Self-Management

Ineffective Natural Contingencies

Grandma's Wisdom: The problem with you members of today's younger generation is that you must have instant gratification; you cannot delay your gratification.

The Behavior Analyst's Wisdom: The problem with people who have poor self-control, who have poor impulse control, is that they choose smaller, immediate reinforcers instead of larger, delayed reinforcers.

This makes sense to most behavior analysts because of the gradient of delayed reinforcement: the greater the delay between the response and the reinforcer, the less the impact of that reinforcer, and the less the increase in the future frequency of that response as a result of that reinforcer. In fact, the delay gradient is so steep that there has been no clear demonstration of reinforcement when the reinforcer is delayed by more than a minute or so with nonverbal organisms, whether they are nonhuman animals or nonverbal human beings. The delay gradient is so steep that in working with nonverbal autistic children, no behavior analyst would delay the reinforcer by more than a few seconds and preferably by no more than a fraction of a second. The quicker, the better; and if the delay is greater than a minute or so, there will be no reinforcing effect at all.

But when extrapolating from this basic, behavioranalytic research to the typical self-management problems of adults, there is a confound between two causal variables: For example, if you overeat, you will gain excess weight—a delayed, aversive consequence of the overeating. Grandmother would say you overeat because you cannot delay your gratification. However, the confound is that not only is that weight gain delayed but also the amount of permanent weight gain from a single instance of overeating is insignificant. Only as a result of a large number of instances of overeating will you experience the aversive outcome of significant weight gain.

Most obese people in the United States know the rule describing that contingency: If you repeatedly overeat, you will become overweight. The problem is, knowing the overweight rule does not suppress this one instance of eating that delicious fudge sundae topped with the whipped cream and the maraschino cherry, because a single instance of eating this dessert will cause no significant harm and will, indeed, taste great. So, knowing the overweight rule does not help the masses of Americans who have or are on their way to having gradually slipped into obesity, one fudge sundae at a time. Knowledge of this rule describing the natural contingency exerts little control over gluttony.

But do we fail to follow the overweight rule because our behavior is not controlled by delayed consequences, as grandma accuses? Suppose the dieter had agreed to donate $5, $20, or, if need be, $100 to a despised charity each time he ate a single bite of a fudge sundae. And suppose the dieter were working with a performance manager who would reliably enforce the penalty specified in this behavioral contract. Then, it is unlikely that the dieter would ever eat another fudge sundae, even though the payment of the penalty might be delayed by a day, week, month, or year. As long as the contract is in effect, knowledge of this performance management contingency will suppress fudge sundae gluttony.

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