The behavior-therapeutic use of contingency contracting to control an adult behavior problem: weight control.
Have clients risk a prized possession in writing—return it only when weekly goals are met.
01Research in Context
What this study did
One adult signed a contract to lose weight.
Valued personal items like records and books were locked in a box.
Each week the scale had to show a drop.
If weight went up or stayed the same, the items were burned.
If weight dropped, the items came back.
The researchers turned the contract on and off twice to prove it worked.
What they found
Weight dropped every time the contract was active.
Weight rose each time the contract stopped.
The punishment of losing valued items made the difference.
The adult said the threat of burning his records kept him on track.
How this fits with other research
Rojahn et al. (1987) later used the same contract idea with an young learners girl.
Instead of weight, the child earned back toys for doing chest therapy.
The contract worked again, showing the trick travels across ages and jobs.
Baer et al. (1984) swapped the locked box for parent-given tokens.
Kids cut TV time by half when points replaced prized toys.
Petursdottir et al. (2019) added a new twist: they faded the tokens away.
Their students kept good behavior even after the points stopped.
These newer studies keep the core idea but make it kinder and longer-lasting.
Why it matters
You can still use the 1972 contract today. Pick a prized item the client truly hates to lose. Write clear weekly targets. Return the item only when the scale or data sheet shows success. If the client balks at burning stuff, swap to token points that fade out like Petursdottir et al. (2019) did. Either way, the threat of losing something loved still drives change.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Items considered valuable by the subject and originally his property were surrendered to the researcher and incorporated into a contractual system of prearranged contingencies. Each subject signed a legal contract that prescribed the manner in which he could earn back or permanently lose his valuables. Specifically, a portion of each subject's valuables were returned to him contingent upon both specified weight losses and losing weight at an agreed-upon rate. Furthermore, each subject permanently lost a portion of his valuables contingent upon both specified weight gains and losing weight at a rate below the agreed-upon rate. Single-subject reversal designs were employed to determine the effectiveness of the treatment contingencies. This study demonstrated that items considered valuable by the subject and originally his property, could be used successfully to modify the subject's weight when these items were used procedurally both as reinforcing and as punishing consequences. In addition, a systematic analysis of the contingencies indicated that punishing or aversive consequences presumably were a necessary component of the treatment procedure.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1972 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1972.5-99