Maintaining high activity levels in sedentary adults with a reinforcement‐thinning schedule

Abstract

Physical inactivity is a leading cause of mortality. Reinforcement interventions appear useful for increasing activity and preventing adverse consequences of sedentary lifestyles. This study evaluated a reinforcement thinning schedule for maintaining high activity levels. Sedentary adults (n=77) were given pedometers and encouraged to walk ≥10,000 steps/day. Initially, all participants earned rewards for each day they walked ≥10,000 steps. Subsequently, 61 participants were randomized to a monitoring only condition or a monitoring plus reinforcement thinning condition, in which frequencies of monitoring and reinforcing walking decreased over 12 weeks. The mean ± SD percentage of participants in the monitoring plusreinforcement thinning condition who met walking goals was 83% ± 24% versus. 55% ± 31% for participants in the monitoring only condition, p < .001. Thus, this monitoring plusreinforcement thinning schedule maintained high rates of walking when it was in effect; however, groups did not differ at a 24-week follow-up. Monitoring plus reinforcement thinning schedules, nevertheless, hold potential to extend benefits of reinforcement interventions at low costs.

Internet-based incentives increase blood glucose testing with a non-adherent, diverse sample of teens with type 1 diabetes mellitus: a randomized controlled Trial

“…This procedure, known as Bcontingency management^(CM), has been used to treat substance abuse [8], increase asthma and HIV medication adherence [9][10][11], increase physical activity levels and facilitate weight loss [12,13], and improve diabetes self-management in children and adolescents [14][15][16]. Contingency management has also been shown to be more effective when combined with other psychosocial interventions, such as motivational interviewing (MI) [17].…”

Classroom‐based interdependent group contingencies increase children's physical activity

“…Pedometers have been shown to be reliable sources of data (McNamara, Hudson, & Taylor, 2010) and have been used as a measure of physical activity in various studies to increase physical activity for adults (e.g., Andrade, Barry, Litt, & Petry, 2014;Van Camp & Hayes, 2012) and adolescents (e.g., Lubans, Morgan, Callister, & Collins, 2009;Lubans, Morgan, & Tudor-Locke, 2009). For example, Kurti and Dallery (2013) saw improvements in the number of daily steps taken by sedentary (i.e., 6,000 steps per day) adults (50 years of age and older) through the use of an Internet-based contingencymanagement program.…”

“…Consistent with Bravata et al's (2007) recommendations for pedometer interventions with adults, our preadolescent intervention made use of goals, diaries, and nonwork (i.e., nonschool) settings. In addition, we used incentive-based procedures that have been used with adult populations (e.g., Kurti & Dallery, 2013;Washington et al, 2014), and we reduced the frequency of monitoring (see Andrade et al, 2014).…”

Rational skepticism: A scientific review of Witts' (2018) criticisms of the PEAK relational training system

“…C21 criticized McKeel, Dixon, et al (2015) for not conducting a power analysis prior to conducting the study, where a power analysis is conducted to avoid committing a type II statistical error. Although this is a sound criticism, we found only two randomized controlled trials (RCT) published in JABA since 2014, conducted by Zinn, Newland, and Ritchie () and Andrade, Barry, Litt, and Petry () . A power analysis was not conducted in either study.…”