The Impact of Coherence on Persistent Rule-Following in the Face of Reversed Reinforcement Contingencies
Abstract
Rule-governed behavior has long been associated with generating
insensitivity to direct contingencies of reinforcement. This insensitivity to
environmental changes has also been implicated in human psychological suffering.
From a behavior analytic perspective, rule-following is a verbal behavior, and thus
has been suggested to be potentially affected by the level of coherence within the
verbal stimuli involved. In this explorative study, 216 participants received a rule
that differed in terms of its coherence based on experimental training. The active
conditions did not differ significantly in rule persistency, but differed from the
control condition that was less rule-persistent. Rule-persistence was found to be
significantly correlated with stress and anxiety in the control condition. A post-hoc
interpretation of the findings is provided.
Degree
Student essay
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Date
2018-05-23Author
Bern, Ragnar
Persdotter, Tone
Keywords
persistent rule-following
coherence
contingency insensitivity
Language
eng