Behavior of Programa Bolsa FamÍLia Beneficiaries: A Behavior Analytic Perspective on Fulfillment of Education and Health Conditionalities

Abstract

From a behavior analysis perspective, this paper identifies the metacontingencies established by the Programa Bolsa Família legislation that focus on the fulfillment of education and health requirements by its beneficiaries, called conditionalities. The Programa Bolsa Familia is a conditional cash transfer program, analyzed here as an intervention for an inefficient cultural practice. This cultural practice constitutes interlocked contingencies that hinder school attendance and nutrition of poor and extremely poor children, who turn into adults unprepared for the labor market, perpetuating a cycle of poverty throughout generations. Analysis of the Programa Bolsa Família legislation enabled us to find two main types of metacontingencies: 1) one for behavioral change of members of the beneficiary families; and 2) another for managing the education and health conditionalities, from a chain of behaviors emitted by public servants of three government levels–municipal, state, and federal. This analysis described the variables that may have been maintaining the interlocking behavioral contingencies involving the beneficiaries and their behaviors of accessing health and education services, and the interlocking behavioral contingencies involving the public agents that manage the conditionalities. The study concludes that it’s important to consider the influence of other variables, regarding health and education services and labor market, to guarantee selection of a new and more efficient cultural practice and to verify if the theoretical model presented in this study is consistent with reality, by conducting field research or studies with secondary data.