CONTINGENCY-SHAPED AND RULE-GOVERNED BEHAVIOR - INSTRUCTIONAL CONTROL OF HUMAN LOSS AVOIDANCE

Instructions can override the influence of programmed schedules of reinforcement. Although this finding has been interpreted as a limitation of reinforcement schedule control in humans, an alternative approach considers instructional control, itself, as a phenomenon determined by subjects' reinforcement histories. This approach was supported in a series of experiments that studied instructional and schedule control when instructions either did or did not accord with the schedule of reinforcement. Experiment I demonstrated that accurate instructions control discriminative performances on multiple avoidance schedules, and that such control persists in a novel discrimination. Experiments II and III showed that elimination of instruction‐following occurs when inaccurate instructions cause subjects to contact a monetary loss contingency. Experiment IV demonstrated the reinforcing properties of accurate instructions. Skinner's view of rule‐governed behavior is consistent with these findings, and can be extended to account for many aspects of instructional control of human operant behavior. 1979 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior