Metacontingency Terminology, Philosophical Assumptions, and the Scientific Dialogue: A Response to Ardila-Sánchez and Hayes (2023)

Ardila-Sánchez and Hayes (2023, this issue) discuss how differing philosophical assumptions might reflect on differing metacontingency terminology and debate some of the arguments presented by Sampaio and Haydu (2023). We respond by restating the urgent need to clarify the definition of cultural milieu, which is illustrated by an argument about discriminative stimuli as components of the cultural milieu. We clarify that the differences in metacontingency terminology that we did not emphasize were related to interlocking behavioral contingencies (IBCs) and cultural consequences, and not to cultural milieu and group-rule generation. We question any rigid separations of “Skinnerian” and “Kantorian views” of cultural phenomena, insisting that we focus on a unified culturo-behavior science. We elucidate that verbal responses and stimuli may participate in IBCs, cultural antecendents, or selecting environment variables; answer some questions about the latter two concepts; and clarify that the we presented a COVID-19 psychological support project not to empirically validate the concept, but to illustrate and test the conceptual coherence of the terms and theory.