PRODUCING A CHANGE FROM COMPETITION TO SHARING: EFFECTS OF LARGE AND ADJUSTING RESPONSE REQUIREMENTS¹

Abstract

Pairs of high-school students matched-to-sample for money. On each trial, the first pair member to complete a fixed ratio of knob-pulling responses could work the matching problem on that trial. Competition occurred when both pair members responded for the problem. Sharing occurred when only one pair member responded on each trial, and the subjects alternated trials. Hence, sharing requires less responding and still allows a moderate number of reinforcers for each subject. Recent research has shown that increasing the response requirement to the point that it may have aversive properties will produce a change from competition to sharing. A related variable is an adjusting schedule that adjusts the subjects' response requirements so that their abilities to take reinforcers are equal. In this way, subjects might learn that competition requires more responding but produces no more reinforcers. However, recent research also suggests that competition decreases over sessions without experimental manipulations. Because of this possibility of a time-related variable, ratio size and an adjusting schedule were studied in a group design. Competition did decrease for all groups over sessions, but the large-ratio groups switched from competition to sharing sooner than the low-ratio groups. The adjusting schedule had a similar but smaller effect.

Acquisition and Maintenance of Trusting Behavior

“…In this experiment and others (Hake et al, 1975a(Hake et al, , 1975bOlvera & Hake, 1976) response patterns changed from competition to either sharing or cooperation when no external contingency to do so had been arranged. Several of the natural contingencies that might produce equity were mentioned earlier: the potential aversiveness of inequity, the possibility of emotional or aggressive behavior, the threat of one person quitting, and the fact that competition naturally requires more work than sharing or cooperation.…”

“…In the FR30 group, trust did not consistently expand beyond 1.5 (Olvera & Hake, 1976) had produced a switch from competition to sharing (also less work) in only two of three subjects after 11 to 12 sessions. The contingency was not strong enough to be "obviously correct."…”

“…For example, we have observed both cooperation and sharing to develop without an external contingency (Hake et al, 1975a;Hake, Olvera, & Bell, 1975b;Olvera & Hake, 1976). In experiments that involved sizeable but equal response requirements for competition, sharing, and cooperation, one natural contingency that accounted for the transition from competition to sharing or cooperation was the fact that competition requires more work, because individuals try to take each reinforcer as opposed to alternating or dividing the response requirement as in sharing and cooperation.…”

“…In experiments that involved sizeable but equal response requirements for competition, sharing, and cooperation, one natural contingency that accounted for the transition from competition to sharing or cooperation was the fact that competition requires more work, because individuals try to take each reinforcer as opposed to alternating or dividing the response requirement as in sharing and cooperation. (Hake et al, 1975b;Olvera & Hake, 1976). Other natural contingencies which might lead to a change from competition to either sharing or cooperation include the aversiveness of inequity (Marwell & Schmitt, 1975;Shimoff & Matthews, 1975) and the aversiveness of the emotional side effects such as aggression that can occur during competition.…”

Análise do comportamento e a construção social do conhecimento

“…Analistas do comportamento têm feito análises experimentais e conceituais de muitos fenômenos tradicionalmente estudados pela psicologia social, incluindo processos como cooperação, competição, comparação social, comportamento de ajuda, crenças e processos de interdependência (Azrin & Lindsley, 1956;Emurian, Emurian, & Brady, 1985;Fraley, 1984;Hake, Vukelich, & Olvera, 1975;Olvera & Hake, 1976;Schmitt, 1987;Skinner, 1953;Spradlin, 1985;Vukelich & Hake, 1980). No entanto, esses trabalhos não têm tido muito impacto na psicologia social, apesar dos avanços que originalmente alcançaram.…”