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Operant Contingencies and the Origin of Cultures

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Behavior Theory and Philosophy

Abstract

Writers from a variety of disciplines recognize that culture is composed of or depends on behavior, but is also somehow more than an unorganized collection of behavioral events. Biologist Bonner (1980) defined culture as “behavior transmitted from one individual to another by teaching and learning” (p. 17). Cultural anthropologist Harris (1964) stated, “human behavior constitutes the cultural field of inquiry” (p. 20). However, human responses “are definitely not cultural things,” (Harris, p. 22) but rather are the empirical events to which scientific operations must be applied to arrive at cultural classifications. Behavior analyst Baum (2000) stated, “culture consists of behavior andchrw(133) cultural change constitutes an evolutionary process” (p. 182).

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Glenn, S.S. (2003). Operant Contingencies and the Origin of Cultures. In: Lattal, K.A., Chase, P.N. (eds) Behavior Theory and Philosophy. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4590-0_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4590-0_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-3405-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-4590-0

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