A strategy for facilitating post-treatment weight maintenance was examined. Subjects were matched for age, sex, and amount of weight that they desired to lose and were then assigned to one of two groups. Both groups were under contracts and had individually designed self-control programs for weight loss, but subjects in the experimental group lost weight in small steps and subjects in the control group lost weight continuously. The experimental group was predicted to have better weight maintenance after treatment because of a greater number of reinforcements for weight loss. Two-month follow-up data was obtained on the ten subjects who completed the study, and the experimental group was found to have regained significantly less than the control group after treatment ended. The implications of these results for obesity research are discussed.

This investigation is concerned with the formulation of a well defined study for promoting social acceptability. The study will use the highly accepted individuals of a classroom as interaction partners with the socially isolated members in such a manner as to effectively increase the sociability of the isolated members.