Efeitos de atraso e magnitude de consequências culturais sobre a seleção de culturantes autocontrolados em microculturas de laboratório

Abstract

Metacontingencies describe functional relationships between culturants (interlocked behavioral contingencies and their aggregated products) and cultural consequences that select it. Cultural self-control describes competing relationships whereby a (selfcontrolled) culturant with delayed cultural consequences of greater magnitude competes with another (impulsive) culturant with immediate cultural consequences of smaller magnitude, both in a metacontingency. Aim of the present study was to assess the effects of varying the delay and magnitude of cultural consequences on the selection of self-controlled and impulsive culturants in 14 laboratory microcultures 14 composed of 3 participants each, with a total of 42 participants. Data collections from microcultures 1 to 6 were done in the face-to-face mode, while those from 7 to 14 were done online. The task consisted of choosing colored and numbered rows in a 10 lines matrix. The matrix was composed of numbers from 1 to 10 and five colors: green, yellow, blue, red and purple, each color repeated once in an odd number and once in an even number. Odd and even line choices produced tokens used as individual reinforcing consequences. Colors combination formed the culturants who produced school items as cultural consequences. The experiments were performed through FreeMatrix software, with each participant using an individual computer. Two groups of culturants were programmed: Cult-1, composed by combination of green, yellow and another color, and Cult-2, composed by combination of blue, red and another color. Cult-1 and 2 were the same in all conditions, but with different roles and therefore different classifications in each condition. Under A/A' conditions, there was competition between consequences of different magnitudes (quantities), Cult-1 (“less” culturants) produced consequences of smaller magnitude (1 item) and Cult-2 (“more” culturants) produced consequences of greater magnitude (10/30 items). Under B/B' conditions, there was competition between consequences of different delays (days after the experiment), Cult-1 (“immediate” culturants) produced immediate cultural consequences (1 day) and Cult-2 (“delayed” culturants) produced delayed consequences (10/30 days). Under C/C' conditions, conditions of cultural self-control, there was competition between small sooner consequences versus large later consequences, Cult-1 ("impulsive" culturants) produced immediate cultural consequences of lesser magnitude (1 item in 1 day) and Cult-2 (“self-controlled” culturants) produced delayed consequences of greater magnitude (30/10 items in 10/30 days). All microcultures went through conditions A/A’, B/B’ and C/C’ in different orders. There was a higher recurrence of “self-controlled” culturants in 12 out of 14 microcultures under C/C’ conditions, as well as greater recurrence of “more” culturants under conditions A/A’ and “immediate” culturants under conditions B/B’. The role of verbal interaction and social control on the cultural selection process and the implications of software research and online research was also discussed.