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Evaluating effects of cultural consequences on the variability of interlocking behavioral contingencies and their aggregate products

ABSTRACT Behavior analysis has given increasing attention to persons within groups over the past few years. An experimental analog of a metacontingency, its interlocking behavioral contingencies (IBCs) and aggregate products (APs) is replicated in this paper. Two experiments were conducted in which pairs of participants were asked to coordinate their responses in order to achieve a common goal. Each participant moved a playing piece around a virtual chessboard where meetings in adjacent cells within specific areas of the board were reinforced. An ABAB design was used in Experiment 1. Condition A represented baseline conditions in which meetings were not reinforced. In intervention condition B, meetings were reinforced by successive approximations to a specific 4 × 4 area of the chessboard. The results from the first experiment show that the variability index of IBCs varied systematically among conditions. The variability index of APs were smaller in condition B than in condition A. Experiment 2 was designed to evaluate whether longer exposure to the intervention condition would generate stereotypy in the IBCs as well as their APs. The second experiment used a BAB design where condition B was intervention, and condition A was baseline. Results of Experiment 2 show complete stereotypy of IBCs and AP. The experiments presented indicate that contingent reinforcing consequences may have a selective effect upon IBCs and their APs.