Investigating Interlocking Behavioral Contingencies as a Unit of Social Behavior

• Grant number: 19/12410-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: August 01, 2019
• End date: December 12, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Deisy das Graças de Souza
• Grantee: Lucas Couto de Carvalho
• Supervisor: Sigrid Glenn
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of North Texas, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 17/13840-8 - Cooperative responding in rats under schedules of reinforcement, BP.PD

Abstract

The principle of reinforcement (changes in the probability of responses as function of reinforcing consequences) has been used to explain simple and complex behavioral phenomena. Within Behavior Analysis, this principle has historically been applied to individual behaviors, that is, to explain recurrence of behavior in the repertoire of an individual organism. While B. F. Skinner argued for the possibility of functional relations between external consequences and social coordinated behaviors, he did not deeply develop this issue, neither experimentally nor theoretically (see, e.g., Skinner, 1953, 1962, 1981). Although others have used the Skinnerian framework to experimentally approach social coordination (e.g., Azrin & Lindsley, 1956), it was with the publication of a conceptual work by Glenn (1986) that further attention was given to the principle of reinforcement operating at a group level (e.g., Luke, Roose, Rakos, & Mattaini, 2017). The current project is an attempt to contribute and strengthen the idea that coordinated social behaviors can be considered a unit of behavior that are selected by external environmental consequences (i.e., functional relations in metacontingencies). In this proposal, I will first present a background on the definition of a unit of behavior within behavior analysis. In the second part, I will define metacontingencies and describe studies in this field. Then, I outline the articles that will be produced as part of this proposal.

Scientific publications

(4)

(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)

DE CARVALHO, LUCAS COUTO; DOS SANTOS, LETICIA; REGACO, ALCEU; COUTO, KALLIU CARVALHO; DE SOUZA, DEISY DAS GRACAS; TODOROV, JOAO CLAUDIO. Cooperative responding in rats:II. Performance on fixed-ratio schedules of mutual reinforcement. JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR, v. 114, n. 3, p. 291-307, NOV 2020. (17/13840-8, 14/50909-8, 19/12410-5, 16/17069-1, 16/17067-9)

DOS SANTOS, LETICIA; LIMA, MARCELO AFONSO KELLER FERREIRA; DA SILVA, RAFAEL FERNANDO; DE SOUZA, DEISY DAS GRACAS; DE CARVALHO, LUCAS COUTO. Coordinated and individual responding in pairs of rats under variable interval schedules. LEARNING AND MOTIVATION, v. 83, p. 14-pg., 2023-07-04. (19/22411-9, 19/07027-8, 14/50909-8, 19/12410-5, 17/13840-8)

SANDAKER, INGUNN; COUTO, KALLIU CARVALHO; DE CARVALHO, LUCAS COUTO. Selection at Three Levels of Organization: Does Structure Matter?. BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL ISSUES, OCT 2019. (19/12410-5, 17/13840-8, 14/50909-8)

SANDAKER, INGUNN; COUTO, KALLIU CARVALHO; DE CARVALHO, LUCAS COUTO. Selection at Three Levels of Organization: Does Structure Matter?. BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL ISSUES, v. 28, n. 1, p. 8-pg., 2019-10-30. (19/12410-5, 17/13840-8, 14/50909-8)