Please use this to comment on your reading for sec 2.1. I'll leave it up to you about what and how you would like to comment, however I would ask that you attempt to write using behavioral terms. I will also use this as a way to 'time stamp' that you read the section on or before Friday. I realize that the Thursday and Friday due dates are close together. If you want you can turn in your Friday assignments in on Saturday.
Please include a list at the end of the behavioral terms you used in the comment you posted.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
What I took from 2.1:
I learned that there are four main reasons for wanting to modify a behavior.
1. The behavior bothers myself. Some of the behaviors I would like to change about myself are to stop eating too much junk food and to extinguish the word "crap".
2. The behavior bothers others. I think trying to be controlling bothers others. I could certainly work on that.
3. The behavior might lead me to trouble. I could stop emitting the behavior of speeding which would reduce my chances of getting a speeding ticket.
4. The behavior is illegal. Speeding is illegal.
The point is that are many reasons for behavior modification. It is the steps we take to modifying the behavior that matters. It is important to take the behavior you want to modify and reverse into a behavior you want to reinforce. This is called differential reinforcement of other. One of my examples was I want to decrease the amount of junk food I eat. To reinforce my behavior, I said I will try to eat healthy food.
This section also pressed on the ABCs. I learned that the context is extremely important because a behavior okayed in one context might not be appropriate in another.
Behavior, emitting, modification, reinforce, differential reinforcement of other, context
I enjoyed reading section 2.1 and feel I got a lot out of it. I thought it was interesting to realize that punishment occurs naturally all the time, but we don't think of it in behavioral terms. I also found it interesting that we went back to the ABC's of behavioral modification, but added a little twist. I thought it was neat to see that you can emit be same behavior, but depending on the context, that same behavior could have quite different consequences. I used the example of eating cake. In the context of a birthday party, you eat cake, and then feel satisfied and happy. But, if you eat cake because you are sad or depressed, it makes you feel unhealthy and you may not feel very good about yourself. In the first example, you were positively reinforced by eating cake, but in the second example you were punished. I learned a lot from 2.1 and enjoyed reading it.
punishment, behavioral modification, emit, context, consequences, positively reinforced, punished
What i really took away from section 2.1 was the fact that the antecedent serves as the discriminate stimulus while it is the establishing operation that resides in the consequence. Upon reading this i had to think about why the discriminate stimuli might be related the antecedent. It seemed to me that it could be the behavior because it is this behavior we are emitting. But after thinking about it for awhile i realized that this is always the case with the antecedent. The same thing goes for the establishing operation of the behavior. It was probably because the word "establish" was in there that i thought it was related to the antecedent because its this antecedent that sets emits the tone of the behavior. Its clear after reading this section that behavior modification can take place for many reasons. Also i found it very interesting to learn that both satiation and deprivation are directly related to the establishing operation of the behavior. And that both these terms in their own rights have impacts completely opposite of each other on reinforcement.
antecedent, establishing operation, consequence, discriminate stimuli, behavior, emit, satiation, deprivation, reinforcement.
I enjoyed section 2.1 because it gave me a chance to write out behaviors that I personally want to increase and decrease. Writing them out and "targeting" them are a step closer to actually modifying them. I also thought the perspective on changing statements to a reinforcement outlook was very helpful. It is easy to say what you don't like about yourself, but when you want to change it, it is hard to say how you will emit certain behaviors to do so. I think our environments and antecedents are critical in triggering our behaviors. If we want to modify a behavior, we need to also modify our discriminative stimulus that causes our aversive behavior. After reading through this section, I realized I need to modify certain situations that seem to elicit target behaviors that I want to modify.
I really enjoyed section 2.1 because it gave me a chance to write down target behaviors that I want to increase and decrease. I thought the Skinner perspective on changing statements to a reinforcing outlook was very helpful. It is easy to say what behaviors we want to decrease, but we when are trying to modify them, it is hard to clarfiy how we want to do so. I also like how the section pointed out the importance of the situation in which certain behaviors take place. If I want to modify target behaviors, I also need to modify the antecedent to the behavior. I need to modify my discriminative stimulus that often elicits certain aversive behaviors. Modifying certain situations that often elicit me to emit certain target behaviors will allow me to reach my desired outcome.
I really liked reading section 2.1. I feel like I got a lot out of this section. There is just so much to behavior modification that I didn’t even realize. I had never really thought that punishment naturally occurs every day. I liked the example that was given about not going outside, in the winter, without a coat. No one wants to be cold because it is aversive. So in behavioral terms it is like we are reinforcing ourselves when we emit the behavior of putting on the jacket. This section also made me realize that there are many reasons that we try to change people’s behaviors. I hadn’t thought about the four ways that were explained. It makes sense that behaviors that bother us can also bother others, lead to trouble, or can be illegal, therefore, need to be changed. I also liked the review of the ABC’s with more in depth detail. It stated that context, discriminative stimuli, establishing operations, and reinforcement can affect behaviors. I hadn’t really thought of a stop sign or bathroom sign in behavioral terms before. This section made me stop and think about all of the signs that I see every day that elicit me to emit a certain behavior. It also made me think about how satiation and deprivation (which are establishing operations) have affected me in everyday life. For example, if I have ever eaten too much chocolate it becomes displeasing, but if I deprive myself of it is it much more rewarding. Overall, I thought this was a good read and I really enjoyed doing the exercise.
Punishment, aversive, reinforcing, emit, context, discriminative stimuli, establishing operations, reinforcement, elicit, satiation, and deprivation
I really enjoyed reading this chapter. The parts about naturally occurring punishment and reinforcement made a lot of sense to me. So many times it seems like behaviors just increase and decrease for no understandable reason. However, this made it clear that although there are no human initiated punishments or reinforcements, there are natural ones, such as when you get burned for placing your hand in the fire. It was rewarding to identify behaviors that I wanted to change, and then figure out a way to do that with reinforcement rather than punishment. It still does seem like reinforcement would be the more effective and certainly more enjoyable method of behavior modification. I had also heard the term discriminative stimulus many times before but was never exactly sure what that meant. I assumed it had a similar meaning as calling something an antecedent, and that turned out to be correct. Satiation and deprivation seemed to me to occur after the ABCs, but in actuality I learned that satiation and deprivation can alter the entire ABC sequence.
I really like 2.1 section. It's nice to have different and more examples about what we are learning, especially since I seem to be having a hard time with these pretty easy concepts. I think it's an excellent example with Skinner's pigeons for deprivation.
I would still like to go over the difference between reinforcement and punishment. Though it seems simple, when Skinner said that if you punish someone for a behavior they will emit that behavior elsewhere, I have to admit I started getting a little confused. So we punish simply by taking away? If so, how do we punish someone for an act? (Take away privileges?)
And for the record if you read my packet, I swear I didn't break the law by lying! I just lied to someone who, if they found out I knew, would freak out and I would get into a little trouble :)
After reading section 2.1, I really feel I have an ever better grasp of the ideas and concepts. Some of the ideas that I really caught on to throughout, however, were satiation and deprivation. It really is true that no matter how much you may want a drink or play a video game, eventually once you obtain this, there will be diminishing returns. For example, once you have your first beer after a long week, it's great. Eventually, by the 12th or 13th beer, they aren't as wonderful (slightly, just slightly aversive) as the first one (although close lol). This is satiation. If one is deprived of a beer for a long period of time as a mode of behavior to eventually reinforce one's actions of studying, this is an establishing operation of deprivation.
Terms: satiation, deprivation, reinforcement, aversive, establishing operation, idea of diminishing returns
This section helped give me more examples and further my knowledge on the vocabulary. I did have some trouble with differential reinforcement of other. It was difficult to change an aversive behavioir into a pleasurable experience and find a way to reinforce it. The multiple examples of satiation and deprivation helped explain the concepts better.
Reinforcement, reinforce, aversive, pleasurable, satiation, deprivation, differential reinforcement of other
This chapter increased my knowledge on how we can reinforce desirable behaviors that offset undesirable behaviors. This is which differential reinforcement of other. I also learned that discriminative stimuli are
antecedents in that they tell us what behaviors will be
reinforced or punished. Establishing operations work by altering the value or strength of the consequence regardless if it is aversive or if it's pleasurable. Behaviors that bother other: Being late, talking to much, pokin others to get attention, and smacking gum. Behaviors that might lead to troubles are stealing and fighting. These behaviors can be addressed with reinforcement.
I really liked that we began applying Bmod to ourselves. It discussed how to reinforce pleasurable behaviors, or punish aversive behaviors. It gave us practical practice in not only setting goals but setting very clear goals and target behaviors. It also gave four reasons that justify using behavior modification. Also, I personally like to look on the brighter side of life. This chapter gave us the opportunity to practice differential reinforcement of other - taking a negative behavior, changing it to a positive one, and deciding how to increase it. It offered a nice review of the previous sections, too.
Terms: reinforce, pleasurable, punish, aversive, target behaviors, differential reinforcement of other,
This section did a good job of explaining that a discriminative stimulus is actually antecedent in the fact that discriminative stimulus will may or may not determine what behavior we will emit.
I enjoy the exercises where it makes us think of something both as being reinforced and as in being punished. I have trouble thinking of good examples of this, and this exercises allow me to practice and get better at it. I'm hoping I will become better at differential reinforcement of other as we go on (since it's supposed to be discussed in later chapters).
This section was also good in the fact that you could focus on behaviors about yourself, and how they affect you, other people, and maybe even the law.
discriminative stimulus, antecedent, emit, reinforced, punished, differential reinforcement, behavior
What I thought was most interesting about this chapter was the differential reinforcement of other. Since we know that positive reinforcement is the most effective method to use it's quite helpful to think in reinforcement terms instead of punishment. I also thought that thinking of behavior as a cycle was interesting. How the antecedent, context, discriminative stimuli, or any combination of the three elicit a response. Then the individual emits some sort of behavior. Then there is some sort of response to the behavior, reinforcement, punishment, or whatever. But the response comes back around and can be an antecedent for more behavior. Really that's all life is. Your behavior triggering more behavior that triggers other behavior and so on. It's kind of mind boggling when you try to keep track even for like 5 minutes.
I really liked how 2.1 explained some terms a bit further. It was interesting to read how when we want to decrease an unwanted behavior (eating sugary snacks) we look for a behavior to increase (eating healthy snacks). It was helpful to practice turning our negative behaviors into something positive. I also learned that discriminative stimuli are antecedents for behavior. We are constantly being elicited by various discriminative stimuli to emit certain behaviors. Also, our behavior has the potential to not only affect us but those around us.
behavior, discriminative stimulus, antecedent, elicit, emit.
Section 2.1 was very helpful for me. First, I learned when behavior modification should be used. I thought it was extremely helpful to have us go through all the different examples in our own lives. Looking at personal examples really helps me learn exactly what is being talked about. I believe that having them in the book would be considered an antecedent. Then the behavior is filling out the examples and the consequence is learning the material. I also was really glad that the chapter went into further depth about the different terms. I feel like I am really starting to get a grasp on them.
While there aren't a whole lot of new concepts introduced in this section, its good to see the things we've read and discussed up until this point coming together. The "reframing" of the ideas, or the activity asking us to "restate the behaviors you wanted to decrease into a desirable behavior you could reinforce instead", basically sums up the ideas we try to stress in coaching, and its a progressive approach that a lot of people try to take in raising kids and such. While the idea of satiation and deprivation were brought up in the last section, it wasn't until now that they were classified as establishing operations. The examples I came up with for satiation in the last section were on the right track, but I didn't really feel satisfied with them. One example was the lottery, where the frequency of the tickets purchased is going to grow a lot as the jackpot goes up, but then will start to level off. Most people could not really imagine the difference between $200,000,000 and $300,000,000, so in this case, a $200,000,000 jackpot has reached satiation, because roughly the same number of people would buy tickets for either. Obviously, there are a lot of variables in that (How well has the jackpot been advertised? How many weeks has the jackpot been building? etc.) I think that's a poor example, but the hamburger one is much easier to grasp and more accurate. Both deprivation and satiation are important things to understand in coaching, as keeping players interested and motivated is one of the biggest challenges of the profession. You can experience something close to satiation, which would lead to practice becoming stale. On the other hand, game nights are sort of like deprivation. In high school football, you get 9 games (without the playoffs), so you are deprived of the game-like atmosphere outside of those 9 games a year. That gives those Fridays an entirely new feeling. So if the consequencein this case is an exciting game atmosphere, an establishing operation would be the deprivation of the gameday experience. Because that example isn't really human behavior, its hard to establish an antecedent and behavior, but I think the example was an OK way to show deprivation in this case.
I enjoyed reading Section 2.1, but I didn't feel as though I learned a lot of new information. I was interested in the 4 reasons that most people have for practicing behavior modification. The four reasons are:
1. The behaviors bothers us, the individual.
2. The behaviors bother others.
3. The behaviors may lead to trouble.
4. The behaviors are illegal.
I thought it was interesting that these 4 reasons could be described as different classes of behaviors. Personally, I had the most difficulty thinking of behaviors that bother me about myself. I'm not really sure why; perhaps I am simply more conscious of how my behaviors affect others. I appreciated the section on rephrasing behaviors in a positive way; it caused me to think about some of the theories regarding the power of positivity that I have learned about in my education classes.
After reading section 2.1 I felt like I didn't necessarily learn new informations. However, I do feel like many things were clarified and redefined, which was helpful. The explanations of establishing operations, deprivation and satiation helped to make the concepts very clear. For example: The establishing operation of smelling the bakery make cupcake put Sarah in a state of deprivation while waiting for the cupcakes to bake. Once they were done Sarah purchased 3 cupcakes and became satiated after 1 and a half. I also felt as though the four reasons that call for modifying behaviors were very helpful to breakdown the moments in which modifying behavior are important. Those four reasons were:
1. Because it bothers ourself
2. Because it bothers others
3. Because it may lead to trouble later on
4. Because it is illegal
It makes it a lot easier to understand the context in which behavior should be modified. It puts into perspective that there is no need to punish or reinforce a target behavior if it does not meet any of the criteria.
Terms: establishing operations, deprivation, satiated, punish, reinforce, target behavior
After reading section 2.1, I feel I have a much better understanding of discriminative stimuli, establishing operations, satiation, and deprivation. I also feel even more confident with the terms and ideas of reinforcement and punishment. I thought the examples in this section helped further explain these terms.
Another thing I found helpful was thinking and writing about behaviors that I personally want to modify rather than simply writing general examples. I think this, as well as the reasons for behavior modification, helps bring the subject into our day to day lives even more.
Terms: discriminative stimuli, establishing operations, satiation, deprivation, reinforcement, punishment
One of the most important things I learned from this chapter is that there are 4 main reasons to use behavior modification (for the behaviors that bother us, the behaviors that bother others, the behaviors that lead to trouble, or the behaviors that are illegal). Before reading these chapters, I wasn’t sure if behavior modification was always a good thing or not. I kind of viewed it as manipulation that could be undesirable for an individual. Now I see that behavior modification can produce desirable results for the individual, and for the people around him/her.
The rest of the chapter was a good review of the terms we had already learned from previous parts of the chapter. It’s always helpful to review antecedent, behavior, and consequence because I see them as the basics of behavior modification. I’m also glad we reviewed establishing operations and discriminative stimulus because I tend to forget about those concepts.
Something I’m looking forward to learning more about is differential reinforcement of other.
Terms: desirable/undesirable, antecedent, behavior, consequence, establishing operations, discriminative stimulus, differential reinforcement of other.
One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was what Skinner had to say about reinforcement and punishment. I know a little bit about him and with all the practicing we have been doing with behavioral terms its makes easier to see where his is coming from. The rest of the chapter had a lot of good stuff I had never bothered to think about the reasons behavior is modified. I am able to think about how antecedent, context,and discriminative stimuli effect each reason to modify behavior differently.
A new vocabulary term I learned from this chapter was Differential reinforcement of other (DRO). Establishing operations are a great way to modify behavior. I was watching the pro bowl last night and I noticed that the players were not trying very hard which was no surprise because it is a meaningless game to play in. I said to my roommate during the game that if there was a purse attached to the game where the winning team got a lot of money then I guarantee they players would have been trying harder.
I was pretty familiar with satiation and deprivation and can think back to videos of rats behaving in labs.
Terms: satiation, deprivation, DRO, establishing operations, discriminative stimuli
I enjoyed section 2.1 because it gave me a chance to use a lot of the behavioral terms that I learned from earlier sections. It was interesting to think about the behaviors that I want to increase and decrease because I am motivated to start trying this. Taking behaviors that I want to change and making them into a desirable behavior that can be reinforced is very interesting. Not only emmiting certain behaviors, but also making sure these are target behaviors will help increase the reinforcement were are striving for. I liked how their was a review of the ABCs, antecedent, behavior, and consequence. I learned that the context of the situation can change the consequence.
Terms: Behavior, reinforced, emiting, target behaviors, antecedent, consequence
It is easy to say one thing about a behavior and how we want to reinforce or punish it, yet it is so easy to do another. Section 2.1 helped clarify the importance of establishing a target behavior according to specific baselines. I realize that in order to modify a behavior or increase or decrease its frequency, such as eating less sweets, certain aspects need to be much more specific, than just saying I want to eat healthier by eating less sweets. This section emphasized the context in which a behavior is likely to occur and in order to modify my target behavior, I also need to modify the antecedent to that behavior, such as being bored at home.
It was also interesting to read about the four reasons people use behavior modification.
1. What we do, bothers ourselves
2. What we do, bothers others
3. What we do, leads to trouble later on
4. What we do, is illegal
Identifying which behavior class a certain behavior falls under makes it easier to understand how it should be modified because the context is identified.
Terms: context, target behavior, reinforcement, punishment, behavior class, antecedent
This section demonstrated how difficult it is to precisely define target behaviors, or at least demonstrated a number of different aspects you need to consider when doing so. Eating less, is not a very effective target behavior, because it is unclear exactly when the behavior has occurred and therefore when it should be reinforced. The more specific is your target behavior the more reliable will be your reinforcement schedule and thus the more efficient will be the learning process.
In retrospect this chapter was effective at demonstrating what types of behaviors a person may want to change, for example, illegal, irritating, or personally troubling behaviors, or behaviors you may wish to emit but currently don’t, which are basically the opposite of those listed above. Behavior modification then, is the process of using empirically validated techniques for meeting these goals, decreasing bad behaviors, and increasing good behaviors. This chapter got us thinking about how to apply these terms to individual target behaviors preparing us for what we will later do with these target behaviors.
An example of terms described in this chapter is: Having to prepare my portfolio was an antecedent, which set the occasion for me emitting ‘searching through previous posts to organize all my entries for grading at the end of the semester’ behaviors. This caused me to realize that I had not made a post for chapter 2.1, which further acted as an establishing operation for me organizing my posts, making sure I haven’t missed anything else, and punishing my lack or organization, or perhaps reinforcing my more recent organization behaviors.
This section explains in detail about what is behavior modification. It was helpful to talk about this in regards to our own behaviors. It is interesting to think of some of the behaviors that we emit and their naturally occuring punishers. It seems resonable to change other peoples behaviors with reinforcement and punishment, but can we really change our own with the same techniques? Can we really change by reinforcing ourselves or does it need to be reinforced by someone else? I'm still having trouble understanding differential reinforcement of other.