What is “preference for free choice” and why is it important to consider in applied behavior analysis?
Research has shown that organisms prefer situations that offer a greater variety of choices, even if they do not avail themselves of the choices. That is, even if you always choose the same item on a menu, you will still find the menu itself less appealing if it has fewer items. This general situation applies to people, pigeons, and probably everything in between. The classic experiment on preference for free choice was done by A. Charles Catania and Terje Sagvolden and published in 1980 in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, “Preference for Free Choice Over Forced Choice in Pigeons.” The design was simple. In the first stage of each trial, pigeons could peck one of two keys. One key produced a “free choice” situation in which the pigeon saw a row of four keys: three green and one red. Pecks on the other key produced a “forced-choice” situation in which the pigeon saw one green key and three red keys. In either situation, pecking a green key produced food. Pecking a r
