In operant (behavioral) psychology, Richard DeGrandpre cited Kegan and showed how the operant conditioning model could be interpreted as a meaning-making process. As traditionally understood in behavioral theory, the stimulus operates control over behavior as that behavior is reinforced in the presence of that stimulus. DeGrandpre argued that consequences do not reinforce behavior, per se, but rather shape the meaning of the stimulus conditions in which the behavior occurs. Thus in DeGrandpre's interpretation, much of human meaning is a product of this contingency, where meaningful stimuli come to guide people's behavior, including private emotions, as a result of people's long histories of consequent events. This interpretation is summarized:
