Relations between Description and Experimentation in the Metacontingency Enterprise: An Interbehavioral Analysis

Despite extensive theoretical development, there is a lack of consensus in the metacontingency enterprise on the extent to which current metacontingency constructs describe experimental happenings. The purpose of this article is to provide an interbehavioral analysis of the metacontingency enterprise that examines relations between description and experimentation in order to facilitate research on cultural selection occurring through metacontingencies. In particular, this article considers how stimulus functions of descriptions of metacontingency constructs participate in metacontingency experiments in terms of specificity, types of analysis, levels of analysis, and procedures. The extent to which experimental findings are able to be described in terms of metacontingency constructs is assessed. Prominent events and relations demonstrated by metacontingency experiments are summarized and discussed, as well as inconsistencies between relations described and relations constructed based on events observed. Recommendations for experimental and descriptive adjustments are offered. Although this analysis may or may not have any bearing on the metacontingency enterprise, it may serve as a template for conducting interbehavioral analyses of activities in other enterprises, if not more analyses of the metacontingency enterprise.