Jamal was continually late to work. In an effort to reduce this behavior, his supervisor told him that for each minute he was late to work, it would be deducted from his break time. During the week, the supervisor noticed that Jamal was no longer coming late to work. In an attempt to see if it was indeed his intervention that was the cause of Jamal's behavior change, the supervisor told him that the following Monday, there would no longer be a penalty for coming late to work. Jamal's behavior of lateness returned. Convinced, the supervisor reinstated the consequence. Jamal again began arriving to work on time. What design does this procedure describe?
A) Teaching Design
B) Changing Conditions Design
C) ABAB
D) AB

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The procedure described is the ABAB design, also known as a reversal design or withdrawal design. This involves alternating between a baseline phase (A) and an intervention phase (B), and then removing the intervention to see if the behavior returns to baseline, before reintroducing the intervention again to see if the behavior changes again. In this case, the baseline phase was Jamal's habitual lateness, the intervention phase was the penalty for lateness, the reversal phase was removing the penalty, and the final phase was reintroducing the penalty. This design is commonly used in behavioral research to establish a causal relationship between interventions and behavior change.

Jamal Was Continually Late to Work