Additional free reinforcers increase persistence of problem behavior in a clinical context: A partial replication of laboratory findings
Extra noncontingent reinforcers can make problem behavior harder to extinguish—so probe early and fade fast.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lieving and colleagues tested three people in a clinic room.
The team gave extra reinforcers on a fixed-time schedule while the person’s problem behavior was on extinction.
They wanted to see if the free goodies would make the bad behavior stick around longer.
What they found
Two out of three participants kept hitting, yelling, or flopping far longer during extinction when the extra reinforcers were present.
The third person showed little change.
Bottom line: the added free snacks and praise made the problem behavior tougher to kill.
How this fits with other research
Williams et al. (2002) saw the opposite in two elders with dementia. Their loud outbursts dropped fast when staff used noncontingent reinforcement after a quick functional check.
The clash is simple: same NCR idea, but dementia folks got better while Lieving’s clinic kids got worse. The elders’ behavior was probably social, so free attention worked; the clinic behavior may have been automatic, so extra goodies just fed the persistence.
Kimball et al. (2018) also watched extinction fall apart. They showed that removing the communicative alternative made resurgence worse. Pair these studies and you see a pattern: tiny setup changes—extra reinforcers, missing responses—can quietly sabotage your extinction plan.
Why it matters
If you fade NCR too slowly, you may be handing the learner bonus fuel for the very behavior you want gone. Run a quick probe without the free reinforcers before you call treatment finished. If the behavior roars back, thin the schedule faster or switch to differential reinforcement instead.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Behavioral momentum theory is a quantitative framework used to characterize the persistence of behavior during response disruptors as a function of baseline stimulus-reinforcer relations. Results of several investigations have shown that alternative reinforcement can increase the resistance to change of a target response during extinction. In the present study, concomitant variable-interval fixed-time schedules of reinforcement for problem behavior were employed to simulate naturalistic situations involving the superimposition of response-independent reinforcers on a baseline schedule of reinforcement for problem behavior, as in the common use of noncontingent reinforcement treatments. Resistance to change of problem behavior was assessed during postsession periods of extinction by comparing response rates in extinction following sessions with and without additional reinforcer deliveries arranged by fixed-time schedules. For 2 out of 3 participants, problem behavior tended to be more resistant to extinction following periods in which additional fixed-time reinforcers were delivered. These results are discussed in terms of potential effects of noncontingent reinforcement on problem behavior when the intervention is discontinued or implemented without good treatment integrity.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2018 · doi:10.1002/jeab.310