title: Behavioral momentum in the treatment of noncompliance.
abstract: Behavioral momentum refers to the tendency for behavior to persist following a change in environmental conditions. The greater the rate of reinforcement, the greater the behavioral momentum. The intervention for noncompliance consisted of issuing a sequence of commands with which the subject was very likely to comply (i.e., high-probability commands) immediately prior to issuing a low-probability command. In each of five experiments, the high-probability command sequence resulted in a "momentum" of compliant responding that persisted when a low-probability request was issued. Results showed the antecedent high-probability command sequence increased compliance and decreased compliance latency and task duration. "Momentum-like" effects were shown to be distinct from experimenter attention and to depend on the contiguity between the high-probability command sequence and the low-probability command.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854.
authors.forename: F C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Mace
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Hock
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Lalli
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: West
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Belfiore
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pinter
authors.forename: D K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000523:psychology; D004495:Education of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities; D005794:Generalization, Response; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D010349:Patient Compliance; D011930:Reaction Time