A Goal-Setting and Feedback Intervention to Increase ID-Checking Behavior: An Assessment of Social Validity and Behavioral Impact

Abstract

A participative goal-setting and feedback intervention increased cashiers' identification-checking behavior at a large grocery store. The cashiers' identification-checking percentages increased from 0.2% at baseline to 9.7% during the intervention phase and then declined to 2.3% during withdrawal. At the control store, the percentages of identification-checked purchases were 0.3%, 0.4%, and 0.7%, respectively, during the A-B-A phases at the intervention store. A comprehensive social-validity assessment showed ID-checking to be accepted by both cashiers and customers.

Keywords:

• credit-card fraud
• feedback
• goal setting
• identity theft

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Virginia Tech's 2009 Spring Graduate Research and Development Program Award. It fulfilled the research requirement for the first author's MS thesis with advisory committee members E. Scott Geller (chair), Jack Finney, and Roseanne Foti.

Notes

¹Copies of any of these materials are available upon request to either author (i.e., Christopher Downing at [email protected] or E. Scott Geller at [email protected]).

²The daily percentage of ID-checked purchases for each group was calculated by using the ratio of the number of customers checked for identification pertaining to that group divided by the total number of customers observed making a credit purchase on that day for that group. The average number of data-relevant credit-card purchases observed per day was 32, ranging from 3 to 82. A table showing the daily sample size of credit-card purchases and daily percentages of ID checking among the individual cashiers at Stores I and C is available upon e-mail request to the first or second author.