Stimulus Equivalence and Social Categorization in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Subjects of this study were Catholics and Protestants from Northern Ireland. They included six adults and thirty children; the children were aged between five years and twelve years. Using a mixture of arbitrary and socially loaded stimuli, subjects were taught four conditional discriminations. They were taught firstly to select stimulus B1 (arbitrary stimulus) in the presence of A1 (Protestant stimulus) and to select stimulus B2 (arbitrary stimulus) in the presence of stimulus A2 (Catholic stimulus). They were trained then to select stimulus C1 (Catholic stimulus) in the presence of B1 and to select stimulus C2 (Protestant stimulus) in the presence of B2. An equivalence test was administered subsequently to determine whether these Protestant and Catholic symbols had become related through symmetry and transitivity. Additional test were administered using arbitrary and nonarbitrary novel stimuli to determine if socially learned relations would compete with the emergence of equivalence relations. Findings suggest that prior social learning can result in equivalence responding not occurring in the testing phase.