Fixed‐interval Work Habits of Congress

Abstract

The rate at which Congress passes bills during its legislative session exhibits a fixed‐interval pattern: the rate of passage is extremely low three to four months after commencement followed by a positively accelerated growth rate that continues until the time of adjournment. This scalloped configuration appears uniformly in each of the eight Congresses sampled, from 1947 to 1968, and in both sessions of each Congress.

Comportamento e cultura na perspectiva da análise do comportamento

“…Também, mais uma vez especialmente desde os anos 1960, publicaram-se inúmeros relatos de intervenção na perspectiva da análise do comportamento nos quais se destacam o esforço prá-tico de solução de problemas aplicados que envolvem questões sociais amplas e complexas (e.g., Agras, Jacob & Lebedeck, 1980;Burgess, Clark & Hendee, 1971;Chapman & Risley, 1974;Clark, Burgess & Hendee, 1972;Cohen & Filipczak, 1971;Everett, Hayward & Meyers, 1974;Geller, Farris & Post, 1973;Greene, Rouse, Green & Clay, 1984;Kohlenberg & Phillips, 1973;McSweeny, 1978;Powers, Osborne & Anderson, 1973;Schnelle & Lee, 1974;Schnelle, Kirchner, McNees & Lawler, 1975;Seekins et al, 1988;Weisberg & Waldrop, 1972). Todos esses trabalhos reflexivos, metodológicos e aplicados adiantaram interpretações e análises que contribuíram para a compreensão do comportamento social e verbal e, em certa medida, demonstraram o potencial explanatório e tecnoló-gico da análise do comportamento (Otero, 2002).…”

Historically Low Productivity by the United States Congress: Snapshot of a Reinforcement-Contingency System in Transition

“…In a 1958 speech to the National Press Club, Joseph V. Brady suggested that the reinforcement-contingency system under which Congress operates could be understood by reference to the research literature on schedules of reinforcement (Weisberg and Waldrop 1972). Members of Congress spend most of each year in Washington, DC, and are at greatest liberty to share their legislative accomplishments with potential supporters once the annual session of Congress ends.…”

“…Number of new laws represents bills that pass both the Senate and House of Representatives and are signed by the President. Although a bill occasionally is vetoed by the President, meaning that a bill passes Congress but fails to become law, vetoes are rare enough that they have little baring on the overall picture of Congressional productivity (Critchfield et al 2003) Weisberg and Waldrop 1972). Although any parallel that might exist between the Congressional work environment and interval-based reinforcement schedules is necessarily inexact, considerable research shows that contingency arrangements that share certain properties, predominantly the passage of a predictable time prior to the possibility of producing reinforcement, often generate a characteristic behavior pattern known as "scalloping," in which most behavior is concentrated near the end of the predictable interval (e.g., Ferster and Skinner 1957).…”

“…1 Specifically, Brady predicted that law production should be light early in an annual session and heavy near its end, and published analyses have shown this to be the case for every year from 1949, when suitable public records of law production first became available, through 2000. Typically, few laws were created during the first 3 months of a year, and the majority of the year's new laws were created during the final 3 months (Critchfield et al 2003;Weisberg and Waldrop 1972).…”

“…Previously, we indicated that bill-passing behavior is coming under increasing control of reinforcers that are not directly related to the wishes of individual voters. If scalloping is a side effect of contingencies involving voter approval (Critchfield et al 2003;Weisberg and Waldrop 1972), then as these contingencies are overwhelmed by others, scalloping would be expected to deteriorate.…”