Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior · 1979 · 352 citations · 20 references
Behavioral Decision MakingRule‐governed BehaviorCognitionBehavior AnalysisSocial SciencesPsychologyBehavior ManagementBehavioral PrinciplePublic HealthConditioningAdaptive BehaviorBehavioral SciencesCognitive ScienceProgrammed SchedulesOperant BehaviorExperimental PsychologyExperimental Analysis Of BehaviorReinforcement Schedule ControlSchedule Control
Instructions can override programmed reinforcement schedules, indicating that instructional control is itself shaped by reinforcement history rather than merely limiting schedule influence, a view consistent with Skinner’s rule‑governed behavior theory. The authors examined instructional and schedule control across experiments where instructions either matched or conflicted with reinforcement schedules. Accurate instructions governed discriminative avoidance performance across multiple schedules and persisted in new discriminations, while inaccurate instructions led to loss‑contingent contact and eventual elimination of instruction following; moreover, accurate instructions were found to be reinforcing.
Instructions can override the influence of programmed schedules of reinforcement. Although this finding has been interpreted as a limitation of reinforcement schedule control in humans, an alternative approach considers instructional control, itself, as a phenomenon determined by subjects' reinforcement histories. This approach was supported in a series of experiments that studied instructional and schedule control when instructions either did or did not accord with the schedule of reinforcement. Experiment I demonstrated that accurate instructions control discriminative performances on multiple avoidance schedules, and that such control persists in a novel discrimination. Experiments II and III showed that elimination of instruction-following occurs when inaccurate instructions cause subjects to contact a monetary loss contingency. Experiment IV demonstrated the reinforcing properties of accurate instructions. Skinner's view of rule-governed behavior is consistent with these findings, and can be extended to account for many aspects of instructional control of human operant behavior.
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