Describing response-event relations: Babel revisited.
Stop saying 'reinforcement is contingent' and start writing the exact response that produces the exact reinforcer.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The authors read piles of ABA papers and noticed chaos.
Everyone used the word 'contingency' but meant different things.
They wrote a short paper begging us to spell out exactly what response produces what event.
What they found
No new data.
Just a warning: loose talk about contingencies hides what we are actually doing to our clients.
They gave examples showing how the same word can describe opposite procedures.
How this fits with other research
Parsons et al. (1981) ran the exact test the target paper wanted.
They taught autistic kids by making the target response the only path to the reinforcer—open the lid to get the cookie.
Learning speed doubled overnight.
Keely et al. (2007) showed rats track these same precise contingencies even when the delay is hidden and long.
Together, the three papers form a chain: define the contingency clearly, test it, and organisms will follow it.
Lerman et al. (1995) echoes the call for clarity but focuses on mand training.
Both papers say: stop hiding behind big words and list the exact ABC sequence you arranged.
Why it matters
Next time you write a behavior plan, replace the word 'contingent' with the real sentence: 'When the client raises hand, teacher gives token within 1 s.'
Your team will program the right procedure, and your data will finally make sense.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The terms used to describe the relations among the three components of contingencies of reinforcement and punishment include many with multiple meanings and imprecise denotation. In particular, usage of the term "contingency" and its variants and acceptance of unsubstantiated functional, rather than procedural, descriptions of response-event relations are especially troublesome in the behavior analysis literature. Clarity seems best served by restricting the term "contingency" to its generic usage and by utilizing procedural descriptions of response-event relations.
The Behavior analyst, 1981 · doi:10.1007/BF03391861