Research

Dr. Kestner’s research program uses a translational approach to examine the durability of behavior change, with a focus on why behavioral interventions often fail over time and how they can be made more sustainable. Her work integrates laboratory models of behavior, including human-operant and computer-based analog tasks, with applied research in clinical and school settings to identify variables that influence persistence and relapse under conditions that approximate real-world challenges.

A primary line of research focuses on behavioral relapse, particularly resurgence and renewal, and the conditions under which previously reduced behavior returns following changes in reinforcement, context, and treatment procedures. This work examines relapse across a range of intervention arrangements, including those beyond extinction-based approaches, with the goal of identifying boundary conditions and evaluating mitigation strategies that generalize to applied settings.

A related line of research examines the long-term outcomes of differential reinforcement and choice-based interventions, particularly those involving concurrent operant arrangements. This work evaluates how variables such as reinforcement dimensions, response effort, and implementation fidelity influence persistence of alternative behavior and relapse of target behavior across treatment challenges.

The lab also conducts applied and school-based research focused on consultation practices, classroom interventions, and the design of behavior intervention plans that support sustained, high-fidelity implementation. An emerging interdisciplinary line of work integrates behavior analysis with physiological measures, such as salivary cortisol, to examine how interventions affect both recipients and implementers, with implications for intervention durability and practitioner outcomes.