments, which facilitated comparisons among behavioral experiments, this study constructed a state-space model with unit price as an explanatory variable. It tested the validity of a new measure of psychological flexibility through simulation experiments. Closely related to whether being flexible is a positive or negative state, the issue remains to propose a framework for examining whether psychological flexibility reinforces the behavior of others through certain cultural practices in a particular environment and, in turn, reinforces that practice in that population.