Paul and Lentz (1977)

Aims

To investigate the effectiveness of operant conditioning by reinforcing appropriate behaviour with schizophrenic patients.

Procedures

Set up a token economy system at a mental health centre in Illinois.

Patients were given tokens for good behaviour – these could be exchanged for small luxuries or fancy meals.

The system encouraged socialisation, participation in group sessions and self-care without violence.

Findings

• Positive and negative symptoms were significantly reduced.
• Schizophrenics who were given the treatment were more cooperative and needed less medication – the ones who followed reached a stage of health which allowed them to be discharged.
• Only 11% of patients in the treatment needed drug therapy, compared to 100% in control group

Conclusions

Token economy is an effective mean of treating people suffering schizophrenia as it reduces both positive and negative symptoms and allows for drug therapy to be reduced or completely erased.

Strengths:

• Useful – it is an effective method to treat people suffering with schizophrenia, thus it can help to reduce costs spent on medicines and reduce all the side effects of it.
• Ecological Validity – people studied where in a real hospital ward and the method was introduced to help with their disorder. Thus, it is more reliable and valid because patients were less likely to be affected by demand characteristics.
• Fox et al – conducted research in token economy to see whether it would help reduce accidents in the workplace. The results were positive.

 Weaknesses:

• Reductionist – it doesn’t take into account physical factors and biochemical factors that may have caused the illness and its symptoms.
• Cultural Bias – the medical health centre was in Illinois; thus, we cannot generalise the results to everyone else in the population.
• No real-world application – token economy is not sustainable in many medical wards because it costs money.