This article represents an attempt to reach consensus on terms frequently used by its authors, who share an interest in extending a behaviorist worldview to cultural phenomena. Definitions of metacontingency, macrobehavior, macrocontingency, culturo-behavioral lineage, and cultural cusp were 1 A meeting ultimately resulting in this paper was held as part of a regional conference of the Brazilian Society of Psychology, partially supported by FAPESP (grant# 2015/00662-9) and CAPES (grant# 23038
The present study investigated the effects of fixed-ratio (FR) and variable-ratio (VR) reinforcement schedules on patterns of cooperative responding in pairs of rats. Experiment 1 arranged FR 1, FR 10, and VR 10 schedules to establish cooperative responding (water delivery depended on the joint responding of two rats). Cooperative response rates and proportions were higher under intermittent schedules than under continuous reinforcement. The FR 10 schedule generated a break-and-run pattern, whereas the VR 10 schedule generated a relatively high and constant rate pattern. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of parametric manipulations of FR and VR schedules on cooperative responding. Rates and proportions of cooperative responding generally increased between ratio sizes of 1 and 5 but showed no consistent trend as the ratio increased from 5 to 10. Experiment 3 contrasted cooperative responding between an FR6 schedule and a yoked control schedule. Coordinated behavior occurred at a higher rate under the former schedule. The present study showed that external consequences and the schedules under which the delivery of these consequences are based, select patterns of coordinated behavior.
Performance feedback is a managerial practice whose effects widely impact job satisfaction and commitment. Job satisfaction and commitment represent antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), denoting a willingness to cooperate. However, there has been little research on the direct relationship between performance feedback and OCB. Previous works addressed their mediating role, such as organization-based self-esteem, job satisfaction or other measures of discretionary effort. Our search of peer-reviewed studies containing measures of feedback and OCB found 15 studies, containing 21 critically appraised correlation measures. While descriptive findings of the systematic review showed a small correlation, studies that contained measures of feedback frequency were more likely to include higher reports of OCB than studies containing measures of feedback properties. After computing correlation scores to effect sizes, findings from the meta-analysis indicated a small average effect size of performance feedback on OCB (r adj =.27, 95% CI =.21-.33). The discussion addresses the differential effects of positive and negative feedback, frequency, and properties of feedback on reports of OCB levels (by employees and supervisors), as well as further applications for line management.
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