Abstract: In recent years there has been a growing emphasis on context in both the experimental and applied analysis of behavior. The term, at times, has been used to emphasize the role setting variables may play in the analysis of behavior, and at other times the way in which stimulus control relations may emerge from exposures to certain programmed contingent histories. While both of these do suggest the importance of context they are not sufficient to understand the scope of the concept. This panel will discuss the meaning of context as it applies to behavior analytic investigations, both experimental and applied. We will examine how the consequential contingency provides the basis for contextual considerations. Included will be a discussion of the work on the role of context by those scientists from the instrumental conditioning tradition (for example, Wyrwicka, 2000), the role of alternative sets of contingencies which define the intercontingency context, the intracontingency context, the contextual implications of the intertwining of abstraction and dimensional stimulus control, as well as setting events, among others, will be examined. |