ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines six research designs commonly used when doing research in behavior modification, including the reversal-replication (ABAB) design. It describes scientific criteria behavior modifiers typically used to evaluate whether a treatment has produced a change in behavior. Although the ABAB design is a common behavior modification research strategy, it has limitations that make it inappropriate in certain situations. First, it might be undesirable to reverse to baseline conditions following a treatment phase. Second, it might be impossible to obtain a reversal due to “behavioral trapping.” Returning a behavior to baseline sometimes might be impossible, and reversing an improvement in behavior even for a short time is often undesirable. Multiple-baseline designs are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of a particular treatment without reversing to baseline conditions. With a changing-criterion design, the control that a treatment exerts on an individual’s behavior is evaluated by introducing successive changes in the behavioral criterion for application of the treatment.
