Please read the chapter assigned for this week.
(Reading Schedule: http://www.uni.edu/~maclino/hybrid/bm_book_s11.pdf)
After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Of the various aspects of Behavior Modification presented in the chapter, which did you find the most interesting? Why? Which did you find least interesting? Why? What are three things you read about in the chapter that you think will be the most useful for you in understanding Behavior Modification? Why? What are some topics in earlier chapters that relate or fit in with this chapter? How so?
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
The Topic that I found to be the most interesting was the topic of Functional Assessment. Functional assessment helps to develop a hypothesis concerning the relationship between the ABC’s of behaviors, which are used to identify antecedents and consequences. By examining the functions, we can develop a hypothesis of why the behavior occurs, and if we know why a behavior occurs then we can determine what is reinforcing the behavior and can change the contingencies. After developing a hypothesis of the function of the behavior, we then implement an intervention. Before using an intervention, you should develop a baseline so you can determine if the intervention causes a change in the behavior. Functional analysis can be direct or indirect. Direct requires observing the behavior while it occurs and recording the behavior. The observations are done in natural occurring conditions. Behaviors should be recorded in a behavioral diary as soon as they occur to prevent from data error. Indirect functional analysis involves gathering information about behaviors through a second party. Many times indirect functional analysis collects data through interviews or questionnaires. The ABC’s and the function of the behavior are then identified. The data collected is then used to determine an intervention that would have the highest likelihood of working. Indirect functional analysis is used when the individual is unable to communicate, unwilling to communicate, or is unable to focus on the larger picture. The advantage to the indirect method is that outside observers could be less subjective. I also found the topic of removing antecedents to be interesting, because it is easy to forget that simply changing your environment can have a tremendous impact on behavior. Antecedents form the environment and context for all behaviors. Some examples are toy time outs, removing the no’s from the environment, and DRO. We can control the environment to reduce aversive behaviors and we can control the environment by having the environment contain the proper antecedents to elicit appropriate or desirable behaviors. Changing the environment is a good way to reduce aversive target behaviors. There weren’t any concepts that I found to be uninteresting in the chapter. Six things that I will remember after reading the chapter are the steps involved in behavior modification: Describe the target behavior, describe the consequences, describe the antecedents, examine the ABC’s, devise new antecedents and consequences, and evaluate the outcome. Some previous concepts that relate to this chapter are DRO or reinforcement of a behavior that is incompatible with the undesirable behavior. The concept of recording behaviors and interventions, developing a baseline, and intermittent reinforcement are also related to this chapter. Intermittent reinforcement comes into play when the reading addressed the concepts of leaning out (reducing the times that you are reinforced) and random schedule.
Terms: aversive, ABC’s, reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement, baseline, DRO, antecedent, functional assessment, intervention, behavioral diary, indirect functional assessment, direct functional assessment, leaning out.
Of this chapter I found Functional Assessment to be the most interesting. Functional assessment is a concept that helps develop a hypothesis dealing with the relationship between the ABC’s of behaviors; set of steps to help understand antecedents and consequences. Functional assessment is much like target behavior but the next step to it. An in depth look into what is happening in that context of behavior. Why the emitted behavior happens in this context...the example of food and eating was a good way to visualize it. There may be different reasons for eating rather then just eating because you're hungry. The least interesting concept of the this week's reading was the section of changing the antecedents, however it is important to understand. By simply changing the antecedent the environment can elicit a verity of behaviors. Changing the antecedents is an important concept to understand and remember, right along with functional assessment, and understanding that when modifying an organisms behavior you may have to tweak things to get the desired result. Be it the environment, reinforcement or punishment etc. This whole chapter relates in ways to the whole concept of Behavioral Modification, the ABC's as we are dealing with antecedents. Differential Reinforcement and scheduled reinforcement. Recording one's behaviors and target the behavior that is desired to increase or decrease.
Terms:
functional assessment, antecedent, behavior, behavior modification, environment, organism, reinforcement, punishment, desire, differential reinforcement, elicit, emit, consequences, target behavior, scheduled reinforcement
It seems as many people are finding functional assessment very interesting! This is great :) We are learning very interesting things in the class reading
I found section 5.4 really interesting because it gave a more indepth look into modifying behaviors by changing the antecedent. Earlier in the semester I had talked about changing the antecedent when it came to flash mobs and how people reacted to the change. This is somewhat along the same concept. By freezing in place you are changing the operant behavior of walking to class. In turn, you are changing the behavior of others by disrupting their operant behaviors, causing them to look around and be confused. The fact that you and hundreds of other people froze in place is adversive to the other students that did not know about the flash mob and are just minding their own business walking to class.
I did not like section 5.3 because it seemed that when they went over direct and indirect assessment I felt as though I had learned all of those concepts in my intro to psych class so I just felt as though that section was a big review piece for me.
Three things that I will remember from both of these sections are 1)the steps of the behavior modification process- although it is pretty straight forward and direct, it provides a superficial, but needed understanding. 2)By changing the antecedent, you can directly effect a target behavior-giving the example of the childs play room, taking everything adversive out of the room or covering it up, will help control the "terrible two" attitude the child might develop. 3)Changing the environment with a undisireable behavior will disrupt the environment but in turn will create a new behavior- look to the example of the candy, by replacing the candy with a bowl of fruit, you will be more prone to grab an apple as a quick snack instead of a snickers.
Terms:adversive, behavior modification, operant behavior, direct and indirect assessment, target behavior
The functional assessment of behavior is designed to help you develop
a hypothesis regarding the relationship between the ABCs of behavior. It
is used to identify the environment (antecedents) in which the behaviors
occur and how the outcomes of the behavior function to maintain it
(consequences). We can thenbegin to investigate the behavior and what is reinforcing it so we can
ultimately design an intervention to decrease the behavior if the behavior
was undesirable. A big party of understanding and assessing behaviors is to understand the topography’s and functions of the behavior so we can determine it’s antecedents and contingencies. Once you have a hypothesis of the function of a behavior, the next step is to begin experimenting with different behavioral interventions.
When assessing and modifying behaviors we can either observe them directly or indirectly. Directly meaning you observe them yourself, or indirectly meaning that you obtain information about them from a second party.
in the second section it spoke a lot about changing antecedents. The thing I found most interesting and useful was the information about modifying the environment while applied to two year olds. Two year olds have a habit of saying “no” because they’re often getting into things they shouldn’t and us as adults have a tendency to say no a lot, which rubs off on them. If we change the environment to a safer place where they wont have much of an opportunity to get into trouble or get hurt, it will reduce the amount of No’s we emit and therefore they won’t learn that specific behavior.
emit, functional assessment, antecedents, contingencies, hypothesis
What I find interesting about this weeks reading is direct and indirect assessment. Direct assessment involves the observation and recording of behaviors. The observations are made under naturally occurring conditions and therefore involve noticing when the target behavior occurs, what happens as a consequence and then looking back in time to determine what may have set the occasion for the antecedent. It is best to record the ABCs as close to the event as possible so the details are not forgotten. In this case, it is sometimes more convenient to have the recording device right on hand. Indirect assessment involves the use of an interview or process of questions on a survey or questionnaire. During the interview the ABCs should be identified as well as the possible function of the behavior. An advantage of the indirect assessment is that outside observers may be less subjective. An example I can think of for direct assessment is sitting in a classroom and observing target behaviors and writing down what the observer sees. An example of indirect assessment would be a typical interview with a child or a student.
Terms: direct assessment, indirect assessment, target behaviors, consequence, antecedent
I would like to go back and go over functional assessment as a whole. This is a step in behavior modification. We must begin with the behavior that we want to increase or decrease. Then we determine a target behavior that we can try to reinforce to achieve the behavior modification goal. We then need to document the occasions when the behavior occurs and make note of the consequences. ( when child has tantrum, and the consequence is attention from mom, we should think that mom's attention might be reinforcing). Next it is important to determine what the antecedents in relation to the target behavior (do tantrums only occur in front of mom). Now that we have done the previous steps we can conduct a functional assessment .
The steps involved in behavior modification process are:
1. describe the target behavior
2. describe the consequences
3.describe the antecedents
4.examine the ABCs(functional assessment)
5. devise new antecedents and consequences
6. Evaluate the outcome
The functional assessment of behavior is designed to help us develop a hypothesis regarding the relationship between the ABCs of behavior. Through functional assessment of behavior we can begin to look at what behavior is reinforcing. I use behavior modification to keep myself from having a bad attitude with people. Although my attitude looks the same when I am talking to people (topography) It often means I am either mad or I am hurt (function).
The point of functional assessment is that we can look at functions to help develop a working hypothesis of why the behavior occurs in the first place. Functional assessment has different ways of analyzing behaviors which I described in my post above.
Behavior modification is a dynamic process that involves careful recording of the behavior as well as the consequences and antecedents that go with that behavior.
After reading these two sections I found the most important information to be the understanding of a functional assessment. A functional assessment investigates the behavior and what is reinforcing the behavior. This helps us or behaviorist in designing an intervention to decrease the behavior if the behavior is undesirable. In a functional assessment we need to examine the functions of a behavior to create a hypothesis to understand what’s enforcing it. When we know what’s enforcing a behavior, we can change contingencies and extinguish the behavior. Then you perform an experiment on your hypothesis with the behaviors. You can perform a direct or indirect assessment. These assessments can help you determine interventions and if one intervention seems not to work than you can create another one. If an intervention works a behaviorist may change contingencies to learn the reinforcers. The least interesting information I found was the beginning of section 5.3, when it talked about the ABCs. I felt like I know these concepts well.
The three things I found important from these sections are direct and indirect assessment and differential reinforcement of other behavior. Direct assessment involves observation and recording of behaviors. The recording is done by the individual, by others or electronically. With direct assessment, its important to measure/record the behavior right away. Indirect assessment involves the use of an interview process or a questionnaire. During the interview, the ABCs are identified and the function of the behavior needed to be assessed.
The third thing that is important is the DRO. This is when a person reinforces a behavior incompatible with the undesirable behavior. These behaviors are behaviors that tend to change the environment. The behaviors are antecedents to the desired behaviors. So a successful way to change behaviors is to change the antecedent.
Terms: Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior, Functional Assessment, Direct Assessment, & Indirect Assessment
Both sections were equally interesting. Both easy to understand and contained a lot of review. The idea of functional assessment is important. If we examine the ABC's of our behaviors we will get a better understanding as to when and why they occur. This will better our chances of changing to the behvior because we will know what is reinforcing it and we can create interventions. THe idea of leaning out reinforcement is also important and useful. If we reduce the number of times a behavior we want to increase receives reinforcement it can help train the behavior to occur naturally so that intervention can cease. When attempting to change a behavior with intervention the most useful tool will be to change the environment otherwise know as the antecedent. It is important to know that if you want to be successful you will have to work, use forethought, discipline and be reflective. I also, thought it was good to know that even after an assessment is made it is important to continue documenting the ABC's. This will make it so that we know it is working, and if changes need to be made to our interventions, reinforcements, or defined target behavior we can look at our documentation to assist.
Terms: Functional assessment, Leaning out, random schedule, antecedent, intervention, target behavior, ABC's, reinforcement.
I really thought section 5.4 was interesting mainly in the sense of removing the “No” from the situation. I thought it was interesting how we can change the antecedent when controlling the target behavior. Growing up my parents use to put our toys (especially my cousin and I) on timeouts or we would have to find something else to do because the Barbie’s were no longer wanting to be played with. Mainly because we would fight over what one we wanted. I thought it was neat to read the first few paragraphs or section 5.3 and actually understand what is being said. I really learned a lot from the past 14 weeks or so. I didn’t really find anything that was least interesting. I do like how topography and functions were reintroduced. I enjoyed learning about them to first time around but this expanded a little more on it.
Three thing that I thought were useful from the section that I read were about functional assessment which is designed to help you develop a hypothesis regarding the relationship between the ABCs of a behavior, and is used to identify the environment or the antecedents in which the behaviors occur and how the outcomes of the behavior function to maintain it (consequences). Another thing was the Direct and Indirect Assessments. The Direct Assessment is the observation and recording of behavior, and these are done under naturally occurring conditions. This is noticing when the target behavior occurs, what happens or the consequence and then looking back to determined what elicited the behavior. Indirect assessment is the use of an interview process or a questionnaire. Another useful thing I thought came from the reading is the Leaning out period. Where, for example, every time you go to the gym 3 days in a row you can eat a cookie, because you really don’t have to drive to go but you really want that cookie. Soon, going to the gym because habit and soon you are starting to get results, now you like going to gym and you push back you cookie to every 2 weeks you can have a cookie. You are slowly leaning out of the reinforcement schedule.
I think the graphing your behavior really relates to this because you need a baseline and then after you know what works for reinforcement or punishment with a behavior you can start adjusting the consequences and the antecedents. I thought this section fit in nicely with these sections.
The aspect of behavior modification I found most interesting is changing the antecedents. I think this is where most people who don't understand behaviorism feel that it imposes on free will. Some people seem to think that if people don't have an equal chance at succeeding or failing, their free will is being violated. I think it's simply a misunderstanding of how behavior works.
By that reasoning, we should be ethically obligated to give people equal access to vegetables and pancakes if the goal is eating more veggies. It seems absurd. The fact is behaviors are influenced by antecedents and consequences, and we as behavioral psychologists would be foolish to not recognize this and use it to make behavior modification more effective and less aversive. Imagine the mental torment of having to continually deny yourself pancakes even though they're right there, and the continuous guilt every time you fail. All of this can be avoided by altering the antecedents!
We don't have to give people an equal opportunity to succeed or fail during the intervention stage. The purpose of conditioning is so that after the intervention stage, the individual will be more likely to succeed in emitting the desirable behavior without further intervention.
The part I found the least interesting was probably the functional assessment of behavior, mostly because the idea of recording a baseline for a target behavior seems like the only boring part of the behavior modification process. There isn't any modification going on, only recording. I realize it's important, it's just not very interesting.
Three things I think will be really useful to me are the steps in the behavior modification process, altering the environment (and thus the antecedents), and analyzing the functions of behaviors in terms of the ABCs. The first is really encouraging because I didn't realize just how much of this process we've covered in this class until now. The second is probably the most useful in terms of adding to my behavior modification toolbox, and the third is a useful method for hypothesizing behavioral functions and coming up with effective ways to modify those behaviors.
The readings for this week were relevant to a lot of previous readings. Specifically, the chapters in the beginning of the course dealing with the ABCs are relevant, as is the chapter on Skinner. Earlier in the semester I checked out Skinner's book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" from the library, and he talks at some length in that book about altering the environment to modify behavior.
Terms: changing the antecedents, consequences, conditioning, emitting, functional assessment of behavior, target behavior, hypothesizing behavioral functions
I found section 5.3 was more interesting. The concept of functional assessment of behavior was most interesting. This helps to develop a hypothesis regarding the relationships between the ABCs and of the behavior. The antecedent is the environment in which the behavior is occurring and the consequence is how the outcome of the behavior is maintained. After we have found our hypothesis of our behavior, we are able to determine reinforcers and decrease our unwanted behavior. An example used was that of eating. Looking at the different functions of eating will help us determine our hypothesis. If a person has a problem of overeating, we can look at the circumstances and develop a good hypothesis.
I think the most interesting part of section 5.4 was the concept that we can change our aspects of our environment to change certain aspects of our behavior. It seems like a lot of these sections are overlapping. Although it gets boring at times to read the same thing over and over again, it helps a lot to understand all the concepts. Behavior modification does deal with overlapping of concepts and one concept builds off of the last one.
Three things that I will remember from these two sections are 1. functional assessment of behavior will help develop a hypothesis regarding the relationship between the ABCs of the behavior. 2. we change our environment to change our behavior, and 3. direct assessment involves the observation and recording of behaviors. Indirect assessment would involve processes such as interviews or questionnaires.
terms: functional assessment of behavior, antecedent, consequence, reinforcers
I found both sections really interesting and learned a lot from both of the sections. Section 5.4 was by far my favorite. The infomation on changing the antecedents was very helpful and will be useful when I attempt to change my behaviors. Antecedents control the target behavior. Therefore, once we have completed our functional assessment and know how the behavior functions we can then tweek the antecedent to set the stage for the target behavior to occur. The information about toy time out where instead of punishing the children for fighting over a toy, you punish the toy for causing a conflict. I work with my church daycare occasionally and intend to try this. The section also talked about eliminating the word, "no" when talking to your toddler to avoid the "terrible two's." We would change the antecedent and create an "no" free environment, limit the amount of times you'd have to say "no" to your toddler. Changing the antecedent has a lot to do with changing the environment... Skinner's social engineering also had a lot to do with changing the environment to influence individuals behaviors. When using self-directed goals we can change antecedents in order to better achieve our goals. We can remove the easy and convenient junk food when trying to lose weight. If we have to make the sweets we want to consume then we will be less likely to take the time to make and eat the snacks
Section 5.3 was also interesting and the information on funtional assessment of behavior and developing a large number of hypothesis to determine which causes the behavior to function. Once we have systematically eliminated the hypothesis one by one we will then have a determined antecedent, what causes us to emit a certian behavior. From that point we can change the antecedent to make it favorable to modifying our target behavior, we will have a workable behavior intervention set in place. Functional assessments can be done two ways, direct and indirect assessment. Direct assessment deals with direct observation and recording of the behavior to determine what causes us to emit the aversive behavior. Indirect assessment uses questionnares or interviews to determine the ABC's of a behavior. A therapist will ask the patient, along with caregivers, and family members a series of questions in an attempt to determine the best intervention.
Terms: Antecedent, target behavior, funtional assessment, Social engineering, punishment, ABC's, self-directed behaviors, emit, behavior intervention, direct assessment, indirect assessment, aversive
Out of both sections I enjoyed both but liked 5.4 better. This is because I one day want to have children and while reading this it made me think about other ways to discipline a child. Many people do the quick solve of spanking but since I just did a debate over spanking I have found myself not wanting to spank my child. Even though I was spanked as a child and turned out just fine. So I think. I like the fact that you can modify the behavior just by changing the antecedents. This way is stated to be very powerful. I also enjoyed the fact that we can make changes in our environment which will make change to our behavior. I think that in a way our behavior can change the environment as well. This section just truly made me think about how you can make a child turn out to be a greatly respected child and person. I found myself thinking about how much we do tell a child no and how then as a parent, we get mad when our child does nothing but say no. We have drilled that work into their head and it’s no wonder that they are constantly tell their parents no. It’s also encouraged that we as people always grab things that are easy to grab and go. We should be eating more fruits and vegetables but it is hard because you have to wash and clean and slice and dice them before you can eat them. Whereas junk food is very easy to grab. We need to make it possible for ourselves and our children to eat healthier but it’s all about our behavior and what we do.
I did not like the other sections because I could not grasp the terms and did not fully understand what I was trying to get at. If really confused me and I was dumb founded by it all. I liked the parts about functional assessment behavior but I guess my concentration level was not very high! I realize that one needs to evaluate the ABC but I felt that there was only so far that you could evaluate them.
Going over primary and secondary reinforcers again was helpful. Primary reinforcers are things that are biologically relevant to us, and are instinctual—water, food, shelter. Secondary reinforcers are things like money and gift cards, these are learned and usual lead to obtaining primary reinforcers.
reinforcers can also be events or other behaviors instead of just tangible objects like we most often refer to them as.
The premack principal is something I will definitely remember—it is when you reinforce a low frequency behavior (something you normally wouldn’t do) with a high frequency behavior (with the opportunity to do something that you would like to do) for instance, when a parent says “finish your homework and you can watch tv” is an example of the premack principal.
it would be a good idea to create a behavioral chain to understand your behavioral hierarchy by examining your behavior to see what reinforcers or behaviors lead to other ones.
premack principal, reinforcers, primary and secondary reinforcers, behavioral hierarchy, behavioral chain
Both of these sections had a lot of information:) Section 5.3 listed the steps involved in behavior modification process. 1 describe the target behavior(B) 2. describe the consequence (C)3. describe the antecednents (A) 4. Examine the ABC's 5. devise to antecendents and consequences 5. evaluate the outcome
As you know, we've already gone through the first three steps so section 5.4 is all about the 4th step- Functional Assesment. Functional Assesment is designed to help you develope a hypothesis regarding the relationship between the ABC's of behavior. It is used to identify the environment (antecendent) in which the target behaviors occur, and how the outcomes of that behavior function to maintain it (consequence). Once you understand the different functions, you can then be able to modify the behavior in hopes to acheive different outcomes. This can help increase or decrease a specific target behavior.
This section also talked about indirect and direct assesments of behavior modification. Direct assesment invloves observing behaviors while they occur whereas indirect assesment involves gathering information from a 2nd party (this can be done with a questionnaire or an interview).
Section 5.4 talked about how the environment can effect the changes of specific target behaviors and the usage of the ABC's in this process. The example that Otto listed was 'removing the NO'. Children learn this behavior because it's what they're most commonly used to hearing at around age 2. They learned this behavior through observation, so therefore if the parent punishes the child, or redirects the childs attention instead of saying no, the child may be less likely to learn that behavior so therefore they'll be less likely to emmit the behavior. Easy as that:) This section also talks about DRO behaviors. These behaviors strive to reduce an undesireable behavior. Much like snacking on food, which is a very hard behavior to quit! However, stated in the chapter, if you control the environment you will be less likely to engage in behaviors that you don't want to! Even though an environment may be hard to control, you can still try!
Whoops, got so excited that I forgot to answer the rest of the questions!
The three things I'll remember are: functioning assesment, the role environment has on a behavior, and that many children learn through observation!
Terms: functional assesment, ABC's, target behavior, direct assesment, indirect assesment.
The most interesting thing I like about sections 5.3 and 5.4 was the parts about changing your antecedent to modify your behavior. One of the best ways to change our behavior is to remove the temptations around us. So, like the example in the text, we can remove food around the house to keep are portion control going. We can freeze candy, buy food that you have to make, buy small portions of food, and even have our friends hide our food. These things all can lead to less food intake which is part of the target behavior the example was trying to do.
The things I found the least interesting were the parts in section 5.3. I really didn’t learn anything from this section because it was all basically review. We have already learned how to describe the target behavior, describe the consequences, and describe antecedents. The only thing I really learned was creating and modifying your hypothesis.
Functional assessment is something that I will remember because it helps you determine if you need to modify your hypothesis. When you perform a functional assessment, you’re looking at all the information you have collected and seeing if it follows your target behavior/hypothesis. Learning about direct and indirect ways of collecting info was also something I will remember. Directly collecting info is watching it happen before you, and indirectly is gathering info from other people. The last thing I will remember is how changing your environment/antecedents around you can alter your behavior.
Things that can be related to other chapters are basically everything mentioned in section 5.3. It was just a recap of chapters 4, 2, and 1. Everything in chapter 5 is about putting everything we learned in all of the chapters to use.
Direct, indirect, antecedent, consequences, behavior, target behavior, hypothesis, environment.
Another thing that I found helpful in this chapter were the steps involved with behavior modification. First we describe the target behavior, then we describe the consequences,describe the antecedents, Examine the ABC's, Devise new antecedents and consequences, and evaluate the outcome. This really explains the whole process of what we have learned so far in the class.
Another thing I learned more about after rereading the chapter was about functional assessment. Functional assessment of behavior is designed to help you develop a hypothesis regarding the relationship between the ABC’s of behavior. It is used to identify the environment (antecedents) in which the behaviors occur and how the outcomes of the behavior function to maintain it (consequences). Once a hypothesis is developed, it becomes the basis for future intervention to decrease the undesirable behavior and to increases desirable behaviors. Through functional assessment of behavior we can begin to investigate the behavior and what is reinforcing it so we can ultimately design an intervention to decrease the behavior if the behavior was undesirable
What you want to do for functional assessment is to look at a target behavior and figure out the different functions of it so you can change it. Ex. Quitting smoking. There’s only really one topographical ways to smoke but it has different functions. Smoke because you like it, relieves stress etc. So if you want to quit smoking you can make hypothesizes on how to do so. This is called an intervention because you are trying to decrease the behavior of smoking by creating hypothesizes to find a way to quit.
I liked that section 5.3 briefly went throught the steps one should take in order to reinforce or punish behavior. The idea that the antecedent is what elicits the behavior and the consequence maintains the behavior. When it said the next step is to document the occasions in which the unwanted behavior occurs and be aware of the contingencies that elicit the behavior it reminded me of my neice. Documenting her behavior this weekend, I noticed that when she was told to do something by anyone other than her mother she would do it. However, if her mother told her to do something she would whine and try to get out of it. Even if My father or I told her to do something, IF her mother were around she would say no. That being said, the contingencies that are maintaining her behavior is her mothers reaction (letting her get her way). The target behvior is getting her to listen, and do what she is told. When considering the ABC's: the antecedent is asking her to do something, like clean up her mess or eat her veggies. The behavior is her whining. The consequence is her mother giving her what she wants. Now that I know what is maintaining the behavior I can hopefully come up with a funtional assessment. My hypothesis is that if her mother would stop giving in, eventually my neice will listen to her.
As you can see, the step by step process and functional assesment were most intriguing to me, there is nothing in these sections that are not interesting. The three most useful things I got from this section was how to conduct a funtional assessment, how to dtermine the contingencies and that experimenting with different forms of punishment is good. Such as using the premack principle to get my niece to listen. If she doesn't do what she is told the first time, we can use coloring as an incentive. "If you clean up your mess as you are told, I will color with you". She loves to color even more when someone does it with her. Or "if you pick up your mess, we can have ice cream after dinner". In another aspect, we could use negative reinforcement which is taking away something pleasurable instead of adding something pleasurable. For example, toy time outs are taking away the toy from the child which is a negative reinforcer.
reinforce, punish, antecedent, consequence, elicit, contingencies, target behavior, functional assessment, experimenting, premack principles, toy time outs.
Section 5.3 explained about the functional assessment of behavior which was interesting to me. The steps in dealing with the assessment are simple and follow each other hand in hand, you decide on a behavior you want to increase or decrease (or punish or extinct), then decide on your “target behavior,” decide on reinforces for the behavior, that will take you to your behavior modification goal, define the target behavior and how to elicit the behavior, decide on the antecedents, maintain the behavior and the consequence, you will need to map all this out and determine your baseline from the beginning to track your progress. I functional assessment for me could be used for me to spend less money on entertainment and save for the new car I’ve been wanting. The target behavior for me would be to save more, spend less, ways to reinforce this would be if I spend more time doing constructive things instead of going out, I could set money aside for a fun stuff twice a week with a spending limit and save the rest for car, so the more money I save the more have for the car and can still have fun, just not as much as before. The ABC’s tied into this chapter as well when mapping out the assessment.
TERMS: baseline, target behavior, punish, extinct, antecedents, consequence
The part that I found most interesting was controlling the environment. I never realized that creating a different environment to reach a target behavior was considered to be emitting a behavior. This is also very helpful to my goal of being healthier because I am then able to control more aspect other than just the behavior that I emit. I can then reinforce myself for elicting my own desired/target behavior.
I didn't find any of the information uninteresting. It was all helpful in understanding how to create and maintain my target behaviors and goals.
Three things I will remember:
1.Through functional assessment of behavior we can
begin to investigate the behavior and what is reinforcing it so we can ultimately design an intervention to decrease the behavior if the behavior was undesirable.
2. The Premack Principle states, a person will engage in a low frequency behavior for the opportunity to engage in a high frequency behavior.
3. A behavior chain can be viewed as a series of
behaviors where one behavior leads into the next behavior.
Reinforcement relates to some of the Premack Principle because it deals with natural reinforcements so it therefore increases the behavior without much effort at all.
Premack Princ, reinforcement,target behavior, emit, elict
In reading this section I enjoyed reading about the functional assessment of a behavior. In choosing the behavior we want to increase or decrease, there has to be some other defined target behaviors to know what elicits the behavior which is the antecedent and the consequence that happens because of it. I am going to modify my behavior of running on the treadmill 15 min everyday before I have breakfast in the morning. The antecedent of this behavior is me waking up and putting on my running shoes, and going to the basement where the treadmill is. The behavior is the 15 min on the treadmill and the consequence is me losing weight and looking better in my swimsuit this summer. The steps I have to do to modify this behavior include not only the ABC’s but also a list of reasons for the behavior. From this list I would have to see if these hypotheses see if these things change the behavior, if not, go back to the list and try another hypothesis. This can be an extremely long process or can happen pretty quickly.
I found Functional Assessment to be the most interesting part of this week’s reading. Functional assessment helps develop a hypothesis in dealing with the relationship between the ABC’s of behavior modification. It looks as why the behavior being changed or stopped is being emitted. This helps greatly when one is trying to change or stop the behavior. Eating is a great example of a behavior that people are always trying to change. People do not always eat because they are hungry, people (like myself) eat when their bored or as a coping mechanism for some people. This also helps greatly in developing some sort of intervention to stop the undesirable behavior. Once the antecedent is known then we are able to more effectively change the consequence. Another thing I thought was interesting from the reading was the part about controlling our environment. I did not know that changing an entire an environment could have such a strong impact on someone’s behavior. I understand that situational factors can influence this a lot. I do not act the same at a bar than when I am at a family reunion. A lot of things from these sections were kind of reviews from previous sections. Something I will remember from this reading are the steps taken in behavior modification: Describe the target behavior, describe the consequences, describe the antecedents, examine the ABC’s, devise new antecedents and consequences, and evaluate the outcome.