The functional‐cognitive framework for psychological research: Controversies and resolutions

Abstract

The scientific goals, values and assumptions of functional and cognitive researchers have propelled them down two very different scientific pathways. Many have, and continue to argue, that these differences undermine any potential communication and collaboration between the two traditions. We explore a different view on this debate. Specifically, we focus on the Functional-Cognitive (FC) framework, and in particular, the idea that cognitive and functional researchers can and should interact to the benefit of both. Our article begins with a short introduction to the FC framework. We sweep aside misconceptions about the framework, present the original version as it was outlined by De Houwer (2011) and then offer our most recent thoughts on how it should be implemented. Thereafter, we reflect on its strengths and weaknesses, clarify the functional (effect-centric vs. analytic-abstractive) level and consider its many implications for cognitive research and theorising. In the final section, we briefly review the articles contained in this Special Issue. These contributions provide clear examples of the conceptual, empirical and methodological developments that can emerge when cognitive, clinical, personality and neuroscientists fully engage with the functional-cognitive perspective.

RamseyWard_top_down_challenges

“…A move towards more descriptive and concrete terminology for social factors also addresses our concerns about the utility of studying "social modulation" in an abstract sense, when different social factors may potentially influence cognition in different ways. Such a view also reinforces recent suggestions that greater progress would be made in psychology if more descriptive research was performed in general (Yarkoni, 2019), and if there was a greater willingness to consider functional research, which documents how environmental features influence behaviour, together with research that aims to understand cognitive mechanisms (Hughes, De Houwer & Perugini, 2016).…”

Toward a cumulative science of emotion: a functional-cognitive framework for emotion research

“…Functional definitions of emotional phenomena are also void of mental concepts that feature in cognitive explanations of emotional phenomena (e.g., semantic networks, appraisals). Unlike the strictly functional approaches advocated by radical behaviorists such as Skinner (1953), the functional-cognitive framework that we put forward (De Houwer, 2011;De Houwer, Hughes, & Barnes-Holmes, 2017a;Hughes, De Houwer, & Perugini, 2016) highlights that functional definitions of emotional phenomena are perfectly compatible with, and can even strengthen, cognitive approaches to emotion.…”

Conditioning is More Than Association Formation: On the Different Ways in Which Conditioning Research is Valuable for Clinical Psychology

“…For instance, the fact that repeated exposure to a stimulus can reduce conditioned fear responses to that stimulus holds independently of whether these reductions are due to changes in associations or changes in propositional beliefs. Especially for applied psychologists such as clinical practitioners, what matters is whether a procedure is effective in changing behavior and not so much why it is effective (see De Houwer, 2011, andPerugini, 2016, for a more detailed discussion of the relation between the functional and cognitive levels of explanation and De Houwer, Hughes, & Barnes-Holmes, 2017, for an extensive discussion of why the functional level of explanation is primary in applied psychology). Although clinical practitioners often resort to the cognitive level of explanation in order to understand the cognitive mechanisms of psychological suffering and therapy, it is important to realize that they could in principle operate solely at the functional level of explanation.…”

“…Whereas functional psychologists are interested primarily in (abstract descriptions of) the relation between environment and behavior, cognitive researchers aim to uncover the mental mechanisms via which environmental events influence behavior. In contrast to the idea that both approaches are mutually exclusive competitors, my colleagues and I put forward a functional-cognitive framework that allows for mutually beneficial interactions between the two approaches (De Houwer, 2011; Hughes, De Houwer, & Perugini, 2016). As long as researchers are clear about whether they adopt the aims of functional or cognitive psychology, they can exploit work within the other approach to further the aims of their own approach.…”