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Selection by consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138
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Abstract

Human behavior is the joint product of (i) contingencies of survival responsible for natural selection, and (ii) contingencies of reinforcement responsible for the repertoires of individuals, including (iii) the special contingencies maintained by an evolved social environment. Selection by consequences is a causal mode found only in living things, or in machines made by living things. It was first recognized in natural selection: Reproduction, a first consequence, led to the evolution of cells, organs, and organisms reproducing themselves under increasingly diverse conditions. The behavior functioned well, however, only under conditions similar to those under which it was selected.

Reproduction under a wider range of consequences became possible with the evolution of processes through which organisms acquired behavior appropriate to novel environments. One of these, operant conditioning, is a second kind of selection by consequences: New responses could be strengthened by events which followed them. When the selecting consequences are the same, operant conditioning and natural selection work together redundantly. But because a species which quickly acquires behavior appropriate to an environment has less need for an innate repertoire, operant conditioning could replace as well as supplement the natural selection of behavior.

Social behavior is within easy range of natural selection, because other members are one of the most stable features of the environment of a species. The human species presumably became more social when its vocal musculature came under operant control. Verbal behavior greatly increased the importance of a third kind of selection by consequences, the evolution of social environments or cultures. The effect on the group, and not the reinforcing consequences for individual members, is responsible for the evolution of culture.

Keywords

behaviorismconsequentialismcultureevolutionlaw of effectlearningnatural selectionoperant conditioningreinforcement contingenciessocial environmentverbal behavior

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Target Article
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 477 - 481
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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