| Abstract: A detailed understanding of the prevailing behavioral contingencies is a precondition for the management of most human affairs. To the degree that behavioral contingencies are understood, the knowledge base of behavioral science can be brought to bear on their design.
This paper presents a language and syntax for analyzing and diagramming any system of behavioral contingencies, including the complex ones encountered in the fields of law, business, public affairs, sociology, education, and economics.
The language and syntax for such analysis, and its associated notation system, specifies the “if, then” relationships between acts and their consequences, and between the termination of time periods and their consequences. The syntax includes modifiers of acts to indicate their agents, and the consequences’ probabilities, valences, magnitudes, and parties that perceive or misperceive them.
Analyses and diagrams of wide-ranging examples like fraud, betting, blackmail, various games, theft, contracts, racing, competition, mutual deterrence, feuding, bargaining, deception, loan transactions, insurance, elections, global warming, personal tipping, vigilance, sexual overtures, decision making, mistaken identity, etc. are presented as illustrations of the ability of the proposed three-term vocabulary, (acts, consequences, and time period terminations) and the associated simple syntax, to generate the myriad nuances of meaning needed to provide the required generality and reach. |