The role of schedules of reinforcement in the experimental analysis of social behavior

Author(s)

Benvenuti, Marcelo Frota ; Bernardy, Joao Lucas ; de Toledo, Thais Nogara ; Santiago, Jessica ; Siqueira, Jose de Oliveira ; Silveira, Paulo Sergio Panse

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: PERSPECTIVES ON BEHAVIOR SCIENCE; v. 47, n. 4, p. 22-pg., 2024-09-19.

Abstract

In this paper, we review some results produced by our research group regarding the role of schedules of reinforcement in social behavior. We discuss data from studies in which we attempted to create conditions in which interdependent gains overlapped with individual reinforcement schedules so that these situations were more or less competitive and conflicting. We argue that normative rules about reinforcement schedules and interdependent reinforcement are crucial for analyzing social behavior since these rules allow us to differentiate the effects of individual and social contingencies or an interaction of both. Our analysis demonstrates that temporal criteria in social episodes may be especially relevant in characterizing social behavior. In these episodes, responding to someone who initiates the social episode (the follower's response under the control of the leader's response) can be characterized as responding in a simple limited hold schedule, or in a variable DRL schedule. Leader and follower behaviors may be united by interdependent reinforcement, but their connection is itself a single schedule of reinforcement. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 23/07516-4 - Effects of reinforcement schedules on observing responses and stimuli over selectivity
• Grantee: João Lucas Bernardy Cardoso
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• FAPESP's process: 14/50909-8 - INCT 2014: Behavior, Cognition and Teaching (INCT-ECCE): relational learning and symbolic functioning
• Grantee: Deisy das Graças de Souza
• Support Opportunities: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 23/02669-7 - Annual Conference of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior (SQAB 2023)
• Grantee: Marcelo Frota Lobato Benvenuti
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Meeting - Abroad