Intervening to Improve the Safety of Delivery Drivers

The Additive Impact of Group and Individual Publicly Displayed Feedback: Examining Individual Response Patterns and Response Generalization in a Safe-Driving Occupational Intervention

“…Moreover, of course, there are those members of the population (e.g., Deliverer B-03) who will respond negatively to both types of interventions. These patterns of group and individual behavior lend credence to predictions of the MIL model (Geller, 1996(Geller, , 1998Ludwig & Geller, 2000) regarding relative effectiveness of various intervention techniques. In particular, the MIL model proposes that those individuals uninfluenced by the first exposure to a particular intervention generally require a more intrusive and/or individualized intervention technique.…”

“…Much of our research has found that an increase in a nontargeted behavior can result from an intervention on a similar response class depending on the intervention method (reviewed in Ludwig & Geller, 2000; see also Stokes & Baer, 1977). For example, Ludwig and Geller (1991) intervened to improve safety belt use and observed an increase in drivers' turn-signal use; Ludwig and Geller (1997) also found generalization across nontargeted driving behaviors after an intervention targeting complete stopping.…”

“…A comparison can then be made between the goal level and the current level of performance. In these situations, feedback can serve as a reinforcer and influence behavior change when progress toward a goal or successful attainment of the goal is apparent (Ludwig & Geller, 2000;Sulzer-Azaroff & Mayer, 1991).…”

“…Rather, a subset of individuals in each group did not change their frequency of complete stops during the group-based goal setting and feedback. According to a multiple intervention level (MIL) model of intervention effectiveness (Geller, 1996(Geller, , 1998Ludwig & Geller, 2000), some individuals need a more personalized and intrusive intervention strategy. Therefore, we did several studies to examine if offering individualized feedback, often publicly posting individual names with their data, might result in stronger intervention effects with more individuals experiencing the intervention showing change.…”

“…There have been debates over the definitions and functions of response generalization (Austin & Wilson, 2002;Nouchins & Boyce, 2002). Because of this, Ludwig and Geller (Geller, 2002;Ludwig 2002;Ludwig & Geller, 2000) called for broadened ecological observations of both nontargeted behaviors and concurrent contingencies in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) studies to build more databased examples of the phenomena. Accordingly, another objective of the current study was evaluating response generalization by observing nontargeted behaviors along with the behaviors targeted by the intervention.…”