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A behavioral analysis of games
with rules. Julio C. De Rose and Maria Stella C. A. Gil Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil As Wittgenstein argued, games may not have a single defining feature. However, a feature present in most games is that people perform them for the pleasure they obtain and not for more tangible gains. This suggests that games entail powerful reinforcing consequences. Games with rules also provide specifications of behaviors and consequences. They are usually performed in social environments providing instructions and consequences for behaviors complying or not with the rules. Therefore, these games may function as instructional settings for the acquisition of new behaviors. Many standard games specify behaviors that overlap with academic goals. These games may, therefore, be important educational tools, since they may set occasions for the acquisition and maintenance of these behaviors, with powerful natural reinforcers. This presentation reviews studies in our laboratory, showing that adapted domino games may lead to the acquisition of arbitrary symbolic relations, with the properties of equivalence relations. Other games may be adapted to encourage children to play with words and sounds, learning to read and spell. We conclude that games are educational when the behaviors needed to perform the game overlap with socially desired behaviors and when contingencies are sufficient to guarantee that participants will acquire and maintain those behaviors. Keywords: play, educational games, verbal learning |
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