Human responding on random-interval schedules of response-cost punishment: the role of reduced reinforcement density.
Taking away money for a response cuts human behavior more than just paying less often.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Eight college students pressed a button for money on a random-interval schedule. Sometimes they also lost money for pressing. The researchers compared two conditions: losing money for pressing versus simply earning less money overall.
The team wanted to know if response-cost works only because it makes good things scarcer. They yoked each participant to another who got the same pay cuts, but without the penalty. This let them isolate the true punisher effect.
What they found
Six out of eight students slowed their pressing when money was taken away. The drop was bigger than when they just earned less without the penalty.
The results show response-cost suppresses behavior beyond any reduction in reinforcement density. The punisher itself, not just leaner pay, cut the response rate.
How this fits with other research
Davison et al. (1968) first showed punishment suppresses pigeons equally on rich and lean schedules. Van der Molen et al. (2010) now confirms the same independence in humans using money instead of shock.
Rilling et al. (1969) already cut speech disfluencies with a penny penalty. The new study adds tight yoked controls, proving the effect is not just thinner reinforcement.
Robertson et al. (2013) later used the same monetary loss to keep adults following inaccurate instructions. Together these papers show response-cost reliably reduces human behavior across very different tasks.
Why it matters
When you use response-cost with clients, you now know the penalty itself is doing work. You can confidently apply small fines, point loss, or token take-aways without worrying you are simply making reinforcement scarce. Try a brief cost next session—like losing one token for off-task talk—and watch if the behavior drops more than when you just thin the reward schedule.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
An experiment with adult humans investigated the effects of response-contingent money loss (response-cost punishment) on monetary-reinforced responding. A yoked-control procedure was used to separate the effects on responding of the response-cost contingency from the effects of reduced reinforcement density. Eight adults pressed buttons for money on a three-component multiple reinforcement schedule. During baseline, responding in all components produced money gains according to a random-interval 20-s schedule. During punishment conditions, responding during the punishment component conjointly produced money losses according to a random-interval schedule. The value of the response-cost schedule was manipulated across conditions to systematically evaluate the effects on responding of response-cost frequency. Participants were assigned to one of two yoked-control conditions. For participants in the Yoked Punishment group, during punishment conditions money losses were delivered in the yoked component response independently at the same intervals that money losses were produced in the punishment component. For participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group, responding in the yoked component produced the same net earnings as produced in the punishment component. In 6 of 8 participants, contingent response cost selectively decreased response rates in the punishment component and the magnitude of the decrease was directly related to the punishment schedule value. Under punishment conditions, for participants in the Yoked Punishment group response rates in the yoked component also decreased, but the decrease was less than that observed in the punishment component, whereas for participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group response rates in the yoked component remained similar to rates in the no-punishment component. These results provide further evidence that contingent response cost functions similarly to noxious punishers in that it appears to suppress responding apart from its effects on reinforcement density.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2010 · doi:10.1901/jeab.2010.93-5