Selectionism: Gradual Change Over Time

The gradual change over time of organisms occurs due to constant interaction between that organism and the environment. Selectionism is the term for the perpetuation of traits that are helpful to the organism in some fashion with the removal of traits that are unhelpful. Selectionism is classically understood in the frame of gene expression, but also occurs with behavior.

Selectionism of behavior occurs at three levels:

• Phylogeny - biology of the organism
• Ontogeny - the learning history of the organism
• Cultural - meta-contingencies produced by groups of socially interacting organisms

In Skinner's 1968 work, Selection by Consequences, the parallels between natural selection and operant selection by consequences were illuminated. The process by which behavior is selected and maintained is very similar to the process by which genetic code mutates and is then naturally selected by the environment. From the abstract of Skinner's article:

Selection by consequences is a causal mode found only in living things, or in machines made by living things. It was first recognized in natural selection, but it also accounts for the shaping and maintenance of the behavior of the individual and the evolution of cultures. In al three of these fields, it replaces explanations based on the causal modes of classical mechanics. The replacement is strongly resisted. Natural selection has now made its case, but similar delays in recognizing the role of selection in the other fields could deprive us of valuable help in solving the problems which confront us.

Selection by Consequences - B.F. Skinner, 1968

A Warning:

In each of the sections below, I will identify and describe the three levels of selection as reported by Skinner. Nature abhors a vacuum (horror vacui), so much so that it should be easy for us to remember that nothing ever happens in one.

The sexual behavior of humans, for example, is sometimes hotly debated. How much is nature, and how much is nurture, and can an understanding be predictive of the overt sexual behavior? Some claim that gender is purely a social construct, while others claim that your behavior is the product of cultural norms that are shared by members of groups and subgroups. Both camps will often indicate that your genes are involved to some degree. This is, essentially, an argument of "nature vs. nurture," with refinements on nurture to include societies, cities, and families.

The behavior analyst knows better. We know that sexual behavior involves synaptic activation, hormone release, reflexes, and other processes. These processes interact with other variables: the individual organism has a genetic endowment that predisposes certain stimuli to have an antecedent evocative effect, and predisposes other stimuli to function as reinforcers and punishers. The organism' behavior will, of course, be shaped (learned) in the environment it lives in, producing change, however malleable. The culture will also exert change on the organism to a degree as well, resulting in contingencies on the individual as well as meta-contingencies as products of the group's behavior.

In short, all levels of selectionism occur continuously. One level of selection is insufficient to explain the organism - the phylogenic, ontogenic, and cultural levels of selection will exhibit selection pressure constantly, and result in change in behavioral repertoires.

Phylogeny

The phylogeny of an organism refers to "the evolutionary development and diversification of a species or group of organisms, or of a particular feature of an organism." In behavior analysis, the focus is on overt behavior - therefore, we will limit ourselves to biological change (i.e., mutations) that result in changes in dimensions of reflex behavior or the function of antecedent stimuli in the environment (or internal stimuli, such as private events, states of deprivation, or gestation of offspring). Do not discount that, simultaneously, mutations may result in physiological difference (e.g., new fur colors, suppression of gene expression resulting in the loss of a trait, or gaining the superpowers of the X-men).

What follows are mostly examples of reflexes are derived in part from Jack Michael's Concepts & Principles, an excellent textbook that all behavior analysts should read thoroughly and perhaps more than once (if you are like me). All of the following enable the organism to survive more efficiently through the process of selectionism.

Examples of Phylogenic Reflexes:

Tropism - an unlearned behavior where an organism (typically a plant) will orient or grow in the direction of an unconditioned stimulus, such as a source of light. Tropism is sometimes selected for in organisms where a stimulus is scarce and competition is fierce; e.g., in a forest, phototropism is the process by which trees, shrubs, and other plants grow in the direction of light, an important resource for plants. Some forms of tropism, such as geotropism (differential growth in the direction of gravitational forces), do not involve competition but instead convey direct survival value to the organism through more efficient resource transport (maybe through capillary action facilitated by gravity, more efficient use of extant hydraulic distribution systems, etc.)

Kinesis - unlearned change in movement speed of an organism elicited by an unconditioned stimulus; the change in movement is irrespective of direction. The movement of the wood louse increases in dry places and decreases in damp places - damp places are where more of it's nutrients are available. This enables the "lucky" wood louse to remain in wet, favorable environments, and, should it stumble away from them, it will "speed up" and likely return to the original or speedily move to a new wet spot.

Taxis - unlearned change directional movement. The movement may be towards or away from a stimulus. For example, positive phototaxis is movement towards a source of light (moths) and negative phototaxis is movement away from a source of light (e.g., the fruit fly instar avoid bright places).

Fixed Action Pattern - a rigid sequence of responses evoked by an environmental stimulus or internal condition). Once started, the fixed action pattern continues to occur, invariantly, and without change even with regard to the effect of additional responses on the environment. Examples can include egg retrieval by some geese, nest-weaving by some species of spiders, and mating and aggressive behavior in male stickleback fish. The unconditioned stimulus that evokes the fixed action pattern is sometimes referred to as a "super-stimulus" or "releaser" by ethnologists; the fixed action pattern is also sometimes referred to as a modal action pattern.

Adaptation - sensory organs change / reduce their sensitivity to a continuous, unchanging stimulus. The activation threshold for the rods / cones in the eye in terms of synaptic firing to the efferent nerve will vary based off the environment's varying light. During the bright daylight hours, a high level of stimulation (light) is required for efferent nerve activation. You may spend a long time indoors (say, at a movie theater) and then, upon leaving, experience the unpleasant sensation as your eyes "adjust" to the new brightness. This is adaptation. At night, a lower threshold is required, and your eyes will gradually adjust to the lower level of sensitivity required to function. A temporary flash of light - say, from a flashlight - may cause temporary "night blindness" whereupon your eyes will adapt in the wrong direction due to the presence of the errant flashlight beam.

Ontogeny

The ontogeny of an organism refers to the individual learning history, with operant behavior being selected by the consequences that behavior produces in the environment. Learning is the story of an organism' ontogeny: lasting, but not permanent, changes in the organism' behavior through the interaction that behavior produces in the environment (consequences).

Taking your trash out in Saturdays may be beneficial in some cities where the garbage collection occurs early on Sunday mornings. However, if that individual were to move to another city, the environment would change and so too might the contingency. Perhaps trash is taken out on Thursdays in this new environment, and the old behavior of taking the trash out on Saturdays results in positive punishment in the form of reprimands and chiding from concerned neighbors who don't enjoy the site of the garbage bins on the side of the street for half the week at a time. Quickly, the behavior is likely to change. It may change even faster if the individual is a compulsive rule-follower (has a strong history of reinforcement for identifying and following rules) and seeks out the rule after the move.

Another example: the behavior of speaking Japanese in Japan produces more reinforcement in that environment, but may produce less reinforcement in some rural areas of the United States. Therefore it is not surprising that we observe more individuals speaking Japanese in Japan than in rural areas of the United States. The consequences of such behavior shape the repertoire of an individual over time; as the environment changes, so too will the behavioral repertoire of an organism.

Some Examples of Types of Learning:

Habituation - an unconditioned stimulus produces a reflex response, such as jumping at a loud noise or salivation at the presentation of a food item. Repeated presentation results in a gradual reduction in responding, which will return to baseline levels after a period of time expires. When I worked at a tex-mex restaurant for many years, the sight of chopped vegetables, spicy salsa, cooking meats, etc. produced a salivation response. At the onset of a shift, salivation occurred. As the shift progressed, I salivated less and less at the sight of the food I worked with nearly continuously throughout the shift. Changes in state of food deprivation are being ignored for the purposes of this example, but surely played a role as well. When I was younger, I would play scary video games, like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. The scariest "scares" always came at the beginning of the play session, when I first bumped into something scary. Sometimes, I would visibly jump out of my seat - but as the gaming session went out, I would become fairly calm and the visible "jump" response would deteriorate to nothing. Then I'd take a break for pizza, maybe my Mom would coerce me into doing some chores, and finally, some time later, I'd return to the game and immediately jump at something that I had been previously habituated to.

Respondent Conditioning - a neutral stimulus reliably precedes an unconditioned stimulus for a reflex response (see the examples above under Phylogeny). Over time, if the temporal distance between the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus is short enough (say, a few seconds at most), the neutral stimulus will acquire the same function as the unconditioned stimulus in terms of eliciting the reflex. Respondent conditioning occurs all the time, and may be a useful part of advertising - the successful grocery store places the deli and bakery at the entrance of the store, pairing walking into the store with sweet or savory smelling foods, eliciting salivation and establishing the value of food as a consequence for behavior. Of course, the grocer sells food, and now may notice increases in profits when the bakery and deli are open and cooking vs. when they are closed and no savory aromas are emanating from their respective locations. The Grocer may go one step further and place their logo in a place of prominence by the deli, bakery, or by "sample" stations, such that the visual stimulus is paired with the presentation of an unconditioned stimulus (in this case, yummy food). Over time, the effect may be to cause the reflex response (salivation) in the presence of the previously neutral, but now conditioned, eliciting stimulus (the store's logo). It's god damn maniacal, and writing this has left me hankering for a pub sub. Clever manipulation of environmental contingencies is the most effective advertisement.

Operant Conditioning - antecedent stimuli precede a behavior, which may have a value or behavior-altering effect. The behavior occurs and produces a consequence. That consequence, which may have been previously established (or abolished) in value by antecedent variables, will alter the future frequency of that behavior to some degree. This is the classic "A - B - C" contingency: antecedent → behavior → consequence. This sequence deserves it's own article, and has been the focus of study in the applied literature since the instantiation of applied behavioral science.

Cultural

It is easy to overlook the impact of cultural selection on human behavior as a behavior analyst, but to do so would be foolish. Cultures are an emergent property of social interaction between organisms. As Sigrid Glenn said in her 1988 paper in The Behavior Analyst titled Contingencies & Meta-Contingencies: Toward a Synthesis of Behavior Analysis and Cultural Materials (quite a mouthful):

"... DNA replication made biological evolution possible and operant behavior made cultural evolution possible."

Individual behavior serves as the basis from which contingencies of reinforcement emerge and produce what we describe as cultural practices. For example, in the United States, individual contingencies operate on the red and green light system at traffic lights. A driver stops at the red light, and drives when the green light is displayed. Some individuals do not follow this rule 100% of the time, especially in south Florida, but the vast majority follow the rule. The individual contingencies are simpler: getting to your destination safely, avoiding tickets, etc. A meta-contingency emerges: as drivers obey this system, they reach their destination more efficiently (faster time). While being stopped at a red light is certainly dreadful when you are in a rush, imagine the scenario without the light: individuals may compete for passage, beeping their horns and swerving through traffic to make it to their destination. If you don't think this would be the outcome, you have another think coming: watch this video if you need proof. The usage of the traffic light system to promote individual safety has the functional effect of optimizing traffic, or at least creating the opportunity for city planners to optimize traffic (not to imply that they do - at least not in my city. But it certainly is possible).

The cultural level of selection is the most important level for the future of human life on Earth. At this time, we are producing more toxins and pollution than we can safely process. We are consuming more food than we need to feed ourselves, while many go hungry and die. We do this because individual contingencies are taking precedence over cultural meta-contingencies. We must shape our society to save our future. In time, I hope that a corps of behavioral engineers is able to help design law and policy with these contingencies in mind. We may be able to build ourselves a better life, but save our future from ourselves.

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