Abstract

ARISMENDI, Mariana; FIORENTINI, Leticia  and  YORIO, Alberto. Prevalence of instructional control over differencial consequences in the emergence of derived behavior. Anu. investig. [online]. 2014, vol.21, n.2, pp.287-294. ISSN 1851-1686.

Several studies have assessed how instructions compete with contingencies of reinforcement to control complex behavior, but there are not suficient studies that evaluate how instructional control affects derived, non-explicitly trained behavior. This study focused on determining if instructions exert a prominent control over derived behavior, in tune with the literature on "insensibility to contingencies". Forty-six participants completed a matching to sample task, evaluating their preference to derive equivalence relations between stimuli previously related in contradictory ways, one by means of instructions and another by means of reinforcement. Training by means of instructions was more eficient to learn conditional relations between stimuli. On the other side, a significant prevalence to form equivalence relations according with the instructed conditional relations was observed, but this aspect could be linked to the greater eficiency of this method to learn the required content.

Keywords : Instructions; Contingencies; Derived behavior; Equivalence relations.

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