The contingency as an independent variable of social interaction

A unique feature of the behavioral sciences is their concern with a special type of independent variable: the contingency. Experimental psychologists use the term "contingency " to refer to the rules that specify what consequences behavior will have for the behaving individual (Skinner, 1953). These rules, which can constitute independent variables in experiments, are generally expressed in the form of "if, then " statements, the "if " clause specifying some aspect of behavior, the "then " clause a resulting state of affairs. The contingencies investigated by experimental psychologists range from relatively simple ones (e.g., if the rat presses the bar, a pellet of food is delivered) to complex elaborations involving temporal factors (e.g., if the rat presses the bar, a pellet of food will be delivered after 5 seconds), probabilities (e.g., if the rat presses the bar, there is a probability of.50 that a pellet of food will be delivered), associated stimuli (e.g., a pellet of food will be delivered only if the rat presses the bar in the presence of a light), series or chains of responses (e.g., if a rat presses a bar three times and then turns to the left, a pellet of food will be delivered), and the various permutations of these. However, there is a type of contingency to which experimental psychologists have given relatively little attention: that involved in social interaction. This type of contingency is the main subject of the present paper and will b