Roane, H. S., Lerman, D. C., & Vorndran, C. M. (2001).
Assessing reinforcers under progressive schedule requirements.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
34, 145-167.
Recent research findings suggest that reinforcing stimuli may be
differentially effective as response requirements increase. We
extended this line of research by evaluating responding under
increasing schedule requirements via progressive-ratio schedules
and behavioral economic analyses. The differential effectiveness
of preferred stimuli in treating destructive behavior maintained
by automatic reinforcement also was examined. Results showed that
one of two stimuli was associated with more responding under
increasing schedule requirements for the 4 participants.
Furthermore, stimuli associated with more responding under
increasing schedule requirements generally were more effective in
treating destructive behavior than stimuli associated with less
responding. These data suggest that progressive-ratio schedules
and behavioral economic analyses may be useful for developing a
new technology for reinforcer identification. From a clinical
perspective, these results suggest that two reinforcers may be
similarly effective for low-effort tasks and differentially
effective for high-effort tasks.
DESCRIPTORS: _automatic reinforcement, behavioral economics,
progressive-ratio schedules, reinforcer assessment