Contingency adduction of "symbolic aggression" by pigeons.
Social aggression can be contingency-adduced from non-social pieces—no direct social training needed.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers worked with pigeons in a lab. Each bird had two keys it could peck. Pecking one key made food drop for itself. Pecking the other key made its partner work harder for food.
No bird was ever taught to be mean. The team simply watched what happened when the birds already knew both keys paid off.
What they found
The pigeons quickly started pecking the key that hurt the partner. They kept doing it even though that key never gave them extra food.
The birds invented a social-aggressive act from thin air. All it took was mixing two old, non-social skills they already had.
How this fits with other research
Feinstein et al. (1988) showed that choice only shifts when the learner makes the history happen. Andronis et al. (1997) push that idea further—new social patterns can pop out without any social training at all.
Nevin (1969) proved a simple contingency can create daily habits like toothbrushing. The pigeon study widens the lens: contingencies can also birth responses that look spiteful.
Corrigan et al. (1998) used a reversal design to prove avoidance is contingency-governed. T et al. mirror that logic, showing the aggressive key pecks are also under tight contingency control.
Why it matters
You now know that tough social behaviors can emerge from pure contingency puzzles. Before you label a client’s act as “attention-seeking” or “spiteful,” check what response-reinforcer links they already mastered. Rearrange those links and you may see brand-new, prosocial responses appear just as spontaneously as the pigeons’ pecks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
THIS STUDY ADDRESSED THE QUESTION: Can novel social behavior arise even though the organism has had no explicit training in that particular social pattern? Seven pigeons were trained individually to peck keys for brief access to food. Four of these birds were also trained to peck two "switching keys" which, at first, raised or lowered the requirements on their own food keys. Later, these switching keys no longer affected an animal's own requirements, but raised or lowered the requirements imposed on a second pigeon working concurrently for food in an adjacent chamber. The second animal was trained only on the food key. In each such pair, the pigeon trained on the switching keys reliably pecked whichever one raised its partner's schedule-requirements. This novel pattern of behavior did not directly benefit the first bird, arose spontaneously as a recombination of previously established nonsocial repertoires, and seemed to be maintained entirely by its effects on the animal in the adjacent chamber.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 1997 · doi:10.1007/BF03392913