Experimental control of superstitious responding inhumans.
A short pause between choices can wipe out behavior that is only kept going by lucky timing.
01Research in Context
What this study did
College students sat at a table with two buttons. A light blinked every few seconds. If the student pressed the right button when the light came on, they earned a coin.
The trick: the coin came no matter which button they pressed. The students got rich by accident. The researchers then added a two-second pause, called a changeover delay (COD), between switching buttons.
What they found
The pause broke the lucky streak. Superstitious button pressing dropped to almost zero. The COD stopped the accidental payoff from following the switch.
How this fits with other research
Neuringer (1969) later showed that a red light meaning "no money" worked even faster than a delay. Both tricks stop accidental reinforcement, but the signal beats the wait.
Carr et al. (2002) moved the idea into therapy rooms. They gave kids free toys during a functional analysis. The free toys cut problem behavior the same way the COD cut superstitious presses.
Aznar et al. (2005) did the same during tooth-brushing. Free sensory toys slashed biting and screaming. Again, noncontingent stuff broke the accidental payoff chain.
Why it matters
If a client keeps doing a quirky response that never earns real reinforcement, insert a brief pause or give free access to a strong alternative. Either move breaks the accident that keeps the superstition alive.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Superstitions were demonstrated with human subjects when presses on one button were reinforced on a VI 30-sec schedule while presses on a second were never reinforced. Superstitious responding, on the second button, was often maintained because presses on that button were frequently followed by reinforcement for a subsequent press on the first button. The introduction of a changeover delay (COD), which separated in time presses on the second button and subsequent reinforced presses on the first button, reduced or eliminated the superstitious responding of these subjects. Some complex superstitions were also demonstrated with other subjects for which the COD was in effect from the beginning of the session.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1963 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1963.6-203