Predictors of Flexibility and the Participation of Referential Instructions in a Turn-Based Matching-to-Sample Procedure

The contemporary culturo-behavioral enterprise concerned with studying cultural events is not compatible with a molar, interbehavioral orientation toward understanding cultural interbehavior, largely due to its behavior-analytic assumptions. Not only does the enterprise not have a definition of cultural behavior, but it directs attention away from factors that may participate in cultural change, such as individual proclivities to prefer immediate over delayed rewards and the referential properties of interactions. As turn-based matching-to-sample procedures (TBMTS) are capable of isolating cultural interbehavior and changes of such, the purpose of this thesis was to (1) determine if framing instructions referentially altered shared patterns of stimulus-response functions (SRFs) observed in TBMTS, (2) predict flexible and rigid patterns of SRFs occurring in TBMTS, and (3) address limitations from Fleming and colleagues' (2021) original TBMTS study. Results suggest that referentially framing of instructions for TBMTS is functionally related to the length of trials necessary for a shared pattern of SRFs to be established between dyad partners. While measures external to TBMTS were not predictive of flexible patterns of SRFs, delay discounting rates and typical numbers of hours allocated toward sleeping were found to be related to whether dyads established a shared pattern of SRFs, a requirement for establishing flexible patterns of SRFs in TBMTS. Major findings of Fleming and colleagues' (2021) study were replicated, but some limitations of their study were only marginally remediated.

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's Degree

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Fleming, William Andrew

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Hayes, Linda J.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Houmanfar, Ramona A.
• Hunter, Kenneth

• cultural interbehavior
• delay discounting
• interbehaviorism
• reference

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11714/8068

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarwolf.unr.edu:11714/8068