Cultural Reaction Systems: An Orientational Unit of Analysis for Cultural Relations

The purpose of this dissertation is to begin construction of an orientational approach to studying cultural relations. Orientationalism can be considered a molar extension of J. R. Kantor's interbehavioral psychology that considers the orientations of organisms - described in terms of reaction systems - to be the basic psychological unit of analysis instead of psychological events. The first part of this dissertation addresses the philosophy of orientationalism. The second part addresses how orientationalism orients towards experimentation on examining cultural reaction systems that is atypical in Skinnerian behavior analysis and culturo-behavior science but highly congruent with game theory. Five such experiments are described along with their implications for future research and behavior science. In doing so, it is the aim of this dissertation to demonstrate the compatibility of principles of contemporary multi-scale molar behavior analysis are with those of interbehaviorism when an integrated field logic is used to describe not discrete psychological events but interacting patterns of functional contacts composing orientations of one or more organisms.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctorate Degree

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Fleming, William Andrew

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Hayes, Linda J

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Locey, Matthew L
• Lewon, Matthew
• Demchak, MaryAnn
• Hunter, Kenneth

• conventionality
• interbehaviorism
• molar
• orientationalism

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11714/8567

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarwolf.unr.edu:11714/8567