The Usefulness of J. R. Kantor's Setting Event Concept for Research on Children's Social Behavior

Abstract

In the last 20 years, behavior analysts have used operant principles to conceptualize, analyze, and modify children's social interactions. It is becoming clear, however, that an analysis based only upon discriminitive and reinforcing stimuli is insufficient. The purposes of this paper are to distinguish between the concepts of discriminative stimuli and setting events and to delineate the usefulness of J.R. Kantor's setting event concept for conducting research on children's social behavior. An example of current research on the effecets of spatial density on social behavior is discussed together with future research possibilites.