On immediate function.
Learning is a pocketknife, not a hammer—choose the blade that evolution already sharpened for that task.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Dougan (1992) wrote a theory paper. It says learning is not one big machine. Instead, each learning trick is a separate tool shaped by evolution.
The paper tells us to stop asking "how does learning work?" and start asking "what job is this behavior meant to do?" It uses plain words, no math.
What they found
The main point: pigeons, rats, and people do not share a single "learning process." Each species keeps its own set of quick-and-dirty rules that solved its ancestors’ problems.
So, when a procedure works for one client but fails for another, the difference may be built-in, not a mistake in your teaching.
How this fits with other research
Meyer (1999) and Malone (1999) back the story up. They show that Thorndike’s Law of Effect was already a Darwinian idea: responses are selected the way finches are.
Baum (2017) takes the same view and adds numbers. He rewrites "selection by consequences" with the Price equation, giving you a calculator-ready form of the 1992 claim.
Gallistel (2025) seems to disagree. He says learning is not about evolutionary modules but about information ratios. The clash is only skin-deep: Dougan (1992) asks WHY we learn, Gallistel asks WHAT we count before we learn. Both can live in your head at once.
Why it matters
Stop hunting for the one "perfect" reinforcement schedule. Ask what evolutionary job the behavior served, then pick the tool that matches that job. If escape-maintained problem behavior is really a predator-avoidance rule, teach a safer escape, not just a bigger reinforcer.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Behavior is a property of living organisms, not of inanimate matter. The problems of physical science are to understand how a phenomenon works; biological science adds the questions of what a phenomenon does and how something that does such things came to be. Exclusive dedication to cause-effect explanations ignores how behavior helps creatures cope with their internal and external environments. Laws of causation describe the precursors to behavior; laws of function describe the effects of behavior. The numerous instances of learning reflect the many ways that selective pressure for altering behavior on the basis of experience has been manifested. Little basis exists for assuming that the various forms of learning reflect either common functions or common processes. Instead, it seems that evolutionary processes have resulted in domain-specific learning. The rules of learning must be understood in terms of the function that the particular manifestation of learning serves for the organism. Evolutionary theory provides the framework for understanding function as well as relations between function and causal mechanisms.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1992.57-417