Topics in the News?
What I would like you to do is to start applying what we are learning in class to real world matters. Some might ask, "What good is learning psychology if we can't apply it to real world matters?" So that is what we are going to do with this topical blog assignment.
What I would like you to do is to either go to NPR (http://www.npr.org/ ), the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ) or any news site listed at the bottom of this page (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ listed in their news sources) and read, watch, or listen to something that is interesting to you and relates to what we have been learning in the class.
Please respond the blog by BRIEFLY telling us in essay format:
What your topic is and what the piece you chose was. Why you picked it (what made it interesting for you) and what did you expect to see. What did you find most interesting about the piece
Next discuss IN DETAIL how it relates to the class using terms, terminology, and concepts that we have learned so far in class. Include definitions.
Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in psychology.
Make a list of key terms and concepts you used in your post.
Let me know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/chinese-traffic-cameras-gruesome-accidents_n_842297.html
THIS IS A EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO...DISCRETION IS ADVISED
According to the article, the video was sent out as a Chinese public service announcement to try and make that intersection more safe. The article states, "Installing surveillance cameras is just one method, but improving motorists and the people's traffic safety knowledge is the key. We cannot stop traffic accidents from happening, but we will do our best to prevent and reduce the occurrence of accidents. Rise up together all people and all police, and work towards building a safe and peaceful Heze, work towards being able to go home to eat with our loved ones..."
I picked this video segment because it shows how a society is trying to modify its behavior in a traffic situation. This interested me because it brings up the question as to why is this happening? Are drivers just ignoring their normal behaviors of stop and go? And how would one go about to try and recondition the interesection as a more safe environment? Maybe by adding a large flashing light like what we have on our traffic lights for emergency personnel to use as a reinforcing stimulus for people to stop. It seems that in some clips it is just too dark around that intersection so by adding a few street lights to illumnate the intersection would help drivers and bikers to see eachother. I am just amazed as to how someone can just hit another human bening with their vehicle, and some even drive off!
Hopefully by using bright flashing lights and street lights around the intersections those two things will elicit stopping and careful driving behaviors. I also think that by showing that video to the public will elicit careful driving behaviors as well.
Terms: elicit, behavior, stimulus, reinforce, reconditon
Wow the video must have been pretty gruesome because Youtube removed it! I have to believe that technology causing distraction might be increasing accidents. On a daily basis I see someone driving down the middle of the road because they're texting. I also think that there should be enforced laws for bikers to wear reflectant gear or lights. I noticed that many bikers wear dark clothing with no lights. I have to agree with you that adding flashing light would be a good start.
I think this is really interesting because there is so much going on inside each vehicle that can cause traffic accidents, yet there is no way to really control it unless that is all they enforcement is looking for. It is nearly impossible to avoid these incidents which is really sad because people do not look for ways to avoid it because they think it won't happen to them.
I just watched this video. Holy cow. Do they just not have any sort of punishment system for traffic laws? Wow. This is just blew my mind.
For my topic, I chose to look at a study they did on the pill Plan B. This is an emergency contraceptive that women can take within 72hrs of unprotected sex. There was a case in Illinois that pharmacists said they did not want to willingly sell this to those who requested it. They claimed that it went against their religious beliefs and it was pretty much just like an abortion pill to them.
This is a very touchy subject for most people. I do not believe that the Plan B pill is killing any form of life because it is stopping the sperm from implanting the egg. If they were to ban the Plan B pill, there would probably be a lot more unwanted pregnancies.
Here are the ABC's related to this topic.
A- Having unprotected sex B- taking the pill C- no unwanted pregnancy.
If we eliminated the behavior of taking a pill, this would then change the consequence.
A- unprotected sex B- not taking any birth control C- having an unwanted pregnancy.
Them banning the pill could also have a positive effect on the behaviors though. Here is a different option.
A- safe/no sex B- take a regular birth control(or none if you practice abstinence) C- healthy un-pregnant bodies.
It all depends on what behavior is elicted in the first place.
Taking away the pill could even be seen as a negative punishment. If this was once a positive thing that women relied on, it would then be aversive to them to have to find a different plan to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/06/morning-after-pill-illino_n_845562.html
I think it's their job to give the pill to those who ask for it no matter what their religious background is, they shouldn't be able to do that to anyone!!
I tried to find the video on the internet, but it was unsuccessful. I do not mind gruesome vidoes and would like to have seen what all the fuss was about. Cameras are being installed everywhere now days, but still we never know what the driver may be doing inside the car! DRIVING AND TEXTING is killing people all around the world :(
I picked the topic of self-directed behavior to talk a bit more about. I’m relating the information in the article “Is Technology Stealing Your Sleep?”, with self directed behavior. In this article the writer talks about how technological gadgets are causing people to lose sleep or not get good night of sleep. More and more people these days are going to bed with technological gadgets and these gadgets are causing problems with falling asleep. The lights seem to reduce the production of melatonin which helps us to fall asleep and teenagers are texting more and more right before they go to bed. This problem with using technological problems can be related with behavioral modification and especially with self-directed behavior. People may begin to be frustrated with their lack of sleep due to playing or working with gadget before bed. Individuals may take on a self-directed behavioral approach to reach a goal of getting more sleep. These individuals could start off by simply reducing the time they used gadget before going to bed. The target behavior simply could be that they will not use a technological device after a specific time or they may want to cut technological devices to certain days. The individual will first want to record a baseline on the amount of use that they use technological devices before bed time. They want to figure out probably how long they use them and up till what times do they use them. Then they can set their plan out to when they are going to cut off gadget usage time and up till when. When the individual gains a good amount or a specific amount of sleep they can then reward themselves with purchasing something or staying up late some night. Self-directed behavior is a very useful and helpful behavior modification method because it helps us to set our own goals and can achieve them well.
Terms: self-directed behavior, Target Behaviors, Baseline,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/is-technology-stealing-your-sleep_b_836683.html
http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/08/do-popular-kids-bully-more/?xid=huffpo-direct
This article,titled "Why Kids Bully:Because their Popular" looks at the behavior of bullying and tries to seperate the fact that social heirarchy's exist from psychology. It focuses on research that states that the as status increases so does aggression towards others. The article wants to bring attention to this issue beacuse it believe that instead of changing their behaviors we should change their minds.
I found this article interesting because there is talk about psychology not influencing bullying or the hierarchy system, which I think is far fetched. It also believes that changing thier minds is not connected with changing their behavior. I beleive that using behavioral modification techniques can help change their minds, and that other psychological applications can help change their minds and influence their behavior.
One thing the article does not do is show any evidence as to how hierarchies are formed or what influences the higher ranked kids to be agressive. It simply keeps pointing out that as status increases so does aggression and interesting enough that being hostile does NOT increase one's status. So if it doesn't increase one's status, why be mean when you move closer to the top?
I have some theories on this. They learned it. Kids have learned from a couple different ways that being popular either qualifies you or requires you to be a bully. What is the key thing we know about modifying behavior? Behavior is learned and can be unlearned from behavioral modification techniques. The two main ways I believe that these kids learned that social rank equals bullying is throough media(tv and movies). I remember movies and shows that I grew up with (the craft, Jawbreaker, Popular), that even though carried a message at the end of the movie that it wasn't right to bully or you were not invincible if popular, still glorified popularity and the ability to bully. Between the films and what they see in school helps them learn operantly. They see these behaviors be reinforcing to the characters or students in school. They are definately learning to associate bullying with popularity. If the higher you are the meaner, and someone lower see's this, they think it is "the way" to behave. If they begin to go up on in the hierarchy ranks they will act in accordance to what they've seen/learned. If they don't go back down in ranks after acting similar to their high ranked peers they may see their bullying as a reinforcer for their popularity and continue to bully. So the heirarchy and psychology of behavior are working together to create this behavior.
Now to change the behavior of bullying. Whenever I read articles or books pertaining to the lack of empathy people, especially of the teenage years, have towards one another I too like the article wishes, want to change their minds. But how do you change peoples minds. Throughout their lifes they have been either reinforced or punished for doing, saying, or thinking certain things. If bullying was more an issue of gender, class, ethnicity, we might better understand how kids learned to be aggressive. But as the article states, these things don't necessarily play a role in who gets bullied. There are shows on I believe MTV(?) that gather kids together and put them in each others shoes so they can better understand what the other kids experience and feel like. I think this is a wonderful opportunity to try and change a kids mind and then work at changing their behaviors. Help them see not only the intrinsic value they place on things, but the extrinsic value that other place on things. If we understand the implications of our aversive actions we might particiapate in self-directed behavior or our ability to exert free-will to change our behaviors we desire to change because they are aversive to us and others. IF we hold enough empathy towards others in a certain situation we can change how we are towards them. Obviously, punishing ourselves for behaving badly towards other people is not plausable, but reinforcement for it may be. Other psychological principles suggest that helping others, giving compliments, etc. can be reinforcing in just making us feel better about ourselves or life in general. While we can experience this by helping people of the same or higher ranks, I believe we'd feel more rewarded by helping those from lower ranks. The hard part is helping the kids learn to sympathise with the lower ranked kids. Perhaps, schools could work from earlier ages to undo cliques and social heirarchy by utilizing behavior modification principles. Otherwise there is always implimenting different differential reinforcers to decrease the aversive behaviors of bullying. Definately, not the ones that ignore the behavior though. Also, I don't think it would good to reinforce bullying at low levels(because it shouldn't happen at all, and kids can alter their behavior around suthority) Perhaps DRI, giving the student something to do that is incompatible with them bullying. DRH: reinforcing the students when they are emiting behaviors towards people lower on the heirarchy that are no where near bullying.
Obviously, I am not an expert at this subject and shouldn't be in charge or starting a campaign or program, but while I read the article I couldn't help but think of these things as efforts to change the behavior of bullying using psychology and behavior modification rather than ignoring its place in it all.
Terms: Operant conditioning, Intrinsic/extrinsic value, Self-directed behavior, reinforcement, punishment, DRI, DRH, Emit,
they actually tried something in my high school and have continued to have the freshmen meet and meet everyone in their class and learn personal information about each other's lives, I think it's a good thing to implament in high schools, but they should do more for middle school kids to understand bullying is wrong!
“Tree of Hope”
After the tsunami, in the city of Rikuzentakata the only structure remaining is a pine tree. Prior to the tsunami, the city of Rikuzentakata was known for its popular beach and miles of pine trees. However, the city was swept away after the March 11th tsunami wave. Many members in the community are calling the tree the “Tree of Hope”. The one pine tree standing can be tied into the principles of behavior modification. The tree acts as a discriminative stimulus because it elicits an emotional response from the members of the community. When members of the community see the tree it elicits a feeling of sadness or hope. Members view the tree as a reminder of the devastating event that took place on March 11 or look at the tree as a symbol of hope because the tree resisted the aversive effects of the tsunami. I also believe that the tree acts as a positive reinforcer because the tree provides community members with hope/motivation to emit a behavior to rebuild the city and make community members aware that the tsunami didn’t sweep away everything in their city. I also believe that deprivation could be tied into the article because the tsunami swept nearly everything away from the city, causing many deprivations including deaths of family members, loss of shelter, loss of food, and the loss of important resources; which in return makes the resources more reinforcing because they are no longer available in large supplies and are needed for survival. The article can also be tied into the ABC’s of behavior modification. The antecedent in the article is the tsunami, the behavior is people looking for resources and are feeling hopeless, the consequence is that there’s one tree left, providing hope and motivating the people to rebuild their city to provide resources.
Terms: Behavior modification, discriminative stimulus, elicit, aversive, positive reinforcement, emit, deprivation, antecedent, behavior, consequence.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/04/01/135036104/tree-of-hope-stands-as-poignant-symbol-in-japan
The article can also be tied into the concept of valence because individual in the community are now placing the psychological value of hope to the tree. Intrinsic value would tie into the type of value that's being placed on the tree because the value is based on the individuals perception. I would also say that the value is limited because the value could potentially wear off quickly and isn't beneficial in any other contexts.
The Importance of exercise and how many people make excuses to not exercise because they don’t have enough time in the day to do so. I felt this is related to trying to self direct your behavior to increase your physical activity but most on trying to get more people to exercise by giving the reading all the health problems that come from an unhealthy lifestyle. It was interesting to me because I have a goal of working out (like I stated in my reading blog this week) that I had to use to process of self directing myself into this lifestyle of exercising.
This article emits facts out that the reader is going to read and want to elicit a healthier lifestyle. They uses this facts such as “regular exercise can help you achieve and maintain an ideal weight…may just make you feel happier about you appearance.” They are trying to modify the reader’s behavior to life healthier by targeting the how people feel about themselves. They also give real facts that are discriminative stimulus because it states statistics about the percentages of men, women, and children who are obese in the United States and that might make the reader of the article want to exercise and try to make changes in their life. There is another article that is related to the first article but is more directed on what exercise is right for you. It tells the reader what they can do to get them more active. This is again related to self directing in the way that it tells you what exercises are best for you to do with your busy schedule. It goes into detail about different ways to exercise, i.e. running, walking, swimming, or even dance.
The reader is going to be reinforced with having a exercise routine in their life that they will continue the exercising to make it a habit or a conditioned behavior when they get up every day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/fitness/motivation_why.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/fitness/active_fitness.shtml
I think this is interesting because I am a person who absolutely HATES exercising so I usually don't, especially if I am busy. During school it is a really busy time for a lot of people, and I am taking extra credits right now so every hour I have is vital to my work. Yes this sounds dumb, but right now if I want to exercise I have to use Jillian Michaels dvd's which are awesome! Very interesting comment about exercising though!
The article I read here was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Faces Guantanamo trial for 9/11. This article was short and to the point about one of the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks. Sheikh has been held by the United States since being captured in Pakistan in 2003. This man was tortured at Guantanamo with the water board technique almost 200 times. He is guilty of many attempts of terrorism as well as “accomplished” attacks.
The topic for this blog is the use of punishment in a coercive manner. I chose this because I was really interested in the article and how this man has been tortured over the last 8 years by the United States. Did Sheikh admit to all his crimes before or after the punishment? Most likely afterwards since he was a subjected to the water board technique. This form of punishment is coercive in order to make someone admit something that they did. I do not believe this is an appropriate way to make someone come clean because it is unethical.
This article relates to this class because of the behaviors that were emitted in the process of making Khalid Sheikh admit to the crimes. The law enforcement elicited intensely painful strategies of coercion that emitted the behavior of the man telling what he did. They used positive punishment because this man knows he obviously cannot terrorize again, mainly because he won’t be free to do so. It does not say anything about the man being reinforced for saying he was a terrorist so there is nothing making this man come clean other than the severe punishment he has to go through.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12964588
punishment, reinforcement, emitted, elicit
I read an article about "The High Probability of Life Beyond Earth". I picked this article because I find it interesting to learn about other planets and possible life. I think we are ignorant to think we are the only living breathing creatures. Maybe the only ones walking earth, but what about the other millions of planets and galaxies that we can't even imagine reaching.I think in a way this relates to self directed behavior and other-directed behavior. The field of astrobiology now includes-- microbiologists studying bacteria; astronomers who believe there may be billions of planets with conditions hospitable to life; chemists investigating how amino acids and living organisms; and scientists studying rocks from Mars. Each of these researchers have found astounding evidence that extraterrestrial life exists. These researchers self direct their behaviors because they have a goal to find more about life beyond earth, and the other-directed behavior comes from their employers who are pressuring for more research and findings, but they control the reinforcers by providing the equipment necessary to do their job and salaries.
self directed behavior, other-directed behavior, target behavior, reinforcers
http://www.npr.org
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/05/federal-government-shutdown-2011_n_845164.html#s261490&title=Lost_Money
For my blog an article called Federal Government shutdown 2011 caught my eye. I found it interesting because in 1995 there was a government shutdown which effected things. From the article it is stated that Friday may result in a government shutdown. When a government shutdown happens, national parks and museums are closed right away. This means that the revenue will go down. Many other services will slowly be effected as well. For me I do not understand why we need to have a government shutdown. I feel that the government money is not being spend properly and not put to good use like it should. It is stated that a government shutdown occurs when a government discontinues providing services that are not considered "essential." Typically, essential services include police, fire fighting, armed forces, utilities and corrections. What blows my mind is that fact that Congress and the President are exempt from the furlough and continue to receive compensation despite the fact that other services are suspended. This makes me very pissed because if we are effected so should their happy@$$. I find that they are not emitting proper actions. Even though the government is shut done in 1995 when the last one happen many tax=payers ended up paying for those federal government employed people to not show up to work. I found that rude and not fair by any means.
This relates to class because so many behaviors are going to be emitted. People are going to making aversive decisions and there will be many ABC’s. Even though they are having a shutdown you are not conditioning anyone or anything . There are going to be many new target behaviors for our government. I feel that they are going to be positively reinforced because last time they still got paid.
For my topical blog I decided to read an article that talks about a company that serves left over food (from games, concerts, hotels, etc) to homeless people in order to put the food to good use. Rock it and Wrap it up! Has served over 500 million homeless people food. I find this to be incredible because I can't even say how many times i've seen companies throw away food that could have been put to perfectly good use...such as feeding those less fortunate. And mind you, when I say leftovers I mean food that has been completely untouched by human hands! This is food that at the end of the night the franchise has left over and is in perfectly good condition.
This reminds me of goal settings in many ways. One of which is because someone had to come up with this goal in order for it to have even been achieved. Someone had to self direct their behavior to change the way companies handled left over food. The goal setting had to be specific, and target behaviors had to be reached. A baseline had to have been defined as to how many homeless people were being fed and then they wanted to increase that number. This article is a great example of behavior and what happens when behavior is actually changed and the impact it can have on someone's life!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/05/rock-and-wrap-it-up_n_845251.html
For My topical blog I chose to do an article titled, “Aging and Exercise: when are you too old to exercise?” This article was about how people as they age stop exercising. The main points of the article are that people’s bodies don’t last as long because they don’t exercise. The author talked about a study where mostly 70 year old participants when through a vigorous exercise program for a year. The study showed that after going through this program all of the participants had increased their functionality, physical stamina, and also maintained their bone and muscle mass. The study was trying to show that if you want to lose weight you must exercise while you diet so you don’t lose your muscle and bone mass. This seems to be the key to keeping your body from fragility as you grow older so why do so many people think that as you age you can’t keep your body you’ve always had?
I find it amazing that we are able to keep our bodies in great shape as we get older. The article even talked about a team of baseball players in which their age ranged from 69 to 93. It’s incredible to think that we can still be that functional as we grow older. That’s where I think this supports the stuff we have learned in behavior modification. Somewhere along the line the behaviors of exercising when we get older became extinct. I’m guessing what happens to most people is they realize that they can’t emit the same behaviors they once did, so they try doing new things (extinction bursts) but really never come to terms with aging. This leads to a person just giving up completely (extinction). What needs to happen is that we must learn how to reinforce are bodies as we age. Obviously as we age we won’t be able to do all the things we used too. Instead of quitting we need to find new activities, exercises, dieting that will reinforce us as we age. Once we can learn to how to exercise as we age it will have such a broad value such as living longer, being more mobile/functional, better health which is very intrinsic to a person as they age. Exercising will also have many extrinsic values such as people noticing what good shape a person has kept their body in after all these years. Hopefully when people see other aging adults keep their bodies in such good shape that will be enough reinforcement for others to exercise as well. Eventually the behavior of not exercising as we age will become extinct and the stereotype of elder people not being able to do anything will be extinct as well.
Extinct, reinforcement, broad value, intrinsic, extrinsic, extrinsic, behavior.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-j-wurtman-phd/aging-exercise-too-old-to-exercise_b_847410.html
For this blog I decided to use an article from the Huffington Post that relates to goal setting behaviors. I expected that this article would say that new years resolutions are bunk and unachieveable. However, this particular article talked about new years resolutions and the importance of our desires when we are attempting to define a target behavior in which we wish to increase or decrease. The article mentioned that milestones such as birthday's and the start of a new year are the best times to evoke behavior changes. I picked this article because it was relevant to the information we have learned about setting goals and self directed behaviors. Also, I am a person who is always setting goals and attempting to achieve them, usually to no avail. I was very suprised to see that the article discussed breaking down goals to set markers of achievement, we would call this concept sub goals.
When we are setting goals or new years resolutions they are usually done as self directed behaviors which allows us free will over our achievements. The article stated that it is effective to start new goals on milestones to have a good starting point. However, we've been taught in class that any time is a good time to change a behavior you just have to have a desire to change the behavior. If we set a goal that is going to be harder to achieve we can't let it bog us down and push from achieveing what we have set out to accomplish, we must break down the goals into sub goals, give ourselves achieveable markers of success. These success markers will act as reinforcers and will encourage us to keep pushing toward the ultimate goal we set for ourselves. We can also use DRO's when attempting to achieve our goals. For example, instead of looking at our goal as increasing a behavior (which can seem punishing) such as working out, we can look at our goal as decreasing the aversive behavior of getting fat. We will be more reinforced if we feel like we are decreasing our total fat percentage instead of being pressured into increasing a workout behavior. The article also failed to mention the importance of recording behaviors and setting a baseline which will allow you to keep track of your progress when attempting to achieve your goals.
Terms: reinforcers, DRO's, self directed behaviors, setting goals, target behavior, sub goals, recording behaviors, baselines.
I chose the topic of self-directed behavior, because we all have behaviors we want to increase or decrease, one of the biggest which has alone been brought up as a new year’s resolution are: losing weight, getting fit, living a healthy lifestyle. We choose to this as a goal and try new behaviors to achieve this goal, by walking more, eating less junk food, which could be totally new and different behaviors depending on your lifestyle. In an article I found online, “10 ways to lose weight using an iphone,” it’s all about the different apps we can use to count calories, check fast food calorie counts, gives you work out tips and tools, meal ideas, etc. It’s our chose if this is a behavior we want to change, it’s a new life style for some, and it relates to target behavior, the behavior would be having a healthier lifestyle, and we have sub goals to reach it, as I learned in sections 4.1 and 4.2. We have to reduce/decrease the behaviors in our lives that are unhealty and take the steps to increase the healthier behaviors and habbits.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/12/iphone-weight-loss-apps_n_848388.html?ir=Health
For this topical blog, I wanted to examine the recent tornadoes that have devastated parts of the South. At first glance this topic doesn’t seem relevant to this class, but actually I want to examine a common response to this and other natural disasters. It seems that when this kind of disaster happens, people tend to process the experience religiously. I have anecdotal experience that confirms this tendency in people I know as well. I want to examine the ABCs of this functional class of behaviors.
The behaviors in this functional class can have varying topographies: prayer, church attendance, and invoking religious explanations for either the disaster itself (think Pat Robertson after the earthquake in Haiti) or more commonly for being personally spared from the devastation. The function of these behaviors appears to be that they provide an explanation for a seemingly inexplicable event.
Behavioral functions in all cases are a form of reinforcer; the function of my door-pushing behavior is to get through the door, so if the behavior performs its function adequately, the function will function (I could rephrase this, but I like it this way…) as a reinforcer.
In this specific case, the function of this behavioral class is providing comfort or explanation for a seemingly inexplicable phenomenon. Personally, I think this is incredibly interesting, because most people in the South are Christians, which means that they believe in a God *who can control the weather*. It’s interesting to see that rather than blame this God for the tornado (after all, what good would that do if the goal is to find comfort?), they appeal to him as an explanation for why they survived or as a source of comfort in the aftermath of the disaster.
In terms of what makes this reinforcing, I see it as an example of the post-hoc fallacy. People invoke God for comfort, and later on when they do recover (as most people will, eventually), they attribute this recovery to prayer or their faith in God, when in reality this correlation might not equal causation. It’s the same fallacy that causes the superstitious behavior we talk about when reinforcements are administered at random to animals in the lab. The subjects (be they rats, people, or some other animal) associate a certain behavior with the presence of the reinforce based on a chance correlation one or two times. This is a powerful fallacy when it comes to the relationship between behaviors and reinforcement, because it happens through exactly the same process as operant conditioning (and we all know how powerful that can be).
I hope I don't seem to callous in my desire to examine this behavior, but I do think it's incredibly interesting from a behavioral perspective. Here are how I think the ABCs of this behavior line up.
A: Inexplicable disaster causes a feeling of helplessness and a need to explain or be comforted in the aftermath
B: Person invokes God as an explanation or a source of comfort
C: Healing process leads person to believe they would not have recovered without their faith.
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20110501/us-severe-weather/
Terms: functional behavior class, topographies, reinforcer, superstitious behavior, operant conditioning