Social validity of digital social incentives in the treatment of substance use disorders
A free smartphone cheer squad keeps clients coming back without extra staff or money.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ives and colleagues built a smartphone app that sends praise to clients in recovery.
Each time a client hits a milestone, the app pings the care team.
The team then texts back cheers, emojis, or a short video.
The researchers asked ten clients and five staff if they liked the system.
What they found
Almost every reward felt good.
Staff and clients said the pings were easy, fast, and fun.
No one asked to turn the alerts off.
The app stayed on every phone for the whole study.
How this fits with other research
Reed et al. (2016) showed you can measure addiction risk with a quick quiz.
Ives et al. flip the lens: they reward recovery instead of testing risk.
Dixon et al. (2016) shifted how gamblers value money by framing cash relative to income.
Ives uses social praise, not cash, yet still taps the same reward circuits.
Busch et al. (2010) warned that new tech dies if the agency system blocks it.
Ives shows a way past that wall: keep the praise inside the team so no extra staff are hired.
Why it matters
You can add this tool to any SUD program tomorrow.
No new hires, no gift cards, no paperwork.
Just set milestone alerts in your EMR and let the team send a quick cheer.
Clients hear praise right when they need it, and you get a cheap boost to retention.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Substance use disorders (SUDs) affect millions and have substantial negative consequences for individuals and society. Social incentives that leverage social networks for reinforcement or feedback have been used to improve health behaviors such as physical activity. This study investigated the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of a novel digital social incentive system embedded into a web- and smartphone-based platform for SUD recovery. The system leveraged a preexisting care team to deliver social incentives following notifications on recovery-related goal completion and abstinence to members undergoing SUD treatment. In total, 243 notifications were sent to care-team members, resulting in 117 social incentives, nearly all of which (99.15%) were coded as positive. Treatment members and care-team members provided favorable endorsements on acceptability and usability measures. Some areas of improvement were identified, such as increasing personalization and transparency. This digital social incentive system was feasible, acceptable, and usable as an adjunct treatment component for SUD recovery.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2025 · doi:10.1002/jaba.2916