Esquema dependente e não dependente do responder para o estudo do comportamento supersticioso.

Abstract

The effect that was described by B. F. Skinner like superstitious behavior evidences the selection of behavior, without the need of a contingent relation between responses and environmental events. The objective of this study was assess the emission of behavior in a condition of fixed time condition (FT 20 sec) wherein the interval between the presentations of the reinforcement was independent of the response, following by the condition of the interval fixed (FI 30 sec) wherein the response was enhanced just after been elapsed the interval and, posteriorly, the condition of the extinction (EXT) wherein had suspension of the reinforcement. Each condition endured three minutes, been intercalary by two baselines (LB1 and LB2) between the conditions. The study was executed in an experimental room of a high school institution having a computer (with the program named Superstition), video camera, sheet of answer with the experimental question, table and chair. Six participants (three men and three women) were exposed to experiments. Each participant answered the experimental assignment individually, so that behavior stereotypies of the six participants were registered in their frequencies. According submitted in results, no participants discriminated the conditions present which were exposed and neither answered like the FT scheme. So, in this condition, all the participants answered any way producing varied stereotypies evidenced by this study. The extension of the superstitious behavior and the behavior governed by rule can contribute for the generality of the phenomenon like illusion of control, whose concept emerged at the experimental social psychology and, besides these, the basics concepts of the behavior analysis and media notions were submitted and discussed in important details.