Advisor(s)

Eileen M. Roscoe

Contributor(s)

Jason C. Bourret, William H. Ahearn

Date of Award

2009

Date Accepted

8-2009

Degree Grantor

Northeastern University

Degree Level

M.S.

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department or Academic Unit

Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology.

Keywords

Behavior analysts, Escape extinction, Motivating operations, Negative reinforcement

Subject Categories

Reinforcement (Psychology), Reward (Psychology), Motivation

Disciplines

Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms

Abstract

Kodak, Lerman, Volkert and Trosclair (2007) found that participants who exhibited problem behavior maintained by escape selected an arbitrary reinforcer (an edible) over a maintaining reinforcer (escape), suggesting that an arbitrary reinforcer may be more effective than the maintaining reinforcer in decreasing problem behavior. However, because the tasks used may not have functioned as establishing operations for participants' problem behavior, it is unclear whether these findings would generalize to tasks that reliably evoke problem behavior. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend procedures conducted by Kodak et al. by conducting both a task preference assessment (as used by Kodak et al.) and a task motivating-operation assessment as described by Roscoe, Rooker, Pence and Longworth (in press), prior to conducting the concurrent operant analysis between edible vs. break under increasing schedule requirements. A high-preference task, a low-preference task (according to the task preference assessment), and a low-probability task (according to the task preference assessment and the motivating operation assessment) were alternated in a multielement design. Results showed that one participant consistently selected the edible over the break regardless of the task condition or reinforcement schedule in effect, whereas the other participant consistently selected the break over the edible.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Rights Holder

Jennifer Welles Loring


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