An experimental analog of metacontingency and observation

• Grant number: 11/19125-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: January 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Maria Amalia Pie Abib Andery
• Grantee: Candido Vinicius Bocaiuva Barnsley Pessôa
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e da Saúde. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Parallels or analogies between the Theory of Evolution and the evolution of human culture are not new. However, the study of these parallels and analogies based on the experimental analysis of behavior constitutes a new field of research. Results of experiments with microcultures in laboratories are displaying important similarities between behavioral processes and cultural processes. Meanwhile, results of experiments on observing behavior show how this kind of behavior can interfere with the establishment of behavioral processes. The present research project is intended to innovate the study of observing behavior, and the study of metacontingencies by establishing relations between these two areas. The innovation is the requirement of the emission of an arbitrary observing response during or after the establishment of evocative antecedent control for interlocked behavioral contingencies producing selecting cultural consequences. The research will involve the participation of undergraduated students playing a computer game in which they can earn points on individual behavioral contingencies and bonus on interlocked behavioral contingencies. Analyses between phases and between groups of participants will present results on the influences of observing behavior on the establishment and maintenance of evocative control in the production of selected cultural consequences. In addition, results can help to clarify how observing behavior is transmitted along sucessive generations of participants. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

PEREZ, WILLIAM F.; ENDEMANN, PETER; PESSOA, CANDIDO V. B. B.; TOMANARI, GERSON Y.. Assessing Stimulus Control in a Discrimination Task with Compound Stimuli: Evaluating Testing Procedures and Tracking Eye Fixations. PSYCHOLOGICAL RECORD, v. 65, n. 1, p. 83-88, MAR 2015. (08/57705-8, 11/19125-2)

CANDIDO V. B. B. PESSÔA; GERSON YUKIO TOMANARI. Medidas de Controle de estímulos: fixações do olhar como respostas de observação naturais. Revista Brasileira de Terapia Comportamental e Cognitiva, v. 14, n. 3, p. 34-50, Dez. 2012. (11/19125-2)