What I would like you to do is to find a topic from ANYTHING WE HAVE COVERED SO FAR IN CLASS that you are interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. But use at least 3 sources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter, and why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites AND state below each URL how that particular site contributed to what you wrote.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
After I emit the reading behavior of the goal of this assessment, I realize that I m curious about Self-directed Behavior; if this process have good results (if it is effective) in therapy and in what kind of Psychological disorders will be useful. We covered this matter in section 4.2 and we apply this technique to our selves. Till now my plan is working but I know that, for example, when I moved to Spain again I have to change it, because my schedule will change completely what means that the antecedents will change. So I will be able to follow another similar plan?
I found out that Self-directed behavior can help people dealing with anxiety, panic attacks, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In work place, and in live in general. I found too, that the clients have really good results in the end of therapy and that they can keep going by themselves. Self-directed behavior teach to the person how to resist and avoid the symptoms when are in a critical situation.
There are different ways to apply Self directed behavior, and the steps can change a little; but the base is a continue process lead by the client and his/her wish to change. At first can be difficult but, when they start in a good way they have a big possibility to be successful. Because this type of disorders are that the client loss the control of his/her body, this kind of therapy give back the control to the person, and when they understand that they have the control again they will be able to keep going without therapy. Understand that they can get a normal live again.
http://www.eiconsortium.org/reprints/self-directed_learning.html
http://hope4ocd.com/foursteps.php
http://panicdisorder.about.com/od/livingwithpd/a/Self-Modificati.htm
These sites gave me a global view about self-directed behavior and the different kind of steps. What I write above is a little resume that what I understood about what I read.
After emitting a behavior of reading section 4.3, I was interested in the concept of goal-setting as it pertains to achieving behavioral goals. I found this topic interesting because I emit a behavior of trying to achieve a variety of goals very often.
It is very important for individuals to emit a behavior of setting attainable and realistic goals, when trying to decrease or increase a specific behavior. If a person sets an unreachable goal they are less likely to be able to emit a behavior of attaining it. The support and encouragement from others in reaching our goals is important to our actual attainment of our goal. If a person sets a goal that is unrealistic, others are less likely to support the person in their behavior of trying to reach their unrealistic goal. According to Thomas Bodenheimer and Margaret Handley, collaborative goal setting can be collaborative, between caregivers and patients. In their article, “Goal-Setting for Behavior Change in Primary Care: An Exploration and status report,” they discuss how people can implement general goals like, losing 10 pounds, exercising more, or reducing stress, or they can be specific like, drinking water instead of soda, and attending a weekly yoga class (2009). As we have learned in class it is more effective to implement specific goals, rather than general goals, because we are more likely to emit the target behavior if it is specific.
Another important aspect of goal-setting is the timeframe used that the person wants to obtain their goal. The individual needs to emit a behavior of deciding if the goal they want to achieve will take a couple days, or a couple years. People need to remember that larger goals take more time to accomplish than smaller goals. It is not unrealistic for a person to emit a behavior of having a large goal, becoming a surgeon for example, but it is unrealistic for that person to think they can accomplish this goal in two years after they graduate high school. According to an article concerning elements of motivation, there are three conditions that must be under control for timeframes to be effective. The first is ‘skills,’ this condition entails knowledge, experience and natural talent. These characteristics are necessary to best achieve the goal in the desired timeframe. The second condition is ‘resources,’ this entails ownership, materials, and money. These tangible objects are usually needed to achieve the desired goal. The third condition is ‘support,’ this condition requires people and organizations that will encourage the individual in their quest to emit a behavior of achieving his/her goal.
A third component of goal-setting that I emitted a behavior of finding interesting was the concept of sub-goals. If a person emits a behavior of wanting to achieve a large goal, like receiving a law degree, the person should break the goal down into smaller goals that can be achieved in a shorter timeframe. For example, the person must emit a behavior of graduating high school, then being accepted into a university, graduating a four-year university with a decent GPA, being accepted into a law school, and finally graduating from law school with a J.D. degree. According to a 2010 article concerning personal development, breaking down larger goals into smaller goals helps people know how to proceed with achieving their goal, especially when the goal seems overwhelming.
http://rds.epiucsf.org/ticr/syllabus/courses/67/2010/05/20/Lecture/readings/Bodenheimer_Handley_PEC.pdf
*I used this site to look up information about implementing general and specific goals.
http://www.motivation-tools.com/elements/setting_goals.htm
*I used this site to find the three conditions needed to achieve the goal in the desired timeframe.
http://www.skillstoolbox.com/personal-skills/goal-setting/goal-setting-process/break-large-goals-into-sub-goals/
*I used this site to look up information concerning sub-goals.
After emitting a behavior of reading section 4.3, I was interested in the concept of goal-setting as it pertains to achieving behavioral goals. I found this topic interesting because I emit a behavior of trying to achieve a variety of goals very often.
It is very important for individuals to emit a behavior of setting attainable and realistic goals, when trying to decrease or increase a specific behavior. If a person sets an unreachable goal they are less likely to be able to emit a behavior of attaining it. The support and encouragement from others in reaching our goals is important to our actual attainment of our goal. If a person sets a goal that is unrealistic, others are less likely to support the person in their behavior of trying to reach their unrealistic goal. According to Thomas Bodenheimer and Margaret Handley, collaborative goal setting can be collaborative, between caregivers and patients. In their article, “Goal-Setting for Behavior Change in Primary Care: An Exploration and status report,” they discuss how people can implement general goals like, losing 10 pounds, exercising more, or reducing stress, or they can be specific like, drinking water instead of soda, and attending a weekly yoga class (2009). As we have learned in class it is more effective to implement specific goals, rather than general goals, because we are more likely to emit the target behavior if it is specific.
Another important aspect of goal-setting is the timeframe used that the person wants to obtain their goal. The individual needs to emit a behavior of deciding if the goal they want to achieve will take a couple days, or a couple years. People need to remember that larger goals take more time to accomplish than smaller goals. It is not unrealistic for a person to emit a behavior of having a large goal, becoming a surgeon for example, but it is unrealistic for that person to think they can accomplish this goal in two years after they graduate high school. According to an article concerning elements of motivation, there are three conditions that must be under control for timeframes to be effective. The first is ‘skills,’ this condition entails knowledge, experience and natural talent. These characteristics are necessary to best achieve the goal in the desired timeframe. The second condition is ‘resources,’ this entails ownership, materials, and money. These tangible objects are usually needed to achieve the desired goal. The third condition is ‘support,’ this condition requires people and organizations that will encourage the individual in their quest to emit a behavior of achieving his/her goal.
A third component of goal-setting that I emitted a behavior of finding interesting was the concept of sub-goals. If a person emits a behavior of wanting to achieve a large goal, like receiving a law degree, the person should break the goal down into smaller goals that can be achieved in a shorter timeframe. For example, the person must emit a behavior of graduating high school, then being accepted into a university, graduating a four-year university with a decent GPA, being accepted into a law school, and finally graduating from law school with a J.D. degree. According to a 2010 article concerning personal development, breaking down larger goals into smaller goals helps people know how to proceed with achieving their goal, especially when the goal seems overwhelming.
http://rds.epiucsf.org/ticr/syllabus/courses/67/2010/05/20/Lecture/readings/Bodenheimer_Handley_PEC.pdf
*I used this site to look up information about implementing general and specific goals.
http://www.motivation-tools.com/elements/setting_goals.htm
*I used this site to find the three conditions needed to achieve the goal in the desired timeframe.
http://www.skillstoolbox.com/personal-skills/goal-setting/goal-setting-process/break-large-goals-into-sub-goals/
*I used this site to look up information concerning sub-goals.
The topic that I chose to research a little more would be John Watson, and his Little Albert Experiment. We emitted a reading behavior about John Watson a while ago in one of our sections of reading, but it is a topic that I find extremely interesting. I think that I agree with Watson in that people can learn to fear something, just like Albert did, and I enjoy things like this that can relate to real life. I have emitted a learning and reading behavior about this topic in other classes as well, but just the basic information. I decided to select this topic to learn more then what I already know about John Watson and his Little Albert Experiment.
The first article I found just gives general information about Watson himself, the Little Albert experiment and the controversy. First, just to give some background about the article; John Watson was a psychologist that studied Behaviorism. Watson and his research assistant (Raynor) decided to do a study about behaviorism and learned behavior. They found a little boy who they called Albert. Albert was none to be born with no fears, and Watson wanted to show that fears could be learned. Watson exposed Albert to many stimuli, such as a rabbit, monkey, dog and rat. Albert did not have a reaction with any of the stimuli, and none of them seemed to bother or scare him. Albert pretty much showed no fear. Watson then put another stimulus with the exposure of the animals. Then, every time Albert was exposed to the rat, he would make a loud noise. Albert started to cry when he heard the noise, so after Watson continually put the loud noise with the Rat, little Albert was now scared of the Rat, and started to cry when he was exposed to the rat. Soon after, Albert was afraid of many other white furry objects. He proposed this as stimulus generalization.
The next article I found after emitting a searching behavior over this topic was talking about if this study by Watson and his assistant was unethical or not. In this article, it explains multiple reasons why this study was unethical, and how many of the things done in the experiment should not have been done, or at least changed. First, the article explains that since Albert is not old enough to consent himself, which means a parent had to consent for him. There is not much information from other articles stating that the mother really consented to what happened in the experiment, and with this, which would make it unethical. Another point the article makes is the matter is distress Albert is going through throughout the study, and after the study. It looks like the experimenters do not even necessarily understand what the distress for Albert will be, and they certainly do not debrief afterwards, or have follow ups after the experiment.
Next, I chose a clip of actual footage of the ‘Little Albert’ experiment. I thought that this would be helpful so we could actually see how they went with the study, and compare it to how psychologists and researchers do experiments today. The video clip shows little Albert first with the monkey. You can see that Albert is not scared of the monkey, the dog, bunny or the white rat. The researchers are practically putting the animals on top of him, but he shows no signs of fear. Watson then uses classical conditioning to try to frighten Albert. Watson put a loud hammering noise with when Albert was exposed to the rat. Then, once Albert was exposed to the white rat, he seemed very distressed and scared. Albert then started to react the same to other animals as well. He was very distressed when after the same animals he was not originally distressed from.
http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/little-albert-experiment.htm
Article containing a lot of information about the Little Albert experiment, why Watson did it, and the controversy that went along with the experiment
http://theamazingworldofpsychiatry.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/whatever-happened-to-little-albert/
Reasons why the Little Albert experiment may be unethical, and why we do research differently today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FKZAYt77ZM
This clip shows the original film of John Watson, his research assistant and baby Albert. I thought finding real footage would help me understand how the experiment went back almost 100 years, compared to studies done today.
The topic I found interesting throughout this course so far is learning more about rule governed behavior. When emitting a reading behavior over this section, I came to realize that almost everything we do is due to ruled governed behaviors. These are behaviors controlled by verbal antecedents. One article describes a rule as being a verbal description of a contingency, the relationship among occasion, behavior, and consequences. It's simply the ABC's.
In the first article I found,rule governed behavior relates to contingency-shaped behaviors. This article states that typical rules are admonitions and instructions led by reinforcement and the more important the reinforcement, the more likely one will be likely to do the behavior. I think this is completely true. Here is one example. My neighbor has a dog and says she'll be gone for a couple of days and wants me to watch over it. I don't really have time to take care of a dog but when she offers to pay me $50 to watch over her dog, I accept the offer. The reinforcement of the $50 shapes my behavior.
Although many rule-governed activities in daily life involve rules presented by other people (teachers, the law, parents) numerous rules are developed by ourselves. We know that when we are hungry, we need to eat. One way is to cook food in the microwave and the consequence is satisfying our hunger. It's a governed rule which we abide by because it's in our nature to eat.
Rules of governed behavior serve at least two major functions that are especially significant in the complex activities of daily life. First, a rule connects one or more discriminative stimuli, the associated activities, and the relevant consequences, regardless of the numerous other events that are likely to occur during the intervals between any two components of the contingency. Second, when a behavior's consequences are temporally far removed from the present, we follow rules that specify the outcomes of our actions.
Since this last article related rule governed behavior to shaping behaviors which we also learned, I found another article which states that rule governed behavior is more efficient than contingency shaped behaviors. Contingency shaped behaviors are learned from direct experience with the consequences of his or her actions, whereas rule governed behaviors are verbal. One great example between the two stated in the article is a broken vending machine. If someone verbally tells you that the vending machine is broken or there's a "out of order" sign on it, you will most likely not put your money in the machine. This is an example of a ruled governed behavior. On the other hand, if you were to just put your money in the machine and find out that it was broken and you can't get your money back, this would be an example of a contingency shaped behavior. This is why ruled governed behaviors are more efficient in every day life. This article also relates rule governed behaviors to business and organizations. Those that have set rules set consequences are the business' and organizations who are more competitive and more successful. I thought this article helped me understand the difference between rule governed behaviors and contingency shaped behaviors.
http://www.bfsr.org/element5.html
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000575191
http://positioningsystems.com/blog.php?entryID=124
The topic I chose to look into further was B.F. Skinner. This fits into the class because Skinner was very important in furthering knowledge on conditioning, specifically operant conditioning. I am interested in Skinner because I really enjoy his research and how he conducted it.
Burrhus Frederick Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 to his father William and mother Grace. He earned his BA in English from Hamilton College in New York. One thing I found to be interesting when looking more into Skinner was that he was an atheist and the school he attended, Hamilton, required daily chapel visits. With his degree he decided to pursue writing and very much enjoyed writing articles for newspapers. After awhile he decided that it was no longer for him and returned to school. He was accepted into Harvard where he received his MA in Psychology and a year later his PhD. After studying there, he moved to Minneapolis where he taught at the University of Minnesota. He met his wife, Yvonne Blue, here and they had two daughters, Julie and Deborah, together. After traveling, he finally settled at Harvard where he stayed until his retirement, doing research and writing (on Psychology). He died on August 18, 1990 from leukemia.
Skinner was very influential on the science of behaviorism. He is well-known for the work he did on operant conditioning and his operant conditioning chamber. This chamber conditioned animals, typically rats and pigeons, to emit the behavior of pressing a lever in response to a stimulus, light or sound, which is presented to the animal. Once the animal emits the behavior, it is reinforced with food or some other reward. It is with this chamber, Skinner learned more about schedules of reinforcement.
Continuous reinforcement is reinforcement in which the animal emitting the behavior is rewarded every time the correct target behavior is being emitted. Intermittent reinforcement is reinforcement in which the animal is rewarded either each time a certain number of times the lever/button was pushed (ratio) or a certain amount of time the lever/button has been pushed (interval). These can also be a set amount or time or number of times pushed (fixed) or can vary each time (interval). Skinner found that the variable ratio was best at eliciting a response from the animal being studied and that the fixed interval was the least effective.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html
I used this site to learn about Skinner’s biography.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
I used this sit to learn more about Skinner and his research, especially the operant conditioning chamber.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedules.htm
I used this site to learn more about schedules of reinforcement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhvaSEJtOV8
This video demonstrates well how Skinner used operant conditioning to train pigeons to elicit a certain behavior in response to a certain stimulus.
After emitting the behavior of reading section 4.3 about the importance of goals, I decided I wanted to learn more about the topic.
To start off the process of learning more, I thought I should start by looking further into the proper way of setting a goal. According to an article called SMART goals, the best way to define a goal is to use the “SMART” system. Each letter in the word “smart” represents a different attribute that goal should have. S=Specific, M= Measurable, A= Attainable, R= Relevant and T=Time Bound. Specific and measurable are pretty self-explanatory, but the others may seem a bit confusing without further explanation. By attainable, the article means you must ask yourself if this goal is realistic. If it’s not realistic, you are just setting yourself up for failure. By relevant, the article is saying that you should ask yourself why you want this goal. And finally, time bound means that you want to set an amount of time to accomplish your goal in. Although these steps sound a lot like the book of ABC’s, I really like the idea of using the word “SMART” to remember the steps.
Now that I have an understanding of the proper way to set a goal, I think it is also important to find why goals are important in everyday life. According to an article on eHow.com, having a goal can be the motivation you need to get out of a rut. Goals can give depressed or stressed out individuals a purpose and meaning to their lives.
Setting goals can also save you time in the long run. According to an article called “5 Benefits of Setting Goals,” you save time when you set goals because you can focus more directly on what needs to be done rather than the extra things that may come up. This article also states that setting goals can make you question yourself less. If you have a direct plan set up for your goal, you won’t be tempted to get off track and you won’t have to question your behaviors.
Sources:
http://www.articlesbase.com/goal-setting-articles/smart-goals-why-is-goal-setting-important-to-your-success-1659275.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_5112963_set-goals-objectives.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Benefits-Of-Setting-Goals&id=401044
After emitting the behavior of reading all the sections throughout the semester the one thing or person I would like to know more about is B.F. Skinner. I am intrigued by him because he came up with classical conditioning and that is the one concept that always comes into my mind when people ask me what psychology is all about. His invention of the Air Bed was a bit crazy but it showed how he was interested in developing and learning more about concepts and behaviors in psychology.
I found a website about the B.F. Skinner Foundation. It shows how his research and discoveries were just the start of antecedents of research today. His concepts and discovery on behavioral sciences are still used today in: pediatrics, rehabilitation, speech therapy, animal training, autism, behavioral pharmacology, behavioral medicine, coaching, counseling, health, and occupational safety. These are things that most of us use in everyday life, so it shows how influential Skinner and his developments are. The foundation wants to create a more humane world by using Skinner’s developments instead of bad techniques.
B.F. Skinner came up with a lot of different behavior theories but one that I found to be interesting is the Educational Theory. It has eight concepts: 1. Theory of Value, which is like teaching a child what a certain object is by holding it up and saying what it is called multiple times. By doing this it reinforces them to recognize the word with the object. 2. Theory of Knowledge, which is using machines or computer sciences to confirm their theories. 3. Theory of Learning, which is changing our behaviors. We must learn that behaviors grow and develop to display different consequences. 5. Theory of Transmission, this is said to be thought of as the concept that teaching is more than telling. Sometimes we have to look back to cues to fully understand and be able to describe what we need to. 6. Theory of Society, this is the idea that people are positively reinforced as a consequence of doing useful or interesting things. 7. Theory of Opportunity, tells us that Skinner does not enjoy those who think metaphorically. 8. Theory of Consensus, explains that our minds come up with myths and that can very powerfully influence us.
The last article I found interesting was a little biography on Skinner. His actual name is Burrhus Frederic…haha! That’s one heck of a name! He was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. He started off wanting to be a writer, but that didn’t work out so he applied and got into Harvard’s psychology graduate program. He studied with rats using some of the research done by Watson and Pavlov. But Skinner was more concerned with the consequences of behaviors. He published a book on verbal behavior and tried to use operant conditioning to learn languages. He lived a very interesting life that was filled with ideas and research that are still used today by psychology students across the world.
Skinner was such an influential person in psychology, and I have really enjoyed learning more about him and how he has shaped my learning throughout high school and college.
http://www.bfskinner.org/BFSkinner/Home.html
Article on Skinners Foundation and how his findings are still used today.
http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Skinner.html
Article that explains his Educational Theory.
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/cogrev_skinner.htm
Article that shows that the “core to all of behaviorism is the assumption that human and animal behaviors are determined by learning and reinforcement”.
I found the topic of token economies to be very interesting and pleasurable to me so I decided to emit a researching behavior to discover more about this intriguing topic. We talked about this topic at the beginning of the week in our online reading. I’m interested in this topic because it is everywhere in our society, whether we see it or not. First off, we all learned that a token economy is a system of behavior where an individual receives types of tokens to reward or reinforce certain target behaviors. And usually once these tokens build up, there is a larger reward at the end, which may or may not be determined previously.
I read an article on this subject written by Jason M. Wallin. His overall studies include teaching children who have autism. This article just went more in to detail about token economies and different examples that can go along with them. The article went into defining the actual goals of a token economy, at least in terms of children with autism. These goals include the increased ability to delay gratification, increased sense of time, lessened satiation, increased teaching rate, more natural reinforcement, and increased selection of reinforcers. The first example they used for autistic children was a very simple token system. A child must get six answers correct before that child can obtain a reinforcer. The reinforcement used was a “tickle” in this case. This just shows that token economies do not have to be complex or hard to invent, they can be very simple with very simple rewards. The child can even pick the reward he or she would like to have at the end of this token economy, which would make the reward seem even greater to the child. If the reinforcement was not something pleasurable to the child, he or she would not bother trying to get reinforced at all. The article also goes on to talk about other examples for children with autism as well. However, they all have the same basic function. Throughout these examples, however, it’s interesting to me that these children don’t even notice that they are learning on the way. The learning process isn’t aversive to them because they don’t realize this is taking place. I believe that is one of the greatest aspects of token economies. The system can take place without the participant even realizing fully what is happening.
http://www.polyxo.com/visualsupport/tokeneconomies.html
I found a really cheesy video about token economies on youtube. The quality is kind of poor, but it really played out token economies well. In the video, the girl is sleeping, and when she wakes up she doesn’t make her bed. The man, who I assume is supposed to be playing her father, tells her to make her bed. When she says no, he insists that if she doesn’t, she will get no tokens. He makes sure to explain what will happen when she gets the tokens and that she can redeem them when she would like. The next day, the girl wakes up, makes her bed, and therefore receives a token. After a week or so of doing this, she goes to the “father” and redeems her tokens for the ultimate reward of a puppy. Since the girl is used to waking up and making her bed from the reward system, after several weeks, she does so automatically, even though she didn’t receive the reward later on in life. I thought this video showed exactly what a token economy can accomplish. Giving the girl a big reward every single day would be very tiresome and you would eventually run out of rewards to give. She might also get satiated very quickly with getting so many rewards. That’s why I believe a token economy works so well. Instead of getting several rewards, you receive the tokens which can turn in to a very large reward after long periods of time. If the girl were to receive a puppy every day, she’d have way too many puppies and would become satiated very quickly. Thus, token economies are a great way to spread out the rewards while modifying the target behavior or behaviors along the way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TLasZgaONs
As I was reading some of the articles online, I noticed that they were using prisoners as examples of a token economy. I don’t know a lot of information about prisons or how things occur in the system, so I decided to emit a researching behavior of token economies within criminal institutions. In the first article listed below, it explained that prisoners may get tokens for doing a good behavior or keeping a clean record for a certain amount of time. After a while they may exchange these tokens for things like sweets, yard time, pop, or even a home visit. There was a big controversy over this in the first article, stating that prisoners may be allowed too much and are living too much of a life of “luxury.” I kind of agree with this article because I don’t believe prisoners should be rewarded for the things that they should already be doing. I believe that it makes things run more smoothly in the prison, but I don’t think it will have a long lasting effect outside of the prison walls if they are ever to be released. I also found another article relating to prisoners and token economies. This information comes from the second URL listed below. In this article, it talks about a prison in Oregon using “gadget incentives” to help rehabilitate prisoners. Prisoners earn money (the token in this case) by doing jobs while they are in jail. If a prisoner has a clean record for a full 6 months they are allowed to buy a TV, and if they have a clean record for 18 months (another type of token), they are allowed to buy a video game console. In the end, the article states that statistics show a great improvement in the behavior of these prisoners, insinuating that this technique of a type of token economy actually does work. I found this to be very interesting!
http://emilyjones.eu/2008/01/16/token-economy-prisoners-living-the-life-of-luxury/
http://www.revleft.com/vb/token-economy-oregon-t43170/index.html
Overall, token economies seem to be a great way to modify behavior without overusing reinforcements and rewards. I found it very interesting that it can work in such a wide variety of ways for such a diverse population. It works on children in elementary and middle schools including those with autism, it can work on high school students as well as college students, it works with elderly adults, and it can even work on prisoners who seem to be the most reluctant to behavior modification. In conclusion, a token economy system is an excellent way to modify behavior of all kinds and can be very simple.
I have chosen to emit the behavior of further researching rule governed behavior. Rule governed behavior is defined in the text as a behavior which is maintained via the obligation of maintaining order where the antecedent is verbal. Rule governed behaviors can result from established norms, morals, or ethical standards or from rules to which an organism has adhered throughout its history. This topic was interesting to me because many of our everyday actions are predetermined by their positive or aversive consequences that we are familiar with. How did we become with these norms? It is fascinating to me which is why I chose to look further into this subject matter. Some behaviors are emitted by individuals solely based on socialization procedures within a given cultures, for example, avoiding sexual relationships with individuals within the same family. This is a concept that is well understood in the United States, but it is not reinforced in the same manner across the world.
Some behavior is “verbally-mediated”. This is also known as rule-governed behavior. One example of how this behavior is demonstrated throughout daily life is if you buy and use a “magic cream”(behaviors) now (the occasion), you will get rid of cellulite by next summer and you will look and feel better about yourself (the consequence). This is a perfect example of quackery. However, many people give into these ideas with hopes of an easy way out. This idea is also common among diet pill users.
There are times when rule governed behavior may be indirect. For example, if your significant other is late for dinner and they don’t inform you beforehand. By asking them to emit the behavior of calling when they are going to be late as reinforcement to your level of satisfaction to the relationship may be more of a “hint” than a direct behavior. If your significant other “really appreciates” you, they will remember to let you know if they are running late. This rule governed behavior is somewhat indirect in respect to the fact that there is not a clear right or wrong answer, just desirable or aversive consequence.
http://www.bfsr.org/element5.html - this site provided helpful examples towards rule-governed behavior
http://contextualpsychology.org/rule_governed_behavior - gave more background on the history of rule governed behavior
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1338855/ - provided a case study relating to rule-governed behavior
Emitting the behavior of reading Section 5.5 (focusing on the Premack Principle) – Selecting a reinforcer elicited a pleasurable response. It was very interesting to me. Mainly because it is such a great way to show that people have different styles that are pleasurable to them, and some are aversive. This is why you should fit the reinforce to the specific person.
The Premack Principle basically says people like different things, associated with low and high frequency behaviors. Or officially, it “states simply that a more probable behavior will reinforce less probable behaviors” (ISU). This is especially important in schools. Many children find certain target behaviors reinforcing, some find them as punishing.
This can work with other things though.
In the YouTube video below, using his dog, the owner explains that you can’t emit behavior X (pleasurable & high frequency), until he emits behavior Y (aversive & low frequency). When the dog responded to the command (low frequency), he got the treat (high frequency).
In a more casual sense, this can be thought of as the rule everyone seems to emit. You must eat your meal before dessert. Dessert is high probability, and the meal is low probability. Most people would probably emit the behavior of eating the dessert more often than the meal.
In order to understand this principle, I emitted the behavior of researching the background of this principle. The study was done by David Premack. He used monkeys for his experiment, and applied the predictive behaviors to humans. His research elicited the idea that “suggests that if a person wants to perform a given activity, the person will perform a less desirable activity to get at the more desirable activity”.
Now this is used in schools, with animals, and even when we don’t know it’s happening. IN the chapter, the example was the chart with the student’s activities. Therefore, it was shown that some things would be reinforcers, and some would be activities to be able to do the reinforcing activity.
http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/311content/effective/animalhuman.html
This website is the “ISU” quote. It basically gave an overview of the principle, and explained it in a clear way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcB1zttZmdY
This video related the principle to animals emitting these behaviors.
http://www.enotes.com/topic/Premack's_principle
This website gave a history on the principle, and how it came to be.
I decided to emit the behavior of searching for information on successive approximation. Reading about it in “Don’t Shoot the Dog” elicited an interested response in the exact definition and use of successive approximation. In “Don’t Shoot the Dog,” successive approximation is called shaping; and I found that to be true in my searches as well. According to Wikipedia, successive approximation is “a conditioning procedure used primarily in the experimental analysis of behavior.” They define the procedure as “the form of an existing response [that] is gradually changed across successive trials towards a desired target behavior by rewarding exact segments of behavior.” In English, that basically means that shaping takes an existing response and gradually tries to change to the target behavior by using reinforcement. While this technique can be elicited in animals such as dogs, cats, dolphins, etc., it can also be used for humans as well. Emitting the searching behavior, I found a website that breaks successive approximations down into 5 steps. The 1st step is to make sure the target behavior can be done realistically both biologically and cognitively (for example, a baby can’t be shaped into winning Super Mario Bros. and a dog can’t be shaped into emitting a speaking English behavior). 2nd, one must specify both the beginning behavior and the target behavior. 3rd, decide which small steps to take to get from the beginning behavior to the target behavior. 4th, evaluate the shaping and modify the steps if too large or too small. Finally, the reinforcers used should be small to avoid satiation. I was able to emit a finding behavior for how this can be used with humans, and I found that children who have speech apraxia respond very well to successive approximation. The target behavior is words; the beginning behavior is sounds (such as “wawa” for “water”). Typically the reinforcer is juice or some kind of small treat (e.g. animal cracker) and verbal praise. While I wasn’t able to emit a finding behavior for successive approximation for things such as phobias, I believe that such use of successive approximation would be beneficial; and in fact, the therapy used for people with phobias does bear a similarity to successive approximation. Finally, I wanted to emit the behavior of seeing successive approximation in action. In the YouTube video I found, a woman used successive approximation to teach a dog to elicit a touch an orange cone behavior. At first, the dog got a treat for not running in a circle. Next, the dog got a treat for standing by the cone. Finally, the dog got a treat by touching its nose to the cone. Here are my sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jbyuOfLKxE: shows the dog
http://www.apraxia-kids.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=chKMI0PIIsE&b=788447&ct=464447: talks about children with speech apraxia and how shaping can help
http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch05_conditioning/more_about_shaping.html: 5 steps in shaping a behavior
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaping_(psychology): general definition for shaping
After emitting the behavior of reading section 5.5, I was very interested in the Premack Principle and wanted to learn more. Basically the Premack Principle is concept that psychologist David Premack developed after he discovered that he could get humans and animals to emit a behavior, for the opportunity to do something they found pleasurable. He found that people will engage in a low frequency behavior, ones they would not ordinarily emit, for the opportunity to engage in a high frequency behavior, something they normally enjoy doing. The book explains that our moms knew this all along and often times would manipulate our behaviors as children by using this principle but I was curious in finding more examples.
The first source I found was a YouTube video produced by a few female students. In the beginning of the video a young lady explains the basic concepts behind Premack’s Principle much like the book. After the explanation they acted out an example of the principle being used. In the example, they acted out the roles of three students and a teacher. The teacher says that if they complete their assignment that they will be allowed to play with play dough. The first two students willingly emit the behavior of doing their assignment very quickly so that they can emit the behavior of something they enjoy like playing with the play dough. The third student takes a little longer but eventually feels left out and finishes her assignment and is able to enjoy the reinforcement with her former classmates.
The next source that I found was an online article about the Premack Principle on dogsters.com on training your dog. This article states that the Premack Principle asserts that more probable behaviors can be used to reinforce less probable behaviors (just as did the book). In this article in particular it talked about how this essentially means that the dog owner can get the dog to emit behaviors that they want them to by giving them what they want. This article then gave another great example that many of us could probably relate to. It was talking about a professor and how he used the Premack Principle on himself. He realized that pleasurable behaviors emitted by him regularly were things such as taking a nap or eating a snack. He then noticed that checking his email was as well a frequent behavior emitted by him but that it elicited an aversive reaction for him. The professor however checks his email frequently so that when he is finished with that he is about to do more pleasurable tasks like taking a nap.
The final source I found was another online article; this one was titled “Stop Procrastinating! Use the Premack Principle”. In this article, the main point was to help people better themselves by stopping the behavior of procrastinating. It began talking about how people procrastinate work that they do not want to emit the behavior of doing. The article then suggested a solution of emitting the behavior of using the Premack Principle. This article really emphasized the idea that something that you really like doing can make the aversive tasks in your life much more pleasant if you emit the pleasant behavior after the aversive behavior. The article then mentioned that sometimes this is called Grandma’s Rule, because your grandmother told you to eat your spinach first and then you can have your dessert. I thought this was a new and clever way to put a spin on the principle while also bettering your individual lifestyle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzx047rmO_o This is a YouTube video produced by students explaining and then demonstrating the Premack Principle.
http://blogs.dogster.com/dog-training/the-premack-principle/2010/09/ This was the online article from dogsters.com that gave 2 great examples of real life situations using the Premack Principle.
http://gettingstronger.org/2010/12/stop-procrastinating-use-the-premack-principle/ This was an online article from gettingstronger.org. It talked about how to use the Premack Principle to stop emitting the behavior of procrastinating.
I have emitted the behavior of finding sources dealing with token economies. I choice this topic because it is one of the more recent things we have discussed in the class, and I think this topic brings together most of the other topics discussed in this course.
The first source that I have found on token economies is a video clip from YouTube. This clip is titled, Basic Token Economy. In the video, a mom is trying to elicit a specific target behavior from her daughter. The target behavior is to focus on her homework and not get off topic. The token economy elicited by the mother is a bit different form what I’ve seen before. Instead of giving tokens, the daughter is given a specific amount of tokens at the beginning of the week. However, every time the mom has to prompt her daughter to stay on task, the daughter loses a point. At the end of the week they count up how many points she has left. In this video the daughter has 7 points left however, 7 points is insufficient to receive the backup reinforcer, which in this case is renting a video game. The backup reinforcer and the amount of tokens needed to receive this reward were predetermined at the beginning of the week.
The second source I emitted the behavior of reading was from ENotes.com. In this article on token economies I mostly focused my attention on the disadvantages it mentioned. According to this article, token economies create the most disadvantages when implemented in prisons, a school, or psychiatric hospitals. Their reason for there being a disadvantage is that when you leave that institution, the target behaviors will no longer be reinforced in their natural environment. This can lead individuals to associate and elicit desired behaviors only with the institution in which it was implemented.
The last source I will use to reinforce my understanding of token economies is an article from Behavioradvisor.com. What I learned in this article is that there is a strong connection between token economies and our own national economic system. We work for money, which in itself does not have any value. The value in receiving money is that you can exchange it for secondary or backup reinforcers which can be basically anything depending on how many tokens, or how much money you have. This association may seem obvious to some but this article really elicited me to think about it a little bit more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlRQ3XHmFJo&feature=related Video Clip of a basic example of a token economy used between a mother and daughter.
http://www.enotes.com/topic/Token_economy In this article I focused on the disadvantages brought up by the token economy
http://www.behavioradvisor.com/Tokens.html This article made the association between token economies and our own national economic system.
The topic that elicitated the most interest to me was rule governed behavior. I find this interesting because while learning about this I found that pretty much every behavior that we emit is rule goverened.
Rules are verbal descriptions of contingencies. They basically state the relationship between the occasion, the behavior, and the possible consequences. These rules can be made by other people (laws, parents, teachers...) or by oneself. Most of these rules are made my experiences or by personal beliefs and are followed because of reinforcement or to aviod punishment. Some rules though, however, are not always followed if the reinforcement doesn't seem enough or if the behavior may not be punished depending on the antecedent. For instance the drinking age is 21, but for many college students if there is a low risk of getting caught they emit this behavior anyways. Also eating is a rule goverened behavior (when you get hungry you eat) but for some peopl who are on diets or anerexic they don't always follow this rule and choose not to reinforce themselves by eating.
Rule governed behavior has a lot of positive outcomes. For instance you can learn directly or indirectly, you do not need to actually experience the consequence. For expamle, if there is a sign on the pop machine saying that it is out of order, you do not need to waste a dollar to learn that the machine is no longer working. These rule goverened behaviors often are very helpful in keeping order in our everyday lives.
http://www.bfsr.org/element5.html Talks about what rule governed behavior is and gives examples
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000575191 Talks about who makes the rules who makes the rules why they make them.
http://positioningsystems.com/blog.php?entryID=124 Talks about why rule governed behavior is useful
The topic that I would like to examine further is rule governed behavior. I was drawn to this for a few reasons, including discussions I have had in several other classes of mine. The main topic of discussion in my other classes has involved examining the Milgram experiments. For those unfamiliar with what this is I will explain. Post WWII the world was appalled at how almost the entire German population had been convinced by extremists, the Nazi party, to carry out such evil acts. Much of the world simply dismissed it as a cultural problem that was specific to the Germans and that their culture would never cave to the wills of extremists. However, nobody had examined this so a man named Stanley Milgram sought to examine why German soldiers would carry out war atrocities. He set up an experiment with a ‘teacher’ and a ‘student’ which can be viewed in the following link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIzju84v24 What he discovered is that the 2/3 of the ‘teachers’ would administer the lethal amount of shock to the ‘students’ simply because of the authority figures around them. This is an immensely troubling finding. What this suggests to us is that even if we like to think of ourselves as moral beings, for most of us there are certain situations when we would emit a rule governed behavior that is totally amoral. What this tells us is that we much have GREAT confidence in those that we place over us to make our rules and regulations. For example, in Germany during WWII it would have been against the rules to harbor or assist enemies of the state, i.e. Jews, Gypsies, Mentally Ill, and many others. Therefore, to follow the rules you would emit the behavior of turning them over to the state or even ‘dealing’ with them yourselves. One modern day example where the established rules are very twisted and amoral is in the show Jackass. In the following clips you can see all these guys doing horrible things to one another and themselves. Thankfully this is only a limited segment of the population that follows these amoral rules and hopefully we never get to this depraved point in general society. However, it is strangely amusing to watch other people do this to each other, haha. http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=23bzrjmk_Bk Because of this startling scientific evidence of the depravity of humanity I think it is very clear that we need to establish basic guidelines that are for the good of everyone. However, this often does not happen because only those in power and with authority write the laws and thus often take advantage of the poor and the weak. Personally, this is just one example of evidence for humanities need for God. God gave us the 10 commandments which apply to rich, poor, wealthy, powerful, and everyone in between. Honestly, I do not believe that we are capable of making the moral choice apart from these. We can always justify theft, murder, and disobedience in some contrived situation, but these rules are absolute. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20&version=NIV Therefore, rule governed behavior is a dangerous principle unless we have a perfect set of laws given to us by someone who is perfect.
The above material helps to raise awareness for the capabilities of rule governed behavior. In everyday society, if we have a good set of rules we would do well to adhere to them while keeping a clear connection with our conscious to continuously check the morality of the rules we are adhering to.
I’ve always been interested in goal setting behaviors…and after emitting a reading behavior of Section 4.3 I have a better understanding of the importance of goal setting. I have set plenty of goals in my lifetime, from sports, financially, personal growth, stopping aversive behaviors, starting beneficial behaviors, etc. The things that I didn’t know was how to set the appropriate goal(s) and have some adaptability to the plan(s) that would help me achieve my goal(s). That is what section 4.3 is about---be realistic when setting your goals, have a clear timeframe in which you want to achieve your goal, break down your large goal into smaller sub-goals, make the goal achievable, be realistic in the ability to achieve your goal, make the goal manageable (don’t make it to be too far out of the realm of your everyday life), is your goal going to be disruptive to your life now or later?....etc. I’ve been to some seminars and taken some classes on “how to be more successful” and “how to better yourself”, and I have benefited somewhat from these but, the thing that I didn’t know was how simple it is to set your goal and follow through with it by applying some simple strategies---and some reinforcement as well.
There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of sites, classes, seminars, and books that examine goals and the like….and they all seem to say the same things….set your goal and stick to it. I think we can all agree the best way to achieve your goal is just that. I found a few sites that explain the steps in setting your goals, most of what we have read is in line with what others belief as well—“Setting goals can give you greater clarity and focus right now.” “Psychological studies on the highest achieving men and women demonstrate that people with clear, specific goals immediately and by default, become psychologically Goal Oriented individuals.” And although I don’t agree with this whole-heartily: “For a business or private person, setting goals is very important. It helps them to identify plans for their future and allows them to create a plan for realizing their dreams. The task of goal setting is not as simple as it might seem.” (This is the part that I don’t agree with) I think setting your goals is the easy part---following through with your goal setting behavior is the hard part.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/08/how-to-set-goals-you-will-actually-achieve/
The site offers the insight to not set your goals to far into the future---set goals that you can achieve in the near future; they tend to be more reasonable and obtainable.
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/management/a/gotgoalsps_2.htm
This site gives another look at the psychology of setting goals---not the steps but more so the outlook on setting goals: “Those without goals, more often than not, find themselves directionless relying mostly on things like luck”. Who wants to rely on luck?
http://www.squidoo.com/Effective-Goal-Setting-tips
I looked at a lot of sites that gave steps to setting goals. Some of the sites gave 3 steps, others gave 10----this one gave 5 and it is very close to what we have discussed in class as well.
After emitting the behavior of reading through the book for behavior modification I found I am interested in Self Directed behavior. Self Directed behavior is what we are currently working on in our own lives. My own self directed behavior is to try and eat healthier, increase my water consumption and decrease my sweet consumption. This topic interests me because many people try and use self directed behavior in their everyday lives without really understanding what they are doing. Being a behavior modification student and a psychology major I believe i can use this concept in my own life more effectively than the common public.
One of my findings that kept coming up during my search was the amount of self help books referring to self directed behaviors. I have not had a chance to look at one of these books but more than half my results were for these books. This can be good or bad because if the book clearly explains the concept the people may be able to modify their behavior or is may hurt them if the information is incorrect.
http://selfdirectedbehavior.bestbuymostoreonsale.com/
I also found a website telling parents how to induce self directed behavior in their toddlers. I found this unrealistic because I believe that one cannot use this concept without really understanding what it is about. This means that toddlers should not be able to understand how to modify their behaviors. Not to mention toddlers are just beginning to learn their behaviors and what they should and should not do.
http://www.babyparentingcoach.com/2009/06/creating-self-directed-behavior-in-your-toddler
The final website i researched was a paper on the effects of self directed behavior on indigenous populations. They talked about how modeling could been seen as a precursor to the self directed behavior.
http://www.bridgingworlds.org/modelsandmetrics/Luning_paper.pdf
One of the most interesting topics we have discussed and read in the ABC’s textbook is section 5.2 that covers the behavior modification term of rule governed behaviors. A rule governed behavior is the result from establishing norms, morals, or ethical standards or from rules to which an organism has adhered throughout its history. I really thought this section was very interesting because many of my daily activities and behaviors have to do with rule governed behaviors. There were many examples listed in the section that I found was easy to understand and that some rule governed behaviors may or may not be emitted depending on a person. I found three different websites that showed rule governed behavior and one example that showed going against rule governed behavior. However, each one of these vary from culture to culture.
The first website I looked at describes why the Jewish community does not eat pork. I am very familiar with this because I am a Messianic Jew and I have not ate pork for many years. In the Jewish religion, this is our rule governed behavior. Not only is not eating pork a rule governed behavior, but also celebrating the jewish holidays and traditions. These rules are norms for the Jewish people and set standards in their daily behaviors and long term behaviors. This rule govern behavior is described in section 5.2.
http://theflyfishingrabbi.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-do-jews-not-eat-pork.html
The second website I found was about a mother talking with her young daughter about sexual intercourse. The mother found out that her 8th grade daughter wanted to have sexual relations with her boyfriend. This story highlights going AGAINST rule governed behaviors because in the United States, and in many religious and ethical reasons people do not believe in sex at this young of age. However, one must remember that this could also be a rule governed behavior in other cultures and countries. Moreover, in the United States this is frowned upon and would be going against the U.S. morals. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/teens-and-sex_n_1092697.html
The final video shows a basic day to day rule governed behavior of stopping at a stop sign held by a construction worker. This video also shows that it is a rule governed behavior because the real construction worker left and they put up a fake dummy holding the stop sign and the drivers still waited and stopped for a long time. The rule of stopping at a stop sign is a moral and logical rule governed behavior.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbt2qNgzKb4
The topic I chose for this blog is the token economy. A token economy is basically when you receive “tokens” for emitting a target behavior and you can use these tokens to get a reward that you find appealing. This is a good example of positive reinforcement. We just recently learned about this and I chose this because it is still fresh in my mind and I also think that token economies can be very useful when trying to achieve a target behavior.
The first source I found was a YouTube video that is really really cheesy, but it shows you how a token economy works. This video is one that a psychology student made for a project. It gives an example of a girl getting a token every time she emits the behavior of making her bed which is a behavior that she finds aversive. After some conditioning she begins making her bed in order to receive the token and after she has five tokens she can turn them in and receive a dog as a form of positive reinforcement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TLasZgaONs
The second video I found is about a teacher who uses tokens in teaching her students with autism how to emit positive behaviors. She has sheets that they attach the token to so that they keep track of how they are doing. I assume that they get a token whenever they emit a positive behavior however the video really does not say. She does show the sheets and the tokens and explains that when they get the sheet filled they are reinforced with a fun toy. I think that this is a good example of how useful a token economy can be in different situations. This is a really useful tool with the children with autism because they have a way to track their behaviors so that they know if they are doing well or not. This is really useful for any child not just a child with autism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxMKa_LNgQQ&feature=related
The third video I found on You Tube was another project some people did about using a token economy to get someone to emit the behavior of eating their vegetables. In the video there was a mom and a son and the son did not want to eat vegetables. So the mom made a deal with him that every time he ate his vegetables he would get a token that he could save and collect and then later turn in for some candy or ice cream. The son agreed and eventually realized that eating his vegetables was not so bad. Now this is a hypothetical video with people acting, but it does give a good example of how a token economy works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIC4V4Hin2s
I think that token economies can be very helpful not only with children, but also with adults. We all have token economies that we may not even realize we have. For example any of us who have punch cards for the union or the 23rd st market are using token economies. I do think that this can be a great tool when I have kids. I think that it helps them realize what behaviors to emit or more which behaviors the parent would like them to emit, but it also gives them a positive reinforcer which I think is a good thing.
After emitting a reading behavior about token economies, I was very interested to found out more information about them. A token economy is a way for teachers or bosses to implement behavior modification by positively rewarding desirable behavior with “tokens”. These tokens can range from fake money to punch cards. In the end, the individuals that are involved are able to trade in their “tokens” for prizes. I think this is a very reliable way of modifying behavior and is successful in eliciting target behaviors from people.
One website I found that was related to a token economy was a website that was geared toward children with autism. This website explained that token economies are “one type of secondary (conditioned) reinforcement”. This is true because the tokens are generally not of any significant value. However, once they are given value they become very reinforcing. This website also gave a list of reasons and ways that token economies can be used. The list included: increasing ability to delay gratification, lessened satiation, increased teaching rate, and more natural reinforcement.
After I emitted the behavior of searching for information on token economies, I came across a follow-up study on token economies and how it is used for treatment. In summary, this research was done on individual’s in a hospital. The goal of this study was to find out if using a token economy could assist the individuals in preparing them for effective community living and also decreasing the amount of days spent in a hospital. This study showed a positive increase for those individuals in the experimental group. In essence, the study elicited the belief that token economies enhanced treatment techniques for patients preparing for community living. I really liked this article because it proves that not only can token economies be helpful in kindergarten classrooms, but they can also help people with real life problems and solutions.
On the website www.behavioradvisor.com I was able to emit a reading behavior and learn how to effectively use a token economy. This website stresses the importance of having a very well planned out token economy. It explains that it is vital to state the desired behaviors clearly and try to phrase them in a positive way. Another tip from this website is to make sure the tokens have value. If a student’s emits a target behavior, and then is positively reinforced with a token with little value, the behavior will actually not be reinforced very well. Another important tip this website explains is to periodically modify the system to wean the students from the token economy. If a students it rewarded every time they raise their hand they will eventually experience extinction which will not elicit a positive behavioral modification in the student.
http://www.polyxo.com/visualsupport/tokeneconomies.html
*Showed how a token economy can be effective in teaching children with autism
http://psycnet.apa.org.proxy.lib.uni.edu/journals/ccp/47/3/625.pdf
*A study conducted that proves token economies are successful in preparing hospital patients for community living
http://www.behavioradvisor.com/Tokens.html
*Gave tips on how to successfully plan and run a token economy
After emitting a behavior of reading about reinforcement I decided to look up other examples of reinforcement. After emitting a searching behavior I found a website about the importance of training dogs using positive reinforcement. It explains that treats and praise should be used as reinforcers when you are teaching your dog basic commands. This section in our readings also talked about primary and secondary reinforcers, which also come into play when teaching your dog tricks. The primary reinforcer used would be some type of food, usually dog treats. This website also talks about being consistent when using positive reinforcement, and to not stop using the reinforcer, in this case treats too quickly. However, after a while the dog will do the behavior whenever it hears the command, and you can stop using treats as a reinforcer to get them to do the trick every single time.
After emitting a searching behavior I also found a youtube clip about positive reinforcement. In this video from an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Leonard positively reinforces Penny every time she emits a behavior Leonard finds desirable. When she offers to help pick up Leonard reinforces her with a piece of chocolate. He also reinforces her when she quits talking with a piece of chocolate. Later on she starts talking again, but recognizes she is talking and quits so Leonard gives her another piece of chocolate. This video clip is related to the chapter because Leonard is continuously reinforcing Penny with chocolate (adding something) to increase the likelihood of her doing desirable behaviors.
After emitting a searching behavior I also found another video clip on youtube that demonstrates positive reinforcement. This clip is from Family Guy. In it Stewie relentlessly emits a calling behavior to his mom, Lois. He calls her by numerous different names, which eventually elicits an angry response from her. This video clip is related to the chapter because Stewie is adding something (name calling) to increase the likelihood of his mother emitting an answering behavior.
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/dogs/tips/dog_training_positive_reinforcement.html
-positive reinforcement and primary reinforcer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA96Fba-WHk
-positive reinforcement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNkp4QF3we8&feature=related
-positive reinforcement
After emitting a reading behavior of the topical blog this week, I decided to do a little more research on John B. Watson and the experiments he conducted. We learned about him in section 3.4 and it elicited me to want to learn more about him. Watson is most known for the behaviorist manifesto, the Little Albert Study, and his later career in advertising. I am interested in his work because of the ethical lines he crossed and the results of the Little Albert Study. In research methods, we are discussing ethics so that topic is fresh in my mind. After examining the Little Albert Study further, it is obvious Watson broke many of today’s ethical guidelines.
I found a very informative site that gave an overview of Watson himself. He grew up in South Carolina and his mother was religious while his father was not. He was closer to his father who left when Watson was 13. His father was unfaithful to his mother and this impacted the rest of his life greatly. He was very rebellious and violent and had a very poor relationship with his mother. He was also rumored to have a severe drinking problem throughout the first parts of his life. At the age of 16, Watson began his time at Furman University. While Watson was attending Furman University, a professor helped him to get his life back on track. He eventually got his doctorate and was employed by Johns Hopkins University as an associate professor. Watson wrote his dissertation about the relationship between myelinization in the brain and a rat’s learning ability and discovered there is no relationship between the two. While he was at Johns Hopkins, he had an affair with his assistant and because of this scandal, he was asked to resign from his position at the university. This led him to taking a job with an advertising agency where he became a very successful executive within the company.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm
The Little Albert experiment is the study Watson is most well-known for in his career. This involved Watson using a child named Albert in an experiment. Albert was healthy, and very well-developed. He also was notably unemotional and was frightened by little. Watson wanted to test learned behavior and Watson chose Albert to demonstrate the ability for people to learn the emotion of fear. When Watson exposed Albert to a variety of stimuli and “at no time did this infant ever show fear in any situation.” This was true until loud sounds were added to the experiment. Watson and his assistant pounded on steel with a hammer and this is the first thing to make Albert cry. After this was discovered, Watson presented a white rat to Albert and as he was going to touch the animal, the loud noises were also presented. Albert was again startled and eventually was scared whenever he saw a rat. Due to this, Watson stated he could take any twelve infants and he would be able to train them in any way he pleased.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm
Lastly, I wanted to learn more about the ethical issues in the Little Albert experiment. I thought by viewing the experiment, it could give me a better idea of what actually happened in the laboratory. After I watched the video, and listened to the narrator, I actually felt bad for Little Albert. He was clearly very frightened when the white rat and the rabbit were placed in front of him. I am glad experiments cannot be conducted in this manner anymore. I understand Watson wanted to conduct a study to test his hypothesis, but it was very unethical. Albert is clearly too young to consent to the experiment. He was also not desensitized after the experiment. This could have lasting effects on the rest of his life and no experiment is worth that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FKZAYt77ZM
One of the thing that I found most interesting that we have covered in class would have been conditioned aversive signals. The reason I found this most interesting was how it worked in animals and how you can give a dog a signal to stop the behavior before it gets a punishment.
An example we learned of how this would work would be if you yelled "No!" when a dog was doing something aversive, then pause, then pull on the choke collar the dog was wearing. This will in turn condition the dog that when it hears the word "No!" it will change its behavior or it will experience an aversive punishment. The reason this works is because if you yell "No!" while you are choking the dog the dog will not understand the behavior it is emitting is wrong. So if you yell "No!", pause, and then do the punishment it will be easier for the dog to identify what is happening before the punishment and in turn try to avoid that behavior when it hears the word "No!".
http://www.papagalibg.com/FilesStore/karen_pryor_-_don_t_shoot_the_dog.pdf
An example of this would be how animals can accidentally be trained from accidental aversive behaiors emitted by us.
http://whitney05.hubpages.com/hub/Training-Signals
The next link would be an example of how aversive training signals can be used in not only animals but in humans as well, specifically infants.
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~psych200/unit3/34.htm
After emitting a behavior of thinking back about the topics we have covered so far, I decided I was most interested in the topic of self-directed behavior. I find self-directed behavior interesting because almost every person has something they want to change about themselves, and self-directed behavior is the way to do it. Self-directed behavior involves applying reinforcers to yourself along the path of your changing behavior. We have talked about reinforcement all throughout the semester, so self-directed behavior directly ties into what we have been discussing.
The first article I found was about self-directed behavior in toddlers. Although the parents or guardians make the majority of the decisions in a toddler’s life, the child does have some choices. Some examples of this could be what the child wants to eat for lunch, what clothes they want to wear for the day, or as the article states, how dark/light they want the room when they go to bed. Having a child make even these smallest decisions can help the child feel more independent and helps them to become more involved. The child will learn skills that are very valuable, and by learning a very broad form of self-directed behavior, the child will have a head start for when they are older.
The second article I found is about using self-directed behavior to cope with panic attacks. Since the purpose of self-modification is to change or manage an unwanted behavior, using self-directed behavior to get over panic attacks is a very good idea. The article states the steps to take such as setting a realistic goal, tracking your progress, and so on. I think this article is helpful because it shows that you can apply self-directed behavior to almost anything that you wish to change in your life (within reason).
The third article I found is about supporting and facilitating self-directed learning. This website really goes in-depth to discuss how self-directed behavior works, and how often people use it. From what I have seen in my life, people use self-directed behavior all the time without even realizing it, or putting a name to it. Some examples of this would be when people want to lose weight, or they want to save more money each week, or simply finish all their homework on time. The article states that 70% of adult learning takes place through self-directed learning, which leads me to believe that it is extremely important and helpful for people to know how self-directed behavior works. The more people know about how to change a behavior, the more likely they are to engage in trying to change it. Also, they are more likely to succeed if they follow the proper steps to doing so.
http://www.babyparentingcoach.com/2009/06/creating-self-directed-behavior-in-your-toddler
http://panicdisorder.about.com/od/livingwithpd/a/Self-Modificati.htm
http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/89dig.htm
I have found that learning about token economies has been very interesting. A token economy is a system of individual reinforcement of target behaviors in which tokens are administered and exhanged later for back up reinforcers.
Learning about token economies fits in with the chapter/class of behavior modification because the idea of a token economy is to be reinforced in various ways for emitting a certain behavior. I am interested in learning about token economies further because the world revolves around a token economy. There would be no jobs, no school and certainly no way to make a living if we were not working to be rewarded.
For example of a token economy, a child who gets an A on their spelling test may receive a gold star for the day. These tokens can be candy, play money, smiley faces, gold stars and stickers. It is possible for these tokens to be taken away if the person does not emit the desired behavior.
The first link that I found was very interesting as it pertained to token economies with people suffering from mental disorders. It explains that behavior modification can work through exercising a token economy instead of the use of drugs. The token economy is good for psychiatric hospital settings as well as people with learning disabilities. This token economy will only work if people pay special attention and provide the necessary rewards based off of individual behavior.
http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Token-economy-system.html
The second link that I found is a video clip demonstrating methods for a token economy that works with autistic individuals. It is a visual of coins earned for doing the required task. Once this task is completed, they are rewarded with a toy. If they are seeing what their rewards are, chances are they will try harder due to this visual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czxYKHP91YI&feature=related
The third link that I found explains the motivation that is necessary in a token economy. The website is reputable because the teacher who made it had been doing this study over a ten year period of time.
After emitting the behavior of reading section 3.5, I wanted to further my knowledge on BF Skinner since I will also be emitting the behavior of reading his book Walden Two. In this section, we learned that Skinner developed the concept of the Skinner box in which he used rats or pigeons to study reinforcement and punishment in nonhumans.
The first website I found explained much about Skinner’s life. To start off, his full name is Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in a small town in Pennsylvania. His father was a lawyer and his mother worked as a housewife. His brother died at age 16 of a brain aneurysm. Skinner had his BA in English in which he obtained from Hamilton College in New York. His activities in college included writing for the school newspaper and also practiced atheism. His goal in life was to become a writer of poetry and short stories. He decided to also go back to school where he got his masters in psychology at Harvard in 1930 and continued to get his doctorate in 1931. He stayed at Harvard to do research until 1936. After doing his research, he went to the University of Minnesota to teach. That is where he met and married Yvonne Blue. They had two daughters together. It wasn’t until 1948 when he became the chairman of the psychology department at Indiana University. After this, he returned to Harvard university where he stayed the rest of his life. He eventually died August 18, 1990 of leukemia.
The second website I found explained more about Skinners inventions. Little did I know, Skinner was quite the inventor. He thought he might be able to improve the standard crib by inventing the ‘air-crib’. An ‘air-crib’ is an easily cleaned, temperature and humidity-controlled box Skinner designed to assist in the raising of babies. He designed this for his second child because he thought it would help parents who were awakened by their crying babies at night due to cold temperatures. A second invention of Skinners was the cumulative recorder. This is an instrument used to automatically record behavior graphically. His most famously known invention however was the operant conditioning chamber. This was used to measure responses of organisms and their orderly interactions with the environment.
The final information I looked up was what his book Walden Two was about. Walden Two is a science fiction novel that was published in 1948. This book describes a small, thousand-person planned community based upon a community posited by H.D Thoreau and behavioral psychology. The community is self-sufficient however experimental control is used to shape the community. As this is a pilot scientific experiment, the way things are done are changeable if the evidence favors change. This book has Planners, Managers, Workers, and Scientists.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html
-This is where I found information on his life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Inventions
-This is where I found information on Skinners inventions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two
-This is where I found information on Walden Two
After emitting the reading behavior of the last section, I found I was very interested in token economies. The primary goal of a token economy is to increase desirable behavior and decrease undesirable behavior. It was interesting to reflect on my daily routines and see how many different ways I am being affected by token economies. I am participating in token economies with my Maurices and Vanity punch cards, my self aversive behavior, my work schedule, classes that require attendance and many more.
Teodoro Ayllon was the guy who founded token economy and applied it to behavior modification. He emitted the working behavior of working with mental health institutions and prisons to test the behavior. They have been advocated for children with ADD/ADHD, Autism spectrum disorders and children with developmental disorders.
There are 8 steps for teachers to use in their classrooms if they are trying to change a childs aversive behavior by using token economies. The first step is to select the behavior to change, such as good body basics on the carpet. Then they will decide on a token (perhaps a picture of a boy/girl sitting with their legs crossed) when the child displays good body basics. The second step is to develop a method of keeping track of tokens, such as placing them in a pouch on the side of the kids desk. The third step is to identify powerful rewards. This can be multiple things, extra credit, extra recess, work on art project, or anything the child enjoys doing. The fourth step is to establish goals, so say that everytime the child sits well and collects 5 pictures, they will get rewarded. The fifth step is to explain the program to the child. This means that the goal intended should be comprehended by the child. The sixth step is that the teacher provides feedback by handing out the sticker as soon as the child sits correctly or taking away a sticker when the child is misbehaving. The seventh step is that the teacher provides the reward. If the child got a sticker for the day, then the child should be able to pick a small reward from the reward menu. The last step is to change the program. This could mean that the child has learned to always sit correctly, but now is struggling with raising his hand before talking. So now you would focus on that topic.
In this youtube clip from the movie Freedom Writers, the teacher is trying to get these kids to not fight and not be racist against one another. She makes them play a game in the beginning of the video, even though some of them have an aversive attitude about it. This game resembles that even though they may look and act differently, they have more in common then they know. When the game is over, she rewards her students by giving them each a journal. If they emit a writing behavior each day in the journal, at the end of the semester she will give them a grade. The journal entries serve as the token and the grade at the end is the reward.
1. http://www.kidsmakingchange.com/TokenEconomy/cms/Token_Economy.html
Talks about the founder of token economies and how he started it.
2. http://popsmin.tripod.com/classtokenecon.html
Went through the steps in detail.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H7QMy54Keg
A visual example of a classroom token.
The topic I chose to discuss is Ivan Pavlov. I chose him because he was someone that I wasn't that familiar with until taking this class. I had heard of him, but was more thoroughly informed after learning about him during the class experience.
The first website that I found was just a site that contained general information about his life, as in where he was born and how he grew up and so on. It also went a little into his theory and provided a timeline of his life that included major events that took place. This is obviously related to what we have learned in class because it is good to know about the famous psychologist's lives to help you better understand how they came about with the ideas that they did.
The second website that I found was the website for the Nobel Prize. This source is one that was more centered on his accomplishments as a psychologist. The importance of this is pretty clear considering we all know he is a very important figure in psychology, and knowing the things that got him such a prestige award is always something that will help better understand what he did.
The third website I found is focused on comparing the works of Pavlov and Skinner. Pavlov is known for his work with a dog and Skinner is known for the Skinner Box. Knowing what different psychologists have done over the years and being able to compare and contrast them is also another important aspect of understanding the field and how far it has come in its limited amount of time. Pavlov and Skinner are both large contributors to further the research, and putting their work side by side is definitely beneficial.
www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/pavlov.htm
-This site provided information about Pavlov's life and a little about his theory.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html
-This site provided me with information about Pavlov's Nobel Prize.
http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/skinnerbox.html
-This site provided a comparison between Pavlov and Skinner, showing that both made large contributions to the field of psychology.
I have emitted the behavior of researching articles and youtube videos on the concept of rule governed behavior. This concept was discussed in chapter 5.2. The text defined rule governed behavior as, “behavior which is maintained via the obligation of maintaining order where the antecedent is verbal.” According to rule governed behavior, individuals may alter their behaviors depending on the verbal condition or rule (antecedent) and the perceived consequence for obeying or disobeying the verbal condition. A rule or verbal condition is somewhat like a discriminative stimulus; it advises us to emit a certain target behavior. Whether we follow the rule or not is our decision. The text discusses rule governed behavior because it relates to behavior modification by helping us understand why we emit or do not emit certain behaviors. The text states that we emit certain behaviors because established norms, morals, or ethical standards shape our behaviors. These norms, morals, and ethical standards are rules that most of us abide by for social and/or spiritual reasons. I am interested in this topic because a lot of the behaviors I emit are due to established norms, morals, and ethical standards. Perhaps learning more about rule governed behaviors will help me better understand why I behave the way I do. http://www.bfsr.org/element5.html
This website states that it is important to understand rule governed behavior because it explains behaviors we emit without receiving reinforcement. The website defines a rule as “a verbal description of a contingency, the relationship among occasion, behavior, and consequences.” The website also explains that many rules are not followed or are “incomplete”. If the perceived consequence is not aversive or not credible, then an individual may not abide by the rule.
http://positioningsystems.com/blog.php?entryID=124
This particular website states that rule governed behavior is effective, especially in business settings, because people learn to act a certain way indirectly by learning or observing others. The website also states that it is important to understand rule governed behavior because positive reinforcement is not always effective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlhxAwfKUnI
This video displays Muslims praying at a Mosque. This is an example of rule governed behavior because these people feel an obligation to pray for religious reasons. Their beliefs or morals cause them to emit the target behavior of praying.
For my blog I decided to dig deeper into different ways we can use a token economy. I thought this would be interesting since there are so many ways we used token economies. The first site that I found used token economy to not emit the behavior of smoking. Smoking is something that generally has aversive consequences but it’s hard not to emit such a behavior due to its addictiveness. The article talks about using something you really find to be pleasant as an ultimate reward or rewards. The article uses goal equipment as their example. They then created a chart to put onto their fridge. This chart kept track of how much the person smoked. Each hour the person was supposed to log if they had a cigarette or not. If they did then they aren’t allowed to put anything, but if they did not emit a smoking behavior then they were allowed to put a point. After so many points the person was allowed to elicit the response of getting the reward they desired.
Another example of the token economy system in action would be when it comes to disciplining children at home. Token economy has become very popular with childcare recently. There were big television shows such as Supernanny or Nanny 911 which featured token economy in order to get children to emit a desired behavior. The important thing is to make sure you use something that the child finds pleasant so that it is reinforcing to do this desired behavior in order to get a token or whatever you choose. The article I read over this method also noted that you should not emit a behavior of taking away tokens from the child when they don’t do the desired behavior. This will discourage the child, creating an aversive response and punishing them instead of reinforcing them.
My final source happens to be a video. It shows a brief example how token economies are often used on mental patients in psychiatric wards. Disorders such as schizophrenia are common disorders to use token economy. It works pretty much the same way as it would in any other case, being that the patients are rewarded with tokens for emitting a desirable behavior. Unfortunately, the quality of this video is absolutely awful, but slightly funny. The grammar involved with this student made video is equally as horrible and I hope that in studying token economy that maybe the people who made this video may consider using a token economy method to learn how to spell. However, the music was pleasant to listen to I’m just not sure what it had to do with a schizophrenic and token economy. Those are three different ways that token economy can be used to elicit a change in behavior.
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Quit-Smoking-by-Using-a-Token-Economy-Method&id=6361328
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/307922/why_super_nanny_can_change_kids_in_pg2.html?cat=25
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjTNBW41UtY
I was interested in how behaviors are conditioned or trained. I decided to look at videos to see how individuals/animals might be conditioned to do a certain behavior. I am interested in this topic because a lot of behaviors are conditioned or elicited without our conscious knowledge or attention. I think it is interesting to analyze how such behaviors are elicited in the first place. This fits into our current discussion because it deals with examining the antecedent and analyzing how the antecedent elicits a certain behavior.
The book that we read in class talked about how you have to first get the animal to do the desired behavior before you can begin the training. I thought this video was a good example of that. At first the puppies are just lying on the floor with the balls near them. The owner pushes the balls around and elicited one of the puppies to play. Then at the end of the playing behavior, the owner gives the puppy attention and rubs its ear. I would assume the owner wants a playful, fun puppy. The owner inadvertently conditioned the puppy to play with balls in this scenario because the owner first elicited the puppy in doing the desired behavior (playing with the balls) and then reinforced the puppy by giving it attention in the end. Although the owner probably did not intentionally form a behavioral intervention, the owner still modified the puppy’s behavior. This is one case of how behaviors can be modified unintentionally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMZZpiKtHM&feature=related
In this video, a baby is taking a bath and playing with a toy while the dog watches. Every time the baby raises the toy the dog jumps for the toy and tries to take it. This causes the baby to laugh hysterically. The dog jumping is reinforcing the baby’s toy raising behavior because the baby is getting a funny response from the dog (at least the baby thinks so) which is the reinforcer. This is an example of how a specific antecedent shapes a behavior. If the baby was not in the tub and the dog could actually get to the toy and take it, the baby might not find this game as reinforcing. The game might become a punisher because the dog could take the toy which usually causes babies to cry and cause the baby to emit the toy raising behavior around the dog less frequently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eefP4bG2EkI&feature=related
This video is of a puppy playing in front of a mirror. The important part of this video is that a little ways into the video you notice that the dog has a small piece of food. I have personally watched my dog play with her food in the same manner that the puppy in this video is playing with its food. The antecedent of the puppy being in front of the mirror might lead the owners to believe that the puppy is playing with “the other puppy” in the mirror when the puppy might just be playing with its food in a place where the mirror is present. This shows how superstitious beliefs get started when it’s hard to define what exactly in the antecedent elicited the behavior. This video might show how people come to believe that their puppy “recognizes” another dog in the mirror when that might not be the case. I know from personal experience that when my dog sees her reflection, she does not react as though it were another dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=I7EpaDsmipg
After emitting a reading behavior of the topical blog assignment for this week I choose to look at rule governed behaviors. I am interested in this topic because we spent only a day talking about it and though I understand the basic concept, I wanted to know more. My second source describes in basic terms what a rule governed behavior is. A rule governed behavior is a behavior that is not necessarily reinforced or punished immediately or at all but it consequences have been trained into us over time. The basic idea is that any rule is simply a verbal contingency for when a specific behavior occurs. Using this definition of rule governed behavior you can tell that this is one of the most common types of behavior classes.
My first source gives a great real life example of rule governed behaviors and elaborates it further. If someone tells you there is a cake in the oven, take it the cake out when it is done baking. When the timer winds down on the oven and you notice that the cake is done baking you connect this realization with the predetermined consequence of this action and you take the cake out of the oven. This is a verbal-mediated behavior or as we know it: a rule governed behavior. My last source is a scholarly journal excerpt that goes much more in depth on the ideas of rule governed behavior. It strongly supplements my previous knowledge on the topic and if you were looking for a much more scientific and in depth explanation of rule governed behaviors this is a great source for you to look into. It looks into the idea of thought and how this affects behaviors as well as looking into the idea of connecting a behavior to a consequence and how we will remember this connection even if we are preforming other behaviors or the timing between the consequence and the behavior are far apart.
Websites:
1. http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/zlowenk/aba1999/rule-following.html
a. This site gave a great overview of verbal rule governance with real life examples
2. http://www.bfsr.org/element5.html
a. The source of my basic information on rule governed behavior
3. http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000575191
a. An excerpt from a scholarly journal that talks about rule governed behavior
After eliciting the behavior of reading the last section my interest John B. Watson has grown. I emit a great interest in learning about Watson’s ideas of behaviorism. Watson elicited some of the first ideas of behaviorism. Watson is known for coming up with this idea of behaviorism. He also built off of Pavlov and the idea of classical conditioning. It is interesting to learn how Watson backs the idea of nurture over nature and the importance of emotion and behavior as well as how much the ABC idea helps people learn about behavior modification. I have increased an interest so much so that I did more research on Watson for a paper that I submitted this morning.
Cooper, S. (2009). John b. watson (1878 to 1958). Theories of Learning in Educational Psychology,
Retrieved from
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Watson.html
In Coopers article he essentially talks about the ABCs and how Watson used them in his methodology. Cooper states that Watson recognized the importance of the A-stimulus, B-response or behavior, and C-the consequences. Watson presents the ABCs as an important part of behaviorism. The specific goal of behaviorism is to explain the relationships between the stimulus, responses, and the consequences. I emitted a behavior of learning just how much Watson really influenced behaviorism.
Horowitz, F. (1992). John b. watson's legacy: Learning and environment. Developmental Psychology, 28(3), 360-367. Retrieved from
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1992-34479-001
The Horowitz article is about how Watson coined the term behaviorism. It also talks about how he was one of the first people to primarily use methodology. Though controversial, Watson presented ideas about environmentalism which have been rejected over the years by many people. Watson talked about conditioning of behaviors. He told how nurture plays a strong role in behavior. People can be conditioned to different emotions. In the case of his Little Albert Experiment, Watson showed that fear can be a conditioned emotional response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FKZAYt77ZM
This video clip shows the study with Little Albert. In the clip is Albert and Watson’s research assistant (whom he later marries). I found this original footage really interesting. It was great to see how the study was actually performed rather than just reading the words.
One thing I’ve been really interested in is about setting and achieving goals. Because I want to become more knowledgeable on the topic, I decided to do some research on the web. On mindtools.com, there is a mnemonic device used to consider whether the goal you set is a good one. The word is SMART. The goal needs to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (or trackable). I really liked this because it’s easy to think about when assessing your goal and how good it is. Another website, topachievement.com, had seven tips on how to set goals.
Step 1: Make sure your goal is something you want.
Step 2: Don’t contradict your other goals with this new goal.
Step 3: Develop goals in the six areas of life.
• Family and home
• Financial and Career
• Spiritual and Ethical
• Physical and Health
• Social and Cultural
• Mental and Education
Step 4: Write the goal in a positive connotation and not a negative one.
Step 5: Write out the details of the goal.
Step 6: Make the goal high enough.
Step 7: Write down your goals.
The last thing is actually an example of goal achieving gone wrong. On the most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother, the side story on this follows Marshall who wants to create the best Christmas light display. He never did end up making a display, because of troubles with a neighborhood kid. I believe this goal could have been achieved had he had a support base of friends there for him to help put up the display.
SMART http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html
Seven Steps http://topachievement.com/goalsetting.html
Episode of How I Met Your Mother http://www.cbs.com/shows/how_i_met_your_mother/video/2173487396/how-i-met-your-mother-symphony-of-illumination
One thing that interested me the most was the idea of Skinner’s “Baby Tender” invention. Skinner is highly known for his creation of the “Skinner Box” that he used to show how animals learn. They were boxes he made out of things he collected in alleys. He would make them so there were pulleys and levers that would have to be worked to escape the box. In discussion of this concept, his “Baby Box” was mentioned. The problem is that people often think that his Baby Box is related to his Skinner Box for rats and pigeons. It is not. The Baby Box is a temperature controlled crib that is waist-high. It has a glass front that you can open and put the baby in and out. The mattress is often mess or canvas so air can be circulated from underneath. Skinner created this so that child-rearing would be easier, especially at night. With the temperature controls children do not have to wear clothes. This means that they can emit self-directed behaviors without the hassle of clothes getting twisted. This also helps reduce overheating or having to use many blankets to keep them warm. His own daughter slept in one until she was about 2 years old. Skinner says there are multiple (19) different positive results for him and his daughter while using this box. He even wrote about his ideas in a book called Walden Two. In this book, there is a community utopia. The parents could go off to work and leave their children in a community run day-care. The children would be naked all the time, free to do what they wanted in this type of atmosphere. The parents could come to visit for a few hours a day. It sounds like a horrible idea; however, I found several articles written by individuals that fully believe in these Baby Boxes. They have actually raised their children in them.
One article explains exactly how to build a Baby Box or “Air Crib”:
• Build a big box with an open front
• At about waist level, build a ledge to support the mattress
• Below the mattress supports, cut holes for two ventilation screens, making sure they face each other for best air flow
• Add two light bulb sockets at the right and left sides, below the mattress ledge (these provide heat)
• Link the sockets to an external switch on the crib
• Build a protective shelf (screening or perforated) above the light bulbs (lift-out, if you’re not going to have access through the front) below the light bulbs
• Build another shelf (also of screening or perforated material) (also, lift-out, if you’ll need access from the top)
• Install a thermostat outside the box where adults can reach it
• Place shallow evaporation pans below this second shelf (these control humidity)
• Install a small fan in the ceiling
• Make a mattress frame and lace a mesh mattress to the frame
• Attach door(s)
• Add legs or a cabinet beneath
The person who wrote the blog, I’m assuming by the blog name, is in a wheelchair. It makes a lot of sense since traditional cribs are difficult to reach into while sitting in a wheelchair. The author explains how they was raised in an Air Crib himself and thoroughly enjoyed it and grew up well and happy. They explain how using an Air Crib helped them significantly. They had more room to work, the babies could play around in the box, and they were able to meet the needs of the child better.
The other sites simply give an overview of what an Air Crib is, just like the ones I discussed. One site also mentions that there was a study done on about 50 people that were raised in Air Cribs to see how well they worked. It turns out that there were pretty much only positive results. They also mention that there were some Air Cribs commercially manufactured; however, it did not catch on. The problems were that, like I mentioned, it was confused to be related to the Skinner Boxes that held rats and pigeons for behavioral experiments. People also were somewhat offended by the idea of putting your child in a box and leaving them.
This concept highly works with what we have discussed. We have also read some of Walden Two where he talks about the child-rearing practices that incorporate this. The biggest reason I was interested in this is that I had RSV when I was a baby/toddler. When I was at the hospital for a while, I remember being in a crib that was at waist level attached to the wall. It was made of glass mostly so I could be monitored easily. I remember my mom being there and I was always sad when I couldn’t be out playing with her, especially when the St. Lukes’ Lovey bear would come and I couldn’t get out. I wonder if the hospital used Skinner’s ideas about Air Cribs. To me it sounds very, very similar to his creation. I don’t really remember being happy in it though. However, knowing what I do about memory and being at such a young age, I may remember it differently than it was. I have always remembered those details however. I think in a hospital setting like that it would be a very good idea. I also do not remember being clothed in it, so it probably was ventilated with temperature controls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Air_crib – gives an overview of what an Air Crib is.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2010/september-10/skinner-air-crib.html - explains some of Skinner’s claimed advantages and why the Air Crib did not catch on and sell better.
http://www.nndb.com/people/297/000022231/ - mentions Walden Two and how that incorporated this idea.
http://daddytypes.com/2006/07/25/the_aircrib_bf_skinners_babyinabox.php - personal blog that tells how the author used the crib and mentions the study performed on exinhabitants of the cribs.
http://www.gearability.com/2007/04/22/building-a-skinner-air-crib/ - explains how to build an Air Crib. Also mentions the author’s personal experience with the Air Crib.
http://www.gearability.com/2007/03/25/a-better-baby-crib-for-parents-who-use-wheelchairs/ - the original post from the person above. They explain how they use the crib, why they use the crib, the benefits, and their experience with them.