Steven C. Hayes

Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor in the Behavior Analysis program at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 46 books and over 650 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. He is the developer of Relational Frame Theory, an account of human higher cognition, and has guided its extension to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a popular evidence-based form of psychotherapy that uses mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based methods. Dr. Hayes has been President of several scientific societies including Division 25 of the APA, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for Psychological Science, which he helped form and has served a 5-year term on the National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse in the National Institutes of Health. In 1992 he was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th “highest impact” psychologist in the world and Google Scholar data ranks him among the top ~1,100 most cited scholars in all areas of study, living and dead (http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/58). Dr. Hayes is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in addition to several other scientific societies. His work has been recognized by several awards including the Exemplary Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research and Its Applications from Division 25 of APA, the Impact of Science on Application award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. 

Recent Posts

April 7, 2021 in Biology

Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: Past, Present, and Future

Evolution is inherently a contextual science. Species are shaped by aspects of their environments that impact survival and reproduction, thanks to heritable variation. Basic scientific research, therefore, begins in the…
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April 7, 2021 in Biology

Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: Psychopathology and Behavior Change

https://youtu.be/AOSvkCxSZmM In this final discussion, it was striking how different the perspectives were between evolutionary science and contextual behavioral science, even though both were tasked with the same general topic.…
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January 8, 2021 in Biology

Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: Emotions and Empathy

How does felt emotion overlap with expressed emotion and its social functions? What is the impact of empathy and reading the emotions of others?
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