title: The behavioral economics of production.
abstract: In two experiments, thirsty rats licked an empty spout instrumentally for water delivered at a neighboring spout. Each such pair of spouts constituted a work station, and one, two, or three stations were available in the test enclosure. In 1-hr sessions, the rats worked alone or in the company of 1 or 2 other rats, and performed either five, 10, or 40 licks at the empty spout for each water delivery. The total number of empty-spout licks, summed across rats and stations, increased with the empty-lick requirement and, with some exceptions, the number of rats in the enclosure and the number of work stations available. A Cobb-Douglas production function, with instrumental responding as an output and the three independent variables as inputs, accounted for a significant percentage of the variance. Contrary to that function, output failed to increase with additional rats (or work stations) when the number of work stations (or rats) was relatively small.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Allison
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: English
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005260:Female; D009622:Noise; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013894:Thirst