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Using a guest‐ and confederate‐delivered token economy to increase employee–guest interactions at a zoo
Author(s) -
Vergason Cassie M.,
Graviicole E.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of applied behavior analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1938-3703
pISSN - 0021-8855
DOI - 10.1002/jaba.599
Subject(s) - token economy , security token , intervention (counseling) , psychology , baseline (sea) , business , applied psychology , marketing , social psychology , computer science , computer security , political science , reinforcement , law , psychiatry
The present study used a token economy to promote guest greetings by employees at a zoological facility. Guests and confederate guests delivered tokens to zoo employees for making eye contact from 10 ft (3.05 m) away and verbally greeting guests from 5 ft (1.52 m) away (called a 10–5 interaction) and the tokens were exchangeable for small prizes. An ABAB design was used to evaluate the intervention. Results showed increases of 35.3 and 45.0% in correct employee–guest interactions in each intervention phase compared to baseline, thus suggesting that a guest‐delivered token economy is an effective way to improve guest greetings. Limitations of the current study and opportunities for future research are discussed.