Assessing reinforcers under progressive schedule requirements

Recent research findings suggest that reinforcing stimuli may be differenti ally effective as response requirements increase. We extended this line of research by evaluating responding under increasing schedule requirements vi a progressive-ratio schedules and behavioral economic analyses. The differe ntial effectiveness of preferred stimuli in treating destructive behavior m aintained by automatic reinforcement also was examined. Results showed that one of two stimuli was associated with more responding under increasing sc hedule requirements for the 4 participants. Furthermore, stimuli associated with more responding under increasing schedule requirements generally were more effective in creating destructive behavior chan stimuli associated wi th less responding. These data suggest that progressive-ratio schedules and behavioral economic analyses may be useful for developing a new technology for reinforcer identification. From a clinical perspective, these results suggest that two reinforcers may be similarly effective for low-effort task s and differentially effective for high-effort casks.