An Evaluation of Static versus Variable Antecedents on Employee Performance

ABSTRACT

Antecedent-only interventions are commonplace in the natural environment. For example, it is not uncommon for “do not enter” signs to mark areas where the public is not welcome. Two experiments were designed to evaluate whether changing posted signs daily was effective in increasing staff responding relative to a static sign condition. In Experiment one, signs were used to remind employees to sign children out to a playground. In Experiment two, signs were used to remind employees to clock students in and out of work. In both experiments, signs that changed daily and delivered the message in a humorous manner were more effective than signs that remained constant. These data suggest a method to increase the effectiveness of signs when used in a stable population.

KEYWORDS:

• Antecedent interventions
• signs
• prompts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.