Token economy Flashcards
What are behavioural treatments for schizophrenia
based on operant conditioning
What is operant conditioning
Learning through reinforcement
How do token economies help patients
encourage people in psychiatric institutions to perform socially desirable behaviours
What can tokens be used for
Buy sweets cigarettes things they like
What did Ayllon and Azrin conduct a study on
Token economy in a psychiatric ward
Who did Ayllon and Azrin study
45 female participants
What are you given tokens for
Good behaviour
What are tokens taken away for
Bizarre behaviour
What was naturalistic observations used to assess
the effectiveness of this procedure in changing behaviour in the hospital ward
What did the women who had been institutionalised for 16yrs display
- bouts of screaming incontinence aggression low social skills
- Showed massive improvement through the incentive of receiving privileges
What was Ayllon and Azrin conclusion
Token economies can exert control over behaviour to give patients back a sense of dignity
What was Ayllon and Azrin’s evaluation
the participants were all women so the results can’t be generalised to the real world
advantages of the token economy
- produce significant improvements in self care and desirable behaviour
- work best in institutions (people lose motivation)
What did paul and Lentz compare
The use of token economy system with standard hospitalisation (schizophrenics improved a lot more using token economy)
Disadvantages of token economy
- Low ecological validity
- patients behaviour might be superficial
- Ethical issues surrounding the use of behavioural therapy
- Depriving patients of rewards may be seen as infringing on their human rights
