Rh. Thompson et al., EVALUATING THE REINFORCING EFFECTS OF CHOICE IN COMPARISON TO REINFORCEMENT RATE, Research in developmental disabilities, 19(2), 1998, pp. 181-187
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.