Experimental Analysis in Culturo-Behavior Science: The Search for Basic Processes

Underlying Principles of a Covid-19 Behavioral Vaccine for a Sustainable Cultural Change

“…Selection occurs at the cultural level, which means that the recurrence of a network of contingencies is dependent on cultural consequences. This functional relationship has been demonstrated in basic research [105], and has been identified in laws, social policies, and cultural phenomena [95,106,107].…”

Research and Training in Culturo-Behavior Science

“…BSA and CBS support the development of behavioral solutions to socially significant problems within large social units like organizations, cultures, and communities (Cihon & Mattaini, 2020a ). Conceptual analyses, however, have advanced ahead of empirical work, and the field has many opportunities for research and development (Cihon, Borba, et al, 2020 ). The course in BSA and CBS may be organized around discussions that explore BSA models for stewardship in organizations and sustainability of cultural practices in organizations, communities, and cultures.…”

“…The second example illustrates the role of laboratory research conducted within metacontingency arrangements and its applicability to understanding and mitigating significant social issues. Several behavioral scientists have used social dilemma games like the iterated prisoner’s dilemma game (IPDG) along with principles from CBS in an attempt to understand the variables that influence cooperation and the conditions under which cooperation is most likely to occur (Morford & Cihon, 2013 ; Ortu et al, 2012 ; see also Cihon, Borba, et al, 2020 , for a review). However, research regarding how the metacontingency might affect cooperation in asymmetric IPDGs that construct conditions in an asymmetric or unequal way, perhaps more consistent with the world outside of the laboratory, has not been explored.…”

“…After completing the matrix analysis of the problem of interest, students complete a second matrix analysis that follows a similar set of steps; however, the focus of the second matrix analysis is on identifying alternative sets of behaviors/practices and the corresponding contingencies to support them, as well as on identifying pathways that interrupt the behaviors and practices sustaining the social issue. Often BSA is considered applicable only to those interested in the applications of behavior science to organizations and business (e.g., Ludwig & Houmanfar, 2010 ), and CBS is equated with laboratory experiments on the metacontingency (Cihon, Borba, et al, 2020 ) and interpretations of complex social issues (e.g., Lamal, 1991 , 1997 ) with few examples of application. However, tools like the matrix analysis (Mattaini & Luke, 2014 ) have been applied to mitigating significant health risks (e.g., smoking cessation; Biglan, 1995 ), understanding the conditions that increase the success of strategic nonviolent resistance (Mattaini, 2013 ), and increasing behavior scientists’ attention to significant social issues like sustainability (Seniuk et al, 2019 ).…”

“…In addition to reservations regarding the need for a new concept (beyond the operant) or third kind of selection (cultural selection) for a behavioral analysis of culture, points for expansion are drawn from assumptions and principles of systems science, like nonlinearity and holism (e.g., Mobus & Kalton, 2015 ). 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.…”