Extending Contingency Management's Benefits With Progressively Increasing Variable Interval Prize Reinforcement

Contingency Management (CM) is highly effective in promoting recovery from substance use
disorders, but benefits tend to attenuate over time when CM is discontinued. Identifying
modifications of CM delivery that can extend its benefits is an important goal. The goal of
this study is to evaluate the use of reinforcements to increase physical activity,
specifically walking. The study provides a standard CM intervention to promote walking for
three weeks. After three weeks, a progressively increasing variable interval schedule of
reinforcement will be evaluated for increasing the durability of effects of the initial CM
intervention. We hypothesize that Variable Interval Prize Contingency Management will result
in greater adherence to a walking goal of 10,000 steps per day at Week 15 and Week 24
compared to the Control Condition.