Cultural Systems Analysis
Cultural Systems Analysis
Cultural Systems Analysis
Mark A. Mattaini
In the chapters which follow, we shall turn to certain complex processes. Interlocking sys-
tems of responses will be traced to complex arrangements of variables
(B. F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior, 1953, p. 201).
Although B. F. Skinner outlined processes of cultural selection in his 1981 paper
“Selection by Consequences,” he began discussing behavioral systems from a cul-
tural perspective as early as 1948 (Walden Two; Glenn, 1986). In his 1953 Science
and Human Behavior he was clearly thinking in systems terms, using the term
“social systems” 15 times. Even that early, Skinner’s work was highly consistent
with contemporary approaches to cultural systems analysis (CSA), for example in
one case indicating that cultural practices within a social system can become “rea-
sonably self-sustaining” (Skinner, 1953, p. 419). Andery (1990) indicates that
Skinner viewed psychology in those early years not as a “science of the isolated
individual, but of the individual as part of a group, of society as an indissoluble col-
lection of individuals, of the group as a whole” (p. 174).
This chapter explores how systemic approaches to science enable behaviorists
and those of other disciplines with whom we collaborate to understand and inter-
vene in larger social and cultural processes. There are very few cultural and com-
munity issues in which behavior science does not need to act in concert with
specialists in other areas—and with members of, and cooperating and competing
organizations within, the community systems involved. Such community systems
1
Metacontingency: A contingent relation between (1) recurring interlocking behavioral contingen-
cies having an aggregate product and (2) selecting environmental events or conditions (Glenn
et al., 2016).
2
Self-organization and autopoiesis are commonly used interchangeably in contemporary systems science,
although autopoietic systems were originally defined to require self-generation (Mobus & Kalton, 2015).
M. A. Mattaini (*)
Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
offer unique expertise in the variables and ecological conditions that are most
involved in community issues—and solutions. The need to pay attention to inter-
locking disciplinary systems, community systems, and their connections—behav-
ioral and cultural systems dynamics—is clear. Before moving into such analyses,
however, it is important to clarify cultural and systems terms, and the conceptual
frameworks—sometimes contested—on which behavior science relies when work-
ing at collective levels.
Such contestation is not surprising, as cultural analytic science is a relatively
young field, and as such should welcome a range of possible perspectives and sci-
entific options. Some in the field see an immediate need to reach consensus on ter-
minology, conceptual frameworks, and methodologies (Glenn et al., 2016, reprinted
here as Chap. 2). It can be argued, however, that given the limited data and research
thus far available to contemporary culturo-behavior science, it is important to
explore multiple possibilities (Mattaini, 2019). As with other sciences (think, for
example, about physics), the most important conceptual and practical advances are
likely to emerge from broad exploration and extensive data collection. This was the
case in the development of operant theory (e.g., Ferster & Skinner, 1957; Skinner,
1938); ultimately only data can be trusted to guide us. Our challenge in going to
scale is that the ecological nature of social, cultural, and systems research is innately
and deeply complex, and therefore so are and so will be the data we pursue. Systems
theories are one route that many sciences have relied on to explore such complexity,
and are discussed in some detail below. First, however, some attention to cultural-
level terminology is required.
Terminology and Methods
distinct and independent existence.” Cultural entities, however, are best viewed as
networks of contingencies supporting or modifying cultural practices, rather than
aggregates of people.
Most of Skinner’s writing about culture (e.g., Skinner, 1953, 1981, 1984; also his
responses in Catania & Harnad, 1988) emphasized cultural practices—operants
that are shaped and maintained within groups. The concept of cultural practices is
enormously valuable for community and other large system work, including soci-
etal and global efforts related to social issues and goals. In addition, a focus on
practices is relatively easy for community and collaborating partners to integrate
into their efforts. As an example, Anthony Biglan (1995) wrote an extremely valu-
able book, Changing Cultural Practices, analyzing a number of societal challenges
and practices that could be embedded in communities to support human satisfac-
tion, safety, and sustainability (for example, related to child rearing, sexist behavior,
and global warming)—work that he has expanded in his more recent The Nurture
Effect (Biglan, 2015) and in multiple other publications.
Although use of the term cultural practices seems relatively straightforward, the
term culture can be more challenging. It is important to be aware of and respect the
ways the term is used in larger scientific, professional, and popular literatures, while
being specific about our own usage in behavior science. Anthropologists have not
settled on a single definition; those they use include “the ideas, customs and social
behavior of a particular people or society,” “the attitudes and behavior characteristic
of a particular social group,” and “the arts and other manifestations of human intel-
lectual achievement regarded collectively” (Culture, 2018). Some have recom-
mended that behavior science avoid the use of the term altogether, given possible
confusions, for example, related to cultural diversity efforts supporting social jus-
tice for particular racial, ethnic, sexual minority, and other groups, or concerns
about cultural appropriation (the adoption of practices of one culture by members of
another, particularly when members of a dominant group appropriate practices from
disadvantaged minority groups).
As behavior scientists extend their work into a broad range of settings, culture
has been understood as potentially including referents as broad as an ethnic culture
defined in anthropological terms, as persistent as the operating dynamics within the
IBM corporation, or as ephemeral as a group of three persons together in an experi-
mental lab for only 1 h (a “micro-culture”). More specificity is likely to emerge as
data are collected in our research.
Skinner discussed cultural selection as a process in which “new cultural prac-
tices, however they arise, contribute to the survival of the group and are perpetuated
because they do so” (Skinner, 1984, p. 221). He had earlier noted: “there is still a
third kind of selection which applies to cultural practices … the resulting behavior
may affect the success of the group in competition with other groups or with the
nonsocial environment” (Skinner, 1953, p. 430; see also Diamond (2011) and Harris
(2001) for similar analyses). Nonetheless, Skinner (1953) was skeptical about “the
proposition that there are social units, forces, and laws which require scientific
methods of a fundamentally different sort” from operant analysis (p. 312),
46 M. A. Mattaini
indicating rather that the selection of cultural practices, and the internal shaping of
culture, are at root operant processes involving contingencies of social
reinforcement:
A culture may be defined as the contingencies of social reinforcement maintained by a
group. As such it evolves in its own way, as new cultural practices, however they arise,
contribute to the survival of the group and are perpetuated because they do so. The evolu-
tion of cultures is of no further relevance here because no new behavioral processes are
involved. (Skinner, 1984, p. 221).
These questions are explored in more depth in the next section, as contemporary
behavior scientists are not in complete agreement here. What is clear, however, is
that cultural systems analysis (CSA) can provide tools that can help sustain a focus
on the dynamics within and between groups, and “the contingencies of social rein-
forcement” maintained by those dynamics. One example is introduced in Box 3.1;
readers are encouraged to explore the project discussed, both for what can be learned
from its systemic analyses, and as a model for engaging natural communities in
shaping and sustaining truly meaningful system change.
within and between multiple systems that maintain the identified problems”
(Swenson et al., 2005, p. 44), and the community was conceptualized as the
central client although intervention occurred at individual, family, small
group, and full neighborhood levels, deeply engaged with ecological realities
of poverty, racism, marginal schools and difficult police–community rela-
tions. The problems of young people were viewed as emerging from links,
both positive and negative, among family, peer, school, health, legal, and
broader systems—multiple contingencies that were graphically and tabularly
traced. Both individual and common contingencies could then be targeted for
change, and tested—and these are areas in which behavior analysts can make
unique contributions. This exceptional project calls out for replication.
not) and the selection of practices within cultures appear in Skinner’s work. Couto
and Sandaker offer a clear and convincing argument for making distinctions
between, while allowing for the reciprocal influence of, these models. The first, they
label the “selection of cultures” (cultural-social environments—essentially selec-
tion among cultures); think here survival-driven changes in the cultural practices of
an indigenous group when they first experience contact with contemporary (over?)
developed societies. The second model outlines “cultural selection,” in which prac-
tices within a culture are shaped and maintained. Think here about the impact of the
#MeToo movement in the United States, which resulted in changes in the behavior
of both women and (to some extent) men, but was not primarily the result of contact
with other societies, climate change, or other external variables.
Analysis within Couto and Sandaker’s (2016) cultural-selection model relies on
patterns of interlocking and recursive operant contingencies within cultures.
Because these processes are complex and dynamic, analysis in fact requires sys-
temic science as discussed later in this paper, but may well not produce evidence of
emergence beyond what complex contingency analysis can explain. Clarification of
the processes involved in Couto and Sandaker’s selection of cultures has yet to be
fully developed; it may in fact discover emergence of new phenomena and princi-
ples, or may not. It is of course important in science to remain open to revising cur-
rent thinking, rather than to defend existing understandings regardless of new data.
Important limitations to the framework of selection by consequences have paral-
lels at the biological, behavioral, and collective levels (Killeen, 2019; Killeen &
Jacobs, 2017; Mattaini, 2019). Biological features selected are not necessarily opti-
mal for survival; they are often simply good enough. Many biological changes in
fact are the results of largely random variations (from which better options may, but
need not, emerge). Operant behaviors that persist may be maintained by surround-
ing antecedents and consequences but likewise are not necessarily optimal, often in
fact far from it (think here about smoking or other addictive behaviors).
Similarly, at the cultural level, many practices (memes, musical forms) have no
particular survival value for the culture, and in fact detrimental practices (within-
group aggression or sexual assault, for example) may accelerate in ways that are
culturally detrimental, as in the case of white supremacy in the United States. In
addition, some biological, behavioral, and cultural changes are not the result of
selection as we typically understand it at all—much of behavior appears to be
largely responsive to contextual factors, motivational states, errors in attention, and
signaling processes, rather than simple reinforcement (Baum, 2012; Killeen, 2019).
Cultural analytic scientists carry heavy ethical responsibilities to elaborate, encour-
age, and support both personally and culturally beneficial practices, but doing so
requires achieving clarity under ecologically complex conditions. Inadequate analy-
sis may, for example, suggest apparently simple interventions upon which key
actors and communities may come to rely, while allowing the real issues to escalate,
simultaneously increasing dependency on the intervenor (the “shifting the burden”
systems archetype (Braun, 2002), one form of “critical disturbance” that may
3 Cultural Systems Analysis: An Emerging Science 49
produce unpredictable instability (Mobus & Kalton, 2015, p. 242)). This is one
reason why analyses of ecological complexity are crucial to cultural systems
analysis.
Ecological Complexity
Although there is a place for laboratory investigations, nearly all cultural analytic
research and intervention will involve work within complex human, organizational,
and interdisciplinary arrangements. Complexity studies have both advanced and
challenged all contemporary sciences. Beckage, Kauffman, Gross, Zia, and Koliba
(2013) noted hopefully that the scientific limits imposed by inherent complexities
result in “a loss of predictability as one moves from physical to biological to human
social systems, but also creates a rich and enchanting range of dynamics” (p. 79)—a
range that can be truly energizing for behavior science. As in the example in Box
3.1, think about the complex realities within which a behavior scientist is immersed
in work to assist a marginalized population, homeless young people struggling with
interlocking issues of substance abuse, crime, poverty, racial and sexual minority
biases, intergenerational trauma, and public health challenges largely emerging
from surrounding external systems (financial, educational, and housing disadvan-
tage) at local, state, and national levels (Rylko-Bauer & Farmer, 2016; Wilson,
2016). If that behaviorist is specifically attempting to be of assistance to homeless
young people who have aged out of the foster care system, the interdisciplinary
complexity and limitations of service systems are highly relevant (Holtschneider,
2015). Given these realities, behavior scientists have much to learn from scholars
and professionals in public health, urban planning, prevention science, social work,
and human ecology. Skills of interdisciplinary work are crucial; most of the exam-
ples throughout this book are consistent with this requirement.
One of the key challenges arising in such work is determining what variables to
track, and how to analyze them in their complexity. In 1974, Edwin P. Willems
indicated in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, that due to the “system-like
interdependencies among environment, organism and behavior” there is an “imme-
diate and pervasive need for an expansion of perspective” (p. 8) in applied set-
tings—a need that cultural science is beginning (finally) to take seriously. As noted
in Mattaini (2019):
The science required to have a meaningful impact on major social issues will largely be, for
behavior analysis, “a new kind of science” (apologies to Wolfram) constructed within the
ecological fields where the issues about which we are concerned are embedded. (p. 718).
Sociocultural Contex t
a
Inputs Inputs
Behavioural
system
c Receiving person(s)
or system(s)
b Outputs d
Consequences
Rules
e
f
Fig. 3.1 The elaborated metacontingency. © Mark A. Mattaini (2013). (Adapted with
permission)
Sociocultural Contex t
Inputs Inputs
Behavioural
system
Receiving person(s)
or system(s)
Outputs
Consequences
Rules
Fig. 3.2 Self-organization (Autopoiesis). © Mark A. Mattaini (2013). (Adapted with
permission)
(continued)
52 M. A. Mattaini
Fig. 3.3 The intersection of two (or more) cultural systems. © Mark A. Mattaini (2013).
(Adapted with permission)
Important scientific theorists in the early and middle twentieth century contributed
to the development and integration of systemic analyses in most sciences and many
professions. Ludwig von Bertalanffy developed general system theory (now gener-
ally called general systems theory) beginning in the 1920s, with a breathtakingly
ambitious goal: the “unity of science” (von Bertalanffy, 1968, p. 86). Other early
leaders in the development of systems orientations included Talcott Parsons and
Smelser (1956), Odum and Odum (1953), and Bogdanov (1980). Von Bertalanffy’s
(1968) expectation has largely proven true: systems analyses have become crucial
in developing common understanding among most contemporary basic and applied
sciences, including all of the STEM disciplines, biology, ecology, environmental
studies, chemistry, sociology, economics, mechanics, and military and weapons sci-
ences. Systems theories (including ecosystems theory, Mattaini & Huffman-
Gottschling, 2012) have for several decades been central to the practice of major
human service professions, including social work and public health.
Consistent with Beckage et al.’s (2013) quote above, the content of systems theo-
ries, and their related analyses, differ in important ways among physical systems,
biological systems, and human social systems. In this book the authors refer primar-
ily to Beckage et al.’s (and Skinner’s) “social systems,”—cultural systems here—but
the others also have their place in cultural and community work. Physical systems
analyses generally emphasize positive and negative feedback loops (as in a home
heating system, where control of the system relies on feedback from a thermostat).
Such loops also occur, for example, in business organizations, where the outputs of
3 Cultural Systems Analysis: An Emerging Science 53
lists several widely used terms from ecologically grounded systems theories with
particular relevance to cultural systems analysis.
In most cases, systems of interest are nested within higher level systems (supra-
systems), and include subsystems. This is particularly important in cultural and
community research and intervention, because events happening at higher or lower
levels can have significant impact on the system of primary interest. In business and
service organizations, for example, issues in one critical component or levels of
resources flowing from an environmental suprasystem can sabotage organizational
goals, or contribute to achievement in surprising ways. Assessment at multiple lev-
els is therefore often critical in completing an analysis.
One of the most difficult but most important systems principles is that systems
are not defined as aggregations of individual members, but rather as temporally
extended patterns of dynamic interactive events or transactions occurring within
and between members (note the similarity to networks of behavioral contingencies).
For example, a coalition of advocacy groups exists only as and in the patterns of
events that occur among member organizations—and between those organizations,
those they are advocating for (e.g., homeless youth), and those toward whom the
advocacy may be directed (e.g., foundations, government funding agencies).
Similarly, a nonviolent protest movement or an environmental advocacy group
exists only in the coordinated actions being taken (see examples below). Iterative
feedback loops—both positive (also known as amplifying feedback loops) and neg-
ative (also known as balancing feedback loops) are central to most systems models
(Hudson, 2000; Krispin, 2017; Mobus & Kalton, 2015).
All systems have boundaries that can be identified by the density of interactions
among members within the system. The boundary of a particular school class
includes those who are typically present and interacting, and is generally relatively
stable over the course of a school term. Members of a community of queer street
youth may be more fluid—the boundary of that community is more permeable, and
yet still can typically be determined (at least by those who are members of that com-
munity). Similarly, the membership of a legislative body or a police department is
generally stable, with a less permeable boundary than is true for a police violence
protest coalition, or a green economy lobbying group.
Understanding these groups as dynamic (or sometimes “dynamical,” if changes
over time can be precisely traced and analyzed mathematically) and clarifying their
boundaries is important in analysis. Systems generally couple with others; research
institutes, for example may couple relatively intensively but loosely over time with
multiple funding sources. Analysis of such coupling contributes to determining pos-
sibilities for and limits of possible interventions. Similarly, analysis of the extent to
which a system exists as a stable state can be important as options for change are
explored; a flexible system in healthy steady state may be much more responsive
and open to new possibilities than one operating in a more rigid homeostasis.
Subsystems (say, a behavior analysis department in a university) may develop their
own patterns, activities, and events (autopoiesis) without attending to guidance
from university-level administrators. This may be advantageous or problematic for
the discipline and department, and independently advantageous or problematic for
the university.
3 Cultural Systems Analysis: An Emerging Science 55
Advocacy,
Church Advanced
Activist, &
(Variable) Training,
Community
Education
Orgs
Fig. 3.4 Systems with which young men are or are not commonly connected
56 M. A. Mattaini
This final section outlines approaches for (a) exploring, (b) modeling, and (c) com-
paring interlocking contingencies present in interconnected behavioral systems.
The first example is one that is common in advocacy situations, in which either laws
and regulations providing protection and funding are desired, or courts are peti-
tioned to provide protection to a vulnerable class or environmental condition.
3 Cultural Systems Analysis: An Emerging Science 57
Table 3.2 Sample practices, in key community sectors, that support or oppose youth activism
Incentives,
Practices supporting Practices opposing disincentives, and
Sector activism activism facilitating conditions
News media Locate and provide Portray youth primarily Community response
coverage of positive as “predators” or as to news stories;
youth actions and incompetent and lacking advertising dollars;
activism; portray youth good judgment access to positive
as powerful community (adultism) stories
resources
Schools Staff act as mentors, Suppress youth voice Encouragement from
models, and allies in related to curriculum, school administration
youth activism within policies, issues, and and parents;
and outside school; solutions partnerships with
youth voice respected; activist organizations
issues of social justice
and history of
nonviolent action
integrated into
curriculum
Local Government Shape, support, and Create youth Voter responses, legal
respond to actions taken programming that views limitations, and
by youth councils; youth as a problem to be incentives related to
include youth in managed and controlled access to and use of
planning of youth funds
programming and
community
development efforts
Entertainment Portray youth as Portray youth in Viewer response;
media courageous contributors dangerous, incompetent, advertising dollars;
to community life and or violent roles; regulation of portrayal
justice; offer alternative emphasize models of of violence;
social narratives self-indulgent community
emphasizing social overconsumption and encouragement of
justice (i.e., create new violence in programming portraying and
equivalences and rules) advocating for
sustainable lifestyles
Churches Offer youth Focus exclusively on Guidance of church
opportunities to explore interior spiritual life hierarchies and elders;
moral and spiritual without significant response of church
implications of and attention to social members
potential responses to injustices
social issues; provide
opportunities to partner
with adult activists and
allies
(continued)
58 M. A. Mattaini
Examples may include, for example, individual people or families at risk (refugees
or sex workers), other species (gray wolves or redwoods), or natural environments
and conditions (public lands or carbon emissions). Advocacy patterns across all of
these situations are often similar, and in fact advocates for one can often learn both
strategic options and tactics from groups concerned about different issues. In such
cases, it is crucial to identify what single action (e.g., passage of a law) or ongoing
practice (repeatedly committing funding or approving environmental protection
laws) is the central target of the campaign. Cultural systems modeling can integrate
multiple strategic actions among multiple concerned systems. Figure 3.5 provides a
relatively simple initial model, with the goal of passing laws protecting wildlife and
public lands (two closely related goals). I draw here from my own extended experi-
ence with two existing organizations that will not be named here. Both have strong
histories of success, and extensive data to demonstrate it.
In the case of a wildlife conservation bill in the US Senate, of course many orga-
nizations will often work to achieve the desired vote; a full systems diagram could
show many of them and their interactions. Simplified models like that shown in
Fig. 3.5 can provide a useful beginning for analysis. Note that the two organizations
approach the overall cause in two overlapping but distinct ways. The wildlife advo-
cacy organization operates primarily at a distance from their contributors, soliciting
funds and signatures on petitions which are then used to lobby the senator. (This
organization also uses many of their resources for court challenges.) The
60 M. A. Mattaini
Action/Practice Action/Practice
Solicit pe!!ons and lobbying funds Solicit lobbying volunteers & funds
Reinforcers/Consequences
• Voter support
Action/Practice • Donor support Action/Practice
Sign pe!!ons, send funds • Personal Sa!sfac!on Donate, & appear to lobby
sportsmen’s organization on the right is much more interactive with members, with
local chapters in nearly every US state and every province north of the Canadian
border, an annual Rendezvous drawing several thousand members, regular pint-
nights with integral chapter meetings in local sites, a very well-designed quarterly
magazine emphasizing local successes and issues, and frequently and creatively
develops new ways to construct a community of commitment around conservation,
public lands and waters, and related issues. They arrange for local chapters to meet
with local, state, and federal legislatures regularly, and solicit funds through a broad
range of reinforcing campaigns. Members and staff have extensive mutual contact,
often in person. Note one difference in comparing the diagrams of the two organiza-
tions: many of the reinforcers for staff in the sportsmen’s organization involve direct
contacts with members, and many of the reinforcers for members in that group
come from mutual face-to-face contacts (see the reciprocal arrows at the very bot-
tom right of the diagram). In systems terms, the staff and leadership subsystems are
much more tightly coupled with the members, and members are more organized
into additional local subsystems.
3 Cultural Systems Analysis: An Emerging Science 61
Looking at the models developed in this chapter, it is clear that cultural and behav-
ioral systems are largely constituted of complex and sometimes competing sets of
behavioral contingencies, motivative operations, along with relational responding,
rule governance, and all of the other dimensions of behavior science—and that pro-
ducing systemic changes relies on shifting those elements. Everything learned in
behavior analysis education and practice therefore remains central even as behavior
science moves to the cultural level. Reinforcers and aversive conditions affect the
behavior of individuals; contingencies experienced in common within a group or
culture can shape practices collectively. Rule governance, communication, and
mutuality are present in all organizations, and although often more loosely orga-
nized, in community settings as well. The reinforcers and motivative operations in
Fig. 3.5 are actually relatively complex. Why, for example, do the dollars and
62 M. A. Mattaini
There are many serious societal challenges where there is disagreement about the
nature of the problem, or the best ways to approach agreed upon issues. As interest
and commitment to these issues is increasing in the behavior science and behavior
analysis communities, organized programs of basic and exploratory community and
cultural-level research conducted within transdisciplinary arrangements are becom-
ing an urgent and promising priority. Applied research, particularly relying on the
modeling techniques, to develop and test alternative options has the potential for
developing promising interventions over relatively short timeframes.
One valuable educational technique to prepare students would be to select one or
two serious challenges, and have small groups begin to model the issue, identifying
the cultural and behavioral systems involved, how they interact, and at what points
intervention might be most effective—grounding the analysis in existing literature
and research. The models produced by multiple student groups can then be com-
pared, contrasted, and possibly integrated, with the result either of one model on
which most agree, or with a small number of models that could be evaluated over
time based on ongoing and emerging data. In all of this work, a certain level of free
creativity should be incorporated, along with a commitment at the end to follow the
data. It is likely that such systems analyses will suggest policy level changes (within
3 Cultural Systems Analysis: An Emerging Science 63
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