INCENTIVE RELATIVITY - FLAHERTY,CF

The phenomenon of contrast has been studied from two quite separate pe rspectives, one derived from the classic studies of incentive contrast such as Crespi (1942) and the other from the study of behavioral cont rast within behavior analysis. This book reviews both of these types o f contrast effects and finds both differences and similarities between them. Still at issue is the validity of the interpretation of contras t that assumes that the value of some target level of reward is modifi ed in inverse relation to the level of reward from other sources in th e same context. This concept works well for the classic studies of inc entive contrast, but is challenged by the emerging importance of antic ipatory contrast and the finding in both of the separate research trad itions that anticipatory contrast is inversely related to other measur es of reinforcement value.