A Survey of Rewards for Teens: Extension and 25-Year Follow-Up

ABSTRACT

Extant reward surveys and item preferences assessments have shown to be a reliable mode of ascertaining potential reinforcers for various populations; however, many are outdated and may comprise of items or rewards that contemporary populations may not value. The purpose of this research is to extend upon the Houlihan, Jesse, Levine, and Sombke (1991) Survey of Rewards for Teens (SORT) and assess whether there is evidence of a potential, generational shift in reward preferences in high school students from 1991 to 2016. This inquiry is of particular importance to behavior analysts due to the idiosyncratic nature of reward preference, a tendency for rewards to shift over time, and the salient role played by rewards in behavior therapy programs. Results suggest that the reward preferences of contemporary high school students differ when compared to the sample of adolescents in Houlihan et al. (1991) study. In addition, a proposed revision of the SORT is provided, whose development was derived based on the resulting component structure from a principal components analysis (PCA) and inspection of component psychometric properties.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavior therapy
• reward survey
• stimuli preference assessment
• teens