What term describes a system where participants earn generalized conditioned reinforcers (tokens) for specific behaviors and exchange them for items and activities from a menu of backup reinforcers?

• A. TOKEN ECONOMY
• B. TREND
• C. TRIAL TO CRITERION
• D. UNCONDITIONED REINFORCER

Answer: (A)

The system described is a token economy, a reinforcement arrangement in which individuals earn tokens for displaying targeted behaviors and later exchange those tokens for backup reinforcers from a menu of options. The tokens themselves function as generalized conditioned reinforcers: they gain their reinforcing value because they’re paired with a variety of eventual rewards, not because they are the reward themselves. This generalized property helps maintain motivation across different contexts and over time, since the learner can select from multiple rewards once they’ve accrued enough tokens. The actual items or activities obtained with tokens are the backup reinforcers that deliver the primary reinforcement.

This setup is different from a trend, which is about patterns in data over time; it’s also not a trial to criterion, which is a particular training or assessment procedure focused on meeting a predefined standard across trials; and it’s not an unconditioned reinforcer, which would be a primary, innate reinforcer that does not depend on learning.