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Operant Behavior of a Chronic Alcoholic Under Fixed Ratio and Fixed Interval Schedules of Reinforcement Using Alcohol as a Reinforcer *
Author(s) -
O'Brien John S.
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
british journal of addiction to alcohol and other drugs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0007-0890
DOI - 10.1111/j.1360-0443.1972.tb01189.x
Subject(s) - reinforcement , alcohol , psychology , alcohol consumption , interval (graph theory) , developmental psychology , social psychology , mathematics , chemistry , biochemistry , combinatorics
Summary One chronic male alcoholic was used in an experimental designed to investigate the feasibility of using the free operant technique, in a restricted laboratory setting, as a means of analyzing the behavior patterns of an alcoholic. Further, the variability of the reinforcing value of beverage alcohol was investigated under Fixed Ratio and Fixed Interval schedules of reinforcement. The subject was run for 192 consecutive hours under both non‐drinking and drinking conditions. Operant and temporal data on response rate and beverage alcohol consumption were collected Whisky as a reinforcer with an alcoholic generated response behavior under fixed ratio and fixed interval schedules similar to the performance found in infrahuman subjects and in retarded and non‐retarded children. The temporal analysis suggested that work patterns may be evident in the alcoholic working and drinking practices.