Reactions of a Laboratory Behavioral Scientist to a “Think Tank” on Metacontingencies and Cultural Analysis

Abstract

For a scientist who spends most of his time in a research laboratory studying behavior of non-human animals, participating in a "think tank" about issues such as cultural evolution and cultural change was challenging, interesting, and educational. My main focus at the "tank" was in attempting to determine what sorts of experiments are needed and are possible in attempts to understand how behavior of aggregates of individuals is established, modified, and maintained. Several participants presented excellent examples of programs that have produced impressive and societally useful changes in aggregate behavior of substantial numbers of individuals. The think tank group generally found it useful to organize what is going on in those kinds of interventions in terms of two major concepts, macrocontingencies and metacontingencies. Macrocontingencies are individual contingencies applied directly to a large number of people. Ordinary laws and religious proscriptions are examples. Thus, the concept of macrocontingency requires conventional analyses to understand how it works. Macrocontingency simply refers to situations in which the same contingency is applied to many people. Macrocontingencies, therefore, can influence the behavior a large numbers of individuals, depending on how many of them can be subjected to the contingency. In contrast, the concept of metacontingency contains many more subtleties. A metacontingency (See Glenn, 1988) refers to what are called an "interlocking" set of contingencies for a group of individuals, such that particular individuals are not exposed to the same contingencies, but to different ones. The behavior established and maintained by contingencies for one person dictate contingencies for other persons. The result of the interdependent contingencies that participate in a metacontingency is a particular outcome that serves to keep the interlocking contingencies interconnected. A small-scale example of a metacontingency can be found in a corporation in which people play different interdependent roles, the common outcome of which is the product the company produces.