# The effect of magnitude on the displacement of leisure items by edible items

**Authors:** Sydney B. Miller, Sara K. Snyder, Kevin M. Ayres, Rachel R. Cagliani

PMC · DOI: 10.1002/jaba.2940 · Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis · 2025-02-05

## TL;DR

This study shows that increasing access time to leisure activities can make people prefer them over food.

## Contribution

The study introduces a reversal design to evaluate how access duration affects leisure versus edible item preferences.

## Key findings

- Increasing leisure item access duration led to preference over edible items.
- Results support the displacement effect in preference assessments.

## Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated the displacement of leisure items by edible items in the context of preference assessments. Recent research has further evaluated this phenomenon by manipulating the magnitude of access to leisure items and evaluating the effect on preference when given the option between leisure and edible items (e.g., Clark et al., 2020). The current study replicated and extended Clark et al. (2020) by including a reversal design to evaluate the effects of differential magnitudes on participants' selection of a leisure item relative to an edible item. Increases in the duration of access to the leisure item resulted in participants choosing the leisure item over the edible item. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** obesity (MESH:D009765), autism spectrum disorder (MESH:D000067877), speech or language impairment (MESH:D001072), intellectual disability (MESH:D008607), ASD (MESH:D001321)
- **Chemicals:** PSPAs (-)
- **Species:** Homo sapiens (human, species) [taxon 9606]

## Full text

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## Figures

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## References

29 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12034510/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12034510