Context affects resurgence of negatively reinforced human behavior

Abstract The effects of context on the resurgence of negatively reinforced (escape) responding was studied in an experiment with undergraduate students in which resurgence and renewal procedures were combined. Across conditions, in baseline (BL), key-pressing produced 3-s timeouts from pressing a force cell on a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement; in the Alternative-Reinforcement and Test phases, a differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior schedule and extinction were in effect, respectively. Conditions differed according to the context (the computer-screen color) in effect in each phase: ABA vs. ABB (with each letter representing a context; order of exposure to conditions was counterbalanced across participants). For each of six participants, independent of (a) order of exposure to conditions, (b) slight differences in BL reinforcement, and (c) differences in BL key-pressing rates, resurgence of greater magnitude occurred in the ABA than in the ABB condition. These results replicate and extend to contingencies of negative reinforcement previous findings with nonhumans and humans showing that context modulates the magnitude of resurgence.