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The Behavior Analyst 2004, 27, 133-151 No. 2 (Fall)
Individual Behavior, Culture, and Social Change
Sigrid S. Glenn
University of North Texas
The principle of operant selection is examined as a prototype of cultural selection, and the role of the social environment is suggested as the critical element in the emergence of cultural phenomena. Operant contingencies are compared to cultural selection contingencies, designated as metacontin- gencies. Both of these types of contingency relations result in evolving lineages of recurrences that can become increasingly complex in the number and organization of their elements. In addition to its role in the recurring interlocking behavioral contingencies that constitute cultural organization, operant behavior plays another role in cultures. Although the operants of individuals are functionally independent of one another, the behavior of each person may contribute to a cumulative effect that is relevant to the well-being of many people. Similarly, the outcomes of metacontingencies may also contribute to a cumulative effect. The relation between independently evolving operant lineages, or between independently evolving cultural lineages, and their cumulative effect is identified as a macrocontingency. Macrocontingencies do not involve cultural-level selection per se. Effective cul- tural engineering requires identifying the macrocontingencies that produce less than desirable effects and altering the relevant operant contingencies or metacontingencies to produce change in the cu- mulative effects. Key words: operant contingencies, macrocontingencies, metacontingencies, cultural selection, op- erant selection
Learned behavior is the substructure of human cultures, and the transmis- sion of learned behavior powers the evolution of human cultures. Human behavior produces cumulative change in human environments, and continu- ally changing environments require continuing behavioral adjustments. Successful adjustments can become embedded in cultural practices and transmitted to later generations. Increasingly complex cultures have emerged from the interplay among the
human capacity for learning, the con-
tingencies of reinforcement that ac- count for the learned behavior of in-
dividuals, and the cultural transmission
of learned behavior all in the forma-
tive context of physical features of lo-
cal environments. Over a period of lit-
tle more than 10,000 years, human cul-
tures have evolved from small bands of hunter-gatherers, presumably showing
I am deeply indebted to Leslie Burkett for her multiple readings of the manuscript while it was in preparation. Her critical feedback was invalu- able. Address correspondence to the author at the Department of Behavior Analysis, P.O. Box 310919, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas 76205 (e-mail: sglenn@unt.edu).
one another how to produce fire and to fashion simple tools, to huge nation- states in which the integrated activities of hundreds of people participate in producing the fabric used to make clothing sold as Brand X or to make the laws (^) by which (^) millions of people live. Decades of education, formal and informal, are now required to develop
and maintain the behavioral repertoires
needed to participate in the vast webs of interrelated human behavior (^) that constitute modern culture.' Most of the features of modern cul- tures were not planned. Rather they
simply emerged as a result of the con-
tingencies of selection that supported
the behavior of individuals (cf. John-
son, 2001). Systematic planning seems
to begin when cultural practices have unpredicted, (^) undesired, or (^) belatedly recognized suboptimal results. Unin-
tended and culturally damaging results
of ongoing human behavior are first
identified, then bemoaned and, some-
times, finally dealt^ with.^ But^ can^ they
' The foregoing (^) paragraphs draw on (^) the work of Bonner (^) (1980), Harris (^) (1989), and (^) Diamond (1997).
134 SIGRID S. GLENN
be dealt with fast enough to ensure sur- vival? Almost 20 years ago, B. F Skinner (1987) asked why we were not acting to save the world. His answer was that the cultural practices of most of the hu- man race did not include the verbal be- havior required to properly analyze the problems and plan the changes in the environment needed to promote cultur- al (and possibly species) survival. The missing verbal cultural practice, Skin- ner suggested, was the language of the experimental analysis of behavior- specifically, the practice of analyzing
the contingencies of reinforcement that
support the behavior of members of a culture and predict the results of
changing those contingencies. He fur-
ther suggested that the experimental
analysis of behavior would support a
theory of cultural evolution in the same
way that Darwin's theory of biological
evolution is supported by the experi-
mental science of genetics.
Skinner's (1987) analogy offers a
starting point for exploring in this pa-
per at least one way of using the lan-
guage of the experimental analysis of
behavior to support an interpretive the-
ory of culture. Although Skinner's ul-
timate interest was in bringing about
changes that would improve the lives
of people, the point of his paper was
that the path to effective action begins
with effective verbal practices. In
2004, the 100th anniversary of his
birth, humans need more than ever a
language that will help them to analyze
their problems in ways that guide ef-
fective action.
In the sections below, I review the
principle of operant selection and the
role of human social environments in
behavioral contingencies. I then define
culture and cultural practices and con- sider the role of operant behavior in them. Two types of cultural-level re-
lations-macrocontingencies and me-
tacontingencies are distinguished,
and the role of behavioral contingen-
cies in each type is explained as a pre-
lude to accomplishing social change.
Finally, I return to Skinner's views on
the relation between the verbal practic- es of the experimental analysis of be- havior and a theoretical interpretation of culture.
THE PRINCIPLE OF
OPERANT SELECTION
Behavioral principles describe the relations between behavior and envi-
ronment that account for the acquisi-
tion and maintenance of learned behav- ior. The principle of operant selection is the bedrock on which other behav- ioral principles rest. Like other scien-
tific principles, its simple form masks
the complexity of the universe it de-
scribes. The principle of operant selec-
tion is sometimes stated as "behavior
is a function of its consequences." Such a bald statement makes no men-
tion of the different roles played by
time in the selection process described
by the principle. The statement also
obscures the fact that the words behav-
ior and its, which appear to refer to the
same thing, actually refer to different
things. Let us unpack the statement in
order to lay the groundwork for a sim-
ilar unpacking of cultural selection.
Figure 1 is a schematic of operant se- lection as it goes on in time.
The schematic shows, first, that the
universe in which behavioral selection occurs is localized in the actions and
events outside those actions (environ-
ment) of a single organism (let us say
a young child learning to stack blocks).
Of course, we would not be particular-
ly interested in this universe if operant
selection affected only this organism's
behavior. As it turns (^) out, the (^) process
appeared early enough in^ the evolu-
tionary history of^ the earth^ to^ predate
humans by millions of years and there-
fore is a behavioral characteristic
(^2) This example is made as simple as possible and is not meant to suggest that the principle requires simple responses, that instances are in- stantaneous, that bouts or sequences of respons- es cannot undergo selection, and so on. The function of S I is not discussed because the sche- matic does not show differential control over RI.
136 SIGRID S. GLENN
of the content that fits the formula and the variety of organisms whose behav- ior can be predicted, changed, or use- fully interpreted in terms of the prin- ciple. The 1-min slice of a behavior stream portrayed in Figure 1 shows a stable situation that is present when all the responses occur, and it shows a certain kind of environmental change follow- ing some of the responses. Changing the situation to S2 during the next min- ute and ensuring that no responses are followed by CI in Situation S2 can add a level of complexity. Let us say that in Situation S2, the surface on which the blocks rest is not flat. Alternation of S1 and S2 at varying intervals, with
C1 occurring after R 1 only in S1, typ-
ically results in high frequencies of RI in S 1 and low frequencies of RI in S2.
The relation among S1-RI-Cl^ is then
specified as a^ three-term^ contingency.
In this case, the particulars of the three- term contingency are "on flat surfaces (but not on sloping surfaces), placing blocks squarely on top of one another results in towers." In a more dynamic and complete
portrayal of a behavior stream, ele-
ments of the situation are usually
changing moment to moment and most
responses would be followed by a stimulus (^) change of some kind (cf. Ray,
Upson, &^ Henderson, 1977). The^ re-
sulting interplay between environmen-
tal changes and moment-to-moment
changes in a behavior stream is iden-
tified as Person P's behavior.'
3Specific or particularized operant lineages (and their component occurrences) often are identified colloquially as behaviors, implicitly signifying their ontological status as individually identifiable. For example, "The child engaged in two problem behaviors" could mean he was ob- served repeatedly to hit other kids at lunch and also to scream when recess ended. On the other hand, everything one or all organisms do is des- ignated as behavior (a mass noun). Friman (2004) eloquently defended both usages on prac- tical grounds. Here it is suggested that the dif- ferent usages also respect an ontological distinc- tion. Specifically, the mass noun refers to a type of empirical phenomenon (i.e., activity) and the plural usage suggests localization with respect to a specific person.
The actions that recur in operant lin- eages change over time as the contin- gencies of selection develop and change. One way the operant lineages change is that the component actions become more complex. For example, a child may learn to plug cords into wall sockets, and to turn dials such as on
the kitchen timer, and to press hand-
kerchiefs when his dad has finished ironing his shirt. In a situation calling for a pressed shirt, variations of the three responses may occur in a novel sequence, resulting in a pressed shirt. This coming together of responses from operant lineages learned at dif- ferent times has been termed contin- gency coadduction (Layng & Andron- is, 1984). The relation between the novel (adduced) response sequence and the environmental consequence
may increase the^ likelihood of repeti-
tions of the sequence, eventually re- sulting in^ a new^ operant lineage in the child's (^) repertoire. Call it (^) ironing. The ironing lineage is^ a^ recurring sequence of (^) actions, each instance of the se- quence composed of^ elements origi-
nally recruited from earlier acquired
operant lineages. Because all the com-
ponents of the sequence are required in
each occurrence to produce the conse- quence, the sequence of components
acquires a functional integrity of its
own. The nesting or embedding of oc-
currences of one lineage in^ more com-
plex occurrences of another lineage is
a highly consistent characteristic of hu-
man behavior. An example of such
nesting is shown in Figure 2. Note that
the lineage is always composed of re-
curring events, and the increasing com-
plexity is seen in the increasing num-
ber of components in the occurrences
of the hierarchical lineages.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTENT
IN OPERANT CONTINGENCIES
The only necessary feature of the environmental events^ in^ three-term
contingencies is that they be empirical
events. For everyday purposes, humans
have found it useful to categorize em-
BEHAVIOR AND CULTURE 137
Operant Lineages Elements^ ofEach^ Occurrence
(Recurring operant acts)
Press Place (^) digit on (^) key
Depress key
.....................- ...... ............. ........... ....... Open MS Word Locate (^) program icon on (^) desktop
Place cursor on icon
Person A
Press
Copy email text into a Word (^) Open MS Word
document (^) Open email
Highlight text^ to^ be^ copied
Click (^) "copy" icon
Switch to page in Word document
Click "paste" icon Figure 2. The (^) components of occurrences in earlier (^) lineages become (^) integrated with the (^) compo- nents of occurrences in later (^) lineages of more (^) complex occurrences.
pirical events in myriad ways: visual or auditory, temporally extended or punc- tate, verbal or nonverbal, social or non- social, and so on. Any single event can be categorized in many different ways. Lightning as an event in one's environ-
ment is visual, punctate, nonverbal,
and nonsocial. In a child's environ- ment, my humming a tune can be cat- egorized as auditory, extended, non- verbal, and social. Another way that empirical events can be categorized is in terms of their temporal relation to the behavior of a learner or performer. The lightning may be a situation (an- tecedent) in which the behavior of ask- ing "lightning?" results in the conse-
quence of "yes." My humming may
be the situation in which the child's humming results in the sound of our duet (consequence). Whether the
"yes" or the sound of the duet func- tions like C1 in Figure 1 is an empin- cal question. If they do, we consider them as belonging to yet another cat- egory: reinforcer. The social environment is defined, for present purposes, as the behavior of other people as it relates to the behav-
ior of a learner or performer. Your
question "What is your name?" is part of my social environment. My answer- ing with my name is a social event in your environment. For any particular occurrence of an operant response, the situation may involve social and non- social events. One or more conse- quences also may be either social or
nonsocial. Figure 3 provides examples
of three-term contingencies in which
various combinations of social and nonsocial events might function as sit-
BEHAVIOR AND CULTURE 139
highly constrained by inheritance.
Whereas ants, for example, inherit spe-
cific behavioral patterns in (^) response to
specific social events, human behavior
becomes related to any of a wide va-
riety of environmental events, depend-
ing on the particulars of the social and
nonsocial environment in which the
human lives. To be sure, human action
is constrained by human biology; but
in each generation, humans have to
learn all over again what their ances-
tors learned-a laborious process in- deed, but one that allows the behavior
of each generation to become adapted
to current environmental events. And
those environmental events can change
from generation to generation and have
done so at a steadily increasing pace.
By outfitting humans with a largely
uncommitted behavioral repertoire,
natural (^) selection gave our species a
long leash for local behavioral adap-
tations. But the uncommitted repertoire
of humans would be lethal without the
second characteristic of human learn-
ing potential-the susceptibility of hu-
man behavior to operant selection. Al-
though this behavioral characteristic is
shared by many species, humans ap-
pear to be most exquisitely sensitive to
behavioral contingencies of selection
(Schwartz, 1974). This characteristic
does not depend on whether the envi-
ronmental events in the behavioral se-
lection contingencies are social or non-
social, but the preponderance of social
events in the behavioral contingencies
all but guarantees the emergence of
cultural phenomena.
EMERGENCE OF
CULTURAL PHENOMENA
The combination in humans of
learning potential and sociality set the
stage for the emergence of culture-a
novel kind of phenomenon. Like the
word behavior, culture is a mass noun,
a category word, and also a word that
refers to the particulars that are mem-
bers of that category (specific cul-
tures). As a category of phenomena,
we will define culture here as "patterns
of learned behavior transmitted social- ly, as well as the products of that be-
havior (objects, technologies, organi-
zations, etc.)."
Culture begins with the transmission
of behavioral content, learned by one
organism during its lifetime, to the rep-
ertoires of other organisms. Thus, the
locus of cultural phenomena is su-
praorganismic. Unlike learning, which
is localized in repeated temporal rela-
tions between the actions of a single
organism and other empirical events,
the locus of cultural things is supraor-
ganismic because it involves repeti-
tions of the interrelated behavior of
two or more organisms; one organism's
behavior functions as the situation or
consequences in the operant contingen-
cies accounting for the behavior of the
other. Such transmission requires no
new biological trait or behavioral pro-
cess, but it does initiate a new kind of
lineage: a culturo-behavioral lineage
(Glenn, 2003).
Culturo-behavioral lineages extend
deeply into human history, and they
also occur in rudimentary form among
nonhuman species (Kawamura, 1959).
A curious fact about human cultures is
that after anatomically modern humans
spent tens of thousands of years in ru-
dimentary cultures, human cultures be-
came quite complex in little more than
10,000 years-an extraordinarily short
period of evolutionary time (Harris,
1989). This suggests that long before
cultural takeoff, humans had the ana-
tomical, physiological, and behavioral
characteristics (delineated above) that
they needed for the emergence and
evolution of complex cultures. Missing
were the changes in environmental
events (social and material) that could
enter into operant contingencies across
generations, supporting individual be-
havior that differed from generation to
generation.
Cultural Practices and
Macrocontingencies
Much of the behavioral content of
individual human repertoires is similar
140 SIGRID S. GLENN
to the content of many other humans. The term cultural practices refers to similar patterns of behavioral content, usually resulting from similarities in environments. The term metabehavior has been suggested to identify the class of behaviors that constitute a cultural practice (Mawhinney, 1995). The need for a term subsuming a supraorganis- mic class of behaviors is recognized, but we will use the term macrobehav- ior here because it is consistent with the other terminology in this paper.
Cultural practices may be important
or unimportant for the survival of a culture. An example of a practice not likely to be critical for cultural survival is hairstyling. Many hairdressers may
style hair similarly, and this similarity
of behavioral content constitutes a cul-
tural practice. Important to note is that
such similarity does not imply that the
practice is a functional cultural unit. In other words, the behavior of the vari-
ous hairdressers is not necessarily
functionally related to the behavior of
any other hairdressers. Individual hair-
dressers simply may learn over time to
cut certain types of hair in certain ways as a result of the consequent look of the product and approval of their pa-
trons. The resulting products (hair-
styles) consequently look alike. Nei-
ther the hairstyles nor the behavior of
the hairdressers are functionally related
to one another, even though the behav- ior of each hairdresser interrelates with the behavior of each of his or her (^) pa- trons. In this case, the similar behavior of (^) many individuals constitutes a cul-
tural practice, but there is no evidence
of cultural transmission and, therefore,
no culturo-behavioral lineage exists.
On the other hand, there may be a
point of cultural transmission that links
the behavior of two or more hairdress-
ers. For example, Hairdresser A may
demonstrate to other hairdressers a
way to^ style hair, and the others^ may
reproduce the^ style under the watchful
eye of the^ originator and later^ with
their own^ patrons. If^ the hair styled by
A is featured in a magazine or seen on
customers by other hairdressers, some
of them may be able to produce a sim- ilar result for their own patrons. These cases involve cultural transmission. Any cultural practice may be made up of independently generated behaviors and also socially transmitted behaviors. The point of these two examples is that similarity in behavioral content of many individuals is sufficient to con- sider the aggregate behavior a cultural
practice, but is not sufficient to assume
cultural transmission, and is even less
sufficient to assume a common origin.
Another way of distinguishing
among cultural practices is in terms of the complexity of the behavioral con- tent that constitutes the practice. The macrobehavior that constitutes a spe-
cific cultural practice may be straight-
forwardly identifiable operants such as
smoking cigarettes; or multioperant
patterns of behavior such as styling hair, driving to work, or recycling; or very complex patterns of interlocking
behavior of many individuals, such as
that involved in auto manufacturing.
Whether comprising simple or com- plex elements, cultural practices all have two characteristics that are im- portant for the (^) present discussion. First, they involve many (^) people en-
gaged in^ the^ same^ repeated actions^ (be-
having individually or in relation to
one another) and, second, those actions
have consequences-often several dif- ferent consequences.
Consider the behavior of driving to
work. A consequence essential to its
continuing repetition in^ an^ individual's
behavior stream is (^) arrival at work. But in most (^) cases, there are other (^) behaviors
that could result in arriving at work
(e.g., carpooling, using mass transpor-
tation, bicycling, or walking). The fact
that most people drive to work rather
than getting there some other way sug-
gests that^ additional^ consequences are involved and that (^) they differ for dif-
ferent behaviors. Figure 4 shows some
likely consequences of driving to work
versus carpooling.
Note that all of the consequences
shown in^ italics depend only on the be-
havior of the individual worker, and
142 SIGRID S. GLENN
Macrocontingencies
Operant Selection
Contingencies
People
P1 ...... Bx (1) -> C ............ Contributes to cumulative effect
P2 ...... Bx (1') ->^ C^ ............. Contributes^ to^ cumulative effect
P3 ...... Bx (1) -> C .............. Contributes to cumulative effect
P4 ...... Bx (1') -> C ............ Contributes to cumulative effect
Pn ...... Bx(1,1') ->^ Cn ............ Contribute to cumulative effect
(Macrobehavior)
* Cumulative^ effect
Cultural Practice 1
Figure 5. Temporally unrelated operants of different people (^) (macrobehavior) that (^) produce behav- ioral consequences and also contribute to a cumulative effect.
the cumulative effects of those differ-
ing actions. As mentioned above, how-
ever, the cumulative effects cannot be
in a contingent relation with the behav-
ior of any individual; therefore they
cannot control (as operant consequenc-
es) the behavior of individuals. And al-
though there may be a contingent re-
lation between the sum of the topog-
raphies and the cumulative effect, the
summed topographies are not part of a
lineage that can wax or wane together
as a function of the postcedent. If the
postcedent has any effect at all on any
operant lineages of individual people,
that effect is independent of any effect
it may have on operant lineages of oth-
er people.
4Macrocontingencies as here defined can in- volve different topographies of different^ people,
That being said, the notion of some kind of relation that is bigger than op- erant contingencies seems useful. So I
will define a macrocontingency as the
relation between a cultural practice and
the aggregate sum of consequences of
the macrobehavior constituting the
practice. Figure 5 shows the relations
in a macrocontingency as here defined.
The recurring behavior of each person
has its own effects, and the relation be-
tween the behavior and that effect can
the aggregate results of which are a change in the environment of many people. Todorov, Mor- eira, and Moreira (2004) provide examples of such relations. The aggregate results of the dif- fering topographies in their examples, as in the air pollution example here, cannot have a selec- tive function on those topographies because of the poor correlation between the behavior of any individual and the aggregate result.
BEHAVIOR AND CULTURE 143
alter the probability of the recurrence
of that individual's behavior (as in Fig-
ure 1). For example, if the behavior is
driving to work, then each person's
driving-to-work operant is a function
of the contingency between driving to
work and the operant consequences of
that behavior. In addition to those in-
dividuated consequences, the com-
bined behavior of all the people (the
macrobehavior) has a cumulative ef-
fect. This effect cannot function as a
behavioral consequence because it is
not contingent on the behavior of any
individual driver. It is contingent on
the macrobehavior of the cultural prac-
tice.
An important feature of macrocon-
tingencies is that their cumulative ef-
fects are additive. The more wide-
spread a practice, the greater its cu-
mulative effects; the greater the cu-
mulative effects, the more important
they are to the well-being of large
numbers of people. Each person con-
tributing to the cumulative effect con-
tributes in direct proportion to the fre-
quency of his or her behavior. It is the
cumulative effect of the behavior in a
cultural practice that constitutes a
problem for^ the^ people of^ a^ culture. To
continue with the example, the driving
behavior of each individual is as it is
because of the relative effects of its
multiple behavioral^ consequences: ar-
riving at work in good time with min-
imum difficulty and the money spent
on gasoline. These consequences that
maintain the driving behavior contrib-
ute to the probability of driving, but
they are not^ the culturally relevant cu-
mulative effects: gasoline consumption
and associated environmental effects.
Further, the behavior is not a problem
for the individuals behaving-rather it
is a solution, albeit not an ideal solu-
tion, to^ the^ problem posed by their dis-
tance from work. As in the case of the
behavior of individuals, cultural prac-
tices also have multiple consequences.
For example, two effects of consumer
behavior are that it helps to create jobs
and it contributes to degradation of the
physical environment. Such incompat-
ible effects of cultural practices are
even more difficult to reconcile than
similar incompatible effects of individ-
ual behavior. That is because the mul-
tiple cumulative effects of any given
cultural practice are likely to be more
advantageous to some people and more
disadvantageous to others. In the case
of individual behavior, at least the costs
and benefits affect the same person.
Discussion of macrocontingencies
has centered on the cumulative effect
of many people "doing the same
thing" (allowing for a broad range of
topographies). The people could be
acting individually (e.g., smoking), or
their behavior could be interrelated
(e.g., carpooling). Either way, the sim-
ilarity in operant content of many peo-
ple is what warrants our calling it a
cultural practice. Each time the behav-
ior occurs, it adds to the cumulative ef-
fect. So the cumulative effect depends
on the number of times the act occurs,
and that number is a function of the
number of people who engage in the
act and the frequency of the behavior
of each person.
The relation between any particular
cultural practice and its cumulative ef-
fect may be^ critically important to the
welfare of the people of the culture,
and even to the survival of that culture.
But a cultural practice (as here defined
and as generally, albeit vaguely, un-
derstood) cannot^ participate in^ a^ selec-
tion process. That is so because a cul-
tural practice is a class of acts that are
functionally independent of one^ anoth-
er. In other words, recurrences of the
acts do not participate in^ a lineage.
They are classified as "the same" in
terms of their form and their effects,
but the members of the class are not
necessarily related by descent, which is
a defining feature of evolution by se-
lection (Hull, Langman, & Glenn,
2001). In^ short, a^ cultural practice does
not evolve as a result of cultural selec-
tion, but rather as a result of behavioral
contingencies of selection operating on
the behavior of many individuals; as a
result, a different cultural practice
comes to exist. For example, the cul-
BEHAVIOR AND CULTURE 145
Extended Time
Persons P1I^ and P2^ --------------------------^ I^ year---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Condition S ....... Environment Q (^) Occurrences IBCI IBC2 IBC3 IBC4 IBCI IBC5 IBC6 IB IBC7 IBC8 IBC1 IBC9 IBCI IBCI Recurrences
. u (^) Outcomes 0 01 01 01 01 Environment
Cultural Lineage X Figure 6. Recurrences of IBC 1 that occur with increasing frequency as a result of metacontingency.
mulative effect of the participants be- having individually, but rather the ef- fect of their interrelated behavior. For example, Marta and Todd regularly cook meals together. Marta prepares entrees, sauces,^ and^ vegetable dishes with Todd serving as helper, and Todd prepares appetizers and desserts^ with Marta serving as helper. The^ timing of each of their activities^ is^ based^ on^ what they observe the other one doing throughout meal^ preparation. The^ out- come of their interrelated^ behavior^ is^ a meal with^ perfectly timed^ courses^ of perfectly prepared dishes.^ The^ meal could not be produced by Todd and Marta working in separate kitchens and
combining the results of their individ-
ual behavior. Thus, it is not the cu- mulative effect of their individual be- haviors. It is the outcome of their in- terrelated behavior.
Metacontingencies, then, are the
contingencies of cultural selection.
They give rise to the organized collec-
tions of behavioral contingencies that
constitute increasingly complex cultur-
al-level entities. Let us continue with the example of the relation between Todd's and Marta's IBCs and the re- sulting meals. Variations in the features of the IBCs will result in variations in the outcome, and if the difference in outcomes perpetuates some patterns of the IBCs more than others, cultural- level selection has occurred. Note that
Todd's behavior is a function of behav-
ioral contingencies that might include
the taste of the meals cooked, and Mar-
ta's behavior is a function of other be-
havioral contingencies that might in- clude the taste of the meals cooked.
Those behavioral contingencies are necessary for the continuation and evo- lution of Todd's and Marta's operants, and thus of the IBCs; but they are not necessarily sufficient for the IBCs. The outcome of the IBCs must be more than or different than the meals that ei- ther Todd or Marta could produce by themselves to maintain the recurrences of the IBCs. It is this "more than" or "different than" that is the source of cultural evolution and what distin- guishes it from behavioral evolution.
CULTURAL COMPLEXITY
Cultural complexity is the outcome of cultural selection that results in nest- ed hierarchies of IBCs (Glenn & Mal- ott, in press). For example, Todd and Marta may open a restaurant where cooking meals is part of a larger pat-
tern of recurring IBCs. Figure 7 shows
a nesting of IBC relations in increas-
ingly complex cultural lineages.
Whether the larger pattern continues to
recur and evolve depends on the out-
comes of cooking but also on the out-
comes of other IBCs in the situation. The behavior of other people may be-
come part of the larger pattern and
contribute substantially to the outcome
that maintains the continuing recur-
rences of the IBC that constitute "the
business." Finally, although the IBCs
must continue to recur for the cultural
lineage to remain in existence, it is not
necessary that Todd's or Marta's be-
havior continues to participate. The be-
havior of other individuals^ can^ replace
one or both of theirs as long as that behavior fits well enough into the IBCs
146 SIGRID S. GLENN
IOrganisms Cultural^ Lineages Some Elements^ of Each^ Occurrence
(Recurring Interlocking
Behavioral Contingencies)
'Todd & Marta Cook meals Many behaviors of each person having
function with (^) respect to behaviors of other
Todd, Marta, Operate a^ restaurant^ Cook^ meals
(^2) waiters, Serve diners
Ilbookkeeper Manage cash^ flow
Todd, Marta, many Run^ a^ franchise chain^ Operate restaurants
waiters, bookkeepers,,
other personnel
Figure 7. The components of occurrences in^ earlier IBCs become^ integrated with^ the^ components of occurrences in later IBCs of more complex occurrences.
to produce the outcome. Perhaps it is
worth noting that such replacement of
one participant's behavior for another's
in a cultural lineage virtually always
causes some adjustments in the IBCs
and thus always presents both oppor-
tunity and threat to the continuing sur-
vival of the lineage. Like the responses in operant contin- gencies, the IBCs in metacontingencies
can result in both automatic outcomes
and socially mediated outcomes that
depend on the features of^ the^ automatic
outcome. For example, Todd's and
Marta's IBCs at first had automatic
outcomes-meals-that differentially
perpetuated some variations of the IBCs. Eventually, the IBCs constitut- ing their restaurant were maintained by
the ordering behavior of customers. As
in the case of social reinforcers for in-
dividual behavior, the socially mediat-
ed relation between the IBCs of the
restaurant and the sustaining income
generated from customer purchases
provides a foundation for more com- plex relations. The nested metacontingencies of
cultural selection are the basis for the evolution of cultural complexity as well as the maintenance (survival) of evolving organizational lineages. Just as components of one operant lineage
become embedded in operant lineages
of more complex components (as in Figure 2), components of one lineage of IBCs can become embedded in
IBCs of greater complexity (as in^ Fig-
ure 7). These more complex cultural
entities are the individually identifiable
evolving units we know as organiza-
tions: individual companies, their par- ent corporations, schools, school dis-
tricts, universities, university depart-
ments, government agencies, and so on. Each of these units exists as long as it consists of IBCs that produce an outcome that can increase the likeli- hood that the IBCs will recur. These are all entities that can change or
evolve over time or that can disappear
as a whole. They are not themselves
cultural practices, because each orga-
nization is an entity-an evolving lin- eage of IBCs. Before proceeding to the engineer-
148 SIGRID S. GLENN
attention is paid to the many operant
contingencies that may be maintaining
the operant behavior of individual par-
ticipants in the current practice. Be-
cause the macrobehavior of cultural practices is a function of operant con-
tingencies that operate independently,
but concurrently and similarly, on the
behavior of many people, behavior an-
alysts have rightly called for analysis
of the contingencies that maintain the
behavior that constitutes the practice. Mattaini (1995), in particular, has ar-
gued that behavior analysts should be
trained specifically to focus on behav-
ior with cumulative effects that affect the viability of the culture. When in-
terventions are designed to alter the cu-
mulative effect of a cultural practice,
they must necessarily identify the op-
erant contingencies that account for the
behavior of individuals who participate in the practice. The more individuals
whose behavior changes, the greater is
the impact on the cumulative effect.
This method of cultural intervention
entails modifying the operant contin-
gencies that are likely to maintain the
behavior of large numbers of people.
Biglan (1995) described many of the
behaviors of modern American cultural
practices that result in undesirable cu-
mulative effects, and he identified
many of the socially mediated behav-
ioral contingencies that support those
behaviors. Other authors^ (e.g., Gold-
stein & Pennypacker, 1998; R. W.^ Mal-
ott, 1998) have offered interpretations
of various specific macrobehaviors and
suggestions regarding intervention.
Under the editorial guidance of Rich-
ard Rakos, Janet Ellis, and Mark Mat-
taini, the journal Behavior and Social
Issues has devoted several issues to
analyses of macrobehaviors with^ high-
ly destructive cumulative effects.
Because much of the operant behav-
ior of modern humans is embedded in
organizations that have recurring IBCs,
survival of those organizations is, at
the very least, important to those hu-
mans. The fact that the organizations
exist at all, however, suggests that their
IBCs were selected by their external
environment and, therefore, are an im- portant part of the larger culture,
whether or not alternative organiza-
tional structures are considered more
desirable. Engineering, then, can also occur with respect to the IBCs in me-
tacontingencies.
IBCs can be changed in two ways
that are analogous to the two ways that
species characteristics can be altered.
The first is by altering the external se-
lecting environment and waiting for variations in the IBCs to produce out-
comes suitable to the new selection
contingencies. This amounts to altering
the contingencies of selection and let-
ting the chips fall where they may. The
second way is similar to ascertaining
and altering the genetic characteristics
that are endangering a species' exis-
tence given the current selecting envi-
ronment. This tactic entails altering the
components of the IBCs so that they
are better adapted to the current se-
lecting environment. Planned varia-
tions of the recurring IBCs can be de-
signed to produce outcomes more suit-
able to the demands of the external en-
vironment.
Engineering change to enhance the
survival of organizations (recurring ar-
rangements of IBCs) requires analyses
of current metacontingencies and also
analyses of the specific behavioral con-
tingencies that affect^ the^ outcome^ of
IBCs. It should be obvious that all of
the IBCs and the operant contingencies
in complex organizations cannot be an-
alyzed. There^ must^ be^ some^ way to
distinguish between those that^ can be
ignored and those that must^ be^ ad-
dressed. M. E. Malott (2003) described
an approach to organizational change
that combines a behavioral systems en-
gineering model^ with^ metacontingency
analysis. Her collaborations with the
personnel in^ business organizations as
well as in at least one institution of
higher education (M. E. Malott & Sa-
las-Martinez, 2004) demonstrate the
importance-indeed, the necessity-of
isolating the IBCs that fail to meet se-
lection contingencies and then identi-
fying the operant behavior that must be
BEHAVIOR AND CULTURE 149
altered to bring about the kind of changes in IBCs required by the exter- nal environment. In summary, to bring about changes in the organized IBCs that function as evolving cultural units, it is necessary to identify the IBCs that contribute to an outcome and to identify the function of the outcome in sustaining (or not) recurrences of the IBC. Variations can be made in the IBCs by systematically manipulating the behavioral contingen- cies within them, and the variations may increase or decrease the probabil- ity of producing an outcome with a
sustaining function.
RELATION OF
METACONTINGENCIES
TO OPERANT CONTINGENCIES
AND MACROCONTINGENCIES
Metacontingencies, like behavioral
contingencies, involve two kinds of
causality, as can be seen by comparing
Figures 1 and 3. First, the recurrences
of IBCs produce outcomes (analogous
to consequences produced by recur- rences of operant responses). Second,
the outcomes affect the future frequen-
cy and other measures of the future re- currences of those IBCs. The contin-
gencies of selection in metacontingen-
cies are between cultural-level units
(IBCs) and their selecting environ-
ments. Evolving cultural units are re-
curring cycles of IBCs. Like operants
in a repertoire, the recurring entities
may become part of increasingly com-
plex entities that form a lineage of their
own (see Figure 7). The outcomes pro-
duced by a cycle of IBCs can affect
future cycles of IBCs, just as the con-
sequences of a behavioral occurrence can affect future occurrences of that
behavior. If one is interested in altering
the recurrences of IBCs, one can do so
by altering the components of IBCs to
better meet current selection require-
ments or by altering the selecting en-
vironment. The former strategy would
be comparable to genetic alteration and
the latter to artificial selection. The IBCs in metacontingencies, like
the individual behavior in operant con- tingencies, recur in lineages that evolve and change as a function of their se- lecting environments. They are also alike in their relation to macrocontin- gencies. Just as the similar operant be- haviors of many people can contribute to a cumulative outcome, the IBCs of several different organizations may also contribute to a cumulative out- come, as shown in Figure 8. The be- havioral lineages of the different peo- ple who participate in a cultural prac-
tice evolve independently, as do the
IBC lineages of the different organi- zations. But both the behaviors and the IBCs may also contribute to a cumu- lative outcome that plays no direct role in selection but nevertheless may be important indicators of the viability of the culture. The organizations in Figure 8 could be programs comprising IBCs that (^) pro- duce graduates trained as behavior an- alysts. Each program produces gradu- ates (among other things) whose per-
formance contributes directly and in-
directly to the selection of the recurring
IBCs that produce cohort after cohort
of graduates. The IBCs that produce
behavior (^) analysis graduates constitute
a cultural practice and they have cu-
mulative effects, including the number
of (^) people prepared for academic (^) ap-
pointments, the number of^ individuals
who can be served by professional be-
havior analysts, the amount of federal
funding likely to^ go to^ behavior-ana-
lytic researchers, and^ so^ on. Although
individual behavior (^) analysts and the program faculty of^ individual programs
can be moved to action by data on the
cumulative effects of the summed be-
havior or summed IBCs, those effects
cannot select any of the individual op-
erant lineages or the individual line-
ages of^ IBCs, because^ there is^ no^ lin-
eage of^ recurring entities that produces
those effects. If^ one is^ interested in al-
tering the cumulative outcomes of a
cultural practice, one must find a way
to alter the behavioral contingencies of
macrobehaviors or the metacontingen-
cies supporting the IBCs of organized
BEHAVIOR AND CULTURE 151
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