While we all love a good snack, and we can all agree the we'd do almost anything for a Klondike bar, there's more to life than food. So why do behavior analysts get stuck on using edibles as the be all and end all of reinforcement in behavior acquisition? This week, we take a look at the research to see if edible reinforcers really should be selling like hotcakes or if there's more to reinforcement than chocolate-covered potato chips.

Articles discussed this episode:

Ciccone, F.J., Graff, R.B., & Ahearn, W.H. (2006). Stimulus preference assessments and the utility of a moderate category. Behavioral Intervention, 21, 59-63. doi: 10.1002/bin.190

Clark, S.B., Call, N.A., Simmons, C.A., Scheithauer, M.C., Muething, C.S., & Parks, N. (2020). Effects of magnitude on the displacment of leisure items by edible items during preference assessments. Behavior Modification, 44, 727-745. doi: 10.1177/0145445519843937

Fahmie, T.A., Iwata, B.A., & Jann, K.E. (2015). Comparison of edible and leisure reinforcers. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 48, 331-343. doi: 10.1002/jaba.200

Gover, H.C., Fahmie, T.A., & McKeown, C.A. (2019). A review of environmental enrichment as treatment for problem behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 52, 299-314. doi: 10.1002/jaba.508