A Pilot Study of Observing Responses in Dyadic Competition

Competition is said to be arranged when reinforcers are distributed unequally based on the participants’ performances. Responses that produce access to the participants’ score and/or the score of their competitor(s) are commonly referred to as audits and are analogous to observing responses in the experimental literature. The current study sought to bridge the experimental and dyadic competition literatures by extending previous research on observing (i.e., audit) responses in a human operant arrangement. Ten undergraduate students participated in dyadic competitive arrangements in Minecraft Education on a desktop computer. A single participant competed in successive 3-min contests against one of two automated confederates that differed in their rate of competitive responding. Participants’ rate of competitive, audit, and contest termination responses were measured. Differentiated performances were only observed when participants audited during contests. Implications for experimental research on competitive contingencies are discussed.