Reinforcer Identification in Organizational Behavior Management

by Kristen Rost, David A. Wilder, and Kelly Therrien
Florida Institute of Technology

The identification of reinforcers can be an important step in the development of effective performance management plans. Currently, there is a lack of research in the Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) literature on systematic methods for identifying reinforcers among employees. Thus, we have begun a line of research aimed at investigating various methods of identifying reinforcers in organizations. The study described below is one of the projects in this line of research.

Thus far, the main method by which preference for stimuli has been identified in OBM is the reinforcer survey (Daniels, 2004), in which an employee rates the extent to which they would like to receive an item on a 5-point likert scale. Although it is widely assumed that the reinforcer survey is an adequate method of identifying potential reinforcers, no research has examined the accuracy of reinforcer surveys among employees. However, in “clinical” areas of applied behavior analysis, recent research on reinforcer surveys has suggested that they are not a very accurate method of identifying preference for items and activities in some populations. For example, Northup, George, Jones, Broussard, and Vollmer (1996) compared three methods of stimulus preference assessment (SPA) (i.e., survey, verbal choice, and pictorial choice) in typically developing children and found that the accuracy of the survey method was poor. In a replication, Northup (2000) found that the overall accuracy of the survey method was only 57%. In a later study, Wilder, Ellsworth, White, and Schock (2003) compared a survey with verbal and pictorial stimulus choice procedures in adults of average intelligence and found that the accuracy of the survey method was only 56%. The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of a survey for identifying reinforcers among employees and to compare the utility of the survey method to a verbal forced choice method of assessing preference for stimuli.

Method

The study was conducted in an office setting on a University campus. The participants included three adult women who were between the ages of 25 and 55 and all worked 40 hours per week as administrative assistants. The study included two phases: a stimulus preference assessment, and a reinforcer assessment. Each participant took part in one Phase 1 session, which was about 15 minutes in duration. Phase 2 sessions were between 20 and 30 minutes in duration and were conducted 1-2 days per week over three weeks.

In phase one, a survey based on Daniels (2004) was administered verbally to each participant. Six stimuli were initially identified for use in the study: coupons for a casual clothes day, leaving work 10 minutes early, an assistant for a task, a $5 gift certificate to local store, a $5 gift certificate to a local movie theater, unlimited access to a small snack (i.e., either candy, gum, nuts, or sunflower seeds) for one work day. A control item was also identified for each participant before Phase 1 sessions began by asking each participant to choose the item that they would least prefer to receive. Control items were the snack for participants 1 and 2, and the casual clothes day for participant 3.

As part of the survey, participants were asked to describe how much work they would be willing to do to gain access to each item by ranking each item as 0 (none at all), 1 (a little), 2 (a fair amount) 3 (much) or 4 (very much). A percentage score was calculated for each item by dividing the score the participant gave to an item by the total possible score for the item (i.e., 4) and multiplying by 100%. Items with scores of 75% or greater (i.e., rankings of 3 or 4) were considered to be high preference. Next, the verbal forced-choice procedure was conducted. During this procedure, a questionnaire was verbally administered to assess preference for each of the six stimuli. Each item was compared once with every other item in a verbal format (e.g., “Would you rather get a $5 movie certificate or a coupon that can be exchanged for leaving 10 min early from work one day?”). A percentage score was calculated by dividing the number of times an item was chosen by the number of times it was presented (5) and multiplying by 100%. Items with a score of 75% or greater (i.e., items chosen 4 or 5 times) were considered to be high preference.

In phase two of the study a reinforcer assessment was conducted. A multi-element design was used to determine if the reinforcers identified by the employees in phase one actually functioned as reinforcers for completing a filing task. The dependent variable during the reinforcer assessment was the number of sheets of paper filed by each participant. Upon completion of the filing task, the participants earned coupons exchangeable for one of the six items described above.

During baseline, participants did not earn any reinforcers and were told, “Do as much (filing) as you want, as little as you want, or none at all.” Sessions lasted until the participant said “I’m done.” Following baseline, each of six coupons was made available, contingent on completed filing. Participants were told, “You can earn as many coupons as you want for filing. You can do as much as you want, as little as you want, or none at all”. Six trials were conducted per session (one trial for each of the items described above). The order of trials was randomly determined for each session. A given trial ended when the participant said, “I’m done.” The number of filed papers required to earn each coupon was determined individually based on the average number of papers filed per minute during baseline. Interobserver agreement data were collected on 86% of filed papers. Agreement averaged 100%.

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