Reading Activity Week #12 (due Tuesday)

5.4
In 5.4, I will emit the behavior of remembering that changing a behavior can be a result of changing the situations we put ourselves in, or the “antecedent.” An example used in this chapter was to quit drinking. If a person hangs out in a bar all the time with friends who drink alcohol, this might elicit a drinking behavior for that person, as well. If he/she does not want to emit a drinking behavior, rather than putting themselves in a situation where they would have to say “no,” it might just be easier to avoid the bar atmosphere in the first place. This only works, however, when we have control over our environment, which a lot of times we don’t. An example of this would be if a person is trying to stop smoking and they live next door to people who smoke outside. The person trying to stop smoking cannot control being around their neighbors’ secondhand smoke if they are outside at that time.

5.5
In 5.5, I will emit the behavior of remembering is that reinforcers vary from person to person. In other words, what is reinforcing for one person, may not be reinforcing for another. For example, let’s say I want to reinforce myself by shopping every time I get an A on a test. I would choose shopping as a reinforcer because I really like shopping and I don’t get to do it that often. Some of my friends do not like shopping, however, so if they chose to reinforce themselves by shopping, it would be very ineffective because shopping would be an aversive consequence of their behavior. Instead, they might reinforce themselves with something they do like doing, such as going out to eat or reading a book. This chapter also stated that it is important to distinguish between low frequency behaviors and high frequency behaviors. According to the Premack Principle, people will exchange low frequency behaviors (ones they do not emit very often) for high frequency behaviors (something they really enjoy doing.) I think this relates to the whole idea of reinforcers because it is basically saying that we will temporarily do something we don’t like to do, as long as we know we are going to get some kind of reward/reinforcer.

Section 5.4

After reading this section, I will emit a behavior of remembering the concept of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). This concept is helpful to reduce the frequency of undesired behavior, because the individual then reinforces a behavior that is incompatible with the undesired behavior. This concept allows us to control the environment and use antecedents that elicit the appropriate/desired behaviors that are incompatible with the undesired behaviors the individual wants to reduce. The example used in the reading concerned a man wanting to reduce snacking on junk food, so he talked to his roommates about eliminating junk food from the kitchen and his presence. He also replaced the junk food with accessible fruit. Eating fruit is a desired behavior that replaced the undesired behavior of snacking on junk food.

Section 5.5

After emitting a behavior of reading this section, I will emit a behavior of remembering that reinforcers can be events, not just tangible objects. Humans and animals are willing to emit target behaviors to be reinforced with the opportunity to do something. We can reinforce behaviors with other behaviors. The example used in the reading was the research conducted about monkeys emitting a behavior of pressing a lever to be reinforced with the opportunity to look out a window while in a cage. The monkeys were even willing to emit a behavior of pressing the lever to obtain tokens to be redeemed for amount of time viewing a toy train through a window. Personally, I reinforce my target behavior of doing well on a test with emitting a behavior of watching an episode of a favorite show.

5.4--After emitting a reading behavior for this section, there are a few things that I will emit a remembering behavior for. The first thing that I emitted a remembering behavior for was that you may need to change your environment to actually achieve the goal you are trying to modify. The example in the reading helped me understand this better, which made the reading more pleasurable and not as aversive. The example states that if you want to achieve your goal then you need to change some of the antecedents, for instance the example about little Debbie snacks. Some things you could do are tell your roommates to hide them, or just tell your roommate only eat them when you are not around. Also, you could just remove yourself from the situation. If your roommate it eating the little Debbie, remove yourself from the room. You could also emit a behavior of just not buying the snack (which is a lot harder then we think, and it can feel very aversive). These are all example of changing the environment. I think I will emit a remembering behavior for this because it is something that can be used in everyday situations when we do not even realize. This concept elicited many thoughts and I have never realized before. Another concept I will remember from this reading behavior will be DRO, which we have already discussed before. I think I will remember this because I have already emitting a reading behavior over it, so this really refreshed my memory and made it less aversive to remember. Also, the examples that were used to example it was not aversive, and easy to follow, which made the reading more enjoyable.

5.5--After emitting a reading behavior for section 5.5, one thing I will remember will be the Premack Principle. I learned that with the Premack Principle, people will engage in certain behaviors to for an opportunity to do a different behavior. The terms that they used in the section were high frequency and low frequency behaviors. It states that you will engage in a low frequency behavior (one that you do not enjoy very much), to get to the high frequency behavior (something you really enjoy). The examples that were used in this section really helped me understand the concept, which helps me elicit a remembering behavior. Also, all 3 of my roommates are El Ed. Majors and I told them about this concept, and they all thought it was very interesting. Knowing that this could possibly work, and have it relate to everyday life makes it easier to emit a remembering behavior. All of this practice was also helpful in remembering since it had you actually look at the chart and tables to figure out what were the children high and low frequencies. Visuals are always easier for me to understand, that is another reason I will emit a remembering behavior for this section on the Premack principle. Also, making up our own behavioral chain helped me understand the concept as well. Using our own real life situations makes the reading less aversive and easier to understand.

5.4
After emitting the behavior of reading section 5.4 there are a few facts that I am elicited to remember. I will remember that you can reduce the stress of the “terrible twos” by exerting an influence over the environment. If you eliminate the reasons for a parent to say “No” to a child, the child will not learn by example and say “No” in return. This reinforces my learning that we can modify our behavior by modifying the antecedents or the environments of the unwanted behavior. Changing the antecedents of a behavior is a good way to implement Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO). When you take control of your environment, you can change it from an undesired antecedent to a desirable antecedent that brings about desirable behaviors.

5.5
From this section I will be elicited to remember the Premack Principle and the Behavioral Hierarchy. The Premack Principle somewhat restates what we already know about behavioral modification, just puts it in different terms. The Premack Principle states that we can use high frequency behavior to reinforce emitting low frequency behaviors. In other words, I like to read leisure books but I don’t like reading for class. In order to make sure that I do my reading for class, I will use leisure books as a reinforcer for doing my homework. In order for this to work I must perform the low frequency task first. You can determine you own low frequency and high frequency behaviors by creating a Behavioral Hierarchy which designates specific tasks as desirable or undesirable. The Premack Principle and Behavioral Hierarchy further demonstrate that the same reinforcer will not serve as a reinforcer for everyone.

5.4
After emitting the behavior of reading section 5.4 the thing that I will remember most is removing the “NOs”. I thought this was a very clever way of reinforcing children to behave the way you want them to. I liked how it connected with observational learning, and how every child learns by watching others and the environment they are around. I thought this could this behavior could be helpful when taking care of my children I nanny for and further in life when I decided to have my own children. Controlling the antecedent will help the children emit the behavior I desire. Saying no is always an aversive thing to most children and when they don’t have to hear it all the time it could possibly help better their behavior and possibly make my life easier!

5.5
Continuing emitting my behavior of reading, the thing I will remember most out of section 5.5 is behavioral hierarchy. I did not realize how often teachers did this to me when I was in grade school. We always had stations as a kid that we would learn different behaviors at. By having these different stations teachers could evaluate me on what behavior I seemed to be best at and what behavior I was struggling with. If I was struggling with something the teacher would change the antecedent or environment to something more enjoyable to me to help me correlate an enjoyable behavior with a good environment. I feel that most teachers keep a frequency chart of every student’s grades so they can be evaluated in the end. A chart is a good way to keep all of the information organized and precise.

5.4) After emit a reading behavior of the section 5.4 I learn that there are many way to change the antecedents and with this have more control of our and others behavior. One way to change the antecedent is “Toy time out”, when two wants the same toy we should remove the object and the kids should take a time out like the toy. To Removing the “NOs”, we should control de environment when the child plays and in this way we reduce our NOs and the child don`t learn this behavior by observational learning with the parents. Sometimes we don`t have much control of our environment, but we can have by changing some rules of the environment and in us (antecedents) this is a successful way to change our undesirable behavior.
When I was emitting recall behavior these are the material that I can remember.

5.5) After emit a reading behavior of the 5.5 section (selecting a reinforcer), I review the concept about primary and secondary reinforcers, that help me to understand what is the order that I can chose a reinforcer to my behavior. A reinforcer can be an event; we can reinforce ourselves with the chance to do something that we like.
The Premak Principle called my attention in this section, it is a stimulus to have behaviors that we usually don`t like but that we need, and just after we can do what we want. For example it`s a good principle to have our homework done and after have time to spend with our friends and do something that we like. So we can make a list with behaviors that we have to do in the day and then give them a 0-7 punctuation (if we like 7 if we don’t like 0) and then we have to do first the thing that we punctuate lower. It`s a good technique to make us organized.

I emitted the behavior of reading section 5.4 and learned that changing my environment can elicit many changes in behaviors. I have a tendency to snack late at night. If I change the environment by throwing away all of my junk food, I will be unable to snack. Instead of snacking, I will find something more productive to do such as reading or writing a blog for this class. The presence of junk food in my room is the antecedent. When I change the antecedent or environment, a more desirable consequence results; I don’t gain weight and I get my homework done. I will remember this concept because it has been discussed in previous chapters and is such a simple concept to grasp. By simply changing the antecedent, I may emit a myriad of more desirable behaviors.
I can easily emit the behavior of recalling the concept of DRO or differential reinforcement of other after reading 5.5. Differential reinforcement of other occurs when one reinforces a desirable behavior in order to decrease the frequency of an aversive target behavior. For example, in order to decrease the frequency of watching TV, one may reinforce a studying behavior. Emitting a studying behavior will decrease the frequency of watching TV because the person may be reinforced with good grades after studying. The person may realize that the desirable consequence of getting good grades is more reinforcing than the aversive consequences of watching TV. The concept of differential reinforcement of other has been discussed in prior chapters, so I will easily be able to remember it. I will also remember from this chapter that certain reinforcers are not reinforcing for others. In order to alter another individual’s behavior, you need to determine what reinforcer will work for them. I will remember this concept because it is basically common sense.
Section 5.4 did not provide any new information that I didn’t already know. I found section 5.5 more informational and interesting. Prior to reading 5.5, I was unaware of the Premack Principle. According to the Premack Principle, people engage in low frequency behaviors in order to emit high frequency behaviors. A low frequency behavior is a behavior that is not very desirable to a person. In contrast, a high frequency behavior is a behavior that is greatly enjoyed or desired. In summary, people will emit behaviors they do not enjoy in order to engage in behaviors they enjoy emitting.

5.4
One concept I will remember after emitting the behavior of reading section 5.4 is the example of removing the “NOs”. I found this to be memorable because almost everyone has heard of a child that is in their “Terrible Two’s” phase. One reason the terrible two’s is elicited to be so bad is because the children frequently say “NO” to everything. They learn this behavior through conditioning. If the child is in an environment where it is unsafe, the parents are likely going to say “no” as a consequence to the majority of the toddler’s actions. Instead of teaching your child to say “no”, create an environment that is safe for them. That way when they are actually told “no” by an adult it is more reinforced and won’t just go in one ear and out the other. It may seem like such an easy concept, yet many people find it easier to just say “no” as an consequence to their child’s aversive behavior, even if the child doesn’t know any better.

5.5
One concept that I will remember after emitting a reading behavior of section 5.5 is the Premack Principle. This principle states that a person is likely to engage in a low frequency behavior if the consequence is desirable and leads to the opportunity of being able to engage in a high frequency behavior. For example, a person is more likely to clean their room (low frequency behavior) because it acts as a good reinforcer to go to the bar (high frequency behavior). I will remember this concept because it is often used in my every day routine. In college I have found myself emitting the behavior of using this principle a lot. I will finish my homework (low frequency behavior) on Friday’s so I can do whatever I want to on weekends (high frequency behavior) and not worry about an aversive consequence that follows uncompleted homework.

5.4
One thing that I will remember most about this chapter section would be how we can control the environment and change the antecedents for a preferred behavior. One example I found interesting for this would be how you can change the environment for young children and emit less "no's" and help to change the childs aversive behavior of the terrible twos into a more cooperative child. Another example of this would be to change your environment so that you can change one of your own aversive behaviors i.e eating less sweets or studying more.

5.5
One thing that I will remember from reading this chapter section would be behavioral situations when Differential Reinforcement of Other (DRO) would be effective. Examples of this would be trying to quit smoking by reinforcing a behavior such as chewing on plastic.
Another interesting thing I learned would be properly using a frequency chart to see what low frequency behaviors you can as a reinforcer to a higher frequency behavior.

5.4
After emitting a reading behavior for section 5.4, I will remember a couple things fairly clearly. The first of the items that elicited a memory behavior is changing antecedents can be exchanged for reinforcement and punishment. Instead of punishing a behavior, it may be a good idea to prevent the undesired behavior all together. If one can do this, it will make all parties happier. After I emitted the “NOs” section, I definitely clearly understood the concept. If a parent just removes everything in a room that a small child could use to get in trouble, it will greatly decrease the likelihood of that child getting into trouble. In turn, this will decrease the “terrible twos” behavior. If the child isn’t consistently told no, he or she will not even think of saying no to everything, which is a behavior “terrible two” children emit. I will also remember differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). The example where fruit was placed on the table instead of candy emitted a memory behavior of this concept.
5.5
Chapter 5.5 will elicit me to remember the hierarchy of behaviors and how it can be used to reinforce behaviors. I thought the classroom example was a very solid scenario where the hierarchy can be used. The teacher wanted her students to play with all of the activities, even the ones they didn’t enjoy as much. She did an initial baseline measurement to determine what activities each student preferred to not play with. After this, she was able to tell the kids they could play with their preferred activity as reinforcement for playing with their least favorite toys. According to the Premack Principle, people will do things they don’t really like as long as they can do something they really like afterwards. This could be applied to almost everyone’s everyday life to become more productive

5.4

After emitting the behavior of reading the section 5.4 one of the things i will actually rememeber the most was not something I expected. I am ten years older than my baby sister and so when i read the part in the section about eliminating the no's i really was drawn to it. I went through the terrible twos with my sister and I wonder what it would be like it we had eliminated the no's from her vocabulary and I would like to have seen what that would have done. This is why i will remember this part of the section. I really enjoyed all the other information and I believe I have added much to my behavior modification knowledge.

5.5
After emitting the behavior or reading this final section I will remember Differential Reinforcement of
Other because it was well described and i felt i had a decent handle on it. I will also remember the Premack principal because i found the idea interesting. After completing the examples in the section I found many low frequency behaviors i would emit in order to receive the reward of one of my high frequency behaviors and this is leading me to some new ideas about the behavior i am currently trying to modify.

5.4
After emitting the reading behavior, I will remember a few things. The thing that was really interesting to me was the fact that changing our environments can change our behaviors. Having to change the antecedents can decrease or increase the frequency of our behaviors if that is what is desired. For example, let's say that our antecedent is to avoid speeding tickets. In order to change our environment, we can put cruise control on so that we won't have a lead foot that exceeds the speed limit. Or we could start leaving for work/school earlier than normal so that we do not have to worry about making it on time. Thus, this will make us in a better mood instead of an aversive mood and we will be more likely to reinforce ourselves instead of punishing us.

5.5
After emitting the reading behavior, I will remember a couple of things. Behavioral hierarchy stuck out to me the most because it was an easy concept to grasp. This is a good technique to use for reinforcing your desired behaviors that you enjoy doing. If we are to make graphs of the things that we enjoy doing and do not enjoy doing, we can reinforce ourselves with the activities we want to engage in after we have done the unwanted activites. We think that most reinforces have to be material things, but this section taught us that we can use our high frequency items, for me would be drawing or art projects, to reinforce ourselves for the low frequency things that we do not like to engage in.

Section 5.4
After emitting a behavior of reading section 5.4 what I will remember most about this reading is the differential reinforcement of a behavior (DRO). This behavior is very good for reducing an undisarable behavior by changing something incompatible with the undesirable behavior. For example in the reading a individual was trying to cut down on their sweets intake, so instead of having candy around they put fruit out so they were more likely to eat that for a snack. There were also many other was that you can combat the undesirable behavior, but finding the best way for you is the key.
Section 5.5
After emitting a behavior of reading section 5.5 what I will remember most about this section is how low frequency behaviors affect high frequency behaviors. This is called the Premack principle and is used when a person does a low frequency behavior such as something they wouldn’t normally do to do a high frequency behavior that is something that is normally do or would like to do. I believe this is a great technique in order to increase the frequency of behaviors that are not always the most fun to do and can be well arranged with parenting when someday I’ll have to worry about those type of things.

I emitted the behavior of reading section 5.4. The one thing that I will remember about this section is removing the "No’s". I thought that this was very interesting because around the age of two, and often in the teen years, both parents and child say the word no a lot. The child gets into things that they should not be in due to observational learning. This concept of removing the word no from the environment has really got me thinking about how we can eliminate that word from the child's vocabulary. If parents could eliminate the word no, and instead replace it with reasoning and explanation, then possibly the child will stop using the word. For example, a parent could say "It is best that you stay away from the medicine cabinet because it will hurt you." Like the reading explains, it is important to control the environment and antecedent in order to control the use of the word no. I will remember this because the concept of trying to eliminate the word no sounds like it would be fun to experiment with.

I decided to emit the behavior of reading section 5.5. The one thing that I will remember the most from 5.5 is differential reinforcement of other. The example that the reading gives us is about a woman who wants to quit smoking. In order for this woman to quit the smoking behavior, she resorts to chewing on a straw. This is a replacement behavior which is reinforcing rather than punishing her smoking behavior. I liked reading this and I will remember it because the term differential reinforcement of other is something that is important in order to stop an undesired behavior. We have to know which types of reinforcement to use and how often we need to modify these reinforcers in order to reach our target behavior.

5.4:
After emitting the behavior of reading chapter 5.4 I am most likely to remember is changing up the antecedent in order to have more control over our environment. Also I will remember that if I find yourself emitting an undesirable behavior I should change my environment. I will also remember that DRO stands for differential reinforcement of other behavior like the example in the reading about switching out the sweets for fruit so that the fruit is more accessible. That increases the frequency of you grabbing the fruit instead of going and looking for the candy. I will remember these because I thought that they were pretty common sense. If you don’t like the behaviors you are emitting clearly you need to change the environment that you are in.

5.5:
After emitting the behavior of reading chapter 5.5 I am likely to remember the example about the school children and finding the children’s high and low frequencies. This means you need to observe the things are that the children find pleasurable and the things that the children find aversive to figure out their frequencies of behavior. This made a lot of sense to me because if you offer kids the opportunity to emit the behavior of something they enjoy to get them to emit the behavior of the aversive item; they are clearly going to find that more appealing than not getting anything out of the situation.

5.4
After emitting a reading behavior I will elicit a remembering action of when we change our environment, it can change our behavior(s). This can be done to change aversive behaviors (being in a situation that we want to change) as well as beneficial behaviors (changing the environment to a better situation). This is another way to modify our behavioral plan. Even if your environment is not “changeable” in a large picture, you can change small things in the large environment. Even if we can’t control our environment, we can manipulate some things in our environment. (the example of being on parole is a great one) Being in prison might be another environment that you can’t change, and you don’t want to be around certain people at certain times. Maybe you could go to a class, or the book depository, but changing anything in your environment is what you are trying to do to achieve your goal.

5.5
I will emit a remembering action after reading section 5.5 about primary and secondary reinforcers and what the difference between the two are. A primary reinforcer “is biologically relevant and is untrained or instinctual”…these are practically essential to life where as secondary reinforcers is learned and “leads to obtaining a primary reinforcer at some point”. I will also emit a remembering action towards the fact that people can delay gratification. We can save up our reinforcers for later use. We don’t need to have instant gratification (although a lot of us seem to need it). I tend to do this quite often. If I did well on a few exams, I will reward myself with a night out. I will not go out every time that I did well on each individual exam, but I will save up my time to have a more gratifying experience when I go out. Instead of going out for a short time on a week night, I will save up my time and go out all night on a Friday or Saturday---somewhat of an example of a token economy, but not the greatest one by far.

5.4) After emitting a reading behavior, I am more aware of the importance of changing antecedents. Many times behaviors occur and people feel like they have no control over their situation. However, this is not always true. If someone is emitting an aversive or undesirable behavior, one way to change or diminish the behavior is to change the antecedent. Here is an example. My roommate Tony drinks a lot but he doesn’t work very often so he is always short on money. Because we share a fridge he sometimes will take my beer and drink it. Because this behavior is undesirable for me, I could change the antecedent by putting a mini fridge in my bedroom. This would cause the behavior to decrease because my beer will not be accessible to Tony anymore. This will also be very reinforcing for me because when I go into my fridge I will be able to have a beer without worrying if there is any left. Antecedents set the occasion for behaviors to occur. If someone is trying to modify a behavior, it is very important to look at the antecedent and see if it needs to be changed. From experience, I have tried to emit a regular working out behavior. However, because my gym is far away, I am less motivated to go. I have found that having a good workout video accessible at my apartment allows me to still emit the working out behavior without having to drive all the way to gym when I don’t feel like it. It is important to remember that some antecedents are very difficult to change, especially when someone else is emitting an aversive behavior. However, it is likely that there is usually some way to change it.

5.5) After emitting a reading behavior, I was reminded of the importance of reinforcers. If you are looking to modify a behavior, choose the correct reinforce can determine whether or not the behavior you are looking for will be emitted. I know when I was younger, my mom tried to positively reinforce me with snickers candy bars, but since I didn’t like them that much, there were not very effective in positively reinforcing my behavior. She soon realized I was emitting a undesirable behavior and even with the reinforcement of snickers I continued the behavior. It did not take long for her to realize that my behavior could be modified successfully by reinforcing me with starburst. In the end, my mom realized that the snickers were not actually a reinforcer at all because if it doesn’t work, it does not match the definition of reinforcement. Another thing I will remember about this section is the whole Premack Principal Behavior chains. I know that when I get older, I will use this on my children. In order to get my children to emit a low frequency behavior, such as cleaning their room, they will reminded that they can emit a more pleasurable behavior, such as playing their video games. This section made me realize that people are more likely to emit a low frequency behavior in order for the change to engage in a high frequency behavior.

5.4

Reading this section elicited me to remember it well because it seemed completely like a review. It discusses how you can alter the antecedents/change the environment to elicit a change in behavior. Many people don’t realize that much of a behavior has to do with the antecedent. As the section says, if you can emit control of the environment, you can emit control over the behavior. I emit remembering of this well because it is extremely applicable to everyday life. Thinking about my behaviors daily allows me to see how the antecedents elicit my responses. Using this, I can emit changes in behaviors. I also emit remembering the “removing the ‘NOs’” section. It is easy to see how changing the way you speak to a toddler may elicit a change in their behavior. I had a class last semester and for a project someone explained a program used in Head Start to eliminate the NOs said. They emitted desirable language which elicited the children to stop being so resistant and saying NO. I, however, do not think that we should eliminate all NOs for children. There are some things that they need to be told not to do for their safety. I think my sister and brother-in-law have done a good job with removing the NOs. I don’t remember hearing them emit NO very often, and when they do, my nephews seem to listen well. In addition, reading this section elicited me to emit remembering of differential reinforcement of other (DRO). If someone can emit DRO in their behavioral intervention, it will be a much more pleasant experience and probably elicit success. Lastly, we may have little control over the environment as a whole, but we can alter smaller problems to fix it, such as taking a different route to avoid a traffic jam. It helps to realize this because it makes life a little less anxiety inducing.

5.5

The first thing reading this section elicited me to remember is the Premack Principle. This is where people will emit behaviors they may not like for the opportunity to emit something they do like. In order to harness the power of the Premack Principle, you need to know a list of behaviors people emit and how often they emit them, so you can see which their low frequency behaviors are and which are their high frequency behaviors. Knowing this will elicit you to be able to use their own pre-established behaviors as reinforcers. As I mentioned, you need to have a list of their behaviors and which they like the most and least. This is known as the behavioral hierarchy. I will remember this well because it makes a lot of sense and can be quite useful. I also had already been emitting the Premack Principle on myself for certain behaviors, so it is nice to understand exactly what I had been doing and that it works. It is vital to understand that reinforcers vary person to person, so creating a personalized behavioral hierarchy is a must. Since we learned way back that reinforcers must be something people like and want, the Premack Principle works great because it is already something people like and want to do. Frequency charts are a good way to graph a behavioral hierarchy. The only thing that bothered me about the Premack Principle was when you are emitting it on yourself, it will only work if you have the will follow through and only emit the reinforcer after the desired behavior. One of my examples did not work (doing homework in order to get to watch Netflix) because I gave up on my homework and emitted watching Netflix instead. As an individual, you know you can control when you do things, so it is difficult to follow through with the Premack Principle. I also emit remembering that behaviors occur in chains. What we think of as a behavior can actually be broken down into many smaller behaviors making up the behavioral chain. Any part of this chain may be something you can alter to change the larger behavior. It is important to be aware of the smaller behavioral events comprising the larger behavior. I enjoyed this section, especially the part about the Premack Principle because it is all so transferable to my life. I like reading about stuff that I can apply right away while reading it.

After emitting the behavior of reading the section I believe the main thing I will take from this chapter is the fact that if we change the antecedent then we can change the behavior. This is a great thing to realize when you are trying to change an aversive behavior such as losing weight. If you change the antecedent such as being at a fast food restaurant to being at a gym, you will be so much more likely to lose weight because you don’t have a chance to eat greasy unhealthy food at the gym and you will have a chance to work out which in the end will increase your chances of eliciting a consequence of losing weight. This particular subject will stick in my mind because it is so obvious yet being reminded of it can really make changing a behavior easier and simpler.

After emitting the behavior of reading section 5.5, the deadline of the homework due coming up elicited the response of me writing this blog. Differential Reinforcer of Other is what I will remember most out of section 5.5 mainly because of my father. Differential Reinforcer of Other is where you reinforce a different behavior in hopes that it will decrease an aversive behavior. The section talks about quitting smoking with a woman who chewed on plastic straws and that helped her quit smoking. Throughout my childhood, both of my parents smoked but only my father quit. He quit like four times but is back to smoking now. I distinctly remember that every time he quit we always had a lot of peanuts, sunflower seeds and gum. Anytime that he would normally smoke like after he got home from work or after dinner he would pop a bunch of sunflower seeds in his mouth or sit down and munch on peanuts and when we were in public he always had to have a piece of gum in his mouth. He never used the patch or nicotine gum or anything like that. Using things as simple as gum or sunflower seeds he could kick a nasty habit. This will always stick in my mind and now that we are reading through this information more in depth, I have an even better understanding on what was going on throughout my childhood.

5.4
After emitting a reading behavior of section 5.4, I will remember the section that talks about changing behavior by changing the antecedent. The example used involved a roommate who keeps a stash of unhealthy foods around and we were asked to come up with three ways to change the antecedent in order to ultimately eat healthier. The first answer i came up with is to simply ask your roommate to hide the junk food stash somewhere in their bedroom. This action would greatly reduce your ability to get to the snacks because people dont like snooping in their roommates room, especially if they dont know exactly where something is located within the room. So when the antecedent is changed, the behavior would subsequently change.

5.5

After reading section 5.5, Ill emit a remembering behavior about the Premack Principle. This is a pretty simple concept which involves emitting a low frequency behavior in order to eventually emit a higher frequency behavior. One example of this is doing ones homework (assuming they dont particularly enjoy it) before they sit down to play video games. This is actually a concept that is emitted quite a bit. I had never actually thought about it but trying to get things done that I dont particularly enjoy before I emit more pleasureable behaviors happens quite a bit. So I have been partaking in the Premack Principle for awhile now.