Generalization of verbal conditioning to verbal and nonverbal behavior: group therapy with chronic psychiatric patients.
Tokens boost positive talk and activity joining in chronic psychiatric inpatients, but praise about people stays in the room.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Tracey et al. (1974) ran group therapy on a locked psychiatric ward. They used tokens to reward patients for saying positive things about activities and people.
They tested if the talk would spread to real life. They tracked who joined activities and how patients spoke about staff in later interviews.
What they found
Tokens bumped up positive talk right away. When patients praised activities, they also showed up for those activities more often.
Praising people in group did not carry over. Outside interviews held no extra kind words about staff.
How this fits with other research
Boren et al. (1970) showed the same token economy could cut misbehavior on a similar ward. Tracey et al. (1974) ask the next question: does the new talk travel?
Tracey et al. (1974) also echo Tracey et al. (1974) with a teen girl. Both used tokens to shape verbal behavior. Both saw gains in the training spot but needed extra help for real-world carry-over.
Renne et al. (1976) later added brief skills training to tokens and got big social gains for delinquent girls. Their success hints that tokens alone may not be enough; you may need teaching steps too.
Why it matters
If you run groups on an adult psychiatric unit, reinforce talk about activities and you may see more participation. Do not assume kind words about people will generalize on their own. Plan extra supports or direct training when you want the talk to stick in new places.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
TWELVE CHRONIC HOSPITALIZED FEMALE PATIENTS RECEIVED TOKEN REINFORCEMENT CONTINGENT ON TWO SEPARATE CLASSES OF VERBALIZATIONS: (a) positive statements about optional activities available in the hospital setting, and (b) positive statements about people. Cross-class generalization of reinforced verbal responses about activities to overt behavior was tested by actual participation in activities; within-class generalization of verbal responses about people to verbalizations in another stimulus setting was assessed in a structured interview situation. A multiple baseline design with contingency reversals was employed to demonstrate experimental control of both classes of verbalizations in the group sessions. Positive statements about activities generalized to actual participation in activities, while generalization of positive statements about people to verbalization in the extragroup setting did not occur.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1974.7-391