Abstract

LIMA, Fernanda Monteiro; ALBUQUERQUE, Luiz Carlos de  and  PARACAMPO, Carla Cristina Paiva. Effects of listener's histories on following rules that are discrepant to contingencies. Temas psicol. [online]. 2017, vol.25, n.4, pp. 1941-1958. ISSN 1413-389X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.9788/TP2017.4-21Pt.

Testing proposition by aiming on the listener's history critical characteristics that may meddle on the discrepant-rule following, eight college students were exposed to a matching to sample procedure. The task was to point to the three comparison stimuli in a sequence. In Phase 1 no sequence was instructed or reinforced. Phase 2 begun with the rule corresponding to the contingencies. Contingencies effective in Phase 2 were shifted without warning in Phase 3. Contingencies in Phase 3 were kept unchanged in Phase 4, which started with the presentation of a discrepant rule. Six out of eight participants showed an independent behavior and two out of eight showed a dependent behavior from its immediate consequences in Phase 3. From those six out of eight participants showing an independent behavior, four managed to follow the discrepant-rule in Phase 4. And from the latter two out of eight showing a dependent behavior, all of them abandoned the discrepant-rule following in Phase 4. It is suggested that the behavior's dependence and independence to its immediate consequences, before the discrepant-rule presentation, are critical variables of the listener's history that may be used to foresee maintenance, or not, from the subsequent discrepant-rule following.

Keywords : Rule-governed behavior; contingency shaped behavior; justifications; immediate consequences; insensitivity to contingencies.

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