Cioni, Jennifer

Dougan, Faculty Advisor, James D

Johns, Jennifer D

Digital Commons @ Illinois Wesleyan University

Illinois Wesleyan UniversityDigital Commons @ IWUJohn Wesley Powell Student ResearchConference 1994, 5th Annual JWP ConferenceApr 23rd, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PMSupply, Demand, and Competition on SimpleInterval SchedulesJennifer D. JohnsIllinois Wesleyan UniversityJennifer CioniIllinois Wesleyan UniversityJames D. Dougan, Faculty AdvisorIllinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/jwprcThis Event is brought to you for free and open access by The Ames Library, the Andrew W. Mellon Center for Curricular and FacultyDevelopment, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the President. It has been accepted for inclusion in Digital Commons @ IWU bythe faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@iwu.edu.©Copyright is owned by the author of this document.Jennifer D. Johns; Jennifer Cioni; and James D. Dougan, Faculty Advisor, "Supply, Demand, and Competition on SimpleInterval Schedules" (April 23, 1994). John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference. Paper 35.http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/jwprc/1994/posters/35SUPPLY, DEMAND, AND COMPETITION ON SIMPLE INTERVAL SCHEDULES Jennifer D. Johns, Jennifer Cioni, Dept. of Psychology, IWU, Dr. James D. Dougan* Recent studies have shown that the law of supply and demand describes behavior on simple Variable Interval (VI) schedules. When the quantity of reinforcement supplied is large, rats will "pay" less for the reinforcer than when the quantity supplied is small. Last year, two studies examined the effects of social context on the economic behavior of rats on VI schedules. Rats responded on a series of VI schedules differing in reinforcement rate. During half of the sessions, a second rat was placed in the chamber behind a plexiglass barrier. Although the third experiment in the series utilizes the same procedures employed in the earlier studies, there was a significant modification to the plexiglass barrier. As predicted by economic theory, there was an inverse relationship between quantity of reinforcer supplied and the obtained behavioral cost of reinforcement. In addition, the presence of a "competitor" rat altered the relationship between supply and cost. 

Supply, Demand, and Competition on Simple Interval Schedules

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Supply, Demand, and Competition on Simple Interval Schedules

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