Jeff Kupfer and Ron Allen
University of Colorado (Denver) and Simmons University (Boston)
The topic of equity occupies the headlines across the nation. In many settings that involve social and work activities, equity means treating people in a way that is fair and just because different people and groups start from different places and may need different kinds or amounts of support. The goal is to remove barriers and adjust resources so that everyone has a real chance to reach similar outcomes. In contrast to equality which focuses on giving everyone the same resources or treatment, regardless of their different starting points or needs, equity looks at those starting points and distributes resources or changes systems to remove disadvantages, aiming for comparable opportunities and outcomes.
Equity can mean things like targeted training or supervision for underrepresented staff, accessible technology for people with disabilities, or flexible policies that account for caregiving responsibilities. These actions do not “favor” one group; they are intended to correct systemic imbalances so that everyone can participate and advance on fair terms.
It should come as no surprise that ABAI has been at the forefront of this important topic and cultural change since 2019 with the formation of a DEI board:
The Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) reiterates its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The Executive Council and many members express profound concerns regarding recent statements and policies in opposition to DEI programs and initiatives by individuals and organizations within the current U.S.A. federal and state governments. Actions against DEI will harm practitioners, researchers, students, and countless individuals serving, and those being served, along with organizations and communities worldwide.
Questions remain. If equity levels the playing field, who determines what is level, who is it leveled for, what are the alternative offered, how is equity measured and how are the effects monitored and maintained. Understanding the effects of these variables at a group level seems daunting, nevertheless creating a just society is necessary for cultural survival and fitness, in general.
One of the hallmarks of a science of behavior is that complex problems and issues can be analyzed in the natural setting or brought into the laboratory for closer observation. The phrase: “bedside to bench” is used to describe this process and there are numerous instances in which behavior analysis has taken this course, for example behavioral momentum (Mace, McComas, Mauro, Progar, Taylor, Ervin, & Zangrillo, 2010). A benefit of this approach is the emergence of functionally defined terms leading to more effective research and discussions, perhaps solutions.
Similarly, complex social situations (e.g., microsocieties) can be created in the laboratory for closer examination (Baum, Richerson, Efferson, & Paciotti, 2004; Andery, & Glenn, 2009). The term equity, for example, might be better understood by stepping back and examining specific terms and variables (e.g., taking and distribution) and most importantly: the social exchange between two individuals working for reinforcers. In other words, what we learn about equity and inequity between two persons might lead to understanding these terms when applied to groups of individuals.
Fortunately for ABA, a great deal of the groundwork has been examined and described in detail decades ago by Don Hake and his colleagues (Hake, Vukelich, & Kaplan, 1973; Hake, Vukelich, & Olvera, 1975; Hake, & Olvera, 1978). The starting question raised by this research was not so much: what leads to more cooperative behaviors, but rather “what is cooperative behavior?”. Like nonsocial operant responses that delivers reinforcers depending on the response, with cooperative behavior, reinforcers are delivered to another person. Cooperative responses are “giving responses” whereas nonsocial responses are “taking responses”. Hake and Olvera (1978) accomplished several achievements such as organizing functional descriptions for various terms that were used frequently and inconsistently in diffuse cooperation research. For example, during an interaction between two persons, the term, cooperation, involves the demonstration of “reciprocal-reinforcement relationship and requires: (1) increase in cooperative giving responses by both individuals (minimal cooperation effect); and (2) increase in the correspondence between the number of reinforcers and/or the number of giving responses of the two-person relative to a noncooperative control procedure or to the start of the cooperation contingency (maximal cooperation effect).
Hake & Olvera (1978) provided five dimensions to classify various cooperative situations that could occur in social exchanges depending on other factors such as availability of alternative responses to cooperating, deviations from reciprocity, and the cooperation contingency. These dimensions serve to organize other cooperation research methods and outcomes. The authors offer a “correlated-response approach” to cooperation which are not necessarily cooperation response but often observed during cooperation. These include communication (coactors talk), auditing (one person checking own or coactor’s scores or reinforcers), and leadership (one person’s control of work and/or reinforcement).
When these dimensions are considered, other terms can be described based on the contingencies of reinforcement governing cooperative responses. Equity effect occurs when: (1) there is an increase in the degree of correspondence between the reinforcers of the two persons, while (2) there is no change or an increase in total reinforcements. For example, maximal cooperation is an equity effect in that the members of a pair are working on equal contingencies, a change toward equality in the number of reinforcers or cooperative responses of the coactors.
Changes in equal distributions can be reached in ways other than cooperation. Sharing is a common technique —equity is reached by taking responses rather than by giving responses (e.g., two children equally share a box of cookies by taking half rather than children handing or giving the cookies to each other)
Sharing and maximal cooperation are similar in that both are defined in terms of increase in correspondence of the two persons’ reinforcers BUT the equitable distribution is reached by taking rather than giving responses. Sharing is similar to competition in that it involves taking responses BUT it differs in that ONLY one subject makes a taking response per reinforcer
Hake & Olvera (1978) offer several suggestions regarding cooperation. When subjects distribute reinforcers equitably, sharing rather than cooperation will be the method chosen most often. Additionally, making available a second equity solution such as sharing in addition to cooperation, should be another way of increasing the likelihood of reaching equity. Two people may disagree and not be able to give reinforcers to the other but will allow the other to take reinforcers.
In contrast to equity effects, inequity effects refer to a decrease in the correspondence of two persons’ reinforcers. Altruism involves giving responses BUT one person makes more giving responses than the other; whereas competition involves taking responses but both persons make taking responses for a single reinforcer. These relationships are summarized in the table below:
| Equity Effects (Increased Correspondence) | Inequity Effects (Decreased Correspondence) | |
| Take Responses | Sharing | Competition |
| Give Responses | Maximal Cooperation | Altruism |
(From Hake and Olvera, 1978)
The foregoing discussion of cooperation and competition is central to a discussion about equity as it relates to culture. Distributing resources or changes to systems to remove disadvantages, aiming for comparable opportunities and outcomes is really a question about distribution of reinforcers and the opportunity to engage in operant behavior to produce them. On the one hand, we could make a case for promoting equity by formulating more effective policies and rules but a closer analysis of the contingencies of reinforcer distributions and the conspicuous differences in these distributions based on opportunity would most likely produce better outcomes.
Sadly, we lost Don Hake 43 years ago but the systematic approach to the analysis of cooperation the he and his colleagues started long ago has relevance for cultural issues like equity which remains an elusive and confusing term for most of a culture today that favors inequity.
References
Baum, W.M., Richerson, P.J., Efferson, C.M., & Paciotti, B.M. (2004). Cultural evolution in laboratory microsocieties including traditions of rule giving and rule following. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25, 305-326.
Hake, D.F., Vukelich, F., & Kaplan, S.J. (1973). Audit responses: responses maintained by access to existing self or cofactor scores during nonsocial, parallel work, and cooperation procedures. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 19, 409-423.
Hake, D.F., Vukelich, F., & Olvera, D. (1975). The measurement of sharing and cooperation as equity effects and some relationships between them. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 23, 63-79.
Hake, D.F. & Olvera, D. (1978). Cooperation, competition, and related social phenomena. In A.C. Catania & T.A. Brigham (eds.), Handbook of Applied Behavior Analysis. New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc. (pp. 208-245).
Mace, F.C., McComas, J.J., Mauro, B.C., Progar, P.R., Taylor, B., Ervin, R., & Zangrillo, A.N. (2010). Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior increases resistance to extinction: Clinical demonstration, animal modeling, and clinical test of one solution. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 93, 349-367.
Vichi, C., Andery, M.A.P., & Glenn, S. S. (2009). A metacontingency experiment: The effect of contingent consequences on patterns of interlocking contingencies of reinforcement. Behavior and Social Issues, 18, 41- 57.