Applications of Operant Demand to Treatment Selection III: Consumer Behavior Analysis of Treatment Choice
Shawn P. Gilroy & Rochelle Picardo
Louisiana State University
Behavior analysts and psychologists advocate for the use of therapies and strategies based on credible, scientific evidence. Researchers and clinicians regularly advocate for Evidence-based Practices (EBPs) over questionable "alternatives" because caregivers seldom choose interventions based on scientific evidence alone. This study applied methods and concepts from Consumer Behavior Analysis to conduct a reinforcer-based evaluation of the consequences that influence treatment choices. Hypothetical Treatment Purchase Tasks (HTPTs) were designed to evaluate how utilitarian (UR; i.e., the efficacy of treatment) and informational sources of reinforcement (IR; i.e., community support for treatment) jointly influence treatment-related choices. A total of 104 caregivers were recruited using the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) framework to complete two HTPTs. Results indicated that caregivers overall favored treatments with greater IR over those with greater UR, suggesting that indirect contingencies for treatment choices exerted greater overall influence than the direct contingencies of treatment choices (i.e., efficacy). This finding extends the literature on treatment choice by providing a reinforcer-based perspective on why 'fad', questionable, and pseudoscientific practices can achieve and maintain high levels of adoption by caregivers. This work concludes with a discussion of Consumer Behavior Analysis and how reinforcer-based interpretations of choice can be used to improve efforts to support and advocate for evidence-based child behavior treatments.
Keywords: consumer behavior analysis, behavior economics, public policy, evidence-based practices
The specific research questions included in this work were:
RQ1) to what degree do specific demographic factors appear to be associated with the demand for behavior therapy associated with High UR and High IR (i.e., popular EBP; alone-price),
RQ2) to evaluate how the introduction of additional treatments influenced the consumption of an EBP high in both UR and IR (e.g., alone- vs. own-price demand), and
RQ3) to determine whether caregiver choice related to behavior therapy is differentially sensitive to different types of reinforcer contingencies when unable to maximize both types of reinforcement (UR, IR; cross-price).
