Economic perspectives in behavior therapy: Complex interdependencies in token economies

BEHAVIOR THERAPY 9, 391-403 (1978)

Economic Perspectives in Behavior Therapy: Complex Interdependencies in Token Economies E. B. FISHER, JR. Washington University ROBIN C . W I N K L E R

University of Western Australia LEONARD KRASNER

State University of New York at Stony Brook AND JOHN K A G E L , RAYMOND C . BATTALIO, AND ROBERT L . BASMANN

Texas A & M University Economic theory and research strategies may be helpful in expanding analyses of token economies and other influence systems to include complex, systemindividual relations. A series of studies reviewed in the present paper demonstrates the presence in token economies of relationships and effects studied by economists in the national economy. Several relations between income and consumption patterns in token programs are reviewed along with demonstrations of the relevance to token economies of basic economic concepts such as elasticity of demand. Additionally, complex effects of wage manipulations on consumer preferences in token economies are shown to be similar to those thought to occur in the national consumer economy. As suggested by these demonstrations, consideration is given to other complex interactions which are not typically examined in applied behavior analysis. In particular, it is demonstrated that changes in token wages for one behavior may have effects on frequencies of other behaviors, effects which are predictable and understandable through economic concepts. Reprints may be obtained from the first author at the Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130. This research has been supported by several sources, including Washington University Faculty Research stipends and PHS Pre-doctoral Research Fellowship 2-F01-MH45774-03 to the first author; PHS Research Grant 11938, Leonard 391 0005-7894/78/0093-0391 $01.00/0 Copyright© 1978by Associationfor Advancementof BehavtorTherapy. All rightsof reproductionin any form reserved.

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Over the past few years, we have conducted several studies of therapeutic token economies from the perspective of economic theory and research methods. This research began with Winkler's hypothesis and demonstration that "Token systems m i g h t . . , be regarded as closed economies, where tokens are currency, amounts of reinforcement are wages and exchange rates are prices" (1971, p. 82). Further investigations of both the utility of economic principles in understanding token economies (Kagel & Winkler, 1972; Winkler, 1973) and the utility of token economies as laboratories for experimental economics (Battalio, Kagel, Winkler, Fisher, Basmann, & Krasner, 1973, 1974; Kagel, 1972) have led us to suspect that economic concepts may aid in the understanding of many psychological, educational, and social influences regardless of whether or not they include economic-like characteristics such as a tangible medium of exchange, prices, or wages, This paper will present some of the more general, conceptual implications of this research, particularly those concerning our understanding of the complex effects of a token economy and how best to approach and examine the interactions between individuals and social systems.

STUDIES OF BASIC ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES Several rudimentary characteristics of consumer behavior were the subject of Winkler's first studies (1971, 1973) of economic effects in token economies. Winkler's studies were carried out in Australia, in a token program for chronic, female, psychiatric patients. The program provided token reward for a wide range of behaviors, including those related to personal hygiene, care of individuals' bedside areas, attendance at activities, etc. Tokens were plastic discs and were exchangeable for a number of consumables, as well as for more durable goods. Meals were contingent on tokens. The ward contained 66 patients, about half of whom were diagnosed as chronic schizophrenics, while another third were diagnosed as congenital mental defectives, and the remainder carried diagnoses of manic-depressive psychosis or chronic brain syndromes. The mean age of the patients was 49 years and the average period of hospitalization was 12 Krasner, Principal Investigator; and NSF Grant GS32057, R. L. Basmann, R. C. Battalio, and J. Kagel, Principal Investigators. The first author wishes to extend special thanks to Stuart Valins, Gerald C. Davison, James Calhoun, and Norman Goodman who served as a committee for his doctoral dissertation, part of which is presented herein. Thanks are also due the patients and staff of Central Islip State Hospital, Central Islip, New York, and of Gladesville Psychiatric Hospital, Sydney, Australia, especially Peter Goode, Joan Higuchi, Susan Hanye, W. Barclay, M. Frame, M. Beck, N. Holmes, and L. O'Hara. Leonard Green and Leonard UIImann provided helpful comments on a preliminary draft of the manuscript.

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years. Prior to the institution of the token economy, the hospital staff considered the patients an often violent and highly disturbed, troublesome group. Income and expenditure. One of the first topics of these studies was the relationship between consumer income and expenditures. Dorfman (1964) surveyed such relationships in data derived from consumers in the U.S.A. and found that, within 75% of the distribution of income levels, expenditures fell within 10% above or below income. At the lower end of the income distribution, expenditures may rise above 110% of income, while at extremely high income levels, expenditures drop off considerably to below 90% of income. From extensive records of daily income and expenditures of patients, Winkler (1971) was able to investigate the same relationship in a token economy and found it to be similar to that which Dorfman found in the American economy. Within the token economy, expenditures of those at middle income levels ranged within 10% above or below income, while expenditures were above that range at low income levels and below that range at high income levels. (The reader may wonder how low-income individuals may spend more than 100% of their income. For the national economy, commercial credit is the answer. In Winkler's token economy, data were based on daily income and expenditures. Other data collected in the system (Winkler, 1973) showed that patients reduced income as savings accumulated, enabling them to rely on their savings for several days during which time they spent more than they earned. This pattern is also found in the national economy.) Income and selection of goods. A second principle of basic consumer economics investigated in Winkler's studies was first formulated by Ernst Engel who held that the percentage of income expended on various types of goods would vary as a function of income level. Luxuries, according to this notion, would be the object of a greater percentage of expenditures at high income levels while purchases of necessities would exhaust a greater percentage of income at low income levels (cf. Samuelson, 1973, pp. 208-210). In his previously mentioned study of the American consumer economy, Dorfman (1964) examined this contention, assuming purchases of food consumed at home to be a necessity and meals eaten out to be a luxury. He found that, as Engel predicted, low income families spend a greater portion of their income on food purchased for home consumption and a smaller portion of their income on meals eaten outside the home than do high income families. Carrying out a parallel study in the token economy, Winkler (1971) examined the purchase of meals (necessities) and purchases from the token shop of items such as cigarettes, matches, sweets, drinks, and personal items (luxuries). Winkler found the relationship between income and luxury expendi-

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tures to be as predicted. A general pattern of increased percentages of income spent on luxuries as a function of increased income was found for two different periods of study (22 days and 34 days, respectively) separated by about 8 months. These findings were based on all patients on the token ward. A separate analysis focused on ten high- and ten low-income patients for two weeks. The low-income patients spent 31.1% of their income on "luxuries," while the high-income patients spent 58.1% of their incomes on "luxuries." The study of the "mirror image" relationship expected between income and expenditures on meals (necessities) was confused by meals being regularly scheduled in the ward routine (leaving little room for individual discretion as to whether or not to spend tokens on them) and by their having a single, fixed price. Nevertheless, over separate observation periods of 28 and 20 days, the percentage of income spent on meals ranged from about 20 to 28%, the higher percentage, as predicted, being characteristic of low income levels and the lower percentage being associated with high income levels. Elasticity of demand. A basic distinction by which economists divide the pie of consumer purchases has to do with the ~'elasticity" of the demand associated with a particular good or commodity. If the amount of a good consumed is seen to fluctuate widely as a function of price changes, its demand is said to be highly "elastic." On the other hand, if price changes have little influence on the consumption of a good, its demand is said to be "inelastic." Generally, economic theory predicts that luxury goods will have elastic demands and that necessities will have inelastic demands. Winkler (1971) tested this in the Australian token economy, first, by examining the effects of price alterations on purchase of cigarettes which were found to be luxury goods in the analyses of percentage expenditures as a function of income level, reviewed above. When the price of cigarettes was lowered from three to one tokens, the amount purchased increased from 270 cigarettes in the two weeks preceding the price decrease, to 617 purchased during the two weeks of the one-token price. The 67% price reduction lead to a 128.5% increase in consumption, demonstrating the predicted elasticity associated with cigarette purchases. Testing the theory for a necessity, which would be predicted to have an inelastic demand, was more difficult. The only real necessity in the token system was food, but, for ethical and clinical reasons, the price of meals was not altered. Winkler took as the next closest thing to a necessity the purchase of tea, three times a day, a cultural (if not biological) necessity for the Australian patients. Raising the price of tea from one to two tokens caused a slight fall in consumption from an average 186.5 cups per day to an average 138.8 cups per day. A 100% increase in price caused a 25.6%

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decrease in consumption. Thus, the demand associated with tea was found to be relatively inelastic, as predicted. Winkler's work appears to have justified his original proposition that token economies may be viewed as such, economies. The economy he surveyed and its inhabitants conform closely to basic principles concerning a) the relationship between income and gross expenditures, b) the relationship between income and purchases of luxuries versus necessities, and, c) the elasticity of relationships among prices and consumption of various goods. A MORE COMPLEX PRINCIPLE A basic axiom of consumer economics (more specifically, of "consumer demand theory") concerns consumer preferences. This axiom holds that, if an individual chooses a set of goods, A, over a set of goods, B, then he will not choose B over A under other conditions in which a choice of A over B is still possible. More crudely put, it is assumed that preferences are stable. In considering the stability of preferences, some economists have suggested that preferences among sets of goods under different price structures should remain stable as long as preferred and non-preferred sets are able to be purchased under each price structure studied. The axiom is not contradicted if set B, non-preferred under price structure X, is preferred to A under price structure Y if, due to income restraints, set A may n o t be purchased under price structure Y. Such theorizing leads to methods by which preferences may be revealed by examination of consumption patterns under varying price conditions. Such an empirical test of the assumption of revealed preference was carried out by Battalio et al. (1973) in a token economy. This research was conducted in a token program for chronic female psychiatric patients at a large state hospital in New York. During the study, 38 patients participated in the program for at least two weeks each. All patients on the ward were in the token program, but their number varied slightly as a function of discharges and transfers not under the control of the experimenters. The patients ranged in age from 19 to 64 years with a mean of 42.8 years and ranged in length of hospitalization from 1 to 38 years, with a mean of 15.6 years. Of the 38 patients, 58% had diagnoses of schizophrenia, 24% had diagnoses of mental retardation or mental retardation with schizophrenia, 5% had diagnoses of deterioration 1 A more rigorous test of the elasticity of a demand is suggested by Samuelson (1973). Samuelson presents a formula for calculating the elasticity of a demand from price and consumption data. When the data associated with the purchase of tea are substituted in Samuelson's formula, the elasticity value is 0.44, well on the inelastic side of the 1.0 value which is Samuelson's line of demarcation between inelastic and elastic demands.

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associated with alcoholism, 5% had diagnoses of convulsive disorder, and 8% had miscellaneous diagnoses. The token economy provided paper tokens for a variety of behaviors both on and off the ward, including personal hygiene, help with ward maintenance, attendance at activities, and participation in the hospital's rehabilitation program. On the tokens received, patients' names and the task for which the tokens were earned were recorded as well as, eventually, the good(s) for which they were spent. Tokens purchased coffee, cigarettes, candy, soda, and other consumables, private or semi-private sleeping quarters (as opposed to the standard dormitory), the use and rent of grounds passes, breakfast (but not other, free meals), recreational activities, and private locker rental. The program had been in effect for one year prior to the start of the study reported here. In order to study the preferences of the patients, the items sold for tokens were divided into three groups. The first two groups consisted of items which were purchased regularly and generally consumed within a week of purchase (e.g., cigarettes, coffee, candy). The prices of these two groups of items were systematically and radically altered (either halved or doubled) during the course of the study. The third group of items consisted of miscellaneous goods, goods which were irregularly purchased, and goods for which large price alterations might have been detrimental to the well-being of the patients (e.g., breakfast). During the first week of the study, prices were kept at their preexperimental levels and patients' preferences for various sets of goods were assessed. During the second week of the study, Group 1 items were halved in price while Group 2 items were doubled in price. In the third week, prices were returned to Week 1 levels. For Weeks 4 and 5, prices for Group 1 items were doubled while Group 2 prices were halved. Finally, in Weeks 6 and 7, prices were again returned to Week 1 levels. By studying the preferences of patients through these price alterations, it is possible to see whether their preferences conform to predictions concerning the stability of preference. Let us consider a hypothetical example of conformity and disconformity. Cigarettes were in Group 1 and cost two tokens each during Week 1. (See Table 1.) One cup of coffee was in Group 2 and also cost two tokens during Week 1. Consider two hypothetical sets of these goods. Set A consists of three cups of coffee (six tokens during Week I) and seven cigarettes (14 tokens during Week 1) and cost 20 tokens during Week 1. During Week 2 when coffee cost four tokens per cup and cigarettes cost one token each, set A would cost 19 tokens (three cups of coffee @ 4 and seven cigarettes @ 1). Hypothetical set B consists of two cups of coffee and eight cigarettes which would also cost 20 tokens at Week 1 prices (two coffee @ 2, eight cigarettes @ 2) but would cost 16 tokens at Week 2

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TABLE 1 PRICES FOR INDIVIDUAL CIGARETTES AND COFFEE AND FOR THREE HYPOTHETICAL SETS OF CIGARETTES AND COFFEE DURING EACH WEEK OF CONSUMER PREFERENCE STUDY

Weeks

Prices Cigarettes (Group 1) Coffee (Group 2) Hypothetical sets/prices A 7 cigarettes 3 coffees Totals for Set A

I

2

3

4

5

6

7

2 2

1 4

2 2

4 1

4 I

2 2

2 2

14 6 20

7 12 19

14 6 20

28 3 31

28 3 31

14 6 20

14 6 20

B

8 cigarettes 2 coffees Totals for Set B

16 4 20

8 8 16

16 4 20

32 2 34

32 2 34

16 4 20

16 4 20

C

1 cigarette 9 coffees Totals for Set C

2 18 20

1 36 37

2 18 20

4 9 13

4 9 13

2 18 20

2 18 20

prices (two coffee @ 4, eight cigarettes @ 1). Now, consider a hypothetical consumer with an income of 20 tokens per week. Let us assume that, during Week 1, the hypothetical consumer preferred A to B. During Week 2, she could still purchase either A or B without exhausting her 20 token income. Thus, if she still purchases A, she is consistent with the assumption of revealed preference. If she switches to B, she is inconsistent. Consider set C, consisting of nine cups of coffee and one cigarette. Set C also costs 20 tokens at Week 1 prices (nine coffee @ 2, one cigarette @ 2) and costs 13 tokens at the prices in effect during Weeks 4 and 5 (nine coffee @ 1, one cigarette @ 4). Even if the hypothetical consumer preferred A to C during Week 1 and Week 2 (when C costs 37 tokens), she could prefer C to A during Weeks 4 and 5 without being inconsistent since A is not available to her at those prices (three coffee @ 1, seven cigarettes @ 4, total cost of A = 31). However, if she were to increase her income to 35 tokens per week during Weeks 4 and 5 and then prefer B (then costing 34 tokens) or C to A, she would disconfirm the assumption of revealed preference since, with an income of 35 tokens, she could purchase set A during those weeks. The results of this study gave clear support to the revealed preference axiom. Of the 38 subjects, 19 were consistent with the basic axiom for all weeks of the study. ~ Most of the 19 subjects who were not thoroughly The actual operations by which consistencies and inconsistencies are determined involve complex matrix functions. The interested reader should consult Battalio et al. (1973) for further details in this regard.

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consistent with the axiom of revealed preference were inconsistent for only one pair of weeks during the study. Of these 19, 17 w e r e consistent when errors of observation were analyzed so as to provide a conservative estimate of disconfirmations. This was done by allocating differences between two independent records of purchases in the direction of consistency. These two records (based on recordings of shop purchases and on weekly tallies of tokens which had been spent in the token shop) were generally within 10% of each other. Thus, the allocation of differences between them was of small magnitude, the test of conformity with the basic assumption remaining a fairly rigid one. The consumer preference study by Battalio et al. (1973) demonstrated that the patients in the New York token economy generally conformed to the revealed preference axiom and, thereby, supported Winkler's (1971, 1973) conclusion that token economy consumers conform to basic economic principles. While Winkler's work demonstrated conformity with rather basic economic functions, the results of Battalio et al. (1973) may be seen as going farther by demonstrating conformity with a rather complex principle, demanding sophisticated allocation of limited token resources for various purchases.

SYSTEM/INDIVIDUAL RELATIONSHIPS It has been suggested previously by several of the present authors (Kagel, & Winkler, 1972; Winkler, 1971, 1973)that knowledge of economics would be useful for the clinician concerned with the implementation and evaluation of behavior therapy programs. The rest of this paper will consider an extension of this argument, directed at the role economic perspectives may play in understanding and altering the complex interdependencies among different components of a single therapeutic program and among different behaviors of a single individual. Reading the early reports of the application to human problems of reinforcement principles, one finds rather simple models of behavioral influence. These early applications saw the relationship between the person and the influence system in rather static terms. The system or environment had the reinforcer and the person had both the ability to emit the target behavior and the likelihood (great or small) of being reinforced by whatever reinforcer the environment made available. Although the two parties might play the influence game for an extended period of time, the basic characteristics of what they each had did not change. There was little appreciation of how playing the game might change both parties to it

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so that the latter stages of the game would be different from but the result of former stages rather than mere replications of former stages. 3 We all have a sense of how playing any game changes the players and the game, a sense of how no game can truly be re-played. However, developing meaningful terms to explain that which we sense so clearly is not so easy as the sensing. The tendency to examine only the effects of contingencies on single target behaviors which those contingencies influence directly is a characteristic of some of the applied behavior analysis literature which appears to be especially naive vis ~ vis the complexity of system-individual interactions. An elementary classroom token contingency on number of words spelled correctly is typically evaluated only in terms of the spelling of students with little or no attention paid to possible effects on students' arithmetic, cooperation with each other, etc. The work of Mischel (1968) would discourage us from expecting utility in looking for traits or other intra-psychic structures which might mediate diverse effects of single contingencies. Still, the interrelatedness of components of a single system or program might be expected to lead to diverse effects of a single procedure on other procedures and, thereby, on the behaviors which those other procedures influence. An illustration of such effects appeared in the doctoral research of one of us (EF) designed to examine the importance in a token economy of what has been called the overjustification effect (Deci, 1971, 1972; Levine & Fasnacht, 1974; Nisbett & Valins, 1971). An overjustification effect would be said to have occurred when a behavior of some appreciable frequency without reinforcement is reinforced for a limited time and, then, after the termination of reinforcement, is less frequent than it had been prior to reinforcement. In testing for overjustification effects, Fisher (Notes 1, 2) examined the effects of two token wages on toothbrushing in the same token economy in which the previously described consumer preference research was conducted. On alternate weeks, toothbrushing was either reinforced or not reinforced in order to see if the imposition of reinforcement led to a subsequently reduced level of brushing. In order to examine whether 3 This static view of influence is reflected in the early reliance on replication research designs (ABA designs) for showing program effects. Such designs assume that when one changes from procedure A to B and then returns to procedure A, the behavior of program participants will return to that which was observed during A, without showing the effects of intervening experiences during B. The inappropriateness of such designs to many of the tasks set for them has, of course, led to the development of more complex designs which take into account the fact that behavior is influenced by its historical as well as current contexts (see Baer, 1975; Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968).

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higher token wages would lead to more pronounced overjustification effects, five tokens were earned for brushing during some weeks, while, in others, only one token was earned. The amounts of token reward for each of the eight weeks following two weeks of baseline were as follows: 5, 0, 1,0,5,0,1,0. The results were based on 13 subjects who met several criteria, including being present on the ward often enough at the time toothbrushing was conducted and earning at least 10 tokens per week during the last 4 weeks of the study. Little evidence for overjustification effects was found, the toothbrushing rates being higher in three of the four weeks following reinforcement than they had been during baseline. The initial analysis of the toothbrushing data was quite conventional, examining the effects of contingencies on a single behavior. A more complex analysis of the effects of the toothbrushing wage manipulation was suggested by the economists among the present authors (JK, RB, RB) who looked at the general effects of the changes in the wage for toothbrushing on the frequencies of other, token-earning behaviors. This was done by examining total weekly income from all behaviors other than toothbrushing throughout the ten weeks of the study. These data are presented in Figure 1. Since this study was not designed to assess effects r--I Toothbrushing Income rT~ Noa. teoth/l~ushi~ Income

90

7/

80

7

5-

O U Z

¢1 //

7O

//

T

//

60

'/

/, 2 34 678910 WEEK NUMBER 0 050 1050 10 TOOTHBRUSHING WAGE

~ o

¢/ cj

,, I

WAGE CONDiTiON

FiG. I. Mean toothbrushing and non-toothbrushing income presented for each week and for each condition.

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401

on behaviors other than toothbrushing, these non-toothbrushing income data may have been influenced by uncontrolled characteristics of the token economy (such as the presence of student volunteers on the ward during some weeks of the program). Nevertheless, their analysis yields some interesting trends. It appears that income from sources other than toothbrushing was greater during the weeks when there was no wage for toothbrushing than during those weeks when toothbrushing earned either 5 or 1 tokens, F(I, 65) = 4.64, p < 0.05. Moreover, non-toothbrushing income was greater during the weeks when toothbrushing earned one token than during those weeks when it earned five, F(I, 65) = 6.01, p < 0.05. Thus, a wage for toothbrushing and, especially, a relatively high wage for toothbrushing discouraged patients from engaging in other tokenreinforced, presumably, therapeutic behaviors. In economic terms, raising the wage of one activity without somehow increasing expenditures (e.g., by raising prices or introducing new consumer goods) lowers the "real wage" of other activities and, thereby, reduces labor supply to those activities. Such an interdependency between the wage of one behavior and the frequency of other behaviors appears to be of clinical importance but is not typically examined in the applied behavior analysis literature. Further research on such interdependencies will likely show them to be influenced by other economic characteristics, including individual income levels, variety of goods available for purchase, wages for other behaviors, etc. For instance, a fuller explication of effects of real wage changes on labor supply found such effects to be mediated by income level. With some raises in real wages, low income individuals increased total labor supply rather than decreasing it, as common sense might predict (Kagel, Battalio, Winkler, & Fisher, 1977). Also, Winkler's research (1973) would indicate that the provision of a wide variety of goods with elastic demands (mostly luxury goods) would avoid such reductions in labor supply to activities whose wages are not changed when wages of other activities are increased. Economies with an ample variety of elastic demands contain forces which encourage continued maximization of total earnings.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION The research reviewed in this paper has demonstrated the relevance of economic principles to psychological operations, such as token economy. More specifically, it has been shown that token economies may be viewed as closed economies, that several basic and more complex economic principles apply to them, and that economic principles, such as those

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regarding wage and price effects, may be instructive in understanding and examining relations among the many behaviors, contingencies, and consequences interacting in any complex social system such as a token program. Evaluation of diverse effects within the study ofoverjustification showed that changing the wage of one behavior may have substantial effects on the likelihood of engaging in other behaviors, depending on the characteristics of the particular economy. Rather than mere sets of individual contingencies for target behaviors, token economies are complex social and economic systems of interdependent components and must be evaluated as such. While we might expect economics to be useful in the study of token economies, a less concrete product of the present work is the suggestion that economic models may be useful in understanding human behavior in a variety of settings. Generally, economics and other behavioral sciences concerned with how situations influence actions and lives may benefit through greater awareness of substantive interests, explanatory concepts, and investigative tools which they share. Many questions about the import of these suggestions remain. First, consider the words, "explanatory concepts" at the end of the previous paragraph. Are economic terms and concepts necessary for understanding the data presented in this paper? The answer seems to be no. Some of the wage effects presented here are explicable by current notions in operant psychology such as Herrnstein's matching law (1970; cf. Rachlin, Green, Kagel, & Battalio, 1976). Indeed, some might argue that common sense is capable of most of the insights to which an economic approach has led in this discussion. However, what seems to be overlooked by such assertions is that the economic perspective provides a coherent vantage point from which the investigator is led to notice a variety of important sources of behavior influence as well as their sometimes elusive interdependencies. The fact that common sense finds compatible the product of such approaches should not blind us to the fact that common sense often does not notice what it later finds obvious. While the ingenious might arrive at many of the ideas in this paper without knowledge of economic concepts, an economic approach appears to be of substantial heuristic value in asking new questions about and organizing observations of behavior and therapeutic systems. REFERENCES Baer, D. M. In the beginning, there was the response. In E. Ramp & G. Semb (Eds.), Behavior analysis: Areas of research and application. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975. Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T, R. Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1, 91-97.

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Battalio, R. C., Kagel, J. H., Winkler, R. C., Fisher, E. B., Jr., Basmann, R. L., & Krasner, L. A test of consumer demand theory using observations of individual consumer purchases. Western Economic Journal, 1973, 2, 411-428. Battalio, R. C., Kagel, J. H., Winkler, R. C., Fisher, E. B., Jr., Basmann, R. L., & Krasner, L. An experimental investigation of consumer behavior in a controlled environment. Journal of Consumer Research. 1974, 1, 52-60. Deci, E. L. Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1971, 18, 105-115. Deci, E. L. Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic reinforcement, and inequity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 22, 113-120. Dorfman, R. The price system. Englewood Cliffs, N J: Prentice-Hall, 1964. Herrnstein, R. J. On the law of effect. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1970, 13, 243-266. Kagel, J. H. Token economies and experimental economics, Journal of Political Economy, 1972, 80, 779-785. Kagel, J. H., & Winkler, R. C. Behavioral economics: Areas of cooperative research between economics and applied behavioral analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1972, 5, 335-342. Kagel, J. H., Battalio, R. C., Winkler, R. C., Fisher, E. B., Jr., Miles, C. G., Basmann, R. L., & Krasner, L. Income, consumption and saving in controlled environments: Further economic analysis. In C. G. Miles (Ed.), Experimentation in controlled environment: Its implications for economic behaviour and social policy making. Toronto: Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario, 1975, Kagel, J. H., Battalio, R. C., Winkler, R. C., & Fisher, E. B., Jr. Job choice and total labor supply: An experimental analysis. Southern Economic Journal, 1977, 44, 13-24. Levine, F. M., & Fasnacht, G. Token rewards may lead to token learning. American Psychologist, 1974, 29, 816-820. Mischel, W. Personality and assessment, New York: Wiley, 1968. Nisbett, R. E., & Valins, S. Perceiving the causes of one's own behavior. New York: General Learning Press, 1971. Rachlin, H., Green, L., Kagel, J. H., & Battalio, R. C. Economic demand theory and psychological studies of choice. In G. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. 10. New York: Academic Press, 1976. Samuelson, P. A. Economics: An introductory analysis, 9th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973. Ullmann, L. P., & Krasner, L. A psychological approach to abnormal behavior, 2nd Ed. Englewood Cliffs, N J: Prentice-Hall, 1975. Winkler, R. C. The relevance of economic theory and technology to token reinforcement systems. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1971, 9, 81-88. Winkler, R. C. An experimental analysis of economic balance, savings and wages in a token economy. Behavior Therapy, 1973, 4, 22-40.

REFERENCE NOTES 1. Fisher, E. B., Jr. Overjustification effects in token economies. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY, 1972. 2. Fisher, E. B., Jr. The effects of amount of token reward on response rate in extinction. Informal paper presented to Division 25 at the convention of the American Psychological Association, Montreal, Canada, August 1973. RECEIVED: December 14, 1976 FINAL ACCEPTANCE:June 8, 1977