In therapy, it is necessary to address the patient’s behavior in a comprehensive manner. Whether it be his or her feelings, experiences, thoughts or beliefs, the psychologist must look for what influences the way in which the person who comes to him or her behaves.

The functional analysis of behaviour is a very useful tool that allows the identification of the patient’s behaviours, but without leaving aside the context in which they occur or what is behind their occurrence. It is a fundamental analysis when planning and directing therapy or psychoeducational processes.

Let’s see what this technique consists of, what it is used for and its characteristics.

What is functional behavior analysis?

People who go to therapy may have a variety of behaviors from multiple causes.

Functional analysis of behavior allows the organization of the most important patient information. It takes into account the person’s social relationships, problem behaviors and events that have become important in the origin and maintenance of the problem. Once this information has been collected, the aim is to find explanations for the problem behaviors with the intention of finding a solution.

In order to understand this tool a little bit further, it is necessary to explain what is meant by behavior . This concept includes both observable and covert behaviours of the patient. Not only are the physical actions of the person taken into account, such as excessive smoking or drug use, but also his or her beliefs and thoughts about the problem.

The psychologist is not only in charge of detecting what is not adaptive in the patient. He or she must find an explanation behind why the person is behaving this way, relating it to events that happened to him or her before, i.e., the history. Therefore, when performing the functional analysis of behaviour it is necessary to find the relationships between what the person has experienced and his/her current behaviour .

To exemplify this, let’s imagine two people who are engaging in the same behavior: not eating at dinner time. Although they are both basically behaving the same way, in an analysis of this kind we would not only detect this particular behavior, but also try to find out why they are doing it.

It may be the case that one of them does not eat dinner simply because she has eaten too much and is not hungry, while the other one may look fat and decide to eat less.

Schematically, the aspects that comply with the functional analysis of behavior are the following :

  • Identify background and consequences of the behavior.
  • Identify the variables that influence the person
  • Formulate hypotheses about problem behaviour.
  • Describe the behaviors.

Two types of hypotheses can be considered when carrying out this type of analysis: origin hypotheses and maintenance hypotheses . The former try to clarify how the problematic behaviour originated, taking into account the contextual elements present at the time the problem arose. The maintenance hypotheses try to explain why the behaviour is still being carried out today, which elements have reinforced it or why it has not yet been extinguished.

Since this type of analysis works with hypotheses, it is very important that the psychologist be rigorous and objective. Moreover, as the therapy evolves, new information will come to the surface , which will make it necessary to rethink the problem for which the patient initially came and reformulate the explanations that were focused on developing an intervention plan.

Characteristics

Functional analysis of behavior is a very useful tool, since differs from a mere descriptive analysis by having the following characteristics :

1. It is functional

Although the first thing that is usually done is to identify and describe the behaviors, this is done with a functional intention. In other words, the aim is to collect information to explain the problem and draw up a therapeutic or educational action plan , and it does not study static elements, but events and actions that can be located in time.

2. Focuses on the present

Taking into account the personal history is an important aspect; however, we must focus on how the patient behaves now .

3. Study relationships

Functional analysis of behavior is based on looking at the relationships between behavioral events (emitted by the subject) and environmental events (occurring around him).

For this reason, does not focus only on the individual, but sees him/her as a part of reality interconnected with his/her environment , contrary to psychological research proposals based on introspection.

Behaviors that significantly interfere with a person’s well-being are especially important, so therapy should focus on resolving these behaviors.

4. It is dynamic

Human behavior is unstable. The patient can evolve as psychotherapy develops. In addition, it may be the case that the patient himself did not initially give all the information necessary to understand his psychological discomfort.

This is why the psychologist must be aware that the hypotheses initially put forward can be refuted , and must rework them on the basis of new information.

5. It is ideographic

Each person is different in terms of their personality, behaviour and experiences.

The hypotheses put forward after analysing the behaviours can only explain why the analysed person’s behaviour , given that it is linked to a chain of unique and unrepeatable events, which leave a mark on his or her learning history.

In other words, what is discovered in one person can hardly be generalized to the rest of the population.

6. It is heuristic

Basically, this type of analysis is a scheme that describes a person’s behaviour , through which we organise the information obtained about him/her. It does not attempt to describe the human reality, only that of the patient who has come for consultation.

7. It is hypothetical

Although the ideal would be to be able to explain precisely why the person behaves this way, functional analysis of behavior is a tool that proposes hypothetical explanations.

That is, what is believed to be the origin of the problem and what makes it persist can be modified, is not information that implies a clear and unchangeable causality .

Bibliographic references:

  • Fuentes-Ortega, J. and Quiroga-Romero, E. (2004). The two unrenounceable principles of functional analysis of behaviour and radical behaviourism. Psicothema, 6(4), 555-562.
  • Zanón, I., Matías, T., Luque, A., Moreno-Agostino, D., Aranda, E., Morales, C., … and Márquez-González, M. (2014) Guía para la Elaboración de un Análisis Funcional del Comportamiento Humano: Facultad de Psicología. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Retrieved from: http://www.uam.es/UAM/CPA.