Culturo-behavioral Hypercycles and the Metacontingency: Incorporating Self-Organizing Dynamics into an Expanded Model of Cultural Change.

Abstract

Selection by consequences is a causal mode that operates across multiple levels of analysis including in biological organisms via natural selection, and at the levels of individual (via operant contingencies) and cultural behaviors (Skinner, 1953, Science, 213, 501-504, 1981, 1988, 1989; Glenn in The Behavior Analyst, 11(2), 161-179, 1988, The Behavior Analyst, 27(2), 133-151, 2004). The common dynamics of systems within which selection by consequences operates has led to attempts to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of adaptation. The metacontingency (Glenn in The Behavior Analyst, 11(2), 161-179, 1988, The Behavior Analyst, 27(2), 133-151, 2004) has been proposed as a process of cultural-level selection, but this proposal has been challenged in several critiques. First, several theorists have suggested that the metacontingency addresses within-groups processes of selection that have already been addressed by more parsimonious theories. Second, principles of self-organizing systems, should they apply within cultural settings, may significantly limit the efficacy of the metacontingency as a construct of cultural analysis. More recently, additional processes of selection, the selection of cultures and cultural selection (Couto & Sandaker in Behavior & Social Issues, 25, 54-60, 2016) have been suggested as between-groups processes of selection, operating at a level higher than operant selection, and fulfilling the role of cultural-level selection as proposed by Skinner. In the present article, these new processes will be considered in light of principles of self-organization and the conditions within which self-organization may occur. The culturant hypercycle, the operant hypercycle, and interactions between the two (culturo-behavioral hypercycles) are defined as self-organizing processes that help to explain how the selection of cultures and cultural selection may occur. Further, the theory of self-organizing systems is used to explain how self-organizing dynamics may emerge via metacontingencies, reintegrating the culturant and metacontingent selection into an expanded model explaining processes of cultural evolution.