An explanatory fiction is a fictitious variable often a mentalistic term eg anxiety willpower confidence that is invoked to explain a behavior However it does not actually account for the behavior and frequently leads to circular reasoning eg shes careful because shes anxious and we know shes anxious because shes careful The text explicitly states an explanatory fiction is using those terms to describe why a behavior is occurring Option C uses underlying anxiety as the cause for Lisas careful lighting of the fireplace This is an explanatory fiction because anxiety is an unobservable unmanipulable and unmeasurable internal construct used as a causal explanation for an observable behavior without reference to environmental contingencies Option A provides a functional explanation based on a past observable consequence being burned that altered future behavior which is a behavioral explanation Option B describes the observable form of the behavior exhibits a nervous demeanor or nervously lights but does not use nervousness as the explanation for why the behavior occurs in that manner Option D describes an observable physiological response increased heart rate which while potentially correlated with other behaviors and private events is presented as an observable occurrence not as a causal explanation for another behavior in a circular fashion