What I would like you to do for this homework is to have some fun and find some websites of a topic that interests you and that relates to behavior modification. Please try to incorporate the behavioral terms we are learning into your writing.
1) Please discuss your topic in general, why it interests you and how it relates to behavior modification.
2) Post at least 2 links to the sites you visited that were most informative about your topic. For each site discuss the information you found and how it relates to your topic (please don't just say they discussed positive reinforcement - how do they go about it? etc?).
3) Discuss how these sites further expanded your understanding of your topic of interest (kind of like a conclusion).
4) Make a list of behavioral terms you used in this post (this is to help get you focused on using behavioral terms in your regular writings).
Thanks.
1) I chose to research temper tantrums. After finding a video that showed a child throwing temper tantrums, I became interested in what one would do to make temper tantrums stop. This relates to behavior modification because it involves a behavior (throwing temper tantrums) that many people would like to know how to modify (usually making it stop).
2)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p943wK0tSWQ
This first website discussed temper tantrums in general. The part that I really focused on was the section on how to deal with temper tantrums. The one that I found most intriguing was when they said that, as long as the child was safe, it is best to ignore the temper tantrums. This would be an example of negative punishment because something good (receiving attention from parents) is being removed. It is a new concept for me to think about ignoring something as being a type of punishment. In my mind, ignoring a behavior is neither punishment nor reinforcement when I initially think about it. However, when more thought is given, it is clearly positive punishment. This website also stresses the importance of not giving in during an extinction burst (the temporary increase in tantrums), otherwise the tantrums will only get worse.
http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/293
This is advice from Dr. Phil's website about how to stop children from emitting tantrums. He says if a child is screaming and kicking, then the adult should reflect the behavior back at them. Usually this has to be done in slightly more mild manner, but he claims that this will get the child's attention and make them realize the error of their ways. This could be considered positive punishment. The child is being presented with something negative that was not there before. The negative thing is their parent reflecting back their behavior. It is almost like the parent is to make fun of the child which then functions as a punishment. This is an interesting technique, and I am not quite sure how to explain it best in behavioral terms.
3) These websites helped me to realize that there are many different ways to alter behavior. Even if it is one specific behavior, it can still have a myriad of different modification techniques used with it. Any of the techniques could be helpful as well. The research also revealed to me that temper tantrums are hardly ever just because the child is mad and needing to vent. Usually the child is mad, but the ultimate goal is to get attention and not just to vent.
4) Behavior, positive punishment, negative punishment, emit, extinction burst
I really enjoyed reading this post. I've dealt with many young kids and sometimes even teenagers throwing temper tantrums and the different ways of dealing with them are rather interesting to me. I agree with Rebekah in that I never thought of ignoring someone as a form of punishment. I do see though that is is actually a form of negative punishment. I agree with Rebekah that Dr. Phil's idea would be positive punishment because you are adding something aversive to the situation to elicit a certain behavior from the child. I don't actually believe it would emit any different behaviors from the child though in the long run. We talked a little about temper tantrums in class and discussed how the best way to deal with them is through extinction. For this process you would have to use positive reinforcement in the beginning to basically set the child up for the extinction process. Then you inform the child what you're going to do and eventually you start the extinction process. During this process you would definitely have to deal with extinction burst which can be very difficult to deal with. But in the end the consequence would hopefully be having a child who emitted more positive behaviors.
Terms: punishment, negative punishment, elicit, emit, extinction, positive punishment, positive reinforcement, extinction burst, consequence
Number of terms: 10
I was interested in manipulative people. I am interested in this topic because I see it everywhere. II see it in classes, on TV, and in friends. It relates to behavior modification because it’s a behavior that people have and some people can’t change their manipulative behaviors.
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/5-behaviors-of-manipulative-people-549848/
5 Behaviors of Manipulative People:
1. Buttering You Up: To get their way, manipulators will often make you feel good so that they can then ask you to do something that they want. The person may first compliment you or tell you what a wonderful job you did on something. Making you feel good will, in their mind, make it difficult for you to say no…after all, you wouldn’t want to disappoint them or give them reason to think you didn’t deserve the compliment in the first place. What you can do: Return the compliments and the niceties before saying no.
2. Guilt: This doesn’t only pertain to Catholics and Jewish Mothers; guilt trips have been a successful manipulation tactic for centuries. The saddest part of this strategy is that the victims of this tactic succumb to the manipulators’ demands because they feel they HAVE to, not because they WANT to. In personal relationships, this sets up a co-dependency that is extremely unhealthy. What you can do: Ask the individual if they want you to do something because you have to or because you want to. If they say they want you to want to do it, tell them that you don’t and that they are trying to force you into something you don’t feel comfortable with.
3. Broken Record: Probably the most obvious of formats is the broken record tactic. If a person asks you enough or pushes their agenda enough…constantly repeating the question or request over and over again…in slightly different ways, the victim will inevitably give in and give them what they want. Oye! What you can do: Ask the individual what they don’t understand about the word “no.” Tell them that asking you over and over again isn’t going to change anything and that they are inappropriately over-stepping boundaries.
4. Selective Memory: This one gets me the most. You swear you have a conversation about a plan and everyone is on the same page, and then one day, the manipulator pretends to remember the conversation completely differently, if at all. What you can do: Record your conversations…seriously! Okay, maybe not. At least have a witness that you can count on to back you up if the person pulls this shenanigan. Call them out on the fact that they conveniently change the game to fit their needs.
5. Bullying: If a person doesn’t get their way, they make you out to look or feel like the bad guy…like you are the wrong one. What you can do: Be firm and tell them that their bullying tactics are inappropriate and unacceptable.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing11.html
Two Basic Types of Aggression
There are two basic types of aggression: overt-aggression and covert-aggression. When you're determined to have something and you're open, direct and obvious in your manner of fighting, your behavior is best labeled overtly aggressive. When you're out to "win," dominate or control, but are subtle, underhanded or deceptive enough to hide your true intentions, your behavior is most appropriately labeled covertly aggressive. Now, avoiding any overt display of aggression while simultaneously intimidating others into giving you what you want is a powerfully manipulative maneuver. That's why covert-aggression is most often the vehicle for interpersonal manipulation.
Acts of Covert-Aggression vs. Covert-Aggressive Personalities
Most of us have engaged in some sort of covertly aggressive behavior from time to time. Periodically trying to manipulate a person or a situation doesn't make someone a covert-aggressive personality. Personality can be defined by the way a person habitually perceives, relates to and interacts with others and the world at large.
The tactics of deceit, manipulation and control are a steady diet for covert-aggressive personality. It's the way they prefer to deal with others and to get the things they want in life.
Theses websites helped expand my knowledge because I did not know that there was 5 behaviors that help point out a manipulator. Also I did not know that there were different kinds or manipulators. Each link that I went to described something different for me in terms of learning about emitting the behavior.
I found this post interesting because all manipulation is is a form of behavior modification. What we are learning to do is a form of manipulation. The difference between what we are learning and what Kendrah is talking about is the reason behind the manipulation. When most people think about manipulation they think about the people who use it to further their own agenda while not caring about the consequences that others have to deal with. The techniques that Kendrah talks about are a very simple way to elicit behaviors from some people. You don't need to understand behavior modification to bother someone into doing things for you. When these techniques work you are positively reinforcing the person by giving them what they want. At work we try to use positive punishment such as giving them essays and negative punishment such as taking away privileges to stop our residents from manipulating. However, they continue to emit the same behaviors. We've also tried to use positive reinforcement such as giving privileges and negative reinforcement such as taking away consequences for good behavior. Again, they don't seem to work. I think it would be interesting to try and use extinction to stop the manipulation behaviors. So, basically you would manipulate the manipulators.
Terms: consequences, elicit, positive reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, negative reinforcement, emit, extinction
Terms: 8
While reading section 3.3 and the eye blink response in rabbits I remembered something Dr. Walsh talked about in biological psychology that had to do with where conditioned memories are stored. In the Cerebellum there is a region called the Interpositus Nucleus where the specific conditioned memory of the eye blink response is located. by destroying the region the rabbit subjects are no longer able to have a CR(blink) to CS(tone). Wikipedia has an alright page about this and i also found a nice journal article about a study done recently.
http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/3/6/532.full.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeblink_conditioning
1) I'm choosing to do Bipolar Disorder for this assignment. It interests me because I don't know a lot about it, and I have never met anyone that has to deal with it. It relates to behavior modification because people with Bipolar Disorder have to learn how to control their emotions (in manic and depressive states), and also many of their behaviors that may be inappropriate.
2) The first site I found was the Mayo Clinic site http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bipolar-disorder/DS00356. It was really interesting because it gave a basic overview of the disorder so people like me could better understand it. It starts off with a definition of the disorder, and then goes into what elicits it and the symptoms.
The site explains how people with the disorder go from depressive states to manic states. Sometimes this can happen a few times per day, or even just a few times per year. When they are emitting manic behaviors they are usually euphoric and full of energy.
There are three types of the disorder. Bipolar I is the most severe. Bipolar II is less severe and the manic stages usually only reach hypomania. In Cyclothymia the highs and lows are much less severe.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy is used to treat patients, along with medication. The therapy focuses on changing negative beliefs to positive ones. It doesn't state whether it uses reinforcement or not, but I doubt they use any form of punishment because it wouldn't be effective.
The second site I found was http://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/default.htm. It had a lot of the same information the first site had. Again, the treatments didn't list any sort of reinforcement or punishment. It just listed some therapies and drugs that are commonly used to help patients with the disorder. It also listed some home remedies to help people even if they can't make it to a professional.
3) I now know a lot more about Bipolar Disorder and it's symptoms and treatments. The sites would have been more helpful if they would have said whether they used reinforcement during therapies or not. It also didn't talk about extinction. All in all, I think they were fine websites and will help people learn more about Bipolar Disorder.
4) Terms: Elicit, emit, reinforce, punish, extinction
1) This web divergence I did tourrets disorder. Tourrets is basically a disorder that people have where they emit non rhythmic involuntary movements of muscles. This topic really interests me because I saw it on television one time and wanted to learn more about it and how people deal with it every day. I feel it relates to behavior modification because it's a disorder and strong behavior that a lot of people have and can't even help.
2) After reading through these couple of websites, I have realized that sadly there isn't really a cure. There's medications to help with tourrets, but there are of course side effects. I also didn't know that you can try to hold in your tics but they will of course come out and they will be more outbursts than normal tics. The best thing you can do is probably ignore someone's tics because if you make fun of their tics, it will reinforce their behavior against their will of eliciting more tics.
3) Terms used: emit, behavior, eliciting, reinforcement.
4) Attached are the links I found to know what tourrets is and mainly how people deal with it in their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourette_syndrome
* http://tskids4.tripod.com/FAQ2.htm
For this web divergance, I my topic of interest is personality types, specifically Type A and Type B personalities. I believe depending on one's personality, one can understand what motivates them and why they behave the way they do (specifically what they feel as rewarding or reinforcing and what they feel as punishment). For example, certain situations or antecedents in sport like pressure, would elicit different responses for different personality types; aka adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism.
The following site will debrief you on type A personality and the overall fluidity within the terms:
http://stress.about.com/od/understandingstress/a/type_a_person.htm
Summary characteristics of Type A: Competitiveness, Strong achievement orientation, impatience, aggressiveness
Summary characteristics of Type B: temperament characterized by moderate amitiousness and drive, accommodating attitude, cooperativeness, focus on quality over quantity, and in general, an easygoing approach to life
(Fuller definitions will be given after taking the second website's personality test A/B)
I scored a 184 on the following exam
http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/TypeA-B-intro.html
which I felt was about right for my personality, more on the B level...I am also usually a pretty laid back person. In sport, even though it was competition, I was typically relaxed and more passive than aggressive, which may or may not have helped my performance. At times on this test, I was wavering between two answers at times and like most online tests, this one wasn't the most reliable in feeling.
So I found another test (listed below at the bottom) which was 17 questions and explains the results in great detail. It's pretty interesting to analyze your personality in this way As for my results of this test, here was what the explanation was:
You seem to be in the middle between the Type A and Type B personality. In this case, the middle ground is good. Your attitude to life is more of the "smell the roses" kind and you know how and when to relax. Nonetheless, you realize that picking up a challenge and competing a little bit for your place in the sun can add some spice to your life. The equilibrium is important, so don't let your hostile, aggressive, and competitive alter ego take over too often. Generally, you are easy to be around, and people tend to feel relaxed and comfortable in your presence. Yours is a very healthy attitude towards life.
Pretty accurate description I would say. Here is the link to the second test if you would like to take this Type A or B Personality Test:
http://discoveryhealth.queendom.com/cgi-bin/tests/type_a_personality.cgi
Overall, interesting concept. Especially after searching around, you can definitely tell that businesses will play off these aspects of your personality and specifically relate them to their business/working elements and various target behaviors
Terms: behavior, modification, reinforcer, punishment, target behaviors, reward, antecedents, consequences, personality
I thought Kelly Ann's blog post was interesting. I have heard of tourettes syndrome before. There was a kid at my school who had it, but I never really quite understood it. Now that I am thinking in behavioral terms, I wonder what is it that elicits the person to emit the behavior. After reading the articles that were posted I learned some things that I didn’t know. I learned that responding to the behavior is like reinforcement. If you respond the consequence is that the “tick” is more likely to occur. I also learned that this really can’t be helped, but I wanted to find out more about it. So, I researched and found a video of possible treatment for this syndrome. By using brain stimulation a person has a chance of reducing the “ticks.” I thought this was very interesting, but it is not done very often. In this video, a young girl with tourettes is will be undergoing the operation. As you can see, the operation is a success.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSNFHGDQWNc&feature=related
I thought this blog post was interesting. I have heard of tourettes syndrome before. There was a kid at my school who had it, but I never really quite understood it. Now that I am thinking in behavioral terms, I wonder what is it that elicits the person to emit the behavior. After reading the articles that were posted I learned some things that I didn’t know. I learned that responding to the behavior is like reinforcement. If you respond the consequence is that the “tick” is more likely to occur. I also learned that this really can’t be helped, but I wanted to find out more about it. So, I researched and found a video of possible treatment for this syndrome. By using brain stimulation a person has a chance of reducing the “ticks.” I thought this was very interesting, but it is not done very often. In this video, a young girl with tourettes is will be undergoing the operation. As you can see, the operation is a success.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSNFHGDQWNc&feature=related
Terms: elicits, emit, behavior, reinforcement, responding, respond, consequence
The number of terms is 7
I liked the post Rebekah typed about temper tantrums. I don't have children yet, but it will be desirable to know how to elicit different behaviors from them in the future. Antecedents to temper tantrums can be many different things, but some common antecedents are: the child not getting a toy, not doing as they are told, or disagreeing with the parents. The behaviors can include screaming, crying, and kicking/hitting (among other things). In Rebekah's first example, the consequence was the parents ignoring the child. In the second example, it was the parents mocking the child's behavior. Instead of using punishment, I think the parents should find a way to use reinforcement. Some parents do this by using tokens that the children can eventually "cash in" for something that is desirable to them. That way, both the parents and the children might be able to avoid aversive situations.
Terms: desirable, elicit, antecedent, behavior, consequence, punishment, reinforcement, aversive
The number of terms is 8.
http://helpguide.org/mental/child_abuse_physical_emotional_sexual_neglect.htm
The topic that I want to talk about is child abuse. I found a website that is very interesting and informative and also provided a lot of informtation that I had no idea about. There are many types of child abuse: Physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Although physical abuse is what people first think of when it comes to child abuse, emotional abuse and neglect can be just as harmful as physical abuse. Physical abuse can leave marks like bruises and cuts, but as for emotional abuse and neglect, it ia harder to detect and much less obvious. The site talks about some myths about child abuse that are very interesting and I will name some of the ones that I feel are most important. One myth states that only bad people abuse their children. The fact is that not all abusers intentionally harm their children. Many have been victims of abuse themselves, and don't know any other way to be a parent. Others may be struggling with substance abuse or mental health issues. Although this is true in some families, I feel that it is not fair to the children and that the parents may need to get some help. Another myth that I found very interesting was most child abusers are strangers. The fact is that while abuse by strangers does happen, most abusers are family members or others that are close to the child.
http://www.findcounseling.com/journal/child-abuse/child-abuse-effects.html
Another site that I found talked about the effects of child abuse. Children that suffer from abuse may develop anti-social and self-destructive behaviors. Many children are confused why this is happening to them and they try to understand the situation in its complexity. Children who are abused find it hard to trust anyone and are usually unable to form healthy social relationships. Another effect of child abuse that I find very saddening is that some children that are abused are fearful of trying something new because it may lead to a violent attack because of the extreme control an abusive parent can have over their child.
These websites helped me understand the different aspects of child abuse and the horrible affects the abuse has on the children. I work at two daycares and I am a mandatory reporter so this topic is very important to me. If I had the control to keep every child safe in the world I would!