Date of Award
12-1-2019
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Behavior Analysis and Therapy
First Advisor
Dixon, Mark
Abstract
In the field of applied behavior analysis, temporal or delayed discounting refers to the process by which an individual relinquishes a larger later reward (LLR) over that of a smaller sooner reward (SSR). Research on delay discounting investigates the differences in the relative value of rewards at various times and explains why the value of present rewards weigh more heavily than that of future rewards. The relationship between the value of rewards is neither linear nor constant, rather it is hyperbolic. The present study assessed the subjective value of two different commodities (money and vacation) among ABA providers and whether discounting practices related to person-level characteristics. Overall results show that there is a good fit using the hyperbolic model (r2=.9226) when evaluating the discounting practices for money and a good fit (r2=.9871) when evaluating the discounting practices for vacation. Using Pearson’s product moment correlation according to AUC, there were also statistically significant correlations for person-level characteristics (age: p=.4170, level of educational attainment: p=.3753, income: p=.5139, and level of job responsibility: p=.5164, job satisfaction: p=-.4419) Since these same characteristics also are predictive of psychological burn-out, the study suggests a new utilization for delay discounting tasks and method to help predict burn-out among ABA providers.
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