Defining the Stimulus in S–R Interventions: On the Need to Embrace Theory and Organism in S–O–R

We comment on a proposal by Janiszewski and Laran (2023) that draws on ‘behaviorism’ for developing interventions geared at attenuating negative consumer behaviors. One interpretation of this proposal emphasizes the influence of stimuli (S) on responses (R) and de-emphasizes intervening mental processes. We contrast this S-R perspective with an S-O-R perspective that embraces both process explanations and O, the organism (in our context, the consumer) to productively study, explain and then leverage S-R relations. We discuss in detail that without an organism- and theory-centered perspective of S-R relations it is difficult to identify relevant stimuli and predict patterns of behavior in new contexts. We illustrate in more depth why Janiszewski and Laran’s example of aiding an individual suffering from depression could benefit from adopting a theory and organism-centered perspective to improve possible intervention strategies