The mitigating effects of enhanced reinforcer magnitude and quality on treatment degradation

Weinsztok et al. (2022) ran two small lab tests with adults. They wanted to see if bigger or better reinforcers for the new behavior would keep DRA working when staff messed up.

They used an alternating-treatments design. Sometimes the alternative response earned a small candy. Other times it earned a king-size bar or a favorite snack. Then they purposely let the extinction part slip to mimic real-world errors.

When the reinforcer was larger or higher quality, the alternative response stayed strong even after the therapist missed extinction opportunities. Treatment barely degraded.

With the small reinforcer, the old problem behavior quickly returned. The enhanced magnitude acted like a shield against slip-ups.

Hopkins et al. (1977) showed that thinning reinforcement inside treatment plus adding free reinforcers in new places keeps behavior going later. Weinsztok adds: boost the size or quality and the plan survives mistakes.

Lord et al. (1986) proved that after correspondence training you can thin to sneaky schedules and still keep gains. The new study says you can also just make the reinforcer itself better when you expect staff errors.

Thomas et al. (1988) found that mixing social and tangible rewards offered no gain and even hurt persistence. Here, keeping the same type but making it bigger or tastier helped. The difference: V et al. changed the kind; Weinsztok changed the amount or quality.

You can’t watch every therapist every minute. When you expect missed extinction trials, bump the reinforcer for the replacement behavior up a notch: use the jumbo cookie, the extra iPad time, or the most-liked snack. One simple upgrade keeps DRA effective during human error.