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 defintions.
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.
Include the URL in your post.
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/2011/04/06/simon-sanchez-ecko-tattoo_n_845643.html
I am not quite sure what the topic of discussion would be in relation to this article but I found it interesting and would like to talk about it in behavioral terms. I was pretty shocked when I read this article because I was amazed as to what people will do for a small discount. The guy that did this tried to give the story a bit of substance by saying he used to work for the company Ecko, the logo which was tattooed to the back of his calf. Behaviorally speaking, the Antecedent in the situation was that the clothing company Ecko put out a campaign such deal to see who would tattoo their logo to their body. Essentially I believe the company was looking for a type of free advertising so to say. In return for tattoo their logo to their body they would receive a lifetime discount on everything from the company. The behavior emitted was for Simon to tattoo the Ecko logo to his body. The Consequence is that he receives a lifetime discount on everything in an Ecko store.
Another example speaking behaviorally would be seeing things from Ecko point of view. The Antecedent is trying to get more customers to come and buy things from their stores. The emitted behavior is putting out a PR campaign to see if anyone will tattoo the company's logo to their body and in return receive a lifetime discount on the company's products. The consequence is that the company will get free advertising and in return will generate more customers to their stores.
TERMS: Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence, emitted, behavior modification
Wow!! How stupid can people be? My dad makes us take the stickers off the back of our car that say the dealship we purchased because they dont get our FREE ADVERTISING!!
Wow, this is kind of ridiculous! But, unfortunately, it is not unheard of! Companies will do anything to get free advertising. Likewise, people will do a lot in order to get discounts!!
The article I read was Synthetic 'Designer Drugs' Mimicking Illegal Drugs Send Thousands To ER. It was an article about the effects and the overwhelming results this drug, K-2, causes in it’s users. The article caught my eye because I know a few people who have tried it, and the results were just that- scary. It causes incessant hallucinations that could last anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. Lately there has been an alarming rate of people committing suicide or other violent acts under the influence of the drug. In addition, states are now trying to figure out how and if it should be banned.
I found a few different reasons how this article related to behavior modification. For one, like any drug, it is bizarre to me that so many people would partake in using this drug after the consequences have been so severe. Not only does it cause hallucinations- which many times are long lasting and violent, it can cause other physical problems that have sent many people to the hospital. So why do people continue to use this drug when more often than not, they are reinforced with an adverse effect?
Now the debate is whether or not they should ban the drug and make it illegal— If the states ban the drug they are punished with losing those sales, and losing money as well as have to pay to punish the people who will continue to illegally traffic the drug after it has been named illegal, which is an even more adverse consequence. BUT if they ban the drug, the result would also be saving the lives of the potential people who would have legally bought it in the first place and potentially died. It’s unfortunate that the debate must come down to saving money or saving lives, but I guess that’s just the way it is!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/synthetic-designer-drugs-er-_n_846067.html
I haven't heard of this drug yet, and now that I have it astounds me that anyone would create it. We are trying to decrease the use of drugs in general not come up with "healthier" alternatives if those even exist. In this situation, clearly it is not a healthier alternative. I know many people who have and still do smoke pot and have never had those adverse reactions. So why is there such a high debate over legalizing pot when others are creating something like it that is even more dangerous. This was a great blog, and I am glad I got to read it.
K2 is banned, yes but not illegal. I really don't understand what all the hype is about the drug, they haven't spent much money trying to do research, and really they shouldn't. I will say myself I tried the "drug," not bad happened to me, nothing scary. I think it depends on your state of mind going into trying something like that, I am not a drug addict at all by any means, but am not was afraid to try this so called "drug" to see what it was like. Do people that smoke weed have the same thing happen to them?
comment on the suicide fact, I did read in one case of the boy who comitted suicide in Iowa, that yes he was on the drug, but when friends were asked about him comitting suicide they said he had talke about it and he would have been the 1st person that would have done, on the drug or not. They need to check the rates of suicide related to the drug, because I think there is a good chance they had suicidal thoughts before hand.
I have never heard of this before! It is crazy to think about what people will do, even when they know of the consequences that could happen. You would think that people are trying to decrease the use of such bad drugs, but people keep coming up with more and more dangerous stuff.
After reading this article I can relate the actions of the participant in this article to the ABC’s of behavior. I came across this article titled “Ex-Cops Sentenced To Prison For Post-Katrina Killing.” This article was about two ex cops that killed a man outside a strip mall less than a week after hurricane Katrina. He partner than burned the victim’s body. The attorney of the cop that shot the victim stated that the judge should give his defendant leniency because of the chaos and conditions that the cops were dealing with after hurricane Katrina. He believed that the cops were dealing with many things at the time and their mind set and conditions were not right.
A-Conditions after Hurricane Katrina
B-Shooting the victim
C-25 years in prison
The cop that shot the victim was sentenced with 25 years or more to prison. The cop that burned the victim’s body was sentenced to 17 years to prison. The behavior of the partner was shocking as well, because it surprised me that a cop would do something like that to cover up the shooting. This article is an example of how events can affect people in ways, but it still doesn’t mean that our behaviors should be based off of those events.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/31/135014578/ex-cops-sentenced-to-prison-for-post-katrina-killing
For this blog I decided to write about a very relevant issue and one that will be even more relevent if the Congress fails to reach a deal by midnight tonight, the government shutdown! Before I begin I want to make it clear that I am not taking a republican or democratic stance on the issue of a governemt shutdown or the budget in general. I just felt it was a good issue in the news today to apply behavior modification principles too!
Each side is focused on achieving their own goals (target goals), the republican want to cut as much of the budget as possible while the democrats, who also want to cut the budget, but not as much as the republicans by insuring that funding for certian groups is not cut. One of the biggest social issues being addressed is the title X family planning program which deals with providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services. Although the Speaker of the House says that most of the social issues involved with this contraversy have been dealt with, a few clearly remain. The Congress has failed to find a happy medium to this problem of a budget America cleary cannot afford.
I found this most interesting because it blows my mind that elected officials, republican or democrat, can not come to some sort of compromise and will instead let the government shut down for an undisclosed period of time effecting millions of people and military personnel. All the while these same congressional deligates will recieve paychecks while the rest of the American's suffer. Clearly behavior modification must be applied to issues such as this that have an effect on thousands of people.
The ABC's be Bmod can easily be applied in this situation A: America has a budget crisis on their hands, B: Congress argues over who has a better plan and can't not come to an agreement over reducing the budget, C: The government faces a shutdown which will effect millions of people from the tourism industry, medicare, military, and even our environment to some extent (with the toxic plants not running). There are even more consequences above and beyond the ones listed. We can even discuss how the congressmen and the president will all be positively reinforced for their inaction with a paycheck, which seems a little backwards to me. In order for us as a country to move forward we must take both our goals and combine them to find a joint goal that will work for everyone and be supported by both parties. These goals must be timely, maintainable, achieveable, and realistic.
If this government shutdown does occur many people will face negative punishment with the lose of a primary reinforcer such as money, and other reinforcers such as popular tourist sites that are run exclusively by the governement and will have to be on hold until this problem is all sorted out. If a deal is reached by midnight tonight a governement shutdown may be prevented, this would act as a positive reinforcer for all Americans, this would result is a the cut of nearly 50 billion dollars from the budget. If a deal is passed undoubtly there will be some losers (the punished), any group that is cut from annual government funding.
Terms: ABC's of BMod, target goals, joint goals, characteristics of goals, positive reinforcement, negative punishment, primary reinforcers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/08/government-shutdown-2011_n_846525.html
What your doctor may not know about your pain pills:
Pain medications that are derived from the opium poppy greatly reduce pain, but they come along with serious health risks. According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, more people die annually from overdosing on pain pills then cocaine or heroin usage combined. In 2007 11, 499 overdoses occurred from pain medications. A serious risk of pain medications is when mixed with alcohol or other drugs; they can cause a person to stop breathing. Research shows that physicians aren’t properly monitoring the usage of their patient’s medications to make sure that they aren’t misusing or abusing their pain meds. The article argues that physicians are not properly educated about pain medications and many times prescribe the wrong dosages and don’t monitor their patient’s usage or educate their patients on how to properly use the pain medication. I chose the article because pain medications are a very commonly abused drug and I wanted to learn about their negative side effects. The article recommends that physicians start doing drug tests and not allowing their patient’s get their pain medications refilled early. Before reading the article, I expected the article to address the issue of individuals commonly med seeking for pain medications. I found the fact that more people overdose on pain meds that cocaine and heroin combined to be the most interesting part of the article. The article relates to behavior modification because of course the ABC’s can be applied. The antecedent would be the physician’s not monitoring/educating their patient about pain medication usage. The behavior would be the patient abusing or taking too much pain medication. The consequence is that the patient dies from an overdose. Another antecedent could be that the physician’s not receiving education about pain medication abuse. The behavior would be the physician not monitoring the patient’s medication usage. The consequence is that the patient’s are abusing or incorrectly using their pain medication. Reinforcement could also be tied into the article because the pain medication if taken correctly could be a negative reinforcer because the pain medication would take away the client’s pain, which would be reinforcing their behavior of continuing to take the pain medication. The article could also be tied into punishment because the doctor would receive negative punishment if one of their patient’s overdoses and dies, which would decrease the frequency of them not monitoring their patient’s medication compliance. Also a drug test could serve as a discriminative stimulus to the patient’s because it would elicit a behavior to avoid abusing their medications to avoid getting into legal trouble. The medication itself could also serve as a discriminative stimulus because when the patient see’s their medication it could elicit a consuming behavior because the client will remember to take their pain medication. I also believed the concept of valence, or psychological value can be tied to the article because the patient begins to place a lot of intrinsic value on the pain medication when they become addicted. Also the pain medication has limited value because the reinforcement provided by the effects of the pill wear off quickly. An intervention (consequence that’s administered after a behavior occurs) can be used when the doctor discovers that the patient has been abusing the pain medication, possibly by not prescribing the patient any more pain medication (negative punishment) or making them go to rehab. The abusing medication behavior would also tie into one of the reasons to change behavior, which is when a behavior Is illegal or may lead to trouble.
Terms: reinforcement, positive reinforcement, negative punishment, ABC’s, limited value, intrinsic value, reasons to change behavior, elicit, discriminative stimuli, intervention, valence
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/04/06/135139022/what-your-doctor-may-not-know-about-your-pain-pills
I choose this article “Most Police forces adopt new speeding rules” mainly because I am a Criminology major and I thought it was interesting to learn about international policing. So, I choose this because I thought it was informative, and can relate to behavior modification, because the police in England and Wales adopting new rules that will allow the public to increase their speed on motorways and other roads given they have taken a class.
The England and Wales police forces are now allowing the public to take educational classes that allow driver to go 10% plus 6 or 9 above the speed limit. The drivers will pay for the classes which will bring in money for the city. The drivers will attend speed awareness course where if the speed was 30 mph then you may go 42 mph. This is a reinforcement for some of those who like to speed to not have points against their license or get a fine. They are trying to make the public more aware of driving so they are targeting the safety of driving. The target behavior would be the speeding of the public. The classes elicit the public to take the class which will emit that they may speed without getting points against them and also become safer drives that are more aware of driving precautions. To put this into the ABCs:
A: The budget cuts that were happening across the country which withdrew funding for cameras which increased serious injuries on the roads
B: allowing the public to take speed awareness courses
C: The public attending the course every three years paying for them which will put money back to the public which will allow the cameras to be turned back on.
This was a very interesting article to read about!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13022347
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/10/police-pepper-spray-squirrel-baby_n_847098.html
This video is of a policeman in Texas pepper spraying a baby squirrel outside of a school. It relates to this class because the behavior of this officer is completely absurd especially towards a small animal. The topic I choose for this video is punishment. According to the writing for the video, the officer wasn’t severely punished or even held responsible for his actions. Not only was he punishing the baby squirrel for absolutely nothing other than being on the school grounds and distracting students, but he was not punished himself for the actions that made him look so stupid. The students in the background noise and the girl who was videoing can serve as a discriminative stimulus because they are telling him to stop and he does not listen to them. The ABC’s for this incident are:
A: The school grounds and children
B: policeman pepper spraying baby squirrel
C: Looking stupid and making children angry
I chose to read and write about the article titled: The Scary Reality of A Real-Life Barbie Doll. I chose to read this becuase I loved playing with Barbies when I was little. Also, in one of my other classes, we watched a video and a part of it talked about how there is a new lingerie Barbie for little girls to play with. Once I started reading the article, I realized that this is a really good way to get out the message. The message of the article is that girls who see Barbie think that is what they should look like. Barbie is considered to have the perfect body, and the media makes it seem like all girls need to look that way. The author of the article made a real size replica of Barbie with the perfect body ratio. The author had had troubles with anorexia, and she portrayed that in the Barbie with how skinny she made her.
In applying this article to the ABCs of behavior modification:
A= media hype for girls to be super skinny
B= making of the real-life barbie doll
C= people realizing the seriousness of eating disorders.
In a way, I see the real-life size barbie as a discriminate stimulus. Girls see this and think that they is what they should look like, and so they emit behaviors that will lead to the desired outcome.
terms: discriminate stimulus, emit
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/galia-slayen/the-scary-reality-of-a-re_b_845239.html
In a class I took awhile back we watched a video of Barbie and how she has progressed over the years, how she has a perfect, able to get any jobs she wants, has Ken to perfect guy, and super cute clothes, but she's gotten sexier, skinnier, and bigger boobs over the years. Yes, they are sending terrible messages to girls starting from the day the can pick up the doll into their adulthood, how a girl should look, act, dress etc.
This article was on the Today show this morning! Unfortunately, I was unable to watch it all..I wish I could have to so I could actually hear from the girl who created this real-life barbie and what she wanted to get across to other people.
I wanted to examine the recent uptick in executive salaries covered in the New York Times story "The Drought is Over (At Least for CEOs)". According to the article, the median CEO salary in 2010 was $9.6 million, which is 12% higher than 2009. The article claims that for many CEOs and big companies, money is coming in faster now than before the recession, yet none of this is trickling down in the form of job creation. The behavior I want to examine here is giving pay raises and bonuses to CEOs.
The antecedent is probably business success to a large degree, and the but it could also have something to do with previous contingencies. The behavior itself is increasing CEO pay and bonuses, and the consequences are negative reactions from the shareholders (temporarily) and more money for executives.
Typically, the people who decide the pay package of the company's CEO are the board of directors, and they vote on a proposal from a committee within that board concerning the specific topic of CEO pay. The problem is that sometimes members of the committee answer to the CEO, which means they could be reinforced for giving the CEO a generous pay package or punished for a not-so-generous one. From this perspective, one of the antecedents could be fear of punishment or hope for a reward, which would obviously bias the entire process. One could alter the antecedents by putting an impartial judge in charge of CEO pay, or by eliminating the CEO's influence over the committee that proposes his/her pay package.
I wanted to examine the recent uptick in executive salaries covered in the New York Times story "The Drought is Over (At Least for CEOs)". According to the article, the median CEO salary in 2010 was $9.6 million, which is 12% higher than 2009. The article claims that for many CEOs and big companies, money is coming in faster now than before the recession, yet none of this is trickling down in the form of job creation. The behavior I want to examine here is giving pay raises and bonuses to CEOs.
The antecedent is probably business success to a large degree, and the but it could also have something to do with previous contingencies. The behavior itself is increasing CEO pay and bonuses, and the consequences are negative reactions from the shareholders (temporarily) and more money for executives.
Typically, the people who decide the pay package of the company's CEO are the board of directors, and they vote on a proposal from a committee within that board concerning the specific topic of CEO pay. The problem is that sometimes members of the committee answer to the CEO, which means they could be reinforced for giving the CEO a generous pay package or punished for a not-so-generous one. From this perspective, one of the antecedents could be fear of punishment or hope for a reward, which would obviously bias the entire process. One could alter the antecedents by putting an impartial judge in charge of CEO pay, or by eliminating the CEO's influence over the committee that proposes his/her pay package.
Links:
Original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/business/10comp.html?_r=2&ref=business
Source for CEO pay process: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11414878/ns/business-answer_desk/
I chose this video because it relates to what I wrote in my response to week 12 reading activity. I think the various ways that we have found to get people to workout is very interesting. This video is a perfect example, it starts with two famous people taking action. The video is about a dance marathon called "Let's Move" that get children to dance as part of a workout so they understand the importance of healthy behavior, and that it is not hard to workout, it can also be fun. In terms of the ABC's of behavior, the antecedent would be Beyonce and Michelle Obama starting "Let's Move". The "target" behavior is getting kids to workout or dance, and the consequence is exercising your body. This also applies to the goal setting guidelines. It is realistic that this will work because kids love to dance and they are going to meet two famous people. What else would a kid want. The time frame doesn't have much of an effect, the dates are set and whoever can make it is welcome. It could be disruptive for those who do not have the time or resources to get there (money, car). "Let's Move" provides an enormous support base. Everyone that goes is there for the same reasons (joint goal) and no one will want to quit in front of others that are able to do it.
Antecedent, Behavior, consequence, target behavior, goal setting guidelines, time frame, disruptive, support base, joint goals.
http://hellobeautiful.com/gossip-news/shardegilliam/beyonce-michelle-obama-work-out-video/
The article I read was called,” The Keys to Success that No One Talks About.” This article basically says that the beliefs you have about thing are the way you will treat those things face to face. So for an example if you believe that children are annoying than when you interact with children you mostly like will have a sour attitude towards them. The article says this is where people either have success or failure in this world and it depends on our ethos. Ethos is the mindset, attitudes and beliefs that you bring to your work and life. The dictionary states that ethos is “the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature or guiding belief of a person, group or institution." These unconscious beliefs have a huge impact on the way we interact with others. The good thing is that we can change our ethos which can have major effects and help people become successful. The article goes on to say as a boss or manager having a good ethos can help your company’s ethos.
The reason I chose this article is because I think it has to do a lot with modifying a person’s behavior. Our class is all about choosing behaviors that will benefit and reinforce us in life. So to me ethos is our target behavior. Let’s use the example of having good ethos in the work place. If you are a sales person and you hate people because you think they are annoying, chances are that when you interact with people you will come off as rude or mean. This will directly affect your sales and mostly like get you fired (punishment). So in order to get money (reinforcement) we must change are behavior. We could make are target behavior to be being more pleasant to people at work but that might not be enough practice to adhere to the target behavior. So our target behavior should be being more pleasant to everyone. We would start a baseline and then start to record every time we compliment someone, use good manners, etc. After awhile we will notice that the behavior we want to change will have its effects. Now maybe your sales are going up because you emit a friendlier response to people and you can start to build relationships that were impossible before. This can be very self reinforcing, even change you as a person. I think that’s what this article would be written like if it were in behavioral terms.
A-Trying to sell things when you don’t like people.
B-Have a bad attitude when you interact with your customers.
C-You don’t produce any sales and don’t make money.
A-Selling having while having a positive attitude towards people.
B-have an upbeat attitude when interacting with customers.
C-You build relationships with your customers and have more connections/ improved sales.
Reinforcement, punishment, baseline, behavior, target behavior, self reinforcement, emit.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-earle-mcleod/success_b_842415.html
The article I found was called, “Colleges, Universities Told to Do More Prevent Sexual Assaults.” The article is about NPR’s investigation about colleges and their policies, and punishments for sexual assaults committed against woman by male students, it talks about how colleges should do a better job of investigating these things and how they don’t do much to help the victim out, in some instances a woman was punished for using drugs or alcohol after reporting an incident, not telling a woman how the investigation ended, or not expelling a male student after the attacked was reported and expecting the woman to continue to live and attend classes with him still. Campuses need to do more to help woman feel safe and deal with these assaults in a correct manor. One thing I want to comment on is when I transferred to UNI I had to complete “Unless there’s consent: Sexual Assault Prevention, I thought it was sort of annoying, because most of the information in the survey I already knew and understood, but the purpose of the program was to be made aware of sexual assault on campuses, how to deal with situations (and it gave examples of many different situations), how to tell if a situation is an assault, and so forth. I think it’s good for campuses to have these programs so that we are aware of what to do and know if we need help where we can go.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/04/04/135109643/colleges-universities-told-to-do-more-to-prevent-sexual-assaults
The news article that I'm going to be doing my blog over states that a 6 year old brought a gun to school and injured 3 others. He did not shoot off his gun, however the gun fell out of his pocket and went off as it hit the ground. All of the children who got shot were injured in only the foot-so it was nothing critical.
Although no one was injured, i'm still thinking why in the hell was a 6 year old carrying a gun!? Also, how did no teacher/authority not notice the fact that a little boy had a gun in his pocket? This corresponds with behavior in several ways. One way in that maybe the child was not getting any positive attention at home, so he resorted to this act in order to seek attention. Also, i'm sure the child is going to be negatively punished and possibly be expelled from school. This may cause a whole other issues for the child when he is older, because if this is the only way he gets attention then he is more likely to do more serious acts of violence in the future.
One thing you must seek to understand is the baseline behavior. Is the baseline behavior the lack of potential attention at home? The seeking of attention from at least some sort of figure? Or is the baseline behavior simply avoidance from the parents who didn't notice the child carrying a gun to class? The next is the target behaviors. The target behavior is the actual bringing of the gun to class, whereas the consequence is the injuring of children and possible expulsion. The ABC's of this article would be: A-lack of attention from parents, B- child bringing gun to school and C-the gun going off/expulsion.
Terms: target behavior, reinforcement, punishment, ABC's,
whoops, here's my URL
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13135269
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-talk-beer-lent-j-wilson-0401-20110331,0,7274382.story
The above story is not from NPR or Huffington but I found it very useful in outlining the importance of guidelines for making and achieving goals.
I think of the idea of giving something up for Lent is sorta like a short, more achievable new years resolution. Usually people give something up, or decrease a behavior which would mean they would be practicing punishment or DRO's to elicit a decrease in behavior. However, J.Wilson decided he was going to not only fast from food, but add something to his diet of of liquids and forty day experiment. Now his goal is to not eat for forty days but to also drink four 12-oz. portions of Doppelbocks beer. This seems unrealistic to do, since we all think we have to eat to survive. But the body can survive such fasts, especially with support, which makes this goal realistic. The timeframe for this goal is rather large, considering what it is, but he breaks it down into subgoals of days, concentrating on getting through each day. It is achievable because he strongly wants to succeed at doing, especially since so many people around the world and watching and reading his blogs everyday. He has the resources because they are actually cheap. He is not eating, so that saves money. And he prebought the kegs of beer so they are ready on hand to be drank. Does he have the ability to do this. Going to regular doctor checks has helped him know he is able to do this with little consequence to his body and life. Now is drinking only water, not eating food, and adding beer into your daily nutrition managable? He has incorporated sort of a schedule into the day with his beer drinking so that at no point is he drunk (which would make it harder to not eat in my opinion). However, sometimes appointments and plans with family, friends, kids etc come up and he has to rearrange his beer drinking schedule. He just has to be organized and know what his obligations are so that he can plan ahead. Is this behavior of not eating and drinking beer everyday disruptive? PRobably, a little bit. He has done radio show, which take up time. The fact that so many call him is disruptive to his home and family life. The time he has to take everyday to do his blogs might be disruptive if he is tired or wants to do other things. The fact that he reached satiation after only 5 days and has to drink it for another 35 days probably makes it a bit harder for him to want to achieve his goal, but spacing out when he drinks it might help. Maintenance of the goal is mostly done through the spacing out of alcohol so that his doesn't end up drunk ever, and through the massive amount of support he has from family (wife and kids), extended family, friends, his doctor and all those people around the world that are paying attention to his blogs. So while this goal seems to be crazy, he has matched the guidelines and organized his life so that he might have a better chance of achieving his target behaviors of not eating and drinking beer everyday. His reinforcement when it is over is the primary reinforcer of food! Also, not having to drink the Dopplebock beer everyday will be a negative reinforcement for him.
Terms: Elicit, goals, guidelines, reinforcement, punishment, DRO's, Satiation, Primary reinforcement, negative reinforcement, all steps of guidelines for setting goals.