Behavior Analysis has advanced in the study of metacontingency relations to
explain cultural phenomena. Despite the frequent use of aversive control in everyday
cultural practices, data from the few analytic-behavioral studies that address the
cultural phenomena in the laboratory and their relationship to aversive stimulation
are still preliminary and inconsistent. Studies that seek to verify relations between
cultural phenomena and aversive control, using experimental metacontingency
analogues, can be valuable for the consolidation of this field of research and for the
understanding of important portions of real social relations. In this sense, the present
study had as objective to verify the effects of the application of negative
reinforcement on the recurrence of culturantes in microcultures of laboratory. Two
laboratory microcultures of 3 participants were exposed to an ABAB and BABA
design, respectively. The task consisted of line choices in a 10x10 matrix, with
colored lines numbered from 1 to 10. The choice of odd rows throughout the
procedure produced an individual token (individual consequence) exchangeable for
money, and the target culturant was the choice of different colored lines, which
avoided the loss of tokens equivalent to school items to be donated to a public school
(cultural consequence). The data suggest the selection of a culturante as a result of a
negative reinforcement procedure. In addition, the two microcultures were affected
in different ways by contacting the metacontingency. One had the production of
individual consequences reduced after contacting the metacontingency, and the other
maintained the production of individual consequences throughout the experimental
session. This variation may indicate the possibility of elaborating a procedure in
which to measure independent individual responses in a study of cultural phenomena
becomes unnecessary. Although the literature points to a possible difference in the
effect of positive and negative reinforcement on culturist selection, no evidence was
found in the present study. However, since the present study dealt only with culturant
selection, it is suggested to use the current procedure as the initial stage of studies
that seek to explore culturant transmission using a cultural negative reinforcement
analogue.
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