Couto and Sandaker (2016) proposed two complementary processes, selection of cultures and cultural-selection, as successors to the metacontingency in the process of cultural-level selection. They argued that the selective processes in the metacontingency were limited to within-groups selection, and might be included in the discussion pertaining to the selection of cultural practices. Further, they argued that the selection processes outlined in the metacontingency model failed to address the selection of cultural-social environments, which they suggested might result in the selection of between cultures, or between groups, features and would be more in line with the third level of selection processes which Skinner (1981; described as resulting in the evolution of cultures. This article incorporates an understanding of feedback from systems theory that is broader than the common application of the concept in the field of behavior analysis, and considers several examples that illustrate how positive-feedback loops between multiple metacontingencies may result in the between-groups, cultural-level selective processes described by Couto and Sandaker, and how such systems may emerge via processes of self-organization. KEYWORDS: cultural-level selection; cultural-selection; emergence; metacontingency; selection of cultures; self-organization Since the time of Darwin (1859), processes of selection have been integrated into a number of theories addressing processes of change in the world around us. Skinner (1981) suggested that there were three fundamental levels of selection by consequences. These levels were natural selection, which operates at the biological level; operant selection, which operates at the behavioral level; and cultural selection, which Skinner asserted operates at the anthropological level. Skinner (1953;1981;1989) believed that a "third kind" of selection by consequences (1953, p. 430; 1981, p. 502) resulted in the evolution of social environments or cultures.Even though the first two levels are relatively well-understood at this point, the processes operating at the third, cultural level remain somewhat elusive to attempts at definition. Dawkins (1984), in seeking to understand the parallels between the various levels of selection by consequences, pointed out that natural selection clearly defines both the replicator involved, and the consequences that are produced by the replicator. The replicators in the process are the genes; they are both the entity that is capable of forming a lineage across multiple generations of a species and the entity that is selected in natural selection. The consequences produced by the genes are the phenotypes that result in the various traits exhibited by the organism and by which the replicator is selected. He argued that, at the level of the evolution of cultures, Skinner (1981) was not clear 1 The author may be reached at jvkrispin@valdosta.edu.
Skinner (1981) proposed that selection by consequences, such as is represented by natural selection on a biological level and operant selection on the level of individual behaviors, plays a significant role in the change dynamics and adaptation of systems in the physical world. He suggested that there might be a third level of selection by consequences-cultural-level selection-that might complement the other two selection processes he explicated. The metacontingency was proposed as a process that might describe such a cultural-level of selection. In the present article, two competing definitions (a three-term definition and a five-term definition) of the metacontingency are compared and contrasted, and several criticisms of the metacontingency are considered. Proponents of the metacontingency have argued that it is an emergent process, possessing characteristics that differ substantively from phenomena at lower-levels of analysis, while critics of the metacontingency have argued that there are more parsimonious theories that account for everything that the metacontingency is intended to address. Theorists have claimed four particular areas of emergence for the metacontingency, each of which is examined through comparison of metacontingent selection with a similar, albeit behavioral-level phenomenon-the production of a complex product via a chain of behaviors performed by a single individual-concluding that the claims of emergence do not appear to be substantiated.
Selection by consequences is a causal mode that operates across multiple levels of analysis including in biological organisms via natural selection, and at the levels of individual (via operant contingencies) and cultural behaviors (
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