Preferred Reward Research Articles

Developing and Rewarding Loyalty to Hotels: The Guest's Perspective

With the changing focus of marketing in the hospitality industry having moved toward relationship marketing and establishing loyalty among customers, it is fundamental for hospitality and tourism organizations to establish what their consumers think in terms of strategies used by hotel properties to secure their loyal customer. This article outlines the results of research conducted with 2,000 5-star hotel guests to establish how frequent guests to two properties on the Gold Coast, Australia perceived the current effectiveness of the marketing strategies used to create guest loyalty. A market segmentation of the different levels of the so-called loyal guest is presented, and a gap analysis of existing versus preferred rewards for loyalty is discussed.

Maintenance of Self-Imposed Delay of Gratification by Four Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and an Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)

Delay maintenance, which is the continuance over time of the choice to forgo an immediate, less preferred reward for a future, more preferred reward, was examined in 4 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and 1 orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). In the 1st experiment, the apes were presented with 20 chocolate pieces that were placed, one at a time, into a bowl that was within their reach. The apes could consume the available chocolate pieces at any time during a trial, but no additional pieces would be given. The total length of time taken to place the 20 items into the bowl ranged from 60 s to 180 s. All 5 apes delayed gratification on a majority of trials until all 20 chocolate pieces were presented. Unlike in most experiments with human children using this test situation, attention by the apes to the reward was not detrimental to delay maintenance. In a 2nd experiment with the chimpanzees only, 4 foods of differing incentive value were presented in different trials in the same manner as in Experiment 1. The chimpanzees were highly successful in obtaining all food pieces, and there was no difference in performance as a function of food type.

Behavioral reactions reflecting differential reward expectations in monkeys.

Learning theory emphasizes the importance of expectations in the control of instrumental action. This study investigated the variation of behavioral reactions toward different rewards as an expression of differential expectations of outcomes in primates. We employed several versions of two basic behavioral paradigms, the spatial delayed response task and the delayed reaction task. These tasks are commonly used in neurobiological studies of working memory, movement preparation, and event expectation involving the frontal cortex and basal ganglia. An initial visual instruction stimulus indicated to the animal which one of several food or liquid rewards would be delivered after each correct behavioral response, or whether or not a reward could be obtained. We measured the reaction times of the operantly conditioned arm movement necessary for obtaining the reward, and the durations of anticipatory licking prior to liquid reward delivery as a Pavlovian conditioned response. The results showed that both measures varied depending on the reward predicted by the initial instruction. Arm movements were performed with significantly shorter reaction times for foods or liquids that were more preferred by the animal than for less preferred ones. Still larger differences were observed between rewarded and unrewarded trials. An interesting effect was found in unrewarded trials, in which reaction times were significantly shorter when a highly preferred reward was delivered in the alternative rewarded trials of the same trial block as compared to a less preferred reward. Anticipatory licks preceding the reward were significantly longer when highly preferred rather than less preferred rewards, or no rewards, were predicted. These results demonstrate that behavioral reactions preceding rewards may vary depending on the predicted future reward and suggest that monkeys differentially expect particular outcomes in the presently investigated tasks.

Acquisition and long-term patterning of joystick selection of food-pellet vs social-video reward by Bonnet Macaques

Five individually housed, adult male bonnet macaques ( Macaca radiata ) that were highly experienced in single-target joystick tasks were trained to discriminate targets associated with food-pellet and live-social-video rewards; the social video afforded viewing of a social group of bonnet macaques. Most subjects more rapidly acquired the discrimination for their preferred reward. Following discrimination training, the remaining three subjects were given 34 weeks with a simultaneous choice between food-pellet and social-video; the subjects selected a reward by simply using a joystick to direct a cursor to contact the target associated with that reward. Despite some change over time, both types of reward remained effective for the extended period. Different daily patterns of responding for the two rewards were identified.

Preference for Noncontingent Reinforcement by Children in Work and Play Situations

A group of 7- to 9-yr.-old children were given the choice between contingent reward (“work”) and noncontingent reward (“play”). For half the subjects the activity involved resembled work (doing sums) and for half the activity resembled play (playing with toy building blocks). Over-all, subjects preferred noncontingent reward particularly when the activity involved playing with building blocks. It was concluded that any activity which permits interaction with and control of the environment will be engaged in (so long as the consequences are not painful) and that studies purporting to show preference for “work” over “play” have generally failed to control for this variable.

Attentional Determinants of Children's Self-Control in Waiting and Working Situations

PATTERSON, CHARLOTTE J., and CARTER, D. BRUCE. Attentional Determinants of Children's SelfControl in Waiting and Working Situations. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1979, 50, 272-275. This study investigated the effect of reward salience on preschool children's self-control in instrumental waiting and working situations. In the waiting conditions, receipt of a preferred reward was contingent on waiting for a given length of time in a standard delay-of-gratification paradigm. In the working conditions, rewards were contingent on completion of a given amount of work in a task-persistence situation. Rewards were either available or unavailable for attention during the test period. The amount of time children sustained waiting or working behavior served as the main dependent measure. As in earlier research, self-control was less effective in waiting conditions when rewards were available for attention. However, presence of the rewards facilitated self-control in the working conditions. These results suggest that the cognitive determinants of effective self-control in working situations differ substantially from those in waiting situations.

EFFECT OF EXPERIMENTER'S RACE, SEX, AND PRESENCE OF REWARDS ON DELAY PREFERENCE OF BLACK MALES

This study examined the effect of the experimenter's race and sex and the visual presence or absence of rewards on black children's preference for larger delayed rewards versus smaller immediate rewards. Forty-eight black males with a mean age of 5 years 7 months were randomly assigned to one of eight cells of a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design. Using a paradigm developed by Mischel and Ebbesen, subjects were placed in a situation whereby they could receive a preferred reward if they waited 15 minutes or a less preferred reward if they chose not to wait. The dependent variable was the amount of time waited. Whereas previous research has shown that reward absence facilitates preference for delayed rewards, the significant 3-way interaction found in the present study indicates that when the experimenter was white and female, the absence of rewards inhibited rather than facilitated preference for delayed rewards. Results were viewed as supporting the situational specificity of delay preference.

The Role of Affect in Delay of Gratification

MOORE, BERT S.; CLYBURN, ANDREA; and UNDERWOOD, BILL. The Role of Affect in Delay of Gratification. CHrLD DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 273-276. 3-5-year-old children were given instructions designed to evoke either a positive, negative, or neutral mood. They were then given a choice between an immediately available but less preferred reward or a delayed, preferred reward. It was found that positive-mood subjects were more likely to choose the delayed reward, while negative-mood subjects were more likely to choose the immediate reward. Results were interpreted in terms of processes of affect and self-gratification.

Preference for reward and nonreward odor trails as a function of reinforcement history

Two hundred and twenty-five rats were tested for preference of reward, nonreward, and neutral odor trails. Rats which had previously received partial or varied reward training showed no preference for reward odor trails, while rats which had previously received continuous reward training preferred reward odor trails. The results were seen to have both methodological and theoretical implications for past and future instrumental conditioning experiments.

Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification.

Three experiments investigated attentional and cognitive mechanisms in delay of gratification In each study preschool children could obtain a less preferred reward immediately or continue waiting indefinitely for a more preferred but delayed reward Experiment I compared the effects of external and cognitive distraction from the reward objects on the length of time which preschool children waited for the preferred delayed reward before forfeiting it for the sake of the less preferred immediate one. In accord with predictions from an extension of frustrative nonreward theory, children waited much longer for a preferred reward when they were distracted from the rewards than when they attended to them directly Experiment II demonstrated that only certain cognitive events (thinking fun things) served as effective ideational distractors Thinking sad thoughts produced short delay times, as did thinking about the rewards themselves In Experiment III the delayed rewards were not physically available for direct attention during the delay period, and the children's attention to them cogmtively was manipulated by prior instructions While the children waited, cognitions about the rewards significantly reduced, rather than enhanced, the length of their delay of gratification Overall, attentional and cognitive mechanisms which enhanced the salience of the rewards shortened the length of voluntary delay, while distractions from the rewards, overtly or cogmtively, facilitated delay The results permit a remterpretatio n of basic mechanisms in voluntary delay of gratification and self-control

Chronic effects of ionizing radiations and the hypothesis that irradiation produces aging-like changes in behavior.

Two groups of old monkeys, one group surviving radiition, the other group nonirradiated, were compared for changes in behavior accompanying aging. The 17 rhesus monkeys used as subjects in these experiments consisted of two groups, each comprised of 6 monkeys aged 8.0 to 9.0 yr, and survivors of another group which had received 1100 r of whole-body x rays in 3 doses of 400, 400, and 200 r spaced at yearly intervals. Subjects were trained in a Wisconsin General Test Apparatus (WGTA). The first experiment involved giving old irradiated and nonirradiated monkeys and young nonirradiated monkeys concurrent discrimination problems in a modified retroactive inhibition paradigm. In the 2nd experiment the technique of substituting less for more preferred rewards during intratrial delays was used to test the frustrative effects of substituting inferior rewards or eliminating rewards within trials. The third investigation was designed to determine whether monkeys could learn to shift set, and whether previously irradiated and nonirradiated monkeys could shift with equal facility. ln all these experiments only one finding in any way supported the hypothesis that chronic effects of radiation miniic aging effects. This was the superiority of the performance of the control group over the performance of subjectsmore » with a radiation history in original learning of concurrent discrimination problems in Experiment I. There were, however, several differences between the two groups of old animals not related to the hypothesis on aging, and all of these differences appear consonant with the known changes in behavior of monkeys following irradiation. These negative findings, together with the previous negative findings of the effects of irradiation on learning, suggest that the syndrome caused by irradiation is dissimilar both to the syndrome resulting from aging and the syndrome caused by circumscribed lesions of the central nervous system. The features seen in monkeys irradiated with either whole-body or cortical irradiation are motivational and perceptual. It is concluded that differences between the groups did not suggest that aging-like changes are the chronic consequences of radiation. (BBB)« less