Topical Blog Week #5 (Due Thursday)

Drugs Used to Punish Drinking Behavior
My interest in the use of Antabuse or Naltrexone (ReVia) as a method of behavior modification to maintain sobriety among chronic drinkers is that I have known several people who died in traffic accidents resulting from alcohol. It seems to me that learning ways to prevent drinking could be important, particularly when people tend to drink and drive.
Antabuse is a brand name for disulfiram which can be prescribed as a deterrent to consuming alcohol. It blocks a liver enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase (A.L.D.H.) and results in a concentration of acetaldehyde, which is toxic when combined with alcohol. http://alcoholinfo.co.uk/disulfiram.html
The reaction between the disulfiram and the alcohol (D.E.R.) occurs within about 15 minutes and includes increased heart rate, palpitations, nausea, vomiting and breathing difficulties. It can cause death. http://alcoholinfo.co.uk/disulfiram.html
An alternative is Naltrexone, which may be more effective than Antabuse, which reportedly involves fewer major medical complications. http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/enforce/promisingsentence/pages/psp9.htm Naltrexone has been approved by FDA as a treatment for alcoholism. It is designed to be used along with psychosocial treatment to reduce the risk of relapse.
Certain patients may be especially receptive to Antabuse or Naltrexone treatment, such as older people with some history of abstinence and those who are at risk for relapse but still in treatment. http://alcoholinfo.co.uk/disulfiram.html
Taking Antabuse is a “behavioral intervention” which is used more often in other countries than in the U.S. It does not cure alcoholism, but affects the outcome of alcohol abuse treatment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cImiQ8YbydA
In some places, Antabuse or the alternative Naltrexone is required to be taken as a condition of probation for persons convicted of an alcohol offense, such as drunk driving. The violent physical reaction which is experienced by a person who tries to drink alcohol while taking Antabuse is an example of positive punishment to lessen or eliminate the drinking behavior.
The operant behavior attempted to be modified is the consumption of alcohol after having been convicted of an alcohol offense. Taking a drink of alcohol is the emitted behavior. The response is physiological at first, vomiting. Maintaining sobriety is the target behavior attempted to be elicited.
The discriminate stimulus, or antecedent for the individual to consume alcohol could be a social occasion, or a more complicated addiction situation. If alcohol is addictive, and if these individuals are addicted, the operant behavior may not be entirely voluntary. In either event, however, the positive punishment of obligatory antabuse attempts to modify the behavior.
In 1983, Dr. Colin Brewer wrote that there is “widespread opposition to the use of disulfiram among many physicians and agencies concerned with alcoholics”. Dr. Brewer described two studies involving habitual offenders in Atlanta and in Colorado Springs which were encouraging for the effectiveness of antabuse to prolong periods of sobriety and reducing the recidivism rates. Brewer’s study in London similarly was encouraging.
Ethical considerations include the need for de-toxification to be complete before an informed consent is obtained. There are objections that the obligatory use of antabuse as a court ordered condition of supervised release is “authoritarian” according to Brewer. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1549690/
The issue is whether the choice between prison or antabuse is any choice at all.

Terms: discriminate stimulus, antecedent, ethical considerations, informed consent, positive punishment, behavior modification, operant behavior, target behavior, stimulus,

Work Cited

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cImiQ8YbydA, Retrieved February 6, 2012
http://prb.sagepub.com/content/29/1/10.abstract, Retrieved February 6, 2012
http://alcoholinfo.co.uk/disulfiram.html, Retrieved February 6, 2012
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1549690/, Retrieved February 6, 2012
http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/enforce/promisingsentence/pages/psp9.htm, Retrieved February 6, 2012.

Extreme Negative Reinforcement
I am doing further research in the topic of extreme negative reinforcement. This means using a specialized set of techniques to elicit the target behavior of a confession or information from the detainee or prisoner. It was briefly mentioned in Section 2.3 and I became very interested. I also believe that I will be encountering individuals who have gone through similar things in my field of profession.

The use of extreme negative reinforcement is used by the CIA, FBI, and the military when dealing with potential terrorists. The idea is the by using harsh techniques on people the interviewers will elicit the person to divulge information desired by the agencies. One CIA prisoner in Afghanistan states that the agents "would not let you rest, day or night. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. Don't sleep. Don't lie on the floor," in order to get confessions out of the prisoners. This is a negative reinforcement because the idea is that once the subjects emit the target behavior the interrogators will remove the techniques. These techniques include the attention grab--used by police officers as well--the attention slap, the belly slap, long time standing, the cold cell where prisoners stand naked in a 50 degree cell and doused with cold water periodically, and water boarding. Water boarding consist of binding a prisoner to an inclined board with their feet slightly above their head, wrapping cellophane over the face and pouring water eliciting the gag reflex and terror. Obviously this topic is highly controversial due to its ethical implications.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Investigation/story?id=1322866#.TzG7qVyJfNk

While none of us would want these things done to us there are some that believe these acts are "morally justifiable" because they "sometimes work". It is believed by some that the use of torture is okay when it is used to prevent significant harm to others. Through the use of food deprivation, sleep deprivation, deprivation from showering, along with the use of pain and fear the CIA and FBI have created a way of interrogating that reduce the likelihoods of satiation occurring. Bagaric and Clarke state that "the main benefit to torture is that is an excellent means of gathering information." The importance lies in using "coercive techniques" not deadly force because the latter can lead to the target behavior of information or a confession but they could be false and just used to get rid of the presence of the torture.
http://westengland.academia.edu/PhilRumney/Papers/653270/Is_Coercive_Interrogation_of_Terrorist_Suspects_Effective_A_Response_to_Bagaric_and_Clarke

At about 2:30 in the video in this link (1st one) the author of the book "The Torture Report" tells the purpose of using these extreme techniques and the methodology behind it. According to the CIA after using such techniques they were able to elicit the desired target response from Khalid Sheik Mohammed who because one of the key sources on Al Qaeda. The defense for using such measures is that it protects American lives and that there is "no long-term effects". Unfortunately, this is an inaccurate assumption. Such extreme measures lead to both physical and psychological problems in the future.
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/29/cia-internal-report-hints-impact-harsh-interrogations-mastermind/

So, the antecedent for using such behaviors is the possibility of gaining information which leads the interrogators to emit the behavior of using harsh and extreme techniques which then, hopefully, leads to the consequence of gaining useful information. From the viewpoint of the prisoner they are being held and tortured. By emitting the behavior of providing information the consequence is the removal of the torture and will likely increase the likelihood of cooperation in the future, making this technique negative reinforcement.

Terms: Elicit, Emit, negative reinforcement, target behavior, deprivation, satiation, antecedent, consequence

Works Cited:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Investigation/story?id=1322866#.TzG7qVyJfNk

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/29/cia-internal-report-hints-impact-harsh-interrogations-mastermind/

http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/

http://terrorism.about.com/od/issuestrends/a/TortureTerror2.htm

Operant Conditioning

When talking about any kind of behavior theories B.F. Skinner comes to mind. So I decided to look up some additional information on Skinner and his theories of behavior modification. While we have not talked about operant conditioning, we have talked about a number of the critical components, such as reinforcers, operant, aversive stimulus, negative reinforcement, and positive reinforcement. Operant conditioning is nothing more than teaching an organism how to do something through different schedules of reinforcement. If you want to teach a rat to pull a lever than you might give it a food pellet for pulling the lever, but what if the rat is unable to figure out how to pull the lever? Then you might have to use a concept known as shaping or reinforcing the rat for sniffing around the lever. Eventually will only be giving the rat food for pushing the lever, but if you give the rat a food pellet after it pushes the lever every time you might run into issues with satiation, so you might change you schedule of reinforcers and only give the rat a pellet after every 5th pull (fixed ratio) or after random lever pulls (variable schedules). The rat and the lever example is a perfect example of positive reinforcement because the rat receives something (food) for pushing the lever which will make it more likely that it will push the lever again. Skinner also expanded his work to include negative reinforcement or the idea that you will take away an aversive stimulus to increase the likelihood of repeating a task. He accomplished this by putting a small electrical charge on the floor of the cage of the rat. As soon as the rat flipped the lever the electrical charge would be turned off. This is a perfect example of negative reinforcement because an aversive stimulus is removed (the electrical shock), which increases the likelihood that the rat will push the lever again. After hearing about all these tests you might wonder how Skinner achieved all this testing on rats. He completed his research using what he called a Skinner Box. Prior to the creation of the Skinner box psychologist were using mazes and puzzle boxes to demonstrate operant conditioning. The advantage of the Skinner box was that it allowed psychologists to study the natural flow of behavior. The Skinner box was box with a lever or a key that an animal was capable of operating (lever for rats, key for birds). When operating the lever or key the animal received reinforcer of either food or water for positive reinforcement. If the test was set up to test negative reinforcement the bottom of the cage would be electrified and the electricity would be turned off by operating the button or the key. The chamber equipment (lever, key) was hooked up to electronic equipment so the number of operations could be precisely recorded.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html
http://www.psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/wasserman/glossary/skinner%20box.html
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/OperantConditioning.htm

Terms: Reinforcers, Operant, Aversive Stimulus, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement, Satiation,Shaping

I was unsure what I should write about since I am very new to the whole concept of making up my own topic but being as this is a sort of indepedent class I decided I would try and leap onto a somewhat shaky topic of deprivision. I went back and reread the exact wording of the definition and got this: Deprivation –Withholding any stimulus which serves as reinforcement
to an organism.
I feel that there are many deprivations around the world from food all the way to sleep. This is why I chose sleep deprivation and how it is effecting the world in general. This concept of sleep deprivation fits neatly into this chapter because we have been talking about how one stimulus acts on another and how they fit into punishment or reinforcment.
I am interested in sleep deprivation manly because I feel everyone is in one way or another sleep deprived and it effects everyone. I know I don't get enough sleep along with many of the people I know personaly. I was just interested how it truly effects one another in the long run and how it elicts responses from one person or another.

Ok, So my topic is sleep deprivation in the workforce/general population as a whole and how it effects our behaviors. A recent survey done by the goverment says that a reported one third of Americans are not getting the recommended amount of sleep during there work week. For the average college student 2 thirds of the students are not getting the required 8 hours of sleep. to me that sounds like alot of stressed out young adults to me. I for one do not get enough sleep as well. I average around 6 hours of sleep a night which honestly does not feel like enought but I have so much going on and am stressed were I cannot fall asleep. Sleep deprivation elicts many problems for alot of people. It leads for many to become ill or sick which in turn emits other problems such as missing work or going to work sick setting up scenario of getting others sick. We all know that the discriminative stimulous of not getting sleep makes most people cranky, leading to issues with your social life and people having positive punishment for being around you and being cranked at. This in turn emits people to not want to be around you or associate you as a punisher for them because you are always in a bad mood.
Getting sleep is a very important process in you life cycle. There has also been recent studies done on obesity and weight gain due to not getting enought sleep. Science shows that you are at double the risk of gaining weight if you get less sleep than normal. This is a direct relationship which is a serious problem. They explain that the satiation of caffien due to being tired is one of the reasons this has a correlation with being over weight but not the only reason.

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/sleep-deprivation-workplace
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/160265.php
http://sleepdisorders.about.com/od/sleepandgeneralhealth/a/fatandtired.htm

Terms: deprivation, satiation, relationship, punishment, elict, emit, punisher, reinforcement, stimulus,

Manipulation of cults

I decided to look at the manipulation used by cult leaders to draw people into their beliefs. It fits into the chapter because there are many ways a cult leader uses punishment, reinforcement, and manipulation to gain followers. I became interested in this topic because I heard about the cult the Peoples Temple in another class and I wanted to look more into it. I understand that manipulation doesn’t always have to be a bad thing but I also believe that it can be used to peoples advantages to get others to do aversive things. I found a website that discussed some tactics that cult members use to draw people in. One important aspect of a cult is its leader as the website points out. This has to be a person that is charismatic and can get people to listen to them. Authority is one of six categories of tactics, according to Cialdini, that people use to manipulate others. The cult Peoples Temple had a very charismatic leader named Jim Jones. Jones was highly intelligent and gave off the influence of superior knowledge by claiming he had healing powers, which was critical for the manipulation through Authority. The Peoples Temple was being investigated by the I.R.S. when Jones used another characteristic of manipulation. He geographically and socially isolated his followers by moving them from California to a piece of land in Guyana, which they called Jonestown. The people followed him because they had already made a commitment to the group. Cialdini would attribute this to the manipulation tactic of consistency, where people try to justify an earlier emitted behavior. Guilt for leaving could be used as a punisher in this instance. According to the website I found loss of independent judgment is another characteristic of a cult. This could be attributed to the reciprocity tactic of manipulation. When Jim Jones used the reciprocity tactic of manipulation he gave his followers pleasurable things like food, shelter, love, an acceptance. In return these people followed and obeyed him by not leaving the group. The antecedent to the ultimate manipulation was a visit from California Congress man Leo Ryan who came to seek out members that wanted to return to California. He was threatened by a member who believed another characteristic of cult manipulation; the cult was a sacred science. This member thought that the problem wasn’t with the cult but with the members that wanted to leave and with Ryan himself. According to Cialdini he was experiencing the manipulation tactic of social proof. He was seeing that others in the cult believed in their way of life and he based his acceptance off of theirs. The member open fired on the group trying to leave, killing Ryan and four others. This created a downward spiral and the real issue with manipulation for harm becomes evident with the behavior the group emitted afterwards. Jones was a discriminative stimulus when the aversive consequence occurred. The entire 912 people of the Peoples Temple drank a purple drink mix that contained cyanide, sedatives, and tranquilizers. I included a youtube video that shows Guyana and the outcome of the manipulation of Jim Jones. It is very AVERSIVE so be prepared if you decide to watch it. Manipulation is used every day in things like commercials and telemarketing or even in how we used reinforcement and punishment to achieve desired behaviors from each other. However, when manipulation is used aversively to harm people the consequences can be dire.

http://www.caic.org.au/biblebase/apocolyptic/jones.htm
http://www.rickross.com/reference/cults_in_our_midst/cults_in_our_midst4.html
http://cultbustersgalactica.yuku.com/topic/296
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/jonestown1.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4oP2FmAX7Q

Terms used: Manipulation, consequence, aversive, puniser, emit, behavior, antecedent, discriminative stimulus

Forgot my terms: Behavior Class, Topgraphical, Functional, Punishment, Negative Punishment, Elicit, Extinction.

After thinking about the ABC's and our class discussions, I wanted to explore evidence to support the use of positive reinforcement in parenting. Throughout the textbook and discussions it has been said that reinforcement is better than punishment. We have been asked then, why it is that we, as a culture, often choose to punish our children. In fact, it is interesting that we choose to punish in a lot of contexts. According to one article that I read, "brain scans show that children of nurturing mothers have a 10 percent larger hippocampus-- the region of the brain that plays a role in memory, learning and stress response-- compared to the brains of children whose mothers were less supportive"

http://www.argusleader.com/article/20120204/LIFE/302040006/Positive-reinforcement-could-boost-kids-brains

What this suggests is that there are actual physical changes that occur in our brains depending on the type of schedule we are under: punishment vs. reinforcement. In the article from above, mothers were tested and given points for how often they praised their children during a task. In that scenario, the mother is providing positive reinforcement because she is adding a desirable stimulus to increase the desirable behavior that the child is emitting. Suggestions for how to provide positive reinforcement at home, according to the article, would be to remember to provide praise sporadically throughout the evening, while the child is doing desirable behaviors, such as homework or chores. These little bursts of praise will elicit the types of behaviors that a parent desires to see a child emit. But there is more to this situation than just that. Part of positive reinforcement is that it produces desirable feelings. In fact, "positive thinking has been linked to being stress reducer"

http://www.mesquitelocalnews.com/viewnews.php?newsid=9197&id=136.

The reason this is important is because stress can be undesirable. Sometimes children struggle to fulfill the target behaviors that their parents expect out of them. This can be stressful. By providing positive reinforcement, a parent is minimizing the effect stress has on performance, and they are also teaching the child to be positive during the context of otherwise undesirable events, such as homework and chores.

But just in case you are not convinced that reinforcement is better than punishment, I started to think about bullying at school. For a long time in our education system, we have utilized punishment to attempt to reduce undesirable behaviors like bullying. But in recent years, there have been numerous news stories about the ever increasing rise of bullying. To combat the rise of bullying, schools have implemented the School-Wide Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports program. It is a "framework for discipline and for encouraging good behavior". This program battles such behaviors as bullying by being twofold: teachers are trained to provide positive reinforcement for desirable behaviors, and they are taught how to provide consistent discipline for undesirable behaviors. This is key. When we punish, we are just saying "no" to the undesirable behavior. But what makes the above mentioned program effective, is that there are established target behaviors that are being reinforced, to couple with consistent discipline for undesirable behaviors. This correlates back to parenting. In the household, it is important that parent do not just punish. It's like when you try to quit smoking, just not-smoking is not enough. Often you need to replace the smoking behavior with another more desirable one. With parenting you have make it clear which behaviors should and should not be emitted by the child. And consistency is key. A parent needs to consistently reinforce desirable behaviors, and punish consistently as well. Eventually, in theory, the frequency of desirable behaviors will increase, and the frequency of undesirable behaviors will decrease.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-school-bullying-idUSTRE8171YA20120208

terms: positive reinforcement, punishment, reinforcement, context, schedule, desirable, stimulus, behavior, emitting, elicit, undesirable, target behaviors, consistent

Discriminative Stimulus
I am doing further research on the topic of discriminative stimulus. It fits into the chapter because it is mentioned in quite a few of the chapters we have read and I'm sure will be talked about more in the chapters to come. The main reason I am doing more research on this particular subject is because I didn't really understand it at first but looking more into has let me understand what it is.
In my research I found that discriminative stimulus can be used for a variety of different things. I've read about how using discriminative stimulus' can help kids with autism learn what the meaning of different things are. For instance in one of the articles I read, they used the example of a school bell ringing. There are many different meanings for a school bell so using discriminative stimulus could help the child learn what to do in each context of the bell ringing.
I also found a video on youtube showing a discriminative stimulus. The rat in the video was taught through discriminative stimuli which behavior he was to emit. For example the classical music in the video was eliciting a behavior of pressing a lever to then be reinforced with water. The presence of the techno music elicited a behavior in which the rat was to spin around to be given a drink of water. Both of these reactions would also be considered a conditioned response because the rat had to learn the behaviors to which he would be reinforced.
Overall, I have found that discriminative stimulus can be used for a very wide variety of different behaviors. I found that a very good definition of discriminative stimulus would be that 'a stimulus in the presence of which a particular response will be reinforced' (Malott, 2007, p.202).

http://www.polyxo.com/discretetrial/sd.html
http://www.educateautism.com/applied-behaviour-analysis/discriminative-stimulus-delta.html
http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2010/09/establishing-operation-vs-discriminative-stimulus.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2SqKRCa1a8

Terms: discriminative stimulus, elit, emit, conditioned response, reinforcement

The last chapter seemed to focus on positive reinforcement as the primary way to manipulate behavior, so I decided explore this in relation to image. I used Wal-Mart’s image marketing campaign to explore this topic in relation to behavior modification, because I find it interesting, and I don’t really like Wal-Mart.

Recently Wal-Mart has received a makeover . Wal-Mart’s decision to revamp its’ image may have been due to customer punishment of its former image. Awhile ago, I emitted the behavior of watching an anti Wal-Mart documentary which accused Wal-Mart of bullying out smaller mom and pop stores, having a monopoly and mistreating employees. Customer’s found this aversive, and were less likely to shop there. (some people at least)Because of this, Wal-Mart lost sales, and was even banned from certain communities. This behavior punished Wal-Mart for its actions and elicited Wal-Mart’s campaign to change its image. Wal-Mart didn’t, necessarily change its aversive behavior.

Instead Wal-Mart has changed its image in an effort to ditch peoples’ conditioned perception view of it. As I am sure you have noticed, it replaced the smiley face with a blue flower and the logo, “Save Money, Live better. Wal-Mart”. It has also started trying to project a more sophisticated, friendly image. I see this as Wal-Mart’s discriminate stimulus, which is trying to make customers feel that Wal-Mart is more likely to fulfill their consumer needs. They feel that they will “live better” if they shop at Wal-Mart. The target behavior is that people will shop at Wal-Mart.

The changes in the interior of the store, are the actual reinforce, which seek to elicit pleasurable feelings from the consumers. The fact that Wal-Mart has new quality products is a reinforcer without the customer actually having to buy the product. So Wal-Mart’s new image serves as a reinforcer to elicit the behavior of people going to Wal-Mart. Being in Wal-Mart is an establishing operation for the new target behavior, eliciting sales.

Wal-Mart has further benefitted from its new image because of the economic recession. The recession functions as an establishing operation, making Wal-Mart’s low prices seem more pleasurable, so they are more reinforcing. This serves to heighten the extrinsic value of Wal-Mart’s low prices.

terms: discriminate stimulus, elicit, emit, establishing operation, extrinsic value, punisher, reinforce, reinforcement, pleasurable, aversive, target behavior. conditioned,

http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/14/news/companies/walmart_stephen_quinn_leadership.fortune/index.htm
http://www.alternet.org/story/47224/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/wal-mart-the-high-cost-of-low-price/

Positive Reinforcement in Toddler Discipline

My interest in the way people are disciplining their children today I think at times is a direct result of some of the issues that exist later in life. My interest in psychology in general is more focused on the developmental aspect of a child and the beginning years of their lives with their parents and how discipline is used. I feel that by having a great disciplinary system it can set a child up for better results in the future. It is always best to get a handle on things while they’re just toddlers, instill what you expect from the get-go. We have all learned so far that reinforcement is definitely better than punishment. A great way to use positive reinforcement with a toddler is by rewarding them when they do, do something right. Just like any human being, who wants to hear the negative side of things? It is best to give your child positive feedback to let them know when they do a good job, praise them after they emit the target behavior. When making rules, disciplining, using reinforcement, any of them, consistency is the key. For example, when telling a child that they are doing something aversive, but later give in and let them emit the behavior you previously advised not to do is only going to make them think that it’s “ok” in the future and create a problem.

http://www.parentingtoddlers.com/toddlerdiscipline.html

An Example of Reinforcement

A great example for reinforcement is the rewarding system. This is going to plan out and show the child what exactly is the target behavior that it is you want them to emit. Upon the child emitting the target behavior they will receive a sticker to place on the chart. However, it is important to explain to the child why those tasks are on the chart. For example, if the target behavior is that you want them to pick up after they are done playing, explain why it is important to pick up their toys, ex. so others do not trip over them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60t__L7pP-w&feature=related

Why Positive Reinforcement May Cause Problems

It is easy to quickly praise your child emitting a developmental task well, cleaning their plate at dinner, picking up their room, or thanking them for helping out. However, some studies suggest that over reinforcement over and over, like praising can cause the child to become less likely to try new things, possibly become self conscious, or not be able to stay active with something they previously enjoyed. It is not necessary to disregard all actions that you feel would have normally gotten reinforced for because when children are not reinforced, they do not know when they’re doing right or wrong. Perhaps find other ways to show your child how to find gratification from what they may be doing on their own rather than expecting a rewarded outcome.

http://www.teach-through-love.com/positive-reinforcement.html

Terms: reinforcement, positive, negative, emit, target behavior, aversive

Corporal Punishment

Corporal punishment is a wonderful example of positive punishment. There are many questions that can be asked in regards to this topic: is corporal punishment effective? Should corporal be illegal across the United States? Where and why is corporal punishment legal anywhere? Is this something children should learn at an early age? From these questions alone it can be seen that corporal punishment is a highly controversial issue in the United States.

Corporal punishment fits into our material quite well in that it is a type of punishment. A punishment is defined as doing something to decrease the likelihood of a certain behavior to be emitted again. I am interested in corporal punishment mostly because I do not know all that much about it and was interested in learning more about it and its prevalence in the United States. Corporal punishment can be defined as any type of physical punishment placed upon someone deliberately. This punishment is usually enforced by a teacher onto a student. Corporal punishment is currently legal in 19 sates in our country. Many find this statistic unfortunate and alarming. Corporal punishment involves ADDING something AVERSIVE to DECREASE a certain behavior, making it positive punishment.

Through my findings, I have concluded that most people in our country find corporal punishment to be a negative thing that is not effective and is setting a bad example for the younger population in the United States. Our text, along with many other sources, encourages the use of reinforcement over punishment. And, clearly, corporal punishment does not follow that guideline as it IS a punishment.

According to an article I read about corporal punishment, it can have effects on the development of the sexuality of the child being punished. I find this intriguing and would have never guessed that was a factor being considered. I also learned that 23% of Americans approve of this type of punishment for students and 200,000 students are victims of such punishment every year. I thought the statistic of students being affected would be higher, but I am not surprised that only 23% of American approve of this punishment. There are several reasons why one may NOT approve of corporal punishment: it encourages violence, it places too much power in the teacher’s hands, it sets a bad example for children, it emphasizes some sort of biblical standpoint, it is cruel, it may manifest itself in the future through other problems (like sexual development), etc.

All of the information I came across regarding corporal punishment discussed whether or not this type of punishment is effective. I am unsure as to why this is a continuous discussion in the first place. If only 19 states in the U.S. are using corporal punishment I would say it is probably ineffective. More and more people are protesting such punishment and it is predicted to be abolished soon enough (probably within my lifetime). To modify one’s behavior, as we have learned, should involve reinforcement FIRST and punishment as a last resort. Punishment, especially corporal forms, should not be a viable option for teachers in this country. It is rather inhumane, in my opinion. Yes, it may decrease the target behavior, but it is only temporary. The person emitting the behavior will learn nothing from their experience except to be scared of doing it due to physical abuse.

Terms Used: Punishment, Positive, Negative, Reinforcement, Behavior Modification, Elicit, Emit, Target Behavior, Enforce, Aversive

Sources:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beyond-freud/201112/dangerous-method-psychology-development-and-psychotherapy

http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/corporal%20punishment

http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2002/06/spanking.aspx

Well I wasn’t able to access the link to see the posts from last year’s students. So I thought I would just give it my best shot. So here it goes…

The topic that I decided to focus on was the use of positive reinforcement in physical therapy. This fits into what we have been talking about because section 2.2 was all about reinforcement. It discussed how positive reinforcement works by introducing a desirable stimulus when a target behavior is emitted, with the goal of increasing the frequency of that behavior. We talked about how positive reinforcement is the most effective type of reinforcement and the fact that it is even more effective than any type of punishment. Throughout this course we have focused a lot on the different types of punishment and reinforcement so I wanted to apply this to a real world situation that I will be in in the near future.

I am interested in this topic because I am going to
graduate school to become a physical therapist. I want to be the most successful therapist that I can be so I want to learn as much about physical therapy and what is effective before I begin. I plan to use what I have learned in behavior modification in order to get my patients to do their exercises and have a fun time while they do it.

Behavior modification techniques are used in physical therapy every day, especially in pediatric therapy. Toys, snacks, and praise are common reinforcers used to get the patient to emit the behavior of walking, crawling, or whatever the target behavior may be. However, snacks are not used very often because the therapists want to avoid satiation. If the patient gets full then they will no longer be motivated by the reinforcer. By using a variety of toys satiation is never reached. Using the ABC’s of behavior modification and example would be; when you have the antecedent of a therapy session, and the behavior of walking is emitted, the consequence is that the patient receives praise. Several studies have been done that look at the effectiveness of positive reinforcement in physical therapy. One study looked at how positive reinforcement worked in a gait-training program with a child with spina bifida. It showed that reinforcement was very effective in getting the child to complete her exercises. Physical therapists also use behavioral techniques when working with older adults with chronic pain. After doing my observation hours and researching online, I noticed that all therapists use some sort of positive reinforcement with their patients. With older patients it is usually some type of verbal praise and with children the exercise often involves going after a toy which they then get to play with. These reinforcers usually seem to increase the frequency of the target behavior but there are still times in which the patient has their own ideas about what they will do. Most adult patients want to feel like their hard work is being noticed and by giving them praise they know that you have recognized their effort. For children the reinforcers act in a little different way but the goal of increasing the target behavior is the same. When working with children the therapists needs to make therapy fun and make it seem like play. By incorporating toys and stuffed animals, it is more fun and the children are more willing to do whatever they need to do in order to reach the toys. So although the use of positive reinforcement in physical therapy is not flawless, it does make a big difference in patient exercise completion.

http://ptjournal.apta.org/content/89/5/470.full.pdf+html?sid=b45c4a14-eced-4083-bbef-2c571b9d1d88

http://ptjournal.apta.org/content/61/9/1284.full.pdf+html?sid=39b20866-a157-4e74-b444-0d540f9722ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMeUJ7o0xWA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=j04nzpTSThg&feature=fvwp

Terms: Positive Reinforcement, Reinforcement, Desirable, Stimulus, Target Behavior, Emitted, Frequency, Punishment, Behavior Modification, Reinforcer, Satiation, Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence

The topic I chose to discuss is positive reinforcement used with kids who have autism. People with autism have the problem with not knowing what is socially acceptable (no eye contact), and cannot conjure up the correct emotion to go along with what is happening in their lives (smiling when someone has just been hurt). This fits into the chapter we just read because it discussed thoroughly what reinforcement is, and my topic is about positive reinforcement used to increase the liklihood of a behavior. I am interested in the subject of autism because I have read a lot about it, and used to go to school with a kid who had autism. My mother was his teacher, and it was interesting the things she would tell me about him. She was often curious of how to help change his behaviors he was emitting.

Postive reinforcement is one of the best strategies for changing and shaping the behavior of autistic children, as getting rewards is desirable and, naturally, reinforcing. When choosing the right reinforcer, people must consider what has made the child happy in the past, and possibly look towards something that is out of reach of the child that they could possibly want. It says in each of my articles I found that edible reinforcers are shown to be the best for good results, as long as it is a food or snack that the child doesn't get to have on a regular basis. Some parents and teachers may worry about the use of positive reinforcement, thinking that the child shouldn't have to be rewarded, and that using food is what people should be doing with animals, not human beings. Extensive reasearch shows, however, that positive reinforcement is very effective when it comes to changing the behaviors of children with special needs.

Children with autism do not learn behaviors at the rate that other children do, and so there needs to be consistency with the reinforcement if the authoritator wants the behavior to change. Verbal praise is also a very important positive reinforcer that needs to be consistent, so the child knows that when they hear, "Very good, Timmy!" that the behavior they just emitted was desirable to their parent or whoever it may be they are working with, and they should continue to emit it in the future if they want to elicit happiness to who they are working with.

Research shows that it is really important for the reinforcer to be something that the child likes. Using a certain candy that the child doesn't exactly go crazy for will not be as effective as using a candy or treat they especially love. The student will be more likely then to be able to connect the correct behavior with the reinforcer, knowing that if they act well, they will be reinforced. This would cause the child to emit this correct behavior more often. The problem people may face with the autistic children is accidentally paying attention to the bad behavior, instead of rewarding the good, which would have the opposite effect of what is needed to be done in order to shape the behavior. That is why it's important to make sure the positive reinforcement is consistent, immediate, and actually reinforcing.

This subject of modifying a child with austism's behavior fits right into our knowledge of positive reinforcement. The antecedent is the child having autism, the behavior would be doing whatever the caretaker had asked of the child, and the reinforcement is giving the child verbal praise and usually a certain snack. The positive reinforcement increases the autistic child's likiness of emitting the same desirable behaviors again, and the aversive behaviors are less likely to be seen. It is crucial that these autistic children learn what correct behaviors to emit, and positive reinforcement has been shown to be the most effective.

http://www.autism-help.org/behavior-positive-reinforcement-autism.htm
http://www.newsforparents.org/expert_autism_reinforcement.html
http://autism.lifetips.com/tip/127889/treatment-and-therapies-for-autism/treatment-and-therapies-for-autism/positive-reinforcement.html

terms used: positive reinforcement, emitting, emit, reinforcer, elicit, aversive, desirable, antecedent, behavior, consequence

The Effectiveness of Prison as Punishment

After I emitted the behavior of reading the directions, I decided to do look up information on the effectiveness of prison as a punishment. Punishment is to be used decrease an undesirable behavior. I am interested in this because I am curious to know if prison is an effective punishment for prisoners.

Those who emit a behavior of a criminal act, go to court and get charged are sent to prison. The point of prison is to modify their criminal behavior. The question becomes, does it work?

Statistics show that 50% of prisoners who are released from prisons, re-emit their behavior of a criminal act. This is saying that 50% of prisoners don't get the "punishment" that prison is supposed to give them. Their behavior does not get modified.

However, research has shown that education for prisoners helps modify their behavior and becomes a better punishment. I say that criminals go to prison, but while they are in there, they get an education.

http://www.is.wayne.edu/stuarthenry/Effectiveness_of_Punishment.htm
http://www.theargument.org.uk/archives/219
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081007124039AAqWghZ
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8575034.stm

Terms Used: punishment, emitted, modify behavior, undesirable.

The topic that I chose to research was reinforcement in television ads. This ties into what we have been learning about because reinforcement is obviously a huge part of the class. Also, most people watch tv and commercials, although annoying, can have an impact on our decisions when shopping. Commercials elicit a response for us to emit the behavior of choosing what product we want to choose when we are out and about shopping. But most effects of advertising fall well short of persuasion. These minor effects are not obvious but they are more characteristic of the way advertising works. To understand advertising we have to understand and measure these effects. When our kids are growing up we don’t notice their physical growth each day but from time to time we become aware that they have grown. Determining how much a child has grown in the last 24 hours is like evaluating the effect of being exposed to a single commercial. In both cases, the changes are too small for us to notice. But even small effects of advertising can influence which brand we choose especially when all other factors are equal and when alternative brands are much the same.

One important part of this is subliminal stimuli. Some studies have looked at the effectiveness of subliminal messaging in television. Studies suggest that subliminal messages have an effect when the messages are goal-relevant. Subliminally priming a brand name of a drink made those who were thirsty want the brand name product. However, those who were not thirsty, were not influenced by the subliminal messages. Many authors have continued to argue for the effectiveness of subliminal cues in changing consumption behavior, citing environmental cues as a main culprit of behavior change. Authors who support this line of reasoning cite findings such as the research that showed slow-paced music in a supermarket was associated with more sales and customers moving at a slower pace. Findings such as these support the notion that external cues can affect behavior, although the stimulus may not fit into a strict definition of subliminal stimuli because although the music may not be attended to or consciously affecting the customers, they are certainly able to perceive it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_stimuli

http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/book_excerpts/data/1504

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-7gvOUQnaY

Terms: reinforcement, emit, elicit, behavior, stimuli

What is my topic?
Different forms of punishment.
How does it fit into the chapter?
Different forms of punishment fit into chapter two, section three; punishment. Punishment is a very common thing in our everyday lives. We can receive punishment from our parents, friends, coworkers, and even complete strangers. We can receive verbal or physical punishments. I will also be discussing aversive and pleasant punishment. Aversive (negative) meaning taking a stimulus away to reduce the frequency of the undesired behavior. Pleasurable (positive) meaning adding a stimulus to decrease the frequency of the undesired behavior.
I am interested in the different forms of punishment because it is something I experience everyday. Everyone experiences it almost daily. Punishment can come in many different forms; spanking, yelling, dirty looks, loss of privileges, gaining of responsibilities, and many more that I may not even know about! I am looking forward to research more about the different types of punishment that are used around me everyday!

Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior wrong by an individual or group.

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/how-to-discipline-a-child1.htm
TIME-OUTS
According tho TLC, the best way to punish a child is by providing them with a time-out; which is a form of positive punishment. A time-out is good at a short amount of time for young children. With direct punishment after the behavior, they will be expecting a time-out right after the behavior, and since they do not want to sit in a corner by themselves, hopefully the frequency of the undesired behavior should decrease! Once they are older and have more of an understanding of time you can change their punishment to something more appropriate.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT
If a child wakes up late and misses the bus, you can make him walk to school and home as their punishment. If a child doesn't do his chores, take away his television watching privileges. If a child rides into the street on his bicycle after being told not to, take away his bicycle for an amount of time. There are many, many different things that you could do or say to punish your children.

SPANKING
Is spanking ethical? Should you ever hit your child, even if it means your preventing your child from getting into harms way? Personally, I would never hit a child but if you are to spank your child you should definitely not hit them very hard, if you leave a bruise, it is for sure not okay!

VERBAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL
Yelling is not always an effective punishment. Sometimes it can be abusive to peoples' feelings and can make the situation worse. If you are going to use verbal punishment, make sure that it isn't offensive to the person and that it will effectively fix the problem you are trying to solve. I have been yelled at my whole life and I tend to cry in my room and it doesn't really make anything better, if anything it makes it worse in making me want to emit yelling around my loved ones and friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VF06kEKGUk
Verbal Punishment – this video showed a group of “girl” friends were sitting at the lunch table and they are supposed to wear specific clothing on each day and Regina did not, so Gretchen yelled at Regina saying that she needed to leave the table. This is a form of pleasurable (positive) punishment because a stimulus (yelling) is being added to the behavior so that the consequence is that Regina will wear the correct clothing on the right days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuGE1C1HI8Y
Spanking as Punishment -this video clip of an episode of sponge bob square pants is about spanking! It isn't really about trying to be punishing but it is an example of this form of punishment. Spanking, is of course, positive (pleasurable) punishment because there is a stimulus (spanking) added to the behavior to decrease the frequency of the undesired behavior occurring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWBVCQzzJdI
Satiation as Punishment- this video is my favorite! In this clip from the feature film Matilda, Bruce stole a piece of the principles chocolate cake, she found out about it and made Bruce eat another piece of cake in front of the entire school. After he was finished with that, the principle made him eat an entire cake until it was gone, he could not leave the auditorium. This is a form of punishment because satiation includes the action of making a normally pleasurable reinforcer and making it less valuable or reinforcing. Bruce will probably not like or have the desire for chocolate cake for a very long time. Good form of punishment! Too much of a good thing!

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/physical-punishment-not-shown-to-improve-child-behavior
Does Punishment Work?
According to this article, there is little evidence to show that punishment has any long term affects on children's behaviors. Punishment does not always work and in some cases it can make the situation worse. In cases of children that have gotten physically punished, some had become more aggressive and physical as adults and sometimes the children's behaviors' have become worse after emitting physical punishment to the child.

Overall, punishment is not the always the right answer, it may never be the answer period. Reinforcement should be your go to for changing a particular behavior in someone. Let's all be like B.F. Skinner and try to have a world where punishment is not emitted and reinforcement is the answer to all your parenting needs!

Terminology Used in my Assignment: Reinforcement, Reinforcer, Reinforcement, Emitted, Punishment, Aversive, Pleasurable, Positive, Negative, Behaviors, Consequence, Stimulus, Satiation, Frequency, Undesirable, Desirable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/physical-punishment-not-shown-to-improve-child-behavior
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWBVCQzzJdI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuGE1C1HI8Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VF06kEKGUk
http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/how-to-discipline-a-child1.htm

Even with all of the readings and the examples I am still having a really hard time understand the concept of operant behavior. I feel like this is an important concept in behavior modification and I have decided to devote my topical blog to this term so that I can more fully understand it for future class periods.

Operant behavior is the behavior we emit in order to have a certain consequence. So for example, I want to have my question answered I would emit the behavior of raising my hand in order to have the instructor hear and answer my question the consequence being that my question is answered… I think. This is all very confusing to me because I find that I get behavior, operant behavior, target behavior all very confused. I don’t even think my example is actually a good example, in fact its probably wrong which is exactly why I think I need to do a bit more research on this term.

A website called Alleydog gives the example of classical conditioning versus operant conditioning, “The dog couldn’t control the salivation… that’s classical conditioning. However, if the dog understood that by coming when called it would receive a treat, then it would be engaging in operant behavior.” In a way I guess this makes sense. Classical conditioning is uncontrollable while operant behavior is intentional behavior which is dictated by the desired consequence.

I think in order for me to fully understand operant behavior I need to go back to the beginning, back to B.F. Skinner. As a psychology/marketing major with a penchant for behaviorism, I am a huge fan of Skinner. Skinner’s basic concept was that the consequence is the greatest influence on behavior, or in other words the desired consequence will elicit a specific future behavior. What I find to be confusing is the rest of the definition of Operant Behavior, specifically that part where it says that the behavior can change the environment. According to wisegeek.com, the easiest way to understand the effect of operant behavior on the environment is to think of a rat’s maze. Rats run through a maze and are tested for speed. After the rat has finished the maze and reached the end, the rat is placed at the beginning except this time there a bit of food placed at the finish line. If the rat moves through the maze faster to get the food (the consequence) then operant behavior has been emitted. One thing that is an important distinction for operant behavior is that it is not based on “trial and error learning” (bfskinner.org).

Unfortunately for myself, I feel much more confused after reading bfskinner.org and the concept of trial and error learning. The author of this site says that the rat in the box of Thorndike’s experiment found that pressing the lever resulted in food being released and the pressing of the lever was an operant behavior because it was a behavior intended to result in the consequence of food being released, but the rat had to have gone through a trial and error process because the rat didn’t know that if he pressed the lever then food would come shooting out. I think maybe I need to stick with the basics of operant behavior and let that “advanced” stuff come later.

In terms of the ABCs, the antecedent of my situation is A= not understanding the term Operant Behavior. B=learn the basics (which could be an operant behavior, C=understand the term Operant Behavior (the desired consequence).

All three of these pages discussed the theory of operant behavior as well as the history. I feel like it was important for me to write my topical blog about this term because I didn’t understand it prior to writing this blog. It makes sense to me now. Operant behavior is the behavior I would emit in order to gain a specific and desired consequence.

Terms: Operant Behavior, Behavior, Emit, Consequences, Antecedent, Classical Conditioning, Elicit

http://www.bfskinner.org/BFSkinner/SurveyOperantBehavior.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-operant-behavior.htm
http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Operant%20Behavior

Positive Reinforcement
One topic that has really interested me so far in this behavior modification class is the concept of positive reinforcement. Another topic that I am extremely interested in is treatment for children with ADHD, so I emitted a searching behavior to discover how positive reinforcement can be used to help children with ADHD. I feel strongly about finding non-pharmacological treatments for these children, so that we are not altering their brain’s natural chemical balances.
Another article said how catching a child with ADHD emitting the desired behavior and the rewarding that behavior will work as a form of reinforcement to increase the likelihood that the same behavior will occur again. One can do this by emitting praise or rewards.

The first article that I found covers different methods psychosocial treatment for the treatment of children with ADHD. Studies have revealed the benefits of positive reinforcement can have on these children. When tasks were added more stimulators like color, required frequent attention shifts, and motor participation by the child, the children’s task performance was greatly improved. Another way the article introduces to help ADHD children is to reinforce them with reminders so they stay on task.
http://www.russellbarkley.org/images/Psychosocial%20Tx%202002.pdf

This next article touches on how you have to treat children with ADHD in a different manner than their peers. They emphasize the importance of minimizing scolding (punishment) and to maximize praise through positive reinforcement. One way to do this is to “catch them doing something right” and positively reinforce the behavior through praise or rewards. This can help build their self-esteem and give the child something to work for.
http://www.kidsmakingchange.com/ADHD_ADD/cms/ADHD_ADD_Behavior_Management.html

This last article reveals how strong of a motivator positive reinforcement in the form of praise can be. The author emphasizes how the right praise transformative rather than just pleasant. Also, it is important not to praise everything the child does, but wait for truly important moments where that child demonstrates a desired behavior. For children with ADHD, praise is highly valued to them because they receive so little of it, and are used to receiving correction and constructive criticism.
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/812.html

The basic ABC principles of behavior medication can be applied to positive reinforcement for completing these tasks.
A- A child with ADHD needs to emit a homework completing behavior.
B- Color is added to their assignment and their teacher demonstrates increased enthusiasm.
C- The child completes their homework.
Positive reinforcement is when a desirable stimulus is introduced to increase the frequency of a behavior. In this case, the color and the enthusiasm is the positive aspects being added to reinforce the child do emit a task completing behavior. One article that I read revealed how that in some cases of utilizing positive reinforcement that the behavior of children with ADHD can approximate the behavior of the normal control group children.
Terms: Positive reinforcement, emit, stimulus, behavior.

The topic I chose to write about was punishment, and while I was looking at information about that topic I came across a lot of information about the middle ages and how much torture was used. I started looking at some of that information and realized how it was used as punishment in many different ways and different kinds of punishment that we used today. Extreme punishment has been around and used for a very long time. At that time it was no so extreme to them but it would be considered that today. Punishment back then was to impose something aversive or unpleasant on a person who has done something that was disobedient or morally wrong. This is still done today. Starvation was used as a punishment. Today we call this deprivation which means that we are going to take away something for a long period of time. This would be negative punishment because it is taking something away from the situation while decreasing the frequency of the person doing something wrong again. This was also used when people were locked in chambers or dungeons. They were deprived of their live and freedom. Some accused would also be forced to consume large amounts of water or some other liquids. This would be the opposite of deprivation and is called satiation. The person is given a large amount of something that would normally be desirable or pleasant until it is then undesirable or aversive. When reading the concepts they made me think back to the chapter we talked about satiation and deprivation in. When we discussed them we didn't use them with punishment, but rather reinforcement. This made me think of how I can apply what we have been learning with other concepts.
http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/spanish-inquisition3.htm
http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-torture-and-punishment/index.htm
http://www2.springfield.k12.il.us/schools/springfield/eliz/Torturepun.html

I focused my research on the impact spanking has as a positive reinforcement on children. Positive reinforcement is a negative consequence that is applied as a response to a undesired behavior to decrease the frequency of the behavior that is being emitted. This topic is something we have been going over in class a lot, in understanding positive and negative reinforcement along with punishment. At first this was something that was a easy concept to grasp but coming up with examples for our assignments had me thinking that this was not as easy as it looks. I searched this topic and what came up that was interesting to me was how positive reinforcement has a negative impact on children with parents that emit a spanking behaviors as a punisher for the undesired behavior the child emitted. It caught my eye because when talking about any form of punishment it means something a aversive behavior (something pleasurable) that you want to decrease the frequency of that behavior occurring, but adding the concept positive punishment is about adding something as a consequence for a behavior to decrease the frequency of that behavior and this was a example that can help me understand the concept better.
Spanking is the behavior that is being elicited on the children as a consequence for emitting an undesirable behavior. The action to spanking is aversive to the child that it causes them to be more aggressive and act out later in life. This form of punishment would be used to decrease the likelihood of the undesirable behavior that is behind the reasoning for the child getting spanked whatever it may be, since it is a positive punishment because it is adding something that is the spanking, leads to aggressive behavior. When a child is spanked the research finding that it is used as a physical punishment and is linked to mental health problem later in life. There is no research that shows that any type of physical punishment is affective with relations to child’s health in the future. If the behavior which would be a target behavior with the child and it was aversive to you, positive punishment that involves being physical does not have an “positive” effect on the child. Instead any type of reinforcement is recommended to change any undesirable behaviors and make them more desirable.

http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/ModernMedicine+Now/Spanking-should-not-be-used-as-discipline-says-stu/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/758397?contextCategoryId=40148

http://articles.boston.com/2012-02-08/health-wellness/31036450_1_spanked-aggression-murray-straus

http://phobias.about.com/od/glossary/g/pospunish.htm

Terms: positive punishment, reinforcement, punishment, elicit, emit, target behavior, aversive, punisher

The topic that I decided to do some research into is Chinese water torture. Chinese water torture relates to this chapter because it is a form of positive punishment, because it adds an aversive stimulus, and could be used to decrease the frequency of a undesirable target behavior being emitted. The reason I was interested in this topic was because in the text they talked about water boarding so I decided to look on the same line in respect to water torture, and it just stuck my interest.

Chinese water torture, according to wiki, is a process in which water, either ice cold or sometimes warm, is slowly dripped onto a person’s forehead, the forehead was a frequently chosen area of the body to chose because of its sensitivity. Performing Chinese water torture allegedly drove the restrained victim insane. Another version of Chinese water torture, which I found on angelfire.com, is where a rag is stuffed into the mouth of a prisoner and dripping water on it until it swells up and suffocates the prisoner. The video I found was from an episode of MythBusters where they test and see how effective Chinese water torture is, and I was amazed to see the results. It looks like it would be easy to withstand the torture, but its easy to say when your not strapped down with water dripping on your head. In the video you see levels of emotion and mental strain take its toll as time goes on. It obvious to say Chinese water is a very aversive form of positive punishment, and is a very barbaric as well.

Terms used- Positive punishment, aversive stimulus, target behavior, and emitted

http://www.angelfire.com/darkside/forgottendreams/watertor.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/6536-mythbusters-water-torture-video.htm

Reinforcement/Punishment in the Workplace

I chose to look up the types of reinforcement and punishment that is used in the workplace. I figured this would be good to know for the future. I’m interested in what types of things companies do to improve their business and if they use any of the behavioral methods in their business. This fits in with our readings because we have talked about reinforcement and punishment a lot in class.

In my search, most of the sites I looked at really encouraged positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement . Positive reinforcement brings out the best in employees. They respond well to it. Positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement because people will complete tasks because they receive something of value for doing it. Negative reinforcement works to, by removing something unpleasant from the work environment (like constant nagging to get something done), but it isn’t as effective as positive reinforcement. One of the sites labeled this as “Effective reward systems”. It revolved around positive reinforcement. Sometimes when people do things incorrectly, it is a reaction to get upset and reprimand them, but focusing on the positive side of their performance, and giving feedback about those things and also things they need to work on, will make the employee make the necessary changes. Most of the time, just a “good job” or some sort of compliment will increase employees productivity and motivation. Everyone likes to be appreciated and complimented. Sometimes a cash bonus is used as well, which is a great motivator. Companies who use positive reinforcement in their workplaces become more successful faster. Their levels of productivity increases , their sales increase, and their employees are much happier and loyal to the company.

http://www.opm.gov/perform/articles/026.asp
http://www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/btopics/works/postrein.html
http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning/workplace-positive-reinforcement

Terms: reinforcement, punishment, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement.

Corporal Punishment in the Military, Effectiveness:

I researched the use of corporal punishment in the U.S. military. I have personally found out that it is a very effective positive punishment on the vast majority of troops. I am curious if there is another punishment that is more effective.

Corporal punishment in the military usually consists of ‘smoke sessions’, in which a sergeant will ‘smoke’ you as a consequence of misbehaving. Sometimes these sessions were very intense. For example, when I was in basic training and my platoon emitted an aversive behavior our sergeant would take the platoon, about 40 troops, into the barracks (a double-wide trailer). He would then close all the windows and doors and we would do various forms of push-ups ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcUCn5_THBA&feature=related ) with the intent of ‘making the walls sweat’. Afterward we were not pleased, in fact I have never been so angry with another person as I was at the private who was responsible for us getting smoked. Poor unit cohesion is the response.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4-Aijzs88M&feature=related

Corporal punishment leads to aggression and antisocial behavior. Which are unwanted, but can it really be replaced by anything else? In civilian studies effective alternatives are listening and positive reinforcement. These are excellent ideas, but not for the military. I find it hard to believe that the army or any other branch will ever move away from physical punishment because of the rank system and general conduct.

http://www.apa.org/redirect.html?aspxerrorpath=/releases/spanking.aspx

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/great-kids-great-parents/200909/effective-alternatives-physical-punishment-the-view-psychoanaly

Positive punishment, emit, aversive, behavior, punishment, consequence, and response.

The topic I chose to further research is how music has a role in satisfying personal mood goals. This topic came to my mind after attending a rock concert this week. Music is one of my big passions and so being able to related it to what we are learning seemed like a fun idea. Music can be used to increase the overall behavior of having a positive emotion and mood. Not only do the listeners of music use it as a reinforcer of a positive mood but so do musicians. Several musicians use it to cope with things and write about their own experiences; using music increases their mood also.

The main part of this topic comes from a research article, which is about modifying one’s mood and emotions with music. http://pom.sagepub.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/content/35/1/88.full.pdf+htmlMusic can strengthen one’s positive feelings and can help one to feel better when in a depressed state (Saarilikallio, 2006). By participating in various activities the participants in the study I looked at were able to listen to music to improve their mood. Music acts as a reinforcer in this case because it in increase the frequency of an improved personal mood in the individual. Looking at the definition of reinforcement, what a musician says about their music and it’s effects and this article; I was able to see the connection of how music reinforces positive emotions and mood behaviors. http://allpsych.com/psychology101/reinforcement.html

Researchers wanted people in the study to emit behaviors that contributed to a positive mood and emotional state and used music to do so. The music as added into the equation to increase the frequency of a positive mood. Music elicits the response of happiness overall through the use of self-expression while listening. It seems people rarely find it an aversive behavior so it only makes sense to implement a pleasurable kind of music.

Some people tend to put themselves into a self-deprivation state when emotionally depressed. They do not listen to joyful music or things that make them feel happy. To get people to emit the target behavior music is introduced into the situation to reinforce the elicited behavior. Mood is low prior to the music but after the music is listened to then the consequence is a happier mood overall (Saarilikallio, 2006).

Musicians will say that music helps them cope with the world; in a sense this is how people who listen use the music to, to lift their moods. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WLowd1eI04 Music for the musicians is also used as a reinforcer to help increase the frequency of having more positive emotions.

URLs:
http://pom.sagepub.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/content/35/1/88.full.pdf+html
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/reinforcement.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WLowd1eI04

Terms:
Positive Reinforcement, reinforce, reinforce, aversive, pleasurable, elicit, emit, target behavior, consequence, implement, deprivation, frequency, response,

For this assignment I chose to examine the role of positive reinforcement as it relates to the consumer. I decided on this topic after considering customer loyalties in the context of online businesses. I realized that I tend to use amazon.com for most of my general shopping needs; and then I asked myself why. What I came up with was that I was being positively reinforced every time i purchased something from the site. I can browse for just about any product, check reviews, find the best price, and have it delivered at the click of a button all on one site. Its consistent ease of use has shaped my behavior so that i will continue to emit a shopping behavioral class on their site, and not a competitors site (ebay for example).

There are many ways in which positive reinforcement is used to shape a consumer's behavior to establish brand loyalties. The sources that I used mostly examine consumer behavior from a marketing standpoint. My first source explained the influence of positive reinforcement with the question, "whats in it for me?" Consumers are very much concerned with this question and the answer is what makes or breaks a customer relationship. People are always looking for the best deal and the least hassle. Companies that can offer these (or appear to offer them) are going to see a returning customer base."The more benefits that can be obtained due to changes in behavior, the easier it is for the person to change his behavior."

One very interesting article brought up the concept of "free". As consumers, no deal is better than free right? We can see it everywhere, buy one get one free, free shipping, free returns. My personal favorite are those promotions in which you could win a free car or computer or some crap. The amazing thing is that nothing is free for a consumer-thats the whole point. While you really aren't getting anything for free, the impression that you are is enough to get you in the door and shopping around.

vhttp://techcocktail.com/positive-reinforcement-social-media-marketing-2010-08#.TzV8sM0bwhQ

http://www.thegreatlab.com/2011/10/positive-reinforcement-make-consumers-comfortable-with-us/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2558749/Consumer-Behavior-Lecture2

Terms: Positive reinforcement, behavior, emit, behavioral class, shaping