Abstract

ANDERY, Maria Amalia Pie Abib. Behavior and culture: The behavior analytic perspective. Perspectivas [online]. 2011, vol.2, n.2, pp. 203-217. ISSN 2177-3548.

This article discusses culture as a subject matter in behavior analysis. A historical overview of behavior analytic studies of human behavior in social contexts is presented. These studies were of foremost importance in the fields of social and verbal behavior and showed the explanatory and technological powers of behavior analysis. Nevertheless, these initial research efforts on social behavior and social environment (or culture) emphasized culture as the mere context in which individual behavior occurred: Culture was viewed as an independent variable acting upon individual operant behavior in a somewhat vague controlling manner. Only later in the behavior analysis field culture was taken as a subject matter that should be treated as a legitimate subject matter. A new perspective in the study of behavior was thus presented: Culture was defined as a third level in the determination of human behavior and was taken as a "dependent variable". Some of the research and theoretical possibilities that emerged form such new perspective of the relationships between human behavior and culture are presented and culture is presented as a legitimate subject matter in behavior analysis.

Keywords : Cultural Selection; Culture; Behavior Analysis.

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