Kalliu Couto

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University

Behavior analysis has given increasing attention to persons within groups over the past few years. An experimental analog of a metacontingency, its interlocking behavioral contingencies (IBCs) and aggregate products (APs) is replicated in this paper. Two experiments were conducted in which pairs of participants were asked to coordinate their respon...

In laboratory rats, peripheral administration of the neuropeptides oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (AVP) induces similar prosocial effects (i.e. increased adjacent lying) to the party drug 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), which are sensitive to vasopressin V1A receptor (V1AR) antagonism. Here, we employed a social preference paradigm to furt...

In Selection by Consequences, Skinner (1981) described a causal model that explains human behavior as a joint product of three levels of selection: (a) the contingencies of survival involved in natural selection, (b) the contingencies of reinforcement involved in the selection of individual behavior, and (c) contingencies of an evolving social envi...

How supervision is arranged can affect the way that humans learn concepts. Yet very little is known about the role that supervision plays in nonhuman concept learning. Prior research in pigeon concept learning has commonly used differential response–reinforcer procedures (involving high-level supervision) to support reliable discrimination and gene...

Sustainability is achieved when resources are used to meet current needs without compromising their availability for future generations. This study examined fishing behaviors across age groups using the Fishing Cards digital game. Participants (N = 30) played 40 s rounds, using two types of cards to catch fish: one less powerful and the other with...

The purpose of this experiment was to explore whether simultaneous access to consequences configures a defining functional feature of coordination. We evaluated whether coordination episodes are maintained when reinforcers are alternately presented to two cooperating rats across these episodes, in contrast to the delivery of reinforcers simultaneou...

Studies with bees typically observe one response to the experimental apparatus per visit, as the bee returns to the hive after filling its honey vesicle. This reduces the sample of the behavior of interest, posing analytical and methodological challenges for studying certain processes. The present study aimed to explore a procedure and its theoreti...

The present study investigates the dynamics of choice when the reinforced unit consists of coordinated responses between two individuals operating concurrent schedules of reinforcement. The experimental design involved pairs of human participants engaging in coordinated responses on concurrent variable-interval (VI-VI) schedules. In a computer game...

Common-pool resources (CPR) are shared by multiple individuals. Many natural or manmade CPRs are limited: maximization of their use for individual gain may bring negative consequences for all users. The current study simulated CPR management by children, with a digital game. The player extracted fish (CPR) using three types of cards varying in extr...

Metacontingencies describe a functional relationship between interlocking behavioral contingencies that produce an aggregate product and a selecting environment. Various metacontingency procedures employ operant contingencies and metacontingen-cies concurrently to investigate participant's choices to engage in a behavior as a function of either the...

The present study examined the effects of different levels of instruction completeness on behavioral persistence of humans engaged in a computer task. Five undergraduate students responded in a three-component multiple schedule of reinforcement during baseline. In two components, responses produced points according to a fixed-interval (FI) 5 s sche...

Road transportation is the third largest contributor to nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in Norway. Norwegian authorities are working toward replacing current fleet vehicles with zero-emission technologies. Altering driving habits can also contribute up to a 25 % reduction of fuel consumption. The present study reports findings of a behavioral interv...

Norwegian schools are obliged to develop students’ social competences. Programs used are School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) or classroom-based aimed to teach students social-emotional ( Social and Emotional Learning [SEL]) skills in a broad sense. Some rating scales have been used to assess the effect of SEL programs...

Cooperation among unrelated individuals can evolve through reciprocity. Reciprocal cooperation is the process in which lasting social interactions provide the opportunity to learn about others' behavior, and to further predict the outcome of future encounters. Lasting social interactions may also decrease aversion to unequal distribution of gains –...

The present study compared the effects of reinforcement or punishment versus no additional consequences for instruction following on instructional control and subsequent rule‐governed insensitivity. In two experiments, adult participants were presented with repeated choices between a short progressive‐time schedule and either a fixed time‐schedule...

The present article discusses the emergence and dynamics of community resilience by empirically investigating the case of the favela of Paraisópolis in São Paulo, Brazil. The emergence of innovative practices that initially contributed to significantly lower rates of COVID-19 infection and mortality when compared to the city average is described. T...

Until pharmacological measures are effective at containing the COVID-19 outbreak, adopting protective behaviors is paramount. In this work, we aim at informing interventions to limit the spread of the contagion and prepare against any future outbreaks by developing a behavioral framework to interpret and prescribe both the individual and large-scal...

Coordinated responses of 5 dyads of rats were investigated under fixed‐ratio (FR) schedules of mutual water reinforcement. Coordinated responding was defined as 2 consecutive lever‐presses, 1 from each of 2 rats, occurring <.5 s apart. In the FR schedules, each coordinated episode was defined as 1 response in the FR sequence. The size of FR schedul...

The structure, function, and processes of a system modulate human behavior on at least 3 levels of selection: biological, behavioral, and cultural. During phylogenesis, an acquired biological structure will enable the organism to discriminate antecedent and consequent stimuli that are functionally related to response classes. Although the reinforci...

The interplay between a population’s traits and environmental events feeds evolution by natural selection. These traits may vary from innate predispositions to acquire specific behavioral topographies to the ability to learn through local environmental changes (operant behavior). Thus, learning capability is historically inseparable from evolution...

In Selection by Consequences, Skinner (1981) described a causal model that explains human behavior as a joint product of three levels of selection: (i) the contingencies of survival involved in natural selection, (ii) the contingencies of reinforcement involved in the selection of individual behavior, and (iii) contingencies of an evolving social e...

This paper applies a behavior analytic framework to examine corrupt behavior. With this article, we heed to the call made some decades ago to behavior analysts to extend the interests and strategies of their discipline into domains traditionally assigned to the social sciences. This article has three objectives: First, to examine corruption as beha...

In Selection by Consequences, Skinner (1981) described a causal model that explains human behavior as a joint product of three levels of selection: (i) the contingencies of survival involved in natural selection, (ii) the contingencies of reinforcement involved in the selection of individual behavior, and (iii) contingencies of an evolving social e...

Recent years have seen growing interest in the development of genetic animal models to investigate the bidirectional relationship between trait anxiety and defensive reactions. The present study further ana-lyzed behavioral correlates of two novel breeding lines of rats, Carioca high-and low-conditioned freez-ing (CHF and CLF), based on defensive f...

Five rats served in an experiment with multiple extinction fixed-interval schedules of reinforcement. While the fixed-interval schedule was kept constant at 60 s, the fixed extinction period was varied from 10 to 160 s. Pauses during the fixed-interval schedule decreased systematically with increases in the previous extinction period. Pausing was u...

Four rats were subjected to chained fixed-ratio (FR), fixed-interval (FI) schedules of reinforcement (chain FR 5 FI). A FR schedule at one lever produced a discriminative stimulus (i.e., light) associated with an FI schedule of primary reinforcement (water) at the second response lever. The FR schedule was kept constant, whereas the FI length was c...

Pharmacological 5-HT2C receptor activation induces defensive behaviors in several animal models of anxiety. The present study investigated whether the selective blockade of 5-HT2C receptors in the ventral hippocampus (VH) prevents defensive behaviors induced by a 5-HT2C agonist administered systemically in rats exposed to the elevated plus-maze (EP...

Ten rats were submitted to chained fixed-ratio (FR), fixed-interval (FI) schedules of reinforcement. A FR schedule at one lever produced a discriminative stimulus associated with a FI 60-s schedule of primary reinforcement (water) at the second response lever. In Experiment 1, the FI schedule was kept constant while the FR requirement was changed f...

Ten rats were submitted to chained fixed-ratio (FR), fixed-interval (FI) schedules of reinforcement. A FR schedule at one lever produced a discriminative stimulus associated with a FI 60-s schedule of primary reinforcement (water) at the second response lever. In Experiment 1, the FI schedule was kept constant while the FR requirement was changed f...

This study investigated the behavioral effects in the forced swim test (FST) and the elevated plus-maze (EPM) of acute administration of WAY 161503 ([4aR]-8,9-dichloro-2,3,4,4a-tetrahydro-1H-pyrazino[1,2-a]quinoxalin-5[6 H]-one), a selective 5-HT2C receptor agonist with putative antidepressant-like properties. Fifteen minutes after intraperitoneal...