Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: An Integrated Framework for Understanding, Predicting, and Influencing Human Behavior

by David Sloan Wilson (Editor), Anthony Biglan (Foreword), Steven C. Hayes (Editor)

What do evolutionary science and contextual behavioral science have in common? Edited by David Sloan Wilson and Steven C. Hayes, this groundbreaking book offers a glimpse into the histories of these two schools of thought, and provides a sound rationale for their reintegration. Evolutionary science (ES) provides a unifying theoretical framework for the biological sciences, and is increasingly being applied to the human-related sciences. Meanwhile, contextual behavioral science (CBS) seeks to understand the history and function of human behavior in the context of everyday life where behaviors occur, and to influence behavior in a practical sense. This volume seeks to integrate these two bodies of knowledge that have developed largely independently. In Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science , two renowned experts in their fields argue why ES and CBS are intrinsically linked, as well as why their reintegration—or, reunification —is essential. The main purpose of this book is to continue to move CBS under the umbrella of ES, and to help evolutionary scientists understand how working alongside contextual behavioral scientists can foster both the development of ES principles and their application to practical situations. Rather than the sequential relationship that is typically imagined between these two schools of thought, this volume envisions a parallel relationship between ES and CBS, where science can best influence positive change in the real world.

Genres: Psychology, Science, Evolution, Nonfiction

344 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2018

About the author

David Sloan Wilson has been a professor of evolutionary biology at Binghamton University for more than twenty years. He has written three academic books on evolution, authored hundreds of papers, some with E.O. Wilson, and his first book for a general audience was Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think.

Reviews

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a dream come true.

Before I knew about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), I had been meditating and doing yoga for a good bit, and I had also done a bunch of 12-Step work and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

I knew there was something powerful and revolutionary at the intersection of mindfulness, recovery and psychotherapy. But I just couldn’t piece it all together, let alone communicate these ideas with precision, scope or depth.

I was introduced to ACT and RFT early in my graduate training and it was love at first sight.

I was utterly captivated.

The authors of ACT had operationalized and integrated the best of Buddhism, behaviorism and humanistic psychology with a little 12-step sprinkled in for good measure.

And they did it in a way that could be clearly communicated and utilized systematically in therapy.

The ACT constructs were a life saver for me. They were validating, they gave me confidence, and they gave me clarity and direction, all of which transformed my life.

I went from anxious, confused, insecure grad student to full time professor and therapist in a relatively short period of time.

But there was a HUGE part of the puzzle for me that was still not integrated.

In addition to being an ACTaholic, I’m a HUGE evolutionary psychology dork.

I used ACT to conceptualize some things and Evo-Psych to conceptualize others. I could make it work on a good day, but other times I found myself in confusing territory.

Most of what I read on the topic argued that these models were incompatible and irreconcilably so.

I honestly didn’t see any conflict at all. But I also couldn’t completely integrate these systems on my own.

I use evo-psych in my clinical practice all the time. It can be very normalizing to frame issues like trauma, anxiety, depression and substance use disorders in evolutionary terms.

I searched the literature for anything pertinent to clinical applications of evolutionary models and couldn’t find anything.

Again. I never saw the conflict between ACT and Evo-Psych. In fact, Skinner dropped evolutionary explanations all the time in his writing.

At some point in the history, circa 1970, maybe before that, there seems to have been a schism between evolutionary science and the social sciences, and the two camps quit working together.

E. O. Wilson was picketed and accused of being a Nazi after he published Sociobiology, and of course there was a bunch of legitimately awful nonsense published under the rubric of evolutionary psychology, and then there was the whole Bell Curve nightmare.

It was a hot mess.

Any way, fast forward to 2018. And seemingly out of nowhere. Steven C. Hayes and David Sloan Wilson drop this book.

It’s SO FUCKING VALIDATING.

I felt like crying.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

So that book happened.

And now everything is like....better.

NEWS FLASH 2001: that conflict between between behaviorism and cognitive theory. No conflict. Its called RFT fuckers!!!!

NEWS FLASH 2018: no conflict between evolutionary science and contextual behaviorism either. Read this book if ya don’t believe me.

Now if we could just iron out the differences between ACT and neuroscience, we’d have it all.

Steven C. Hayes + Robert Sapolsky joint = now I can die in peace.

Just sayin’

NOTE: This book is experimental, and has a lot of authors, spouting a lot of disparate ideas which don’t all find resolution in the text. But I SO DON’T CARE!

(X5) ⭐️s

[Hugh Simonich · Rating 5 out of 5]

A seminal piece of collective works that helps you put together the many pieces of the puzzle to understand the science of human behavior. Really beautifully written.