Following rules in the intermontane west: 19th-century mormon settlement.

The author looked at diaries, sermons, and town plans from 19th-century Mormon settlers.

He mapped how ABA ideas like rule-governed behavior and metacontingency could explain why whole towns moved and built in the same pattern.

No clients, no data sheets—just a story showing that ABA concepts can stretch beyond clinic walls.

The settlers followed verbal rules such as "irrigate together or the crop fails."

These rules kept the group acting as one, even when short-term payoffs tempted individuals to leave.

The paper calls this a metacontingency: the group’s survival was the reinforcer that held the rule in place.

Lord et al. (1986) tested the same idea in a lab. Adults kept following a spoken rule even when the cash payoff changed.

The lab result extends the historical story: rules can lock behavior long after the original reason is gone.

Prasher et al. (1995) found the same lock-in with staff in a computer simulation. Written protocols overrode real-time payoff changes, showing the pattern repeats in any setting.

McAuley et al. (1986) argued that applied work should feed basic science. The Mormon paper answers that call by using basic ABA to interpret history.

You can now teach parents or teachers that group rules, not just individual reinforcers, shape behavior.

Write rules that serve the whole classroom or family, check that the group payoff is clear, and watch the rule stick like those settlers’ irrigation plan.