DESIGNING INCENTIVE PLANS FOR UNIONIZED EMPLOYEES: A COMPARISON OF CONTINUOUS AND VARIABLE RATIO REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES1

The relative effectiveness of incentive plans administered on continuous and VR-4 schedules of reinforcement was investigated with unionized employees using a within subjects design. Mountain beaver trappers working side by side were randomly assigned to one of two groups. In group A the trappers received $1.00 for every rat they trapped. At the end of four weeks, they were switched to a VR-4 schedule in which they received $4.00 contingent upon trapping a rat and correctly guessing the color of one of four marbles prior to drawing it from a bag held by the supervisor. In group B the order of the schedules was reversed. The results were analyzed in terms of cost-related, behavioral, and reaction criteria. The study increased employee productivity and decreased costs for the company. Inexperienced workers had higher productivity on the continuous reinforcement than on the VR-4 schedule; experienced workers had higher productivity on the VR-4 schedule than on the continuous schedule. Both the experienced and the inexperienced employees preferred the VR-4 schedule over the continuous schedule.     

A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTS OF FIXED AND VARIABLE RATIO SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT ON THE BEHAVIOR OF DEAF CHILDREN

The performance of all five students in an adjustment class for deaf children was compared under fixed and variable ratio schedules of reinforcement. During the fixed ratio (FR) condition, students earned checks if they were attentive and did not engage in disruptive behavior. These checks could be exchanged for the opportunity to draw a prize from a grab bag. During the variable ratio (VR) condition, they earned a draw from the grab bag according to a variable ratio schedule with a mean ratio equal to the value of the preceding FR schedule. During the VR condition, students visually attended more and engaged in disruptive behavior less often than during the FR condition. The number of math problems completed per minute was also higher during the VR condition although no specific consequences were applied to math performance.     

DISCRIMINATION OF VARIABLE SCHEDULES IS CONTROLLED BY INTERRESPONSE TIMES PROXIMAL TO REINFORCEMENT

In Experiment 1, food‐deprived rats responded to one of two schedules that were, with equal probability, associated with a sample lever. One schedule was always variable ratio, while the other schedule, depending on the trial within a session, was: (a) a variable‐interval schedule; (b) a tandem variable‐interval, differential‐reinforcement‐of‐low‐rate schedule; or (c) a tandem variable‐interval, differential‐reinforcement‐of‐high‐rate schedule. Completion of a sample‐lever schedule, which took approximately the same time regardless of schedule, presented two comparison levers, one associated with each sample‐lever schedule. Pressing the comparison lever associated with the schedule just presented produced food, while pressing the other produced a blackout. Conditional‐discrimination accuracy was related to the size of the difference in reinforced interresponse times and those that preceded it (predecessor interresponse times) between the variable‐ratio and other comparison schedules. In Experiment 2, control by predecessor interresponse times was accentuated by requiring rats to discriminate between a variable‐ratio schedule and a tandem schedule that required emission of a sequence of a long, then a short interresponse time in the tandem's terminal schedule. These discrimination data are compatible with the copyist model from Tanno and Silberberg (2012) in which response rates are determined by the succession of interresponse times between reinforcers weighted so that each interresponse time's role in rate determination diminishes exponentially as a function of its distance from reinforcement.     

COMPARING PLEASURE AND PAIN: THE FUNDAMENTAL MATHEMATICAL EQUIVALENCE OF REWARD GAIN AND SHOCK REDUCTION UNDER VARIABLE INTERVAL SCHEDULES

The relationship between positive and negative reinforcement and the symmetry of Thorndike's law of effect are unresolved issues in operant psychology. Here we show that, for a given pattern of responding on variable interval (VI) schedules with the same programmed rate of food rewards (positive reinforcement VI) or electric shocks (negative reinforcement VI), there is a fundamental mathematical equivalence between reward gain and shock reduction. We also provide the first normative account of how animals should respond on a negative VI schedule, showing that it is better to space responses evenly than to respond with a variable interresponse time (IRT). Published data from rats, however, indicate that these animals respond irregularly, often with a burst of activity immediately following a shock. While this is irrational in the experimental setting, it may represent an appropriate response to the heterogeneity of stimuli commonly encountered in natural environments. We discuss the broader implications of our analysis for understanding how animals evaluate appetitive and aversive stimuli.     

AGGRESSION AS POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT IN MICE UNDER VARIOUS RATIO‐ AND TIME‐BASED REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES

There is evidence suggesting aggression may be a positive reinforcer in many species. However, only a few studies have examined the characteristics of aggression as a positive reinforcer in mice. Four types of reinforcement schedules were examined in the current experiment using male Swiss CFW albino mice in a resident—intruder model of aggression as a positive reinforcer. A nose poke response on an operant conditioning panel was reinforced under fixed‐ratio (FR 8), fixed‐interval (FI 5‐min), progressive ratio (PR 2), or differential reinforcement of low rate behavior reinforcement schedules (DRL 40‐s and DRL 80‐s). In the FR conditions, nose pokes were maintained by aggression and extinguished when the aggression contingency was removed. There were long postreinforcement pauses followed by bursts of responses with short interresponse times (IRTs). In the FI conditions, nose pokes were maintained by aggression, occurred more frequently as the interval elapsed, and extinguished when the contingency was removed. In the PR conditions, nose pokes were maintained by aggression, postreinforcement pauses increased as the ratio requirement increased, and responding was extinguished when the aggression contingency was removed. In the DRL conditions, the nose poke rate decreased, while the proportional distributions of IRTs and postreinforcement pauses shifted toward longer durations as the DRL interval increased. However, most responses occurred before the minimum IRT interval elapsed, suggesting weak temporal control of behavior. Overall, the findings suggest aggression can be a positive reinforcer for nose poke responses in mice on ratio‐ and time‐based reinforcement schedules.     

BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION SCALES AND THE EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL EFFECTIVENESS

An earlier article by the present authors (Bernardin and Kane, 1980) pointed out a serious flaw in the conceptual basis of Behavioral Observation Scales (BOS). The present article explains this flaw in more detail and shows that its solution would make BOS indistinguishable from other methods already in existence. The focus then shifts from the conception of appraisal methods to their evaluation with the presentation of a discussion of the special problems of error capitalization that arise in the use of item analysis in the development of multi-item rating scales. This discussion proceeds to describe the correct approach to removing the effects of error capitalization in the evaluation of the psychometric properties of such rating scales.     

EFFECT OF REINFORCER MAGNITUDE ON PERFORMANCE MAINTAINED BY PROGRESSIVE‐RATIO SCHEDULES

This experiment examined the relationship between reinforcer magnitude and quantitative measures of performance on progressive‐ratio schedules. Fifteen rats were trained under a progressive‐ratio schedule in seven phases of the experiment in which the volume of a 0.6‐M sucrose solution reinforcer was varied within the range 6–300 μl. Overall response rates in successive ratios conformed to a bitonic equation derived from Killeen's (1994) Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement. The “specific activation” parameter, a, which is presumed to reflect the incentive value of the reinforcer, was a monotonically increasing function of reinforcer volume; the “response time” parameter, δ, which defines the minimum response time, increased as a function of reinforcer volume; the “currency” parameter, b, which is presumed to reflect the coupling of responses to the reinforcer, declined as a function of volume. Running response rate (response rate calculated after exclusion of the postreinforcement pause) decayed monotonically as a function of ratio size; the index of curvature of this function increased as a function of reinforcer volume. Postreinforcement pause increased as a function of ratio size. Estimates of a derived from overall response rates and postreinforcement pauses showed a modest positive correlation across conditions and between animals. Implications of the results for the quantification of reinforcer value and for the use of progressive‐ratio schedules in behavioral neuroscience are discussed.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF REINFORCEMENT AND PRACTICE FOR ENHANCING THE CREATIVE WRITING OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN1

Reinforcement (team points) and practice were applied to the written work of 16 fifth graders on three operationally defined components of creative writing, fluency, flexibility, and originality.4 These three components were assessed via five response measures. Fluency was defined as the number of different ideas each student listed in an idea list prepared prior to writing an essay. Flexibility was measured in two ways, idea list flexibility and story flexibility. Idea list flexibility was defined as the number of different kinds of ideas which appeared in each day's list whereas story flexibility was defined as the number of different approaches to the topic that the child used in the story itself. Originality was also measured in two ways, idea list originality and story originality. Idea list originality was defined by the statistical infrequency of ideas in the children's lists of ideas. Story originality was determined by blind, subjective ratings of stories conducted by independent raters. All of the measures of creative responding were demonstrated to be under experimental control. The procedures also raised students' scores on Torrance's Tests of Thinking Creatively With Words on three variables, fluency, flexibility, and originality. Adoption for classroom use seems straightforward.     

COMBINING NONCONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT AND DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES AS TREATMENT FOR ABERRANT BEHAVIOR

Research has shown that noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) can be an effective behavior-reduction procedure when based on a functional analysis. The effects of NCR may be a result of elimination of the contingency between aberrant behavior and reinforcing consequences (extinction) or frequent and free access to reinforcers that may reduce the participant's motivation to engage in aberrant behaviors or mands. If motivation is momentarily reduced, behavior such as mands may not be sensitive to positive reinforcement. In this study, for 3 children with aberrant behavior maintained by tangible positive reinforcement, differential-reinforcement-of-alternative-behavior schedules were superimposed on NCR schedules to determine if mands could be strengthened. Results for the participants indicated that NCR did not preclude reinforcement of mands.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF REINFORCEMENT,RESPONSE COST,AND MIXED PROGRAMS ON CLASSROOM BEHAVIORS1

Six elementary school children served as subjects in an experiment comparing the relative effectiveness of (1) token reinforcement, in which children received tokens for attending and for correct arithmetic performance; (2) response cost, in which children received “free” tokens at the start of a period but lost them for inattention and for arithmetic performance below a specified level; and (3) a combination of both token reinforcement and response cost. During training, the six subjects received all three procedures in counterbalanced sequence. The effects of the three procedures were assessed by a within-subject comparison divided into three phases: (i) baseline, (ii) training, (iii) withdrawal of tokens. Introduction of the three token procedures markedly increased the two dependent measures. However, there were no differences across the procedures in the amount of change produced in either attending behavior or arithmetic performance. During baseline, the subjects averaged 29% attending behavior and 6.4 correct problems. These levels increased to 85% for attending behavior and 11.4 correct problems for arithmetic performance during training. Removal of all token procedures significantly decreased attending behavior (to an average of 65%), but produced a nonsignificant reduction in arithmetic performance (to an average of 7.6 correct problems). There was evidence that this lack of differential effects of the three token procedures was not due to an inability to discriminate among them. Furthermore, the subjects were evenly divided in their preference for the three procedures.     

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SINGLE VERSUS DAILY PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT OUTCOMES AND REINFORCER EFFICACY UNDER PROGRESSIVE‐RATIO SCHEDULES

Research has suggested that a daily multiple‐stimulus‐without‐replacement (MSWO) preference assessment may be more sensitive to changes in preference than other assessment formats, thereby resulting in greater correspondence with reinforcer efficacy over time ( DeLeon et al., 2001 ). However, most prior studies have measured reinforcer efficacy using rate of responding under single‐operant arrangements and dense schedules or under concurrent‐operants arrangements. An alternative measure of reinforcer efficacy involves the evaluation of responding under progressive‐ratio (PR) schedules. In the present study, 7 participants were given a single paired‐stimulus (PS) preference assessment followed by daily MSWO preference assessments. After each daily MSWO, participants responded for each stimulus on a PR schedule. The correspondence between break points and preferences, as assessed by the 2 assessment formats, was examined. Results demonstrated that both preference assessments did equally well at predicting reinforcer efficacy, although the PS more consistently identified the most effective reinforcer.     

THE EFFECTS OF FIXED-TIME REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES ON FUNCTIONAL RESPONSE CLASSES: A TRANSLATIONAL STUDY

Research on functional response classes has applied significance because less severe forms of problem behavior have been found to co‐occur with more severe forms. In addition, the most severe forms of problem behavior are sometimes targeted for intervention without monitoring other less severe forms. In such cases, it is unknown whether and how untreated forms of problem behavior covary with the targeted behaviors. The present study employed a translational procedure (with button presses as the target behavior) to investigate response covariation under noncontingent reinforcement with typically developing preschoolers. The results indicated that noncontingent reinforcement was generally effective in decreasing all response class members when only one member was targeted.     

EFFECTS OF A SIGNALED DELAY TO REINFORCEMENT IN THE PREVIOUS AND UPCOMING RATIOS ON BETWEEN-RATIO PAUSING IN FIXED-RATIO SCHEDULES

Domestic hens responded under multiple fixed‐ratio fixed‐ratio schedules with equal fixed ratios. One component provided immediate reinforcement and the other provided reinforcement after a delay, signaled by the offset of the key light. The components were presented quasirandomly so that all four possible transitions occurred in each session. The delay was varied over 0, 4, 8, 16, and 32 s with fixed‐ratio 5 schedules, and over 0, 8 and 32 s with fixed‐ratio 1, 15 and 40 schedules. Main effects of fixed‐ratio value and delay duration were detected on between‐ratio pauses. Pauses were longer when the multiple‐schedule stimulus correlated with a delayed‐reinforcer component was presented, with the longest pauses occurring at the transition from a component with an immediate reinforcer to one with a delayed reinforcer. Pause durations were shortest during immediate components. Overall, both the presence or absence of a delay in the upcoming component, and the presence or absence of a delay in the preceding component affected pause length, but the upcoming delay had the larger effect. Thus changes in delay had similar effects to past reports of the effects of changes in response force, response requirement, and reinforcer magnitude in multiple fixed‐ratio fixed‐ratio schedules.     

RESPONSE REDUCTION THROUGH THE SUPERIMPOSITION OF CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT: A SYSTEMATIC REPLICATION

Prior clinical research suggests that superimposition and subsequent removal of a schedule of continuous reinforcement (CRF) may be a viable rate-decreasing procedure in that an extinction-like condition is arranged. The arrangement of similar conditions in the laboratory, however, resulted in the quick recovery of baseline rates. Lever-pressing patterns of eight male rats maintained by different schedules of variable-ratio and variable-interval food reinforcement were examined in an A-B-A experimental design of CRF food superimposition and removal. Responding was substantially reduced during the superimposition of CRF. Upon removal of the superimposed schedule, responding quickly approached presuperimposition baseline rates.     

SEPARATE AND COMBINED EFFECTS OF VISUAL SCHEDULES AND EXTINCTION PLUS DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT ON PROBLEM BEHAVIOR OCCASIONED BY TRANSITIONS

The separate and combined effects of visual schedules and extinction plus differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) were evaluated to decrease transition‐related problem behavior of 2 children diagnosed with autism. Visual schedules alone were ineffective in reducing problem behavior when transitioning from preferred to nonpreferred activities. Problem behavior decreased for both participants when extinction and DRO were introduced, regardless of whether visual schedules were also used.     

DEMAND EQUATIONS FOR QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENT FOODS UNDER FIXED‐RATIO SCHEDULES: A COMPARISON OF THREE DATA CONVERSIONS

Concurrent schedules were used to establish 6 hens' preferences for three foods. The resulting biases suggested wheat was preferred over honey‐puffed and puffed wheat, and puffed wheat was the least preferred food. The hens then responded under fixed‐ratio schedules for each food in 40‐min (excluding reinforcer time) sessions, with the response requirement doubling each session until no reinforcers were received. At the smaller ratios, the less preferred the food, the faster the hens' overall response rates (mainly as a result of shorter postreinforcement pauses) and the more reinforcers they received. The relations between the logarithms of the number of reinforcers obtained (consumption) and the response ratio (price) were well fitted by curvilinear demand functions. Wheat produced the smallest initial consumption (ln L), followed by honey‐puffed and puffed wheat, respectively. The response requirement at which the demand functions predicted maximal responding (P_max) were larger for wheat than for the other foods. Normalizing consumption and price, as suggested by Hursh and Winger (1995), moved the data for the three foods towards a single demand function; however, the P_max values were generally largest for puffed wheat. The results of normalization, as suggested by Hursh and Silberberg (2008), depended on the k value used. The parameter k is related to the range of the data, and the same k value needs to be used for all data sets that are compared. A k value of 8.0 gave significantly higher essential values (smaller α values) for puffed wheat as compared to honey‐puffed wheat and wheat, and the P_max values, in normalized standard price units, were largest for puffed wheat. Normalizing demand by converting the puffed and honey‐puffed wheat reinforcers to wheat equivalents (by applying the bias parameter from the concurrent‐schedules procedure) maintained separate demand functions for the foods. Those for wheat had the smallest rates of change in elasticity (a) and, in contrast to the other analyses, the largest P_max values. Normalizing demand in terms of concurrent‐schedule preference appears to have some advantages and to merit further investigation.     

THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT REINFORCEMENT CONDITIONS ON THE TEST PERFORMANCE OF MULTIHANDICAPPED DEAF CHILDREN1

The present study explored the effects of different reinforcement conditions on the number of correct responses on the Raven Progressive Matrices. Four groups of 11- to 18-year-old multihandicapped deaf children matched on the basis of mean age and pretest scores were used. The groups were randomly assigned to any of four posttest conditions: end-of-session reinforcement, noncontingent reinforcement, delayed reinforcement, and immediate reinforcement. The mean posttest score of subjects tested under the immediate-reinforcement condition was significantly higher than that of any other group. No significant differences were observed between the mean posttest scores of the three other groups. The practical implications of using reinforcement procedures for testing purposes are discussed.     

中国企业中员工创新能力与创新绩效的关系:以组织创新气氛为调节变量

运用结构方程建模技术中的无约束估价法,对来自10家企业413名员工的数据进行调节效应模型的检验。探讨了中国企业中员工创新能力对创新绩效的影响,以及组织创新气氛在其中的调节作用。结果发现:员工的创新能力对其创新意愿和创新结果具有显著的正向影响;在创新能力水平一定的情况下,创新意愿、行动和结果的水平随着组织创新气氛的提升而有所增强。该结果表明组织创新气氛显著调节着员工创新能力对创新绩效的影响。