Maintaining high activity levels in sedentary adults with a reinforcement-thinning schedule.
Thinning rewards to every few days kept sedentary adults at 83% step-goal success while saving tokens.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with adults who sat most of the day. They wanted to see if people would keep walking when rewards came only every few days.
Half the group wore a pedometer and got points only on some days. The other half just wore the pedometer. Everyone aimed for 10,000 steps a day for 12 weeks.
What they found
The thinning group hit their step goal on 83 out of 100 days. The monitor-only group hit it on 55 days.
By week 24 the two groups looked the same, but during the active 12 weeks the thinning schedule kept people moving while using fewer rewards.
How this fits with other research
Thompson et al. (1974) showed pigeons will keep pecking even when reward time is cut, as long as it is mixed up. Andrade et al. (2014) now shows the same idea works with adult humans and walking.
MacNaul et al. (2021) remind us to check what people still want every 8-30 days. That tip matters when you start giving tokens only some days.
Matson et al. (2011) used a different schedule to lower kids’ hand raises. Both studies prove you can shape behavior by changing when praise or tokens arrive.
Why it matters
You can cut token cost without losing step count during the first three months. Start with daily tokens, then thin to every third day while you re-check preferences each week. Use this plan with adult clients who need cheap, low-staff ways to stay active.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Physical inactivity is a leading cause of mortality. Reinforcement interventions appear to be useful for increasing activity and preventing adverse consequences of sedentary lifestyles. This study evaluated a reinforcement-thinning schedule for maintaining high activity levels. Sedentary adults (N = 77) were given pedometers and encouraged to walk ≥10,000 steps per day. Initially, all participants earned rewards for each day they walked ≥10,000 steps. Subsequently, 61 participants were randomized to a monitoring-only condition or a monitoring-plus-reinforcement-thinning condition, in which frequencies of monitoring and reinforcing walking decreased over 12 weeks. The mean (± SD) percentage of participants in the monitoring-plus-reinforcement-thinning condition who met walking goals was 83% ± 24% and was 55% ± 31% for participants in the monitoring-only condition, p < .001. Thus, monitoring plus reinforcement thinning maintained high rates of walking when it was in effect; however, groups did not differ at a 24-week follow-up. Monitoring plus reinforcement thinning, nevertheless, hold potential to extend benefits of reinforcement interventions at low costs.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2014 · doi:10.1002/jaba.147