Contextualism：The view that scientific theories and experiments are influenced by cultural context and must be evaluated in the light of cultural context in which they occur.

Functional unit：A unit of measurement defined by its function or the job it gets done. In biology, a species is a functional unit, because the members of a species reproduce only with one another. In behavior analysis, an activity is a functional unit, because it is defined by consequences. In the laboratory, lever pressing is a functional unit, because it operates a switch attached to the lever. Giving a rule is a functional unit, because, despite the many variations in how it is given, it affects the listener's behavior the same way. Functional units contrast with structural units, which are defined by the way they look or are put together. Description of a movement by specifying the muscles involved, their order and extent, and so on would be a structural unit of movement. Structural units are useless for a science of behavior, because they may participate in any number of activities. Specifying the grammatical structure of an utterance, for example, tells us nothing of what the utterance, as verbal behavior, does.

行動分析学の見方は、一般的にコンテクスト理論の見方に一致する。しかし、行動分析学の見方はそれだけではない。行動分析学の見方は、社会的な結果に加えて実用的な結果を強調し、社会的環境（すなわち、その集団における他者や、第7章で見ることになる言語共同体）が科学を形成する方法についても明確にしている。