Group Contingencies Explained: When Everyone Wins Together

Maddie Duke (00:05):
Welcome back to the Boost U Podcast. My name is Maddie Duke, and I am so excited to have you here today. I am really excited to be back with Corey Robertson today. Welcome. Hello
Corey Robertson (00:17):
Hello again, everybody.
Maddie Duke (00:18):
We're so excited to have you. Well, I am excited to have Corey, and Corey and I are excited to have you, the listener. We just love doing this podcast.
Corey Robertson (00:29):
Always. It's fun.
Maddie Duke (00:31):
Yes.
Maddie Duke (00:32):
Well, today we have hopefully a fun topic. Oh, I, I don't know, I guess you can let us know if you hate it. But we are going to be talking about group contingencies today. Corey, do you have anything you wanna say about group contingencies before we start?
Corey Robertson (00:51):
You know, group contingencies are where we get into the behavior change procedures that can be really fun to develop. You know, once we learn all the concepts and principles and the experimental design and all the nitty gritty science that goes into this, then we start to learn, you know, technologies and procedures that really are amazing in their effectiveness. And that's where it becomes a little bit of an art form. When we talk about things like shaping and prompting and you know, contingency contracts and group contingencies, level systems. Did I say tokens already? I think tokens, yeah. All that stuff is just so much fun, I think for a behavior analyst. And, not a lot of people get to utilize these, I would imagine, because if you're working one-on-one then some of these procedures may not come into play in your line of work. So it might be new for some people. But I started out working in school settings and and especially group contingencies can be really handy in those kind of situations where you're working with multiple people at the same time who might have similar presenting challenging behavior, and also are kind of learning the same kinds of skills. So when you're trying to promote the same kinds of behavior in a group, these become valuable procedures. They save us a lot of time.
Maddie Duke (02:13):
Yes, definitely. And I'm hoping, I didn't warn you about this, but I would love to hear some examples as we get into examples of outside the school setting. 'cause You're right, that is really fun to kind of, you know, if you're talking about like government or, you know, like those would be some really cool applications that, let's be honest, on the exam, you're probably going to see more like those traditional school examples, but it's fun to get into those others.
Corey Robertson (02:50):
Yeah, and I think I could definitely speak to some OBM examples of these, because, you know, you could certainly see some group contingencies in a workplace setting potentially. And that'll lead us to talking about some of the disadvantages, some of the problems with these procedures that we might see, especially sometimes in what we might call typically developed adults, right? If you're working with individuals in a workplace setting, sometimes group contingencies can have some drawbacks.
Maddie Duke (03:16):
Yeah. well, I'm excited to to chat about that. So let's start with defining as I always love to do what a group contingency is. I had put in our outline the Cooper definition, but I know sometimes you have different definitions. How would you define a group contingency?
Corey Robertson (03:37):
Okay. Well, now I'm looking at the, at the Cooper definition, but I won't, I'll close my eyes while I just say, if I had to say what a group contingency is, it is a contingency that applies to members of a group, either individually or collectively. So there's three types of, of group contingencies, but what we're talking about is applying a rule to more than one person, essentially, you know? Yeah. and then our Cooper definition is a common consequence is contingent on the behavior of one member of the group, the behavior of part of the group, or the behavior of everyone in the group. Yeah. I think that pretty much captures it.
Maddie Duke (04:13):
Yes, definitely. And that is a good, just a little side note, that is a good study technique to be able to rephrase definitions. In your own words, so. Nice job modeling that for everyone. Corey, thanks.
Corey Robertson (04:28):
Talk the talk. Can you teach it to me? You know, can, if you're, if you're struggling with these terms or concepts or things like that, try to explain to somebody who has no idea what you're talking about either really, or just imagine that you were doing that. That's, that's a lot of how I prepped for the certification exam, was just kind of making sure I could talk my way through it and in a simple way.
Maddie Duke (04:48):
Yes. Yes. And yeah, I was gonna tell a story, but it doesn't make me look the greatest, so, we'll, we'll not relive my, my embarrassing moments, <laugh>.
Corey Robertson (05:01):
Fair enough. Yeah. Self-disclosure as needed. Right. Okay. Yeah.
Maddie Duke (05:06):
So let's talk about why we would use group contingencies. You've kind of already touched on it. They're really great for school settings. But what are some of the other reasons for using group contingencies? Yeah,
Corey Robertson (05:19):
The first I would say is just efficiency. You know, rather than developing an individualized plan for every student in a classroom of, you know, 15 to 30 we might come up with a single plan that applies to everybody in that group. Everyone who finishes their classwork within 50 minutes gets 10 minutes of activity time. That's the group contingency. You know, we're going to have a fundraiser to try to raise money for the school library, and, you know, if our class, you know, raises more money than other classes, we get to have a pizza party, you know? And those sorts of things. We're all in this together, right? Hey, we've got a project that we wanna complete. Our client is expecting you know, a finished product or a service by the end of the quarter. We're all, you know, coming together to work on different things to get that common goal.
Corey Robertson (06:11):
And then when we do, maybe there's an annual bonus or something at the end of it. Those are all, again, it's efficiency as opposed to developing the individual behavior plan. The other thing is that it encourages people to cooperate. And a lot of these plans the person whose behavior's being changed and, and their co you know, their counterparts are collaborating to help each other be successful. So it takes a little bit of the pressure off of the behavior change agent, the teacher, or the behavior analyst, or the parent or whoever.
Maddie Duke (06:42):
Yeah. I mean, it kind of capitalizes on the, the peer peer interactions, peer influence, peer monitoring. Things like that. Yeah.
Corey Robertson (06:53):
Yeah. It really can, it gets everybody vested, I guess would be a good way to put it, right, in the success.
Maddie Duke (07:00):
Yes. especially when we're talking about the hero contingency, which is one of the types of group contingencies. I didn't ask you, I know sometimes you like to teach these in a specific order. Do you think that there's a specific order that we need to go through the types or?
Corey Robertson (07:25):
The order I'm looking at here on our little notes that we made beforehand, seem to do it in the right order? I think they're sort of easier to understand versus more complex or maybe just you know, complexity. So the first would just be the independent group contingency and independent's an easy one to remember. 'cause Independent means you're on your own. Yeah. And so, and independent group contingency applies to everyone in the group. You know, the first question might be, well wait a second. If it's independent, then how is a group? Those seem like they're the opposite thing. No, it applies to members of a group, but every person is responsible for their own success. Yes. So if you meet your quota, then you get your bonus. If somebody else doesn't meet their quota, they don't affect your success. Everybody in there is, you know, is successful.
Corey Robertson (08:11):
So, you know, when you finish your work, then you can use the computers. It's free time after that. That's a independent group contingency. No one's keeping you from your success, but it applies to everybody. Everybody has the same equal chance of success. So again, that's gonna be a great situation where everybody's working on the same thing, you know? We all are learning to, you know, be on task and complete our work. We all are learning to raise our hands. We're all working on reducing challenging behavior. Maybe we fight with our peers or things like that. And so you can apply these individual contingencies to members of a group. You're just saving yourself time and managing all these things.
Maddie Duke (08:51):
Yes. and you gave an example for us, are there any times when this would be kind of better to use than another, or maybe don't use an independent group contingency?
Corey Robertson (09:07):
You know, I would, off the top of my head, I'd say, you know, if the control of the, of the variables are really within that behaver, then it's probably good to have an independent contingency. If I don't have to rely on other people to help me with my job or work, or there's not a process that has to be done before I get to it I think an independent group contingency is going to be you know applicable in situations where there might need to be more collaboration that might not work, and we might look at something else. Or if, you know, and as we'll talk about when we get to the last one, if everybody's success is really critical, it isn't enough just to have a few people be successful. We need everybody on board. We need, you know minimum compliance or something like that. That particular one might not be the right choice. But it's probably the most common, right? We constantly have independent group contingencies. Yeah. You know posted speed limits are independent group contingencies. You know, if you exceed the speed limit, then you will get a ticket, you know, they're not gonna pull me over for you speeding. But that applies to everybody. The rule supposedly applies to everyone. Right?
Maddie Duke (10:13):
Right. That makes sense. Yeah. so then let's talk about the, I guess it's not the opposite, but dependent is the opposite of independent. Let's talk about dependent group contingencies.
Corey Robertson (10:27):
The dependent group contingency depends on one person's success, typically. Now, not, and there's a couple of different ways of doing this. So I, and I'm not sure about this. 'cause It might be, I used to give an example of the fundraiser, and I don't know if you experienced this in school, but we would have, like, you know, you bring in your loose change right? To school. And we'll earn an ice cream party or a pizza party or something like that if our class wins. And there's like always that one girl who comes in with the jar full of her that her dad gave her full of pennies. Right? And now we've made the rule, we've made the goal, but it was really only because Sally brought in all those pennies. So she's the hero in that situation. Our success as a group is really dependent upon her behavior, but it wasn't set up that way.
Corey Robertson (11:14):
Right? The contingency was actually just as a group, we would all bring in money or raise the most. And so that might be what's called an interdependent, which we haven't gotten to yet. Average contingency mm-hmm <affirmative>. Where we're just kind of looking at performance across the board. So I'm a little confused on that example, but I wanted to throw that in there. 'cause There are some times where anybody could do it for the group. And I feel like that might come under a dependent group contingency. But usually what we're trying to do is target the behavior of one individual in a group. And the purpose of the dependent group continues to help them be successful. So perhaps we have a student who doesn't always turn in their work, especially when there's a group assignment, or it's, you know, student led and the teacher's not right there directing the activity.
Corey Robertson (12:00):
And we'd like to get that student on board. And so we create a contingency that if that person finishes their classwork or their assigned duties within the group time, that group would get a, some kind of a consequence, right? Extra free time, or whatever it is, tokens, points, whatever. And the idea there being that now the other members of that group have a vested interest in supporting that person and their success. Let's help them be successful. So let me give them a nod. Let me prompt them a little bit. Let me help them, whatever I'm gonna do, because we all benefit if that person wins, right? Right. And so those dependent group contingencies can help by adding some positive peer pressure in a way, right? You know, we have an interest. And I think, you know, if we're trying to, I've used these in some ways with working with siblings.
Corey Robertson (12:48):
You know, if you've got kids that, that, and, and most siblings do this, right? They fight, they bicker, you know, usually high level, right? High intensity, but low intensity, verbal and, and physical, you know, harassment is, however, you know, anybody has siblings knows this, right? Well, I would come in and start creating some, some dependent contingencies. Let's, let's create some contingencies where they have to work together, where they only win if one helps the other. If you can create those contingencies, you start teaching the value of service. You know, you start teaching people that they win when people they care about are successful. And so those can be interesting. And so that, that's where that name the hero contingency is 'cause we're relying on the hero. You know, so the example here that we came up with, a class will give five minutes of free time when everyone a table.
Corey Robertson (13:35):
Well, that one's a little tricky actually. Sorry, let me read the whole example first. And then I remembered that when I was looking, I was like, Ooh, well, yes and no. The class will get five minutes of free time when everyone at table four has completed their worksheet. The only issue I would have with that is now table four is a group in and of themselves, but they represent part of a bigger group. So that would be an example of like, yeah, the hero group contingency, I guess. But, but it would be better is everyone at table four can have free time when, when Johnny finishes his work. Yeah. And so the other members of of team four are now really interested in helping Johnny finish his work. But it could turn into a, come on man, what are you doing here?
Corey Robertson (14:15):
You know, you get, you could get into a sabotage situation anytime our success relies on somebody else that might be problematic. And so in a situation where, like, if we get into that for sort of fuzzy area of an average, for example, I know there's research in performance management that when we have a contingency where we both benefit, as long as we hit some common goal, well, that tends to kind of let the lower performers off the hook, right? I can ease off a little bit of my work. 'cause I know that Matt's really industrious and studious, and anybody who's been on a team project knows this Right? Team project, there's that one person that really doesn't contribute. So sometimes those, those dependent contingencies where my success does rely on somebody else, or I can benefit due to somebody else's success, punishes the efforts of the high performers and doesn't do much for the lower performers.
Corey Robertson (15:12):
So we do have to be careful sometimes in those dependent contingencies. And so that leads us then into the interdependent group contingency. And that sounds like the most complex. We went from independent, which that's straightforward. Me, I'm on my own here. Okay, cool. Dependent. We're relying on somebody else. Yeah. There's one person. And I think that remembering the hero attached to that is helpful. And most people do that, right? We're, we're looking to the one person. Interdependent is complex, right? And so what that one means is that everybody in the group has to meet the contingency. Everyone in this group home must clean their room and make their bed, or we're not going for the outing today, right? Right. And so, on one hand, maybe it's, oh, okay, we're all in this together. Everybody's whistling while you work. I'm cleaning my room, you're cleaning your room.
Corey Robertson (16:03):
Oh, you need help with that? I'll sweep while you do that. Okay? Sure. Because we all win if we, but not until we all do it. But then again, maybe I'm just not feeling good today and I don't really care about the outing anyway. 'cause We're going to the mall and I don't care about the mall. I wanted to go to the movies. And so I'm just sitting in my room crossing my arms and sticking my tongue out at you guys. And now everybody wants to beat me up. You know, so those interdependent group contingencies distribute the success among the members of the group, but that high peer pressure might work against you. You can have some of that sabotage, some of those issues where now I have the ability to ruin it for everybody. I actually have a really weird example of this working in the, in the opposite direction.
Corey Robertson (16:47):
This was many years ago. I was in a school setting observing a teacher in a special education classroom. And, bless his heart, this guy was one of those individuals as professionals who know just enough to sort of be dangerous. Like, they get the general concept, but they don't execute it with fidelity, and they don't really get what they're doing. Right? So this guy had this, I guess it was sort of maybe a pivot praise example where, you know, instead if you find somebody who's not doing a thing that they're supposed to be doing, you, you give reinforcement, you praise the person who is doing it, right? So, hey, Johnny's not on his homework. And I walk up to Sally sitting right next to Johnny, and I say, I love the way Sally's doing her classwork. And then, you know, Johnny hears that and starts working.
Corey Robertson (17:35):
And then I immediately pivot to Johnny and I praise him as well. So I think that's what this teacher was trying to do. But it was basically like, if one child was disruptive, he would start giving candy to everybody else in the classroom. He would start throwing little treats to the people who were on task. And I was sitting in the back of the room observing one day, and I watched this kid say, "Hey everybody, I got you." And he just started acting a fool intentionally to have everybody else get candy. So it was kind of like a weird dependent group contingency. And he was flipping the script, like I was kind of talking about that as sabotage. Well, this was kind of, it was of a different kind of sabotage. This guy was willing to take one for the team. "I'll act up because everybody else will now get a piece of candy" because we've got this weird reverse contingency.
Corey Robertson (18:21):
So, you know, class party of everybody meets their goal or their fundraising goal or things like that. Everybody does their work. And then we can go to recess. Again, we can have those those challenges. So we have to kind of monitor them and make sure we make adjustments. And that's a good plan anytime, right? Anytime you're implementing strategies that are more complex, you really need to be monitoring and looking for the kinds of things you're looking for and just kind of being aware of any artifacts, any unintentional side effects of the intervention, right?
Maddie Duke (18:52):
And I know in some of the performance management research, they will do an anonymous dependent group contingency where it's only dependent on one person, but no one knows who that person is.
Corey Robertson (19:07):
Yeah. So thank you for bringing up, 'cause I totally forgot to mention that. Yeah. Those variations. So the random selection of the individual is a good one. And you can also do that with an independent dependent, well, maybe it really just is a dependent then, but yeah, it's randomized, so we don't know. And that gets into those indiscriminable contingencies. So we know some of the details, but we don't know all of them. And that leads to generalization. So, yeah. You know, now we don't know whose work you're checking, which means we all kind of have to have our work done, but any one of us is gonna determine whether we're all successful, right? That's a tricky one, right? And then the other one is, as I did mention, the group average. Could be, and I think that applies more to the interdependent, but then it makes it seem like it's more of a group contingency because we're trying to reach a common goal, right? So a group average would be like, the class raises a minimum goal. Well, some people gave more than others, but we're all kind of at the same amount. But we raised it together, but one person can do more. And so it's sort of a combination, it feels like, of that dependent versus independent contingency.
Corey Robertson (20:12):
So, and then, you know, in implementing these, so again, the biggest thing is, well, what's the setting? What are the, what are the considerations, right? What's the, what are the goals in terms of acquisition targets and challenging behavior that we're doing? What does the staff support look like? What does data, all those things are gonna come into play in picking a, an intervention, but we wanna make sure that we are setting appropriate performance criteria, that, that it's a common target behavior usually, that it applies to most of the people in the group or everyone in the group that the reinforcers are gonna be effective to the members of that group, right? Those are gonna be important considerations. Really thinking about the dynamics of which group contingency you're choosing and making sure it's appropriate. Combining with other procedures usually, right?
Corey Robertson (20:58):
These are things that are, that are laid and other things as well. And then monitoring, you know, again, both individual and group performance. You wanna look at certain things that you're trying to get everyone to do, but you also need to be sensitive to those individual targets. And I guess as a close, you know, anytime we start talking about these sorts of things group contingencies, contingency contracts token economies, level systems, again, those are the really fun and exciting areas and procedures that we can do. And not everybody gets to. But I sort of have this recollection of being really excited when I got my certification, I had all my training, and I was, you know, going onto the world with my, you know, sort of Batman utility belt, right? You know, you got all these things that you're ready to use.
Corey Robertson (21:45):
Oh, what kind of gadgets did you know? If you're a Bond enthusiast, what kind of gadgets did Q give me? Where can I use these? And I've seen people get carried away with complex interventions that aren't really necessary. Sometimes all that really needs to happen is that we need to deliver some high quality attention for the right kind of behavior. And we need to stop providing high quality attention for the wrong kind of behavior. Sometimes that's all it is, right? I need to help you when you ask for it nicely and you stay calm, and I just need to ignore you when you're screaming about how frustrating your homework is. That's all that's needed. But I had a case where I had a new supervisee trainee who, who had developed this elaborate point system with deductions for different things and a level system.
Corey Robertson (22:34):
And I would say this, I think most people can relate to struggling with getting other people to implement the intervention, right? If you're listening to me right now in your car or wherever, if you're jogging or whatever it is you do when you listen to podcasts, if you're nodding vigorously when I say, have you ever had a plan that the parent didn't implement or the teacher wasn't implementing? And you, you've said, I know that this would work. If only they would just do this thing or do whatever it is, then, then you have to think about how complex you're making things. 'Cause the more complex we make it, the more steps we're just adding in for them not to do. And we can't blame the parent. We can't blame the teacher. We took, you know, years of training and practice and supervised field work to get good at these things.
Corey Robertson (23:19):
And we've seen them work. We have that history to know, oh yeah, if I put this into place, boy, this is gonna be like a magic trick in the teacher's eyes here, but the teacher doesn't have that history. So, you know, I throw out that caveat just to new and, and young behavior to say there's a phrase KISS, right? Keep it simple. I'm gonna say silly instead of the word people usually say, but keep it simple, silly is, you know, some of these things, they are very powerful procedures. They do work. I'm not saying, you know, be be wary of them in those regards. I'm just saying they are complex. So use them when they're needed and if a simpler solution will suffice, use that. Differential Reinforcement is really the name of the game here. This is just a complex form of differential reinforcement, really, you know, applied to multiple people at the same time for maybe many behaviors, those kinds of things. Yeah,
Maddie Duke (24:12):
That makes sense. Yeah. And I think that's a great reminder that, you know, we, we need to know these complex procedures for the exam, but they're not always the solution that we really need to make sure that we're thoroughly vetting the basics and making sure that if something more simple can work, that that's what we're doing instead.
Corey Robertson (24:40):
Right. And, and to be fair, I mean, I think group contingencies can be pretty simple. You know, I mean, again, you finish it word go to recess is technically a group contingency. Yeah. And that's easy to come up with and doesn't require, you know, a formal contract approved by a lawyer for all parties to sign or anything like that. But you know, there, it, it's sort of the, in that grouping, in my mind anyway, of those more complex procedures like tokens and levels and things like that. You know, all of these interventions are only gonna be as good as they are implemented. And I had that experience as a young behavioral analyst, you know, when I was still even still in teaching where I had a really complex token system. It was a point system in a classroom based on the kids' you know, classroom behaviors and, and an IEP goal.
Corey Robertson (25:25):
And I had a whole thing and, and I had a token store and I was even teaching them the kids to use check registers to keep balance and write me checks for the to, so there was like a skill that they were, I didn't know. I mean, this was many years ago. Those kids are probably still writing checks. I wouldn't do that these days. I don't know that I, people don these days don't even have checkbooks, right? That's just not a thing. So, but I was thinking of as an adaptable skill at adultness. Yeah, for sure. But, but you know, what happened with that scenario was the Friday was the exchange day. Friday fun. Fridays were the day you were supposed to be able to buy your points. And one week we just got so busy or, or the schedule was weird or something, and I didn't get to it.
Corey Robertson (26:03):
And then another week went by and something weird happened and I couldn't, they couldn't exchange the points and write me the check to get the things out of the file cabinet. And it didn't take more than a couple of weeks before the whole thing kind of fell apart. The kids didn't care about the points anymore. You know, they were not motivated to, to behave, to earn those points across the day because it never led to anything. And that was on me. And that was, I think partly because I was so excited about developing this very strong structure for my classroom. Yeah. Which conceivably would've been a good thing. But if you can't implement it on a regular basis, if you miss the key component, like the delivery of the reinforcer, what are we even doing here? So in the back of my mind, I've always got that in there. And when we get into this realm of things, it's always just like a little bit of, yeah, these are really fun and exciting and effective procedures. Don't get addicted to them. You know, kind of thing.
Maddie Duke (26:53):
So that makes sense. Yes. well I think this has been a fantastic episode. I really hope that it has been helpful to our students. Corey, thank you so much for being here.
Corey Robertson (27:07):
I appreciate it always. And hey, if you guys are listening and you have ideas for topics, please get in contact with us. Shoot us an email. We're talking about some other things we want to do and get some of our instructors involved here as well. We got a lot of experts that we know, and we'd love to have them come on and talk to you about things.
Corey Robertson (27:26):
Give us ideas for topics in the comments or let us, you know, reach out to us on our social media channels.
Maddie Duke (27:32):
Yes. Alright. Thank you so much and we will see you in our next episode.