Contingent incentives can reduce substance abuse. Escalating payment schedules, which begin with a small incentive magnitude and progressively increase with meeting the contingency, increase smoking abstinence. Likewise, descending payment schedules can increase cocaine abstinence. The current experiment enrolled smokers without plans to quit in…

This study of an adolescent with mental retardation and autism found that pica of cigarette butts was maintained in a condition with no social consequences when cigarettes contained nicotine but not when cigarettes contained herbs without nicotine. A procedure based on stimulus control, which reduced cigarette consumption to zero, is described.…

The efficacy of different schedules of reinforcement (progressive and fixed) for promoting and sustaining cigarette abstinence was compared using 60 cigarette smokers. Results found that the progressive and fixed groups achieved greater levels of abstinence than controls and that the progressive group was less likely to resume smoking. (Author/CR)