Efeito da história experimental na sensibilidade às contingências em participantes flexíveis e inflexíveis
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate whether a previous history of learning by
instructional control, in both the previous story of the subject or immediately
following an experimental condition, could differentially affect the sensitivity to
contingencies. Replicating previous studies, the authors sought to address a possible
history of control by following rules, assessing the presence of flexibility or
inflexibility indicator’s in their repertoire. Therefore, we evaluated 212 undergraduate
students who responded to the Rigidity Scale of Rehfisch; 114 were implemented by
virtual media and 98 during individual meeting. Of the 23 participants assessed who
met inclusion’s criteria, 13 agreed to participate in the study, seven were recruited by
personal application and six through online assessment. Eight participants were males
and five females, aged 18-31; nine participants presented scores agreed as flexible
and 4 others as inflexible. The experimental condition is the execution of tasks on a
matching-to-sample schedule (MTS), arranged in two phases, through appropriate
software. In Phase 1, the participants were divided into the training of two different
instructional conditions: 1) instructions corresponding to the contingencies
programmed; and 2) discrepant instructions. Considering the participants of the
Group Flexible, 5 were exposed to instructional correspondence training and 4 the
discrepancy; two inflexible participants were assigned to each instructional training
conditions. Eleven of thirteen participants reach the learning criteria, required in
Phase 1, during 69 or less trials; the two participants who did not meet the criteria
were allocated in the Flexible Group (P167 and P184) and were submitted to the
discrepant training. In Phase 2 was scheduled during a single experimental condition,
similar to all participants, with the presentation of 80 trials, divided into 4 blocks of
20 each. The first and third blocks have been programmed accordingly to the
instructions; the second and fourth block presented contingencies that were
instructions’ discrepant. Six of the nine flexible participants presented a percentage of
responses equal to or greater than 70% accuracy, in the first block of discrepant trials,
during the Phase 2; two of the three participants presented lower percentage of correct
answers, had a history of learning by discrepant instructions. Participants of the
inflexible Group showed higher percentage of correct answers, when they had been
subjected to a discrepancy during in training. It was addressed how these results
either replicate or present differences from the literature in the area.