Abstract

ALBUQUERQUE, Luiz Carlos de; REIS, Adriana Alcântara dos  and  PARACAMPO, Carla Cristina Paiva. The effects of continuous reinforcement history on rule-following behavior. Acta comport. [online]. 2006, vol.14, n.1, pp. 47-75. ISSN 0188-8145.

The aim of this study, carried out with 16 unrversity students, was to investigate the effects of continuous reinforcement history on rule-following behavior. Under a matching-to-sample procedure, with three compartson stimuli, the participatits were asked to point the three comparisons in a sequence, according to its dimension common to the sample. Each rule specified the response sequence. Contingency-discrepant rule following was not reinforced, whereas correspondem rule followmg was reinforced on a CRF schedule. Two experiments were conducted in which the rules were presented in one of two sequences: correspondent-discrepant or discrepant-correspondent-discrepant. In contrast to Experiment 1, the participants in Experiment 2 were exposed to a continuous reinforcement history before the rules were presented. AU eight participants in Experiment 1 followed the rules while seven out of eight students in Experiment 2 abandoned discrepant rule following and responded in accordance with their prior reinforcement history. These findings have implications for the identification of the variables involved in rule-following behavior.

Keywords : Rules; Contingencies; Continuous reinforcement history; Matching-to-sample; University students.

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