Culturo-behavioral Hypercycles and the Metacontingency: Incorporating Self-Organizing Dynamics into an Expanded Model of Cultural Change

Abstract

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 (

Análisis contingencial de la formación ética en programas de psicología en Colombia

“…El análisis metacontingencial sirve, entonces, para estudiar sistemas conductuales, como el gobierno, la economía, la salud y la educación; también sirve para comprender sistemas organizacionales complejos, entender la selección de ciertas conductas colectivas y modificar el contexto según un fin social particular (28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33). A propósito, Krispin (34,35) afirma que la teoría de sistemas auto organizados ayuda a entender mejor el papel de la metacontingencia en el análisis cultural, aunque reconoce que todavía falta identificar procesos del cambio cultural. El autor subraya que esto debe hacerse con un trabajo interdisciplinario, a partir de principios y conceptos de la teoría de la conducta y de la teoría de sistemas, que explica las dinámicas de autoorganización que pueden emerger vía metacontingencias.…”

Research and Training in Culturo-Behavior Science

“…Khasnabis et al, 2010 ), the formation of community coalitions (Community Toolbox, 2021 ), and more, underscores the importance of furthering our understanding of the basic mechanisms critical to cooperative and coordinated efforts. The work often consists of efforts to identify the contingencies supporting social behavior and how one person’s behavior may serve as the antecedents or consequences for another’s behavior (e.g., Glenn et al, 2016 ; Skinner, 1953 ), to identify the contingencies selecting these responses as units of analysis in and of themselves (i.e., culturants; Hunter, 2012 ), and to identify the dynamics that facilitate systems’ interdependencies and interactions (e.g., culturo-behavioral hypercycles; Krispin, 2017 , 2019 ; and systems interdependencies; Mattaini, 2013 ).…”

“…Many have argued, for example, that the metacontingency simplifies the behavior and environmental controlling variables in a way that “something is lost when extrapolating the results produced with very simple behaviors to complex phenomena” (Cihon, Borba, et al, 2020 , p. 120). More recent works have extrapolated the possible intersection of systems and selection principles (e.g., Bento et al, 2020 ; Krispin, 2017 , 2019 ; Mattaini, 2019 , 2020 ), and discourse often revolves around the extent to which a systems-analytic framework should be adopted in CBS. Others have defined additional concepts to further explain certain phenomena (e.g., selection of cultures and cultural selection; Couto & Sandaker, 2016 ; cultural milieu and group rule generation; Houmanfar et al, 2010 ; culturo-behavioral hypercycles; Krispin, 2019 ; cultural cusp; Malott, 2016 ), suggesting that there is still much to discover about how behavior science can contribute to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.…”

Think Tanks on Cultural Studies: Tribute to João Claudio Todorov

“…In addition to the approach of behavioral systems with a 40-year history in Behavior Analysis it also allows the analysis of complex cultural systems by using a selectionist perspective of Behavior Analysis (cf. Baia & Sampaio, 2019;Bento, Tagliabue, & Sandaker, 2020;Brethower, 2000;Glenn et al 2016;Krapfl & Gasparotto, 1982;Krispin, 2019;Malott, 2022Malott, , 2003Mattaini, 2020;McGee & Crowley-Koch, 2022). A wide range of single subject-based research designs have contributed to key parameters and relationships to explain macrobehaviors and culturo-behavioral lineages.…”