EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2003, 4 , 105 - 114 NUMBER 1 (SUMMER 2003) 105

Choice between individual and shared social

contingencies in children: An experimental
replication in a natural setting

Emilio Ribes-Iñesta, Nora Rangel, Guadalupe Carbajal and Erandeni Peña

University of Guadalajara

A study evaluated in a natural setting the preference for individual versus social contingencies under
different social exchange conditions. Twelve children were distributed in six dyads. Children had to solve a
puzzle placed on the same table for each child in a dyad. In the experimental conditions each subject in every
dyad could also place pieces in the peer’s puzzle. Dyads were exposed to two sequences of experimental
conditions comprising competition, partial altruism, and total altruism. In all these conditions subjects could
choose to solve their puzzle individually instead of working additionally on the peer’s puzzle. Results show
that most subjects chose to solve the puzzle individually, even when they obtained less earnings.
Keywords: children, dyads, social interactions, competition, altruism

Competition, cooperation and altruism are
social phenomena that have been extensively stud-
ied using operant conditioning procedures (Azrin
& Lindsley, 1956; Cohen & Lindsley, 1964; Hake
& Vukelich, 1972; Lindsley, 1966; Marwell &
Schmitt, 1975; Skinner, 1962; Weiner, 1977). Most
experimental situations have consisted of rein-
forcing the temporal coordination or sequencing
of repetitive, arbitrary responses such as press-
ing a button or a key or putting a stylus into a
hole. The literature shows that responding first
(competition), responding simultaneously or al-
most simultaneously with the peer (cooperation),
and “give” responses (altruism) can be increased
in frequency through reinforcement procedures
using points and actual earnings and consumables.
However, when a choice procedure that allows
to respond on an individual basis or under a
shared contingency is used, experimental subjects
Correspondence should be addressed to the first author:
Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones en Comportamiento, 12
de diciembre 204 (Col. Chapalita), 45040 Zapopan, México.
Email: ribes@cencar.udg.mx
This research was supported by grant #32375-H from the
National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico.
105
(children and young adults) seem to prefer indi-
vidual contingencies (Ribes & Rangel, 2002).
Ribes and Rangel (2002) used an experimen-
tal situation with two synchronized computers,
one for each experimental subject. On each
computer’s screen, two identical puzzles were
presented, one corresponding to each subject.
Subjects could solve only their own puzzle or
they could place pieces into the peer’s puzzle.
Under competition, unavoidable cooperation, and
partial altruism contingencies, subjects could earn
more points by placing pieces in the peer’s puzzle
than by responding individually in their own
puzzle. Under the total altruism contingency they
obtained the same amount of points by respond-
ing either way. The results of this study showed
that children and young adults systematically chose
to solve their own puzzle instead of the peer’s
puzzle, in spite of the fact that they obtained less
earnings by doing so. These results were observed
when subjects worked in separate rooms and
when they worked in the same room, being al-
lowed to continuously audit or track each other’s
performance and earnings (Schmitt, 2000).
106 Emilio Ribes-Iñesta, Nora Rangel, Guadalupe Carbajal and Erandeni Peña
These initial findings suggest that when sub-
jects can choose between individual and shared
contingencies, they prefer individual contingen-
cies even when their earnings are lower than those
that could be obtained under a shared contin-
gency. Thus, reinforcing the behavior of two in-
dividuals to cooperate, compete or be altruistic
might be insufficient to promote social behav-
ior; social interaction is not necessarily an auto-
matic result of contingencies that provide higher
earnings than those of independent individual
performance. To evaluate the independence of
individual and shared contingencies it is neces-
sary to separately identify individual and social
responses as well as individual and social earn-
ings; but traditional operant procedures do not
discriminate between individual and social re-
sponses and consequences. Hence, the findings
reported in the literature (Schmitt, 1998) might
well be an artifact of the type of responses be-
ing used and the functional restrictions imposed
by a non-choice situation that prevents individu-
ally-based contingency responding (Ribes, 2001).
However, one could argue, along the same
lines, that the results from the study by Ribes and
Rangel (2002) are an outcome of the environ-
ment provided by the computer-based interac-
tion, even in the conditions where subjects could
interact directly which each other. To test the gen-
erality of our previous finding, we designed an
experiment with children that replicated the ba-
sic features of the study by Ribes and Rangel
(2002). The experiment involved a similar task
(puzzle solving) in a natural setting, and evaluated
choice between individual and shared contingen-
cies (competition, partial altruism, and total al-
truism). If the children again chose the individual
contingency over the shared contingency, this
would support our assumption that social con-
tingencies per se are insufficient to produce social
interactions when alternative individual contingen-
cies are available.
Method
Subjects
Twelve 10 to 12 year old children enrolled in
a primary school volunteered to participate in this
experiment. The children, six girls and six boys,
received edibles they like (chosen from a menu
available before each session) for their participa-
tion. Each dyad comprised one girl and one boy
chosen at random, and the dyads were randomly
allocated to two groups.
Material
Twenty 50-pieces puzzles were used, as well
as a Sony Handicam videocamera (model CCD-
TR413), compact VHS videotapes, recording
sheets, colored labels, printed instructions and
copies of the puzzles drawings.
Experimental situation
Experimental sessions took place twice a day
in four successive days, in one room (6 x 3 m),
relatively isolated from noise and other distractors.
In the center of the room was a rectangular table
with two chairs located at each end. The video
camera was placed 1.5 m from the table facing
both chairs. At each end of the table a heap was
located with all the pieces of a same puzzle, along
with a copy of the puzzle’s drawing, colored la-
bels to identify the pieces of each child, and a
sheet with instructions for each particular session.
During the first baseline session, each child solved
his/her puzzle in a separate room.
Procedure
Except in Phase A (see below), children in
each dyad sat facing each other at each end of
the table, a situation which allowed visual, physi-
cal and verbal contact. A different puzzle was
used in each session in order to prevent a learn-
ing and/or boredom effect, but in any session
the same puzzle was used for both children.
Two different sequences of exchange contin-
gencies were analyzed. The experiment com-
prised five phases, one conducted as an individual
condition and the rest as social interaction condi-
tions (Table 1). Phases A and B served as baseline
or control conditions to assess the subjects’
puzzle-solving performance under individual,
non-shared contingencies.
In Phase A, each subject solved the puzzle in
a separate room and without receiving points.
Phase B was identical to Phase A, with the ex-
ception that both children had to solve their
puzzle at the same time in the same room. They
 Shared Social Contingencies
were told that they could either leave the room
when they completed the puzzle or wait until the
peer to concluded his/her task.
The next three phases (C, D, E) involved in-
dividual and shared contingencies in which both
children could place pieces in any of the puzzles.
In Phase C, any correct response provided points
for the child placing the piece correctly in any of
the two puzzles. In Phase D, when a child placed
a piece correctly in his/her own puzzle, points
were awarded only to this child. But when a piece
was correctly placed in the peer’s puzzle points
were awarded to both children. In Phase E, when
a child placed a piece correctly in his/her own
puzzle, points were awarded only to this child,
but when a piece was correctly placed in the peer’s
puzzle points were awarded to the peer. Thus,
Phase C can be seen as involving choices between
individual behavior and competition, Phase D
between individual behavior and partial altruism,
and Phase E between individual behavior and
total altruism. In these three experimental phases,
the child who first completed his/her puzzle could
end the session by leaving the room or calling the
experimenter. Children were explicitly instructed
at the beginning of every session about the vari-
ous contingencies and about how many points
they could obtain by placing pieces in their puzzle
or in the peer’s puzzle. When the session ended
the experimenter counted how many pieces each
child had correctly placed in each of the two
puzzles, and exchanged the points earned by each
child for edibles. Different kinds and amounts
of edibles were provided proportionally to the
number of points earned (the exchange values
of different candies were set up at 10, 15, 20, 30,
40 and 50 points). Children were informed about
the exchange ratios before the session began.
Sessions ended when both children completed
their puzzle or when the child who first com-
pleted his/her puzzle ended the session. Dyads 1
to 3 were exposed to the phases A,B,C,D,E, in
this order. Dyads 4 to 6 were exposed to the
inverse sequence of experimental contingencies:
A,B,E,D,C. Since two sessions were run every
day, a five-minute rest period was scheduled be-
tween sessions.
The following instructions were given in the
different baseline and experimental phases:
107
Phase A. “You must try to solve a puzzle. Try
to place all the pieces. You have to watch care-
fully the drawing to your right, it is a picture of
the puzzle you have to solve. Also, you must stick
a label at the back of each piece you place. Good
luck!”
Phase B. “Two puzzles are placed on the table:
yours, in front of you, and your peer’s puzzle, in
front of him/her. You should try to solve only
your puzzle. You have to place all the pieces. As
in the previous game, at your right you have the
drawing of the puzzle you have to solve. You
must stick a label at the back of each piece you
place. When you complete your puzzle, you may
end the game for you and your peer, by calling
me and leaving the room. You may also wait for
your peer to end his/her own puzzle. Good
luck!”
Phase C. “Two puzzles are placed on the table:
yours, in front of you, and your peer’s puzzle, in
front of him/her. You and your peer may place
pieces in ANY of the two puzzles, yours and
his/hers. As in previous games, at your right you
have the drawing of the puzzles that you have to
solve. You must stick a label at the back of each
piece you place. I need this to identify which pieces
you placed in each puzzle and to compute how
many points you earned. For any piece you place
correctly in any puzzle, you’ll obtain 10 points.
The same will happen to your peer. When you
complete one of the two puzzles, you may end
the game for you and your peer by calling me
and leaving the room. You may also wait for
your peer to complete his/her puzzle, or you may
place pieces in his/her puzzle. The highest num-
ber of points that you may obtain in this session
is 1000: 500 if you place pieces only in your
puzzle, plus 500 if you place all the pieces in your
peer’s puzzle. When the game ends you can ex-
change your points for candies. You will get a
better prize with more points.”
Phase D. Instructions were similar to those in
Phase C, but changes were introduced regarding
how to earn points: “For any piece that you place
correctly in your puzzle, you and only you will
obtain 10 points. For any piece you place cor-
rectly in your peer’s puzzle, you and your peer
will obtain 10 points. Your peer will be able to
do the same. The highest number of points you
108 Emilio Ribes-Iñesta, Nora Rangel, Guadalupe Carbajal and Erandeni Peña

can obtain is 1000, if you place pieces in your
peer’s puzzle and if he/she places pieces in your
puzzle.”
Phase E. Instructions were similar to those in
Phase D, but changes were introduced regarding
how to earn points: “For any piece that you place
correctly in your puzzle, you will obtain 10 points.
For any piece that you place correctly in your peer’s
puzzle, your peer will obtain 10 points. The same
holds for your peer. The highest number of
points you can obtain in this session is 500".
All sessions were videotaped in order to
record direct physical and verbal interactions be-
tween the children. Behavioral categories were
formulated from the inspection of the videos,
and transcription of the data was done by two
trained observers. Reliability of observational data
was calculated by dividing the number of agree-
ments by the total number of observations and
multiplying by 100. The obtained reliability coef-
ficient was 87.5%.
Results
Figure 1 shows the performance of the six
dyads. The panels labelled “local” indicate the
number of correct placements in one’s own
puzzle. The panels labelled “remote” indicate the
number of correct placements made in the peer’s
puzzle. The children showed few correct place-

Figure 1. Number of correct placements for each child in his/her own puzzle (local) or in the peer’s puzzle (remote). The
asterisks indicate that the child ended the session before his/her peer complement the corresponding puzzle. The subjects in
each dyad are denoted by a letter (a,b) after the dyad number (1...).
 Shared Social Contingencies 109

ments in the peer´s puzzle, except for two dyads
(1 and 6). In Dyad 1 both children showed more
placements in the remote puzzle than in their own
puzzle during the competition contingency. In
Dyad 6, the highest number of placements was
done only by one child (S6a), also under condi-
tions of competition. During baseline, 9 of the
12 children completed their puzzles; those chil-
dren who did not complete it failed to do so in
almost all sessions. Starting from the second
baseline conditions, children in Dyads 4, 5 and 6
ended the session before the other peer com-
pleted the puzzle. In each dyad, the same child
(usually a boy, except in Dyad 5) always ended
the session.
Figure 2 shows the number of pieces each
child placed in each puzzle during or after solv-
ing his/her own puzzle. The children in Dyad 1
placed pieces in the peer´s puzzle both during
and after completing their own puzzle. In con-
trast, one child in Dyad 6 placed almost all the
pieces after completing her puzzle.
Figure 3 shows how many points each dyad
obtained. The dotted line indicates the number
of points that could be obtained if the children
responded optimally under shared contingencies.
During the total-altruism condition, five of the

Figure 2. Number of correct placements in the peer’s puzzle during and after the completion of one’s own puzzle (local).
110 Emilio Ribes-Iñesta, Nora Rangel, Guadalupe Carbajal and Erandeni Peña
six dyads obtained as many points as possible. In
the other phases, under competition and partial
altruism conditions, children always obtained less
points than what was possible. Most of the time
children worked on their own puzzle.
Figure 4 shows the average session duration
(in minutes) across successive sessions. Excepting
one dyad (2), whose session time tended to de-
crease, the session duration varied unsystematically
within a range of 15 to 45 minutes.
Figure 5 shows the total number of direct
physical and verbal interactions for each group
of children in Phases 2 to 5. Explaining the task
(ET) and other non-relevant (O) behaviors were
the most frequent categories. Other categories that
also occurred but at a lower frequency were
complaining (C), helping (H), talking softly (TS)
and in occasions yelling (Y), verbal aggression
(VA), asking for help (AH), intrusion (I), refer-
ring to rules (RR) and defending the game (DG).
Physical aggression (PA), threatening (T) and ac-
cusing (A) practically did not occur.
Figure 3. Number of points obtained by each child. Dotted lines indicate the maximum number of points that could be
obtained individually under each contingency.
Discussion
The results of this experiment confirm pre-
vious findings by Ribes and Rangel (2002) that
when offered choices between individual and
shared contingencies, children and young adults
often prefer individual, non-social contingencies,
even when the payoff for doing so is lower than
for responding under shared contingencies. The
replication of this effect suggests that when indi-
vidual responding (in the local puzzle) and social
responding (in the remote puzzle) are indepen-
dent, subjects tend to respond on an individual
basis even when they obtain lesser benefits or
earnings. This effect was described as interper-
sonal risk-avoidance by Marwell and Schmitt
(1975), who attributed it to the anticipation of
negative effects from taking earnings from the
peer. In our experiments, however, individual and
social responses were clearly distinguished both
in location and by contingency prescriptions. In
contrast to customary experimental preparations
using buttons, knobs and similar operanda
 Shared Social Contingencies
(Schmitt, 1998), we used a meaningful task, a
puzzle that changed every session and that allowed
for the “intrusion” of each subject into the other’s
task to compete, cooperate or be altruistic
(among other possibilities). Perhaps the typical
findings on competition, cooperation and altru-
ism with operant preparations result from the
simplicity and repetitiveness of the response be-
ing used, and its confounding with coordination
and sequencing effects that differ from actual
social interactions (as Marwell and Schmitt ,1975,
themselves documented in relation to Cohen’s
[1962] and Lindsley’s [1966] experimental settings).
Figure 4. Average session length (in minutes).
111
In our experiments, preferring individual con-
tingencies while shared contingencies are avail-
able has been shown to occur under unavoid-
able cooperation, partial altruism, total altruism,
and competition, both with children and young
adults. Furthermore, the exposure of experimen-
tal subjects to sequences of conditions that might
have facilitated responding in the remote puzzle
did not produce any increase in shared respond-
ing. In the study by Ribes and Rangel (2002), sub-
jects first exposed to an unavoidable coopera-
tive condition responded most of the time in
their own puzzle in later conditions that included
altruistic and competitive contingencies. In the
present experiment, children did not change their
preference for the individual contingencies after
being exposed to a partial-altruism condition in
which, by switching to the remote puzzle, they
could obtain twice as many points as by placing
the same number of pieces in their own puzzle.
Actually, when responding in the peer’s puzzle
was observed, it occurred under a competition
contingency prior to the exposure to partial altru-
ism (Dyad 1 in Phase 3).
This experiment was designed to evaluate if
the computer-based situation used by Ribes and
Rangel (2002) had interfered with the occurrence
of the social interactions that usually take place in
a natural setting (in which individuals deal with
actual instead of virtual objects). The results of
this experiment suggest the opposite. Children
did not prefer to work on the peer’s puzzle any
more than in the previous experiment in which
they solved puzzles on the screens of two syn-
chronized computers. The consistency of this
effect is confirmed by the fact that in the experi-
ment by Ribes and Rangel (2002), no differences
were observed as to whether the children solved
their puzzles in the same room or in separate
rooms.
In a related, natural-setting study by Camacho
(2000), each child of a dyad was given 50% of
the pieces of his/her own puzzle and 50% of
the pieces of the peer puzzle, so that the children
had to ask or take from their the pieces needed
to complete their own puzzle. In the coopera-
tion condition, both children had to complete
their puzzles to obtain a reward. In the competi-
tion condition, the first child completing his or
112 Emilio Ribes-Iñesta, Nora Rangel, Guadalupe Carbajal and Erandeni Peña
her own puzzle obtained the reward. In this study,
children showed physical violence and snatching
of pieces during competition, and donation of
pieces during cooperation, especially when the
children were not exposed to both conditions.
In our experiment, physical aggression and other
coercive behaviors practically did not occur. Two
factors may account for these differences. First,
earnings in our experiment were not shared and
children could choose to solve their puzzle on an
individual basis. Second, children were not forced
or required to exchange pieces with their peers in
order to solve their puzzle. On the contrary, they
were allowed and instructed to intrude their peer's
puzzle without having to exchange pieces. These
results suggest that the occurrence of coercive
and reciprocity behaviors during social interac-
Figure 5. Number of accumulated verbal and physical responses during each baseline and experimental condition for both
groups of dyads.
tions may occur only when subjects have no other
choice than to interact for shared consequences.
Summing up, the results of this study sup-
port previous findings showing that when chil-
dren have a choice between individual and shared
contingencies, they prefer individual contingen-
cies. This choice also reduces direct physical and
verbal contacts between the children, especially
coercive and reciprocity interactions. These find-
ings may be the systematic outcome of two fea-
tures of our experimental preparation: a) it in-
volves actual choices between individual and
shared contingencies, and b) it does not prescribe
shared responses or shared consequences, since
even in the shared contingency situation responses
and earnings are individually specified. Further
research should explore the social interactions
promoted by the choice between individual and
 Shared Social Contingencies
shared contingencies when responses and/or
consequences are prescribed as individual or
shared requirements.
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