Establishing appropriate relations between the basic and applied areas of behavior analysis has been of long and persistent interest to the author. In this article, the author illustrates that there is a direct relation between how hard an organism will work for access to an object or activity, as indexed by the largest ratio completed under a…

Although treatment outcome in prize-based contingency management has been shown to depend on reinforcement schedule, the optimal schedule is still unknown. Therefore, we conducted a retrospective analysis of data from a randomized clinical trial (Ghitza et al., 2007) to determine the effects of the probability of winning a prize (low vs. high) and…

This study assessed whether attendance rates in a workplace predicted subsequent outcome of employment-based reinforcement of cocaine abstinence. Unemployed adults in Baltimore methadone programs who used cocaine (N = 111) could work in a workplace for 4 hr every weekday and earn $10.00 per hour in vouchers for 26 weeks. During an induction…

We compared two strategies of prize-based contingency management (CM) in methadone-maintained outpatients. Urine was tested thrice weekly for 5 weeks pre-CM, 12 weeks CM, and 8 weeks post-CM. Participants were randomly assigned to a cocaine contingency (four prize draws for each cocaine-negative urine, N = 29) or an opiate-cocaine contingency (one…

This study analyzed the viability of financing a voucher program for cocaine addicts in Spain through public and private donations. Of the 136 companies contacted, 52 (38%) provided donations. The difference between the benefits (15,670[euros]/$20,371) and the costs (3,734[euros]/$4,854) was 11,936[euros]/$15,517. The type of reinforcer a company…

High-magnitude and long-duration abstinence reinforcement can promote drug abstinence but can be difficult to finance. Employment may be a vehicle for arranging high-magnitude and long-duration abstinence reinforcement. This study determined if employment-based abstinence reinforcement could increase cocaine abstinence in adults who inject drugs…

Contingency management (CM) for drug abstinence has been applied to individuals independently even when delivered in groups. We developed a group CM intervention in which the behavior of a single, randomly selected, anonymous individual determined reinforcement delivery for the entire group. We also compared contingencies placed only on cocaine…

The effectiveness of offering same day appointments at an outpatient cocaine treatment program to increase intake attendance was examined. Seventy-eight clients were given standard or accelerated intake appointments. Significantly more clients who were given accelerated appointments attended the program. An accelerated intake procedure appears to…

Two male adults with cocaine dependence received a behavioral intervention comprised of contingency management and the community reinforcement approach. Reinforcement was delivered contingent on submitting cocaine-free (and subsequently marijuana-free) urine specimens. The intervention was efficacious in achieving abstinence from cocaine and…