Abstracts

September 8th 2023, 4 pm - Andy Lattal (West Virginia University, USA) 

Social Operants

The operant, a class of responses all of which potentially have a common environmental effect, has been investigated largely in the context of individual organisms. Nothing in its definition, however, precludes expansion of the operant to include in the class responses from multiple organisms, so long as those responses have common environmental effects. 

Social operants include topographically similar responses of two organisms that are required simultaneously to initiate the delivery of food to each dyad member. Relatedly, a discriminated social operant can be established when such simultaneous responding is required in the presence of one stimulus but not in the presence of another. Such social operants require neither that the response topographies of class members be the same nor even that the defining responses are from members of the same species. Social operants also can be formed based on reciprocal reinforcement in which reinforcers for a given co-actor are produced by its partner. 

Using several classic analyses of animal social behavior as a guide, the research program described in this review examined experimentally each of the previously mentioned characteristics of social operants. In addition to providing empirical support for social operants,  the experiments invite questions about the definition and analysis of social behavior and its relation to the conditions necessary for the maintenance of individual behavior.