Behavioral economics and behavioral momentum.
Behavioral momentum and economics can share the same ruler, but they still argue about why behavior stays.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lyons (1995) wrote a theory paper. It asked: can we glue two big ideas together?
The ideas are behavioral momentum and behavioral economics. The paper maps price to mass.
What they found
No new data. The paper shows the two fields can share one ruler.
It also warns: momentum says behavior is selected, economics says it is maximized.
How this fits with other research
Rachlin (1995) did the same glue job in the same year. It used value and odd discount curves, not momentum. The two papers do not fight; they just pick different paths up the same mountain.
McGeown et al. (2013) came later and took the demand-curve tool to the policy world. The 1995 map gave them the ruler.
Heyman (2023) keeps climbing. It swaps utility for the matching law to explain why kids over-pick the richest reinforcer. The climb started with the 1995 foothold.
Why it matters
You now have one ruler that turns price into mass. Use it to guess which skill will stick after you thin reinforcement. If the mass feels heavy, program extra practice before you fade the token.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Some relations between elasticity of demand and the conditions of reinforcement are reanalyzed in terms of resistance to change, in ways suggested by the metaphor of behavioral momentum; some relations between resistance to change and the conditions of reinforcement are reanalyzed in terms of elasticity of demand, in ways suggested by behavioral economics. In addition, some data on labor supply in relation to variable-ratio schedules and alternative reinforcement are reanalyzed in terms of resistance to change and compared with steady-state resistance data for performance on multiple and concurrent interval schedules. The results of these studies can be summarized by two functions based on the behavioral momentum approach, relating relative behavioral mass to relative reinforcement per response or per unit time. The former is a relation between relative unit price and relative behavioral mass, suggesting the possibility of convergent measurement of a theoretical construct common to both approaches. However, the momentum and economic approaches differ fundamentally on whether it is preferable to construe discriminated operant behavior as selected and strengthened by its consequences or as part of a behavior-consequence bundle that maximizes utility.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1995 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1995.64-385