EVALUATING THE REINFORCING EFFECTS OF CHOICE IN COMPARISON TO REINFORCEMENT RATE

A concurrent-operants arrangement was used to evaluate a boy's prefere nce for a choice condition (in which he chose the reinforcement) over a no-choice condition (in which the therapist selected the reinforceme nt for him) when (a) these conditions produced equal rates of reinforc ement and (b) lower-rates of reinforcement were associated with the ch oice condition. The boy preferred the choice condition even when it re sulted in a much less favourable rate of reinforcement than the no-cho ice condition (up to 4000% less). (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.