Token economies Flashcards
What are token economies
Behaviourist treatments to manage negative symptoms of schizophrenia and increase everyday functioning, often used in patients who are hospitalised for a long time as this leads to an amplification of maldaptive behaviours-allows them to function effectively outside of hospital setting
How do token economies work
Through operant conditioning, Tokens are given when a desired behaviour is exhibited, e.g when they brush their teeth, which can then be exchanged for goods and privledges like sweets, ciggarettes or magazines, the desired behaviour will then be positively reinforced by the presence of the reward, they will learn to repeat the behaviour as they associate it with a reward resulting in increased desired behaviour and decreased maldaptive behaviour helping to manage and reduce negative symptoms.
Strength of token economies-research support
Azrin et al found that token economies were effective at improving everyday functioning in hospitalised schizophrenic women increasing the average number of everyday chores from 5 to 52 showing token economies are effective at helping to manage schizophrenia
Who found token economies were effective and increased everyday chores/basic functioning tasks performed
Azrin et al
Token economies-Beneficial application
-Improve everyday functioning, reduce negative symptoms increasing quality of life and ability to function in the community-may lead to long term hospitalised patients able to be released-reduces burden on the NHS
Token economies-Limitation-Cannot solely treat schizophrenia
-Unable to solely manage and treat symptoms of schizophrenia-drug therapy is needed to reduce short term distress and positive symptoms to allow everyday functioning-limited effectiveness as they cannot solely be used to treat and manage schizophrenia
Token economies limitation-Real life
-Unable to maintain schizophrenia in the long term outside of hospital settings as it is hard to facilitate token ecnomy systems outside of hospital-unlearning reinforcement and relapse-not effective at long term management outside of hospital.
