Uncovering naturalistic rewards and their subjective value in forensic patients

The use of relevant reinforcers during treatment is essential for successful interventions. This especially applies to forensic psychiatric populations, which are known to be resistant to treatment. However, research on which rewards are of importance for different types of forensic patients was lacking. The aim of this study was to investigate reward preferences in forensic outpatients as well as incarcerated violent offenders under imposed psychiatric treatment. To this end, the concept mapping methodology was applied, in which participants generated, prioritised and categorised rewards that they considered to be attractive. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis resulted in two concept maps with eight (inpatients) and five (outpatients) reward categories. In both maps, one dimension represented the effort required to achieve the rewards. The other dimension represented either the rewards’ independency of the clinical environment (inpatients) or the level of arousal associated with the rewards (outpatients). Both inpatients and outpatients tended to rate high-effort rewards as the most valuable, especially when the rewards involved the clinical environment of the patient or when rewards were associated with lower levels of arousal. The results highlight the importance of considering individual differences in reward preferences in the development of therapeutic interventions. Raw item generation data of each item generation (‘brainstorm’) session are provided for in- and outpatients separately. After each additional session, a file was created with the selected items of that particular session (i.e., overlapping or double items removed). These files, as well as the final list containing all selected items, are also provided. The item ratings of all participants are provided in an SPSS spreadsheet, for in- and outpatients separately. For item sorting, the raw and pre-processed data as well as the syntax are provided for in- and outpatients separately. Additional information on the files and analysis procedures regarding the sorting data is provided in the file ‘Explanation of sorting data processing and analysis procedures.docx’.