Quantifying efficacy of workplace reinforcers: An application of behavioral economic demand to evaluate hypothetical work performance.

Abstract

Behavioral economics is an approach to understanding decision making and behavior using principles of behavioral science and economics (Hursh, 1980). An area of investigation in behavioral economics includes evaluating demand for a commodity (such as drug and nondrug reinforcers), given changes in price, using hypothetical purchase tasks, which are a reliable and efficient assessment method. Given recent calls for organizational behavior management to examine work performance from a behavioral economic perspective (e.g., Wine, Gilroy, & Hantula, 2012), the present studies sought to extend the demand and hypothetical purchase task literature to work tasks and workplace reinforcers. Undergraduate participants completed 2 hypothetical work tasks-a variation of the hypothetical purchase task. Respondents indicated the likelihood they would complete an increasing work requirement for a fixed amount of money at 2 delays to payment (1 hr vs. 4 weeks). Exponential demand curve analyses provided excellent fits to the data and revealed (a) that individuals with and without experience completing the work behavior responded similarly, and (b) that there was higher demand for the 1-hr delay condition. These results suggest the hypothetical work task is a promising method for assessing demand for workplace reinforcers.

A crowdsourced nickel‐and‐dime approach to analog OBM research: A behavioral economic framework for understanding workforce attrition

“…The differences in demand were equal to a 45% increase in the amount of work completed in the short delay condition. Henley et al (2016) demonstrated that demand for workplace incentives may be sensitive to hypothetical contextual variables (in this case, delay of payment), replicating previous research showing the strength of reinforcement is modulated by the delay to reinforcement (e.g., Grace, Schwendiman, & Nevin, 1998;Hursh & Fantino, 1973;Woolverton & Anderson, 2006). Moreover, the demand curves were visually similar to previous research and the data were well accounted for by the exponential model of demand (Hursh & Silberberg, 2008).…”

“…Incentives are a popular method to improve employee behavior; as such, incentives have been the focus of much research. Incentives are rewards individuals earn upon reaching a performance criterion and include money, time off from work, and other tangible or intangible items (e.g., Henley, DiGennaro Reed, Kaplan, & Reed, 2016;Luiselli et al, 2009). Both laboratory (e.g., Slowiak, Dickinson, & Huitema, 2011) and applied (e.g., Miller, Carlson, & Sigurdsson, 2014) studies have reliably shown improvements in performance when participants earn incentives than when they receive hourly pay.…”

“…Although these results are promising, participants did not experience the outcomes described in Henley et al (2016) and the researchers did not measure the hypothetical work behavior-passing out flyers. Instead, participants reported an estimation of how likely they would be to complete each work requirement.…”

“…When applied to an organization, demand curve analyses quantify the persistence of work behavior at increasing requirements to determine the value of a reinforcer—put simply, the analysis quantifies motivation to complete work tasks across increasing work requirements. In one of the first studies to apply demand curve analyses to employee behavior, Henley et al () used a hypothetical task (distributing flyers on campus) to evaluate within‐subject demand for monetary compensation delivered at two delays with undergraduate participants. Participants completing this task reported the likelihood they would pass out a given number of flyers across an increasing work requirement.…”

Toward quantifying the abuse liability of ultraviolet tanning: A behavioral economic approach to tanning addiction

“…Given past research suggesting that most tanning facilities offer unlimited tanning packages (e.g., Kwon et al, ), we instructed participants to report the likelihood of purchasing the month of unlimited tanning by handwriting their numeric response (in % likelihood) on a blank line to the right of each total price (i.e., base price plus tax). While frequency of consumption is typically—but not exclusively—used in hypothetical purchase tasks (for other examples of demand curves using likelihood responses, see Henley, DiGennaro Reed, Kaplan, & Reed, ; Roma et al, ), participants were unlikely to have experience purchasing single tanning sessions which may have compromised the integrity of their responses. The use of progressively increasing tax prices modeled the effects of potential excise tax increases on indoor tanning (comparable to the 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services levied by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ).…”