Keystone Contingencies & the Organization of Behavior Repertoires

Originally derived from ecology researchers, keystone species are species whose removal would disproportionately disrupt the current functioning and biodiversity of the ecosystem (e.g., starfish in northwestern North America, sea otters in the northern Pacific Ocean, elephants in eastern and southern Africa). Since its original description, researchers spanning many scientific disciplines have identified analogous aspects within the topics they study and the associated complicated or complex systems (e.g., cultural keystones, molecular keystones, corporate keystones, keystone individuals within social networks). In this paper, we outline the behavior science analogy in the concept of a keystone contingency: A contingency whose removal or significant modification would disproportionately disrupt the current functioning and observed variability of an organism’s behavioral system. To make the idea of keystone contingencies explicit, we first discuss the relationships between behavioral repertoires, behavioral processes, and behavioral systems that temporally scale and can be analyzed, spanning individual motor responses through molar patterns of behavior. Once the behavioral system of interacting contingencies is described, we then discuss how researchers and practitioners might validate that they have identified a keystone contingency for an organism and offer several potential targets for analysis. Even if keystone contingencies turn out not to exist or do so in a graded fashion, research lines that map and quantify the total set of interacting contingencies that comprise an organism’s experiences over time will likely teach us much about the behavior of organisms that we have yet to discover.