Topical Blog Week #14 (Due Thursday)

Topical Blog Week #14

For this weeks topical blog, I wanted to do a little more research on New Year Resolutions. I wanted to see some of the most common resolutions that want to be accomplished each year, how many people actually succeed at accomplishing their new year resolutions and why their new year resolutions don't fall through, and then incorporate my own new year resolutions with the ones that I find today! This has to do with class because we have discussed new year resolution's in class.

There are many different new years resolution's and over the years your resolution's tend to be very similar each year. There are ten very common resolutions among Americans and they are; spend more time with friends and family, get fit, get rid of the bulge, quit smoking, enjoy life more, quit drinking, get out of debt, learn something new, help others, and get organized. If you think about it, these seem like very reasonable goals, and very well known to men and women. I know that I have had a few of these goals over the years as well. My goals that I set for myself this year where to eat healthier, get in shape, get better grades, and communicate and get back in touch with my family and old friends. As you can see, even I have similar target behaviors as many other people in this country, even as older people than me.

I also tend to wonder why these goals usually do not work out in the end. Before this class, I always assumed it was just because of pure laziness and lack of time. But through this class and a YouTube video that I watched I learned that there are many reasons as to why new year resolutions usually fail. First of all, when choosing your target behavior, it has to be very specific! You can't just say I want to be fit. You have to be specific and say, “I want to stop eating in-between meals, choose healthy snacks, and emit exercise three times a week for an hour and a half for each work out session.” As you can see it is not enough to simply say you want to loose weight, you have to distinguish how you are going to accomplish your goal. Your target behavior also has to be attainable and reasonable. Your goal in mind can not be I'm going to loose one hundred pounds before swim suit season. Your goal also has to be reasonable and manageable. You have to make sure your goal is do-able, you have to know what to expect when making your goals. Also, your target behavior has to have a time limit with it. If you don't you will keep pushing it off and not accomplishing what you wanted done with in that time span. As we learned in class, there are many goal setting guidelines to follow!

I also became aware of the statistics of new years resolution's (NYR's). Forty five percent of American's usually make NYR's. Seventeen percent of American's infrequently make NYR's. Thirty eight percent of American's do not make NYR's at all. Only eight percent of American's actually succeed in achieving their NYR's. Twenty four percent of American's never succeed and fail on their NYR's each year. To me this seems very sad. I don't know whether American's are plain lazy or if they have no self motivation. I know that I have trouble achieving some of my goals also but I am a poor college student and there are many obstacles in my way of doing the things that I want to do. Grown adults should have more resources to accomplish what they want to. That is just my opinion!

Terminology that I used in this blog: Target Behavior, Emit, Self Motivation, Distinguish, Attainable, Reasonable, Goal Setting Guidelines, Time Oriented, Manageable, Realistic,

http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU59J8di5Q4
http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

The topic that I decided to concentrate on for this assignment is schedules of reinforcement. This topic fits into what we have been learning because section 2.5 focused solely on this topic. Schedules of reinforcement fit into behavior modification because behavior modification is all about increasing or decreasing the frequency of a target behavior through the processes of reinforcement or punishment. Since schedules of reinforcement concentrate on different ways in which to reinforce behavior, they are a large part of behavior modification.

After emitting the behavior of reading section 2.5, I became very interested in the concept of schedules of reinforcement. It was interesting to see how certain schedules of reinforcement work better in one specific situation whereas others work better in different ones. I wanted to learn more about this topic because when I become a parent and a physical therapist I will be implementing various schedules of reinforcement in my work place and day to day life. It will be beneficial for me to know when and how to use certain schedules of reinforcement so that I can elicit specific behaviors from my patients and children and be effective as possible while doing so.

In operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement are an important component of the learning process. This idea of schedules of reinforcement was originally discovered by B.F. Skinner while doing research on rats and pigeons in operant chambers. After some time, Skinner realized that he could reinforce the organism only some of the time and the target behavior would still be emitted. From here, the idea of schedules of reinforcement came about.

The number of possible reinforcement schedules is infinite. However, only a relatively few of them have been studied scientifically. The first schedule of reinforcement, which many people are familiar with, is known as a continuous reinforcement schedule. In this schedule, every response produces a reinforcer. That means that the desired behavior is reinforced every single time it is emitted. This is the schedule that Skinner used in his initial studies when he gave the rat a pellet every time it pushed the lever. This schedule of reinforcement is the best one to use during the initial stages of learning in order to create a strong association between the behavior and the response. Once the response is firmly attached, reinforcement is usually switched to an intermittent, or partial, schedule of reinforcement.

Intermittent schedules of reinforcement are those in which responses are only occasionally reinforced. Intermittent schedules of reinforcement can either be dependent on the number of responses made or on the amount of time passed. Schedules that depend on the number of responses are called ratio schedules and those that depend on time are known as interval schedules. Ratio and interval schedules can both be either fixed or variable. A Fixed Ratio Schedule of reinforcement is when every nth response produces a reinforcer. For example, the rat may be reinforced after every five times that it presses the lever. This type of reinforcement is known as fixed because once you set the number, it does not vary. Fixed Interval Schedules of Reinforcement follow the same type of rules, except in this schedule the organism gets reinforced as a specified amount of time. This time interval does not change.

Variable Schedules, on the other hand, require the time or number of responses to vary. In Variable Ratio Schedules of Reinforcement, the number of responses varies between reinforcement. For example, one reinforcer may only require four responses while the next is obtained after 17 responses. Variable Interval Schedules of Reinforcement are very much the same except the time between reinforcements changes.

Each of the schedules of reinforcement that I have mentioned produces a characteristic pattern of responding. These patterns of responding can be recorded using a cumulative recorder, which was originally created by B. F. Skinner. Fixed Ratio schedules result in responses occurring at a high rate and usually without significant pauses while the subject completes the fixed ratio requirement. When the reinforcer is delivered, the subject does not immediately resume responding, this results in what is known as a post-reinforcement pause. The graph resembles a set of stairs with the post-reinforcement pauses increasing in length as the ratio size is made larger.

Variable Ratio schedules tend to sustain high rates of responding, with little evidence of pausing, other than the time required to retrieve the reinforcer. This is due to the fact that the organism does not know when the next reinforcer with occur.

Fixed Interval schedules produce a cumulative record that closely resembles that of the fixed ratio. However, the transition from non-responding to high-rate responding has the form of a curve rather than a sudden jump from flat to steep rising.

And the graphs for the Variable Interval schedules are steady and show relatively moderate response rates. The organism must continuously emit the target behavior because they do not know when the reinforcer will be given.

Intermittent reinforcement schedules are more resistant to extinction and they also reduce the risk that the subject will become satiated. This is due to the fact that the organism is not reinforced for every single response.

Although I did not learn a whole lot of new stuff by doing this assignment, it was nice to have a refresher on the subject and by covering this material again it is more likely to elicit a remembering response from me.

Terms: Schedules of Reinforcement, Behavior Modification, Frequency, Target Behavior, Reinforcement, Punishment, Behavior, Reinforce, Reinforcer, Emitting, Elicit, Operant Conditioning, B. F. Skinner, Operant Chambers, Continuous Reinforcement, Response, Desired, Intermittent Schedule, Fixed Ratio, Variable Ratio, Fixed Interval, Variable Interval, Cumulative Recorder, Post-Reinforcement Pause, Emit, Extinction, Satiated

http://users.ipfw.edu/abbott/120/Schedules.html
http://www.brembs.net/operant/
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedules.htm

I decided to elicit additional information on the idea of goal setting. I have found this area particularly aversive for myself because I have always had a difficulty emitting my target behavior of the particular goal I have set.

Obviously realizing now that there are particular necessary steps that need to be followed to achieve your target behavior I now have found it a lot easier to emit the target behavior of working out. The things I have found extremely important that have helped me continue to achieve my target goal behavior are that after I have set a realistic goal that I have graphed my results each day I complete the behavior, and I keep a record so that I am able to graph them, and then to have a good reinforcer.

Initially setting a realistic goal is most important. If a person sets a goal that is unattainable they will be less likely to emit that particular behavior they want to achieve. When setting a realistic goal, start with small goals. Ones those are easy to elicit and work your way up. It will allow you to have more opportunities for the reinforcer. BUT, just in the same consideration with not setting goals to high, do not set them to low either. It’s easier to low goals because you know you can achieve them and no one wants to not meet their goal. If you are able to elicit your goal to easily, set the goal to be more of a challenge.

After setting your goal, upon eliciting the behavior you want to achieve it is best to keep good record whilst you are completing the goal. For example, if your goal is to run on the treadmill as long as possible, maybe keep track of how fast your pace is or how long you’re able to run in a given timeframe. It is important to create some sort of record keeping because it makes you aware of what you are doing and achieving each day, shows you proof of how you are possibly getting better at your target behavior. Same with graphing, you would be unable to emit graphing if you are not keeping record of your target goal. Having a graph will also give you a visual as to what your accomplished target goals are.

Reinforcement gives you the accomplishment of your elicited target behavior. Giving yourself some incentive will make you want to continue to the target behavior so that you are able to achieve the target behavior and be reinforced for achieving it. It is important to choose an appropriate goal. Surely if you are trying to achieve a target weight for your behavior, you wouldn’t want to have a fatty or sweet food reinforce, unless it is possibly within reason? As long as you achieve your target behavior, then you receive your reinforcement. It is important to be consistent with rewarding yourself and slowly in time upon emitting your target behavior you will be able to slowly retreat your reinforcer.

Terms: target behavior, reinforce, aversive, emit, elicit,

http://www.solveyourproblem.com/setting-goals/set_realistic_goals_write_goals_down.shtml
http://health.ninemsn.com.au/dietandnutrition/nutrition/1062270/the-importance-of-recording-your-goals
http://www.customizingfitness.com/2012/01/fitness-goals-and-rewards-positive-reinforcement-for-your-healthy-habits/

I decided to emit the behavior of looking into Differential Reinforcement.

During class and the last chapter reading we looked into differential reinforcement. In class we looked at it in respect to token economies. To find different ways to change a punishment to a reinforcement.

There's many different ways to try and reinforce behavior. So if one way doesn't work there's bound to be something else that does. The problem I had was trying to distinguish the different types of DR. So by getting more specific and learning more about what each type does I can hopefully become better at this. DRO is the Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior, This would be rewarding during the time the aversive behavior is not displayed. There is DRI of Differential Response of Incompatible Behaviors. Meaning the you reward the behaviors that prevent the display of undesirable behaviors. There's also DRA- the Differential Response of alternative behavior. For this It's important to select a behavior that is the opposite or would compete with the target behavior. Then you must reinforce the behavior that is the alternative behavior. DRL is the differential reinforcement of low rates of behavior. So if a student is raising their hand a lot during class, the teacher may ask the to only raise their hand three times a day. These Differential Reinforcement techniques are great when used for children. The are most effective with children ages 4 to 12. They can be easily used in the classroom and can be used with kids who may have some mental challenges as well which makes it appealing to teachers. I did learn some of the differences between them.

http://www.behavioradvisor.com/DRintro.html
http://autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/content/differential-reinforcement
http://slhslinux.cla.umn.edu/fullcourse/Module4/ReactiveStrategies/mrs02b.html

Terminology: Reinforcement, Target Behavior, Punishment, Emit, Aversive, Differential Reinforcement

Positive/Negative Reinforcement

The topic I chose to research a little more about was 'positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement'. I was really interested in this topic once we discussed this in section 2.2 when we talked about reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement involves anything that follows a behavior that will make it more likely to make the behavior occur. when there is a favorable outcome like a reward or praise, this will strengthen that particular response. Positive means that something is being added to the situation, such as the reward or the praise. Some examples of this positive reinforcement would be " getting an A on a test, and your teacher saying 'good job' or 'way to go'. the praise is what is being added. "When you do well on a performance review at your job, and you receive a raise. The extra money from the raise is what is being added to the situation. Another example of positive reinforcement, which we talked about in class is from the show The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon uses positive reinforcement on Penny. Every time Penny emits a behavior that Sheldon wants to increase he gives her a piece of chocolate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_mIEnnlF4

Negative reinforcement is when a behavior is strengthened by stopping, removing, or avoiding a negative outcome or aversive stimulus. This works because they are avoiding something that is bad to them or aversive to them. Negative reinforcement is when we are subtracting or taking away something from that situation. A good example of this is when you go outside in the sun, and put on sunscreen. This is negative reinforcement because you are subtracting an aversive sunburn from the situation and can hang out in the sun.

http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/positive-reinforcement.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/positive-reinforcement.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_mIEnnlF4

Terms: positive, negative, reinforcement, aversive, emit, stimulus

The topic that I chose to emit a learning behavior on was rule governed behavior. I really found this topic interesting when we discussed it in class, because it seems like this rules our day to day lives. This type reinforcement often goes unnoticed, but it governs everything that people do. The term of rule governed behavior was first brought up by the behaviorist, B.F. Skinner in 1966. Skinner used this term to refer to behavior that is essential to complex human abilities. When considering a rule in a rule governed behavior, the rule functions as a contingency specifying stimulus. This means that the rule acts as an antecedent to bring about a certain behavior.

There are three types of rule governed behavior: pliance, tracking, and augmenting. Pliance is a rule-governed behavior under the control of apparent socially mediated consequences for a correspondence between the rule and relevant behavior. This means that when you do something that you are told to do, you are simply doing it because you were told, and not because you want the outcome. For example, if your mom told you to wash the dishes, you would do them because she told you to, and not because you care about the dishes being clean. Tracking is a rule-governed behavior under the control of apparent correspondence between the rule and the way the world is arranged. This would be like following directions from someone when you’re on a road trip, because they know the way and you don’t. Augmenting is a rule-governed behavior under the control of apparent changes in the capacity of events to function as reinforcers or punishers. An example of this is when someone asks a child if they are OK. The child is usually fine until they are asked, but after the question is asked, they start to cry. Instead of them being hurt or sad, the question asking behavior brings about the crying behavior, because the child reevaluates the way that they are feeling.

I emit rule governed behaviors daily in my life. For example, I am emitting a homework completing behavior, because I am expected to do my homework. One rule governed behavior that we probably don’t give much thought is stopping at a stop sign. Stopping at a stop sign is a rule set in place by the government, and most of us follow it.

Terms: Behavior, emit, pliance, tracking, augmentation, rule governed behavior, emitted.

www.caiomiguel.org/classes/psyc181_281/SO11.doc
http://www.ijpsy.com/volumen8/num2/191/rule-governed-behavior-and-psychological-EN.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1338855/?page=3

I have chosen to emit the behavior of researching Freud and his Psychoanalyitc theory, Structural Model, and Interpretation of Dreams.

During Freud's time the main focus of scientists was Natural Sciences, but freud took this paradigm and applied it to menatl disorders. (Although Freud considered himself a scientists first) and this is important to understand where psychology laid its roots to become what it is today, and all the different focus divisions that go into psychology as a whole. Eventhough behaviorism wasn't a part of psychology during his time, I think it plays in part on the natural science of his time. Freud's youngets duaghter, Ana, is believed to be the founder of child psychology.

He is most known for his "interprtation of dreams" no matter how aversiv it may have been. He applied this and other sexually based theories into the main construct of the termed Psychoanalytic theory, and the third factor called the unconcious mind. Through his exporation into his patients dreams and other disscussions he formed a theroy called the Oedipus comple: women were envious of not having a penis. freud had many theory and all of them are usually deemed inapplicable by today's standards.

He later formed what is called the Structural Model. This is the three parts of his pleasure principle or as you know it the Id, Ego, and Superego.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR2Y-PSLiIw&feature=related (5:30-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMwI4ON3uTg&feature=related

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

Terms: Behavior, emit, aversive,

For this blog I decided to focus more on the token economy we have been discussing in class. I have been thinking about token economies and I realized that it was interesting that people could get so excited over things such as check marks and golden starts (even though golden stars are pretty). I figured out that you must have the correct antecedent for the token to be effective. You also have to have the right background information to make the tokens reinforcing. Such as if you had an elementary school who gave out checkmarks as an equivilant to an F then checkmarks may not be the correct token to give out for some target behavior you want to reinforce and may cause cognitive dissonance within your subject.
So while researching this I came upon the term "back up reinforcers" for the actual reinforcing consequence for emitting the target behavior. Yes tokens such as gold stars can be pretty but it's unlikely to be enough of a reinforcer to elicit any behavior modification over the long run. Usually the tokens add up and can be traded in for different reinforcing rewards later. Such as 5 gold stars gets you a piece of candy. In this instance the gold stars are considered the tokens whereas the candy is the backup reinforcer that actually creates motivation for the desirable behavior. The token is the discriminative stimulus for the back up reinforcer, get a token and eventually you get enough you can get a back up reinforcer.
This may be something that we cover later in class and I think it goes a little bit more in depth to the thought of token economies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_economy
http://www.termwiki.com/EN:back-up_reinforcer
http://www.wadsworth.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M35&product_isbn_issn=053459994X&&altname=Glossary&&resource_id=10&chapter_number=0

Terms: behavior, target behavior, reinforcement, token, back up reinforcers, token economies, desirable behavior, cognitive dissonance, discriminative stimulus, emit, elicit, consequence, antecedent,

This week I decided to do my blog on Watson and his Little Albert experiment. I find this experiment very interesting and I honestly can't believe that it was okay way back then (1920). Obviously now this violates a code of ethics. I do understand that things were different back then, but at the same time, this is still a child we are talking about. When you think about the experiment and all it entails, Watson was intentionally harming a child.

As I stated above, the Little Albert experiment was conducted in 1920 by John B. Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner. As we know, this experiment was to look at the effects of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a creating a response to a stimulus that normally wouldn't create that response. We talked about this in class for a while, especially because it got confusing. This is another reason why I chose to write my blog on the Little Albert experiment and classical conditioning. The concept and all of the elements got confusing for me, so I thought that since we haven't talked about it for sometime, this would be good practice for me again.

What was tricky for me was distinguishing between the unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned response, and conditioned stimulus. In a little bit I will apply these concepts to the Little Albert experiment in order to show that I now know the difference between the four.

Back to the Little Albert experiment. Watson noticed in everyday life that children tended to be afraid of loud noises. He wanted to see if he could apply this concept to something a child wasn't afraid of - classical conditioning. He wanted to elicit fear from a child from something that wasn't normally frightening. He decided that the thing he wanted the child to fear was a white rat. At first when the child would play and have the white rat in the room, nothing would happen and the child would be just fine. However the next time when they let the white rat next to Albert, they played a very loud noise behind him. This scared Albert, and he began to become distressed and cry. They repeated this over and over that soon no loud nosie was necessary, and that the fear sight of the rat made the child emit the behavior of crying.

Now let's break down the experiment. As we learned in one of our lectures, there is a "cheat" when distinguishing between the four components of classical conditioning. The unconditioned and conditioned stimulus are the same thing. In this case, the unconditioned and conditioned stimulus is the white rat. The unconditioned respose to the white rat is nothing really - perhaps curosity or just a smile. The conditioned response, however, is much more noticeable. The conditioned response is the child crying and becoming afraid.

http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/little-albert-experiment.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI&feature=related

http://web.mst.edu/~psyworld/classical_conditioning.htm

For this week's topical blog, I decided to do a little more research on the "terrible two's." I was really interested after reading about this in the chapter because I've always heard of this age, but never really thought about what it actually meant. I find it very interesting that children go through different stages and there are different things to do for each child. I like the fact that eliminating the word no can change a whole lot of things about the "terrible two's." It doesn't let the child say no when asked a question or when told to do something. No is a very important word in someone's vocabulary if used correctly.

During the "terrible two's" children are learning to say more and more things just by listening to other people. Their behavior can be changed by reinforcing what they say and do. They are trying to be more independent at this stage in their lives. It is very important to make sure you are reinforcing and punishing a child the right way. Many parents dread the "terrible two's" because it is bad and parents don't know how to act when their children aren't listening and paying attention to them. It is also hard because they are meeting more people at this stage in their lives and they are giving other people the wrong impressions.

These are a few articles and blogs about different ways to reinforce children during the "terrible two's." I really like this topic because it is interesting and there are different ways to change the behavior of a child just by changing a few things in their everyday lives.

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/toddlers/a/05_terrble_twos.htm

http://talkingtotoddlers.com/

http://www.parentingmytoddler.com/terrible-twos

Terms: behavior, target behavior, consequence, antecedent.

It took me quite a while to decide upon a topic to discuss. I decided that I would talk about punishment because it is something that we are to avoid as behavior modifiers. I picked some humorous videos to showcase this concept. First of all, punishment is aversive. Punishment is utilized to minimize the occurrence of emitted behaviors that are aversive. The consequence of punishment should elicit the offender to learn not to behave as such, but it does not attempt to teach replacement behaviors. In the first clip I chose, Billy Madison is punished for answering a question incorrectly, and it is positive punishment that is utilized. He has something added that is aversive, in this case he is verbally humiliated for answering the question as incorrectly as he did. In fact, all of my video clips are positive punishment because the punisher is adding something aversive as a consequence of an undesired behavior. In the second clip, the result of emitting a wrong answer is death. And in the third clip, a parent utilizes humiliation as punishment, yet again. I would venture to guess that the girl is being punished on two levels: she has probably been fighting with her brother, which would make it very aversive to have to hug him; she also is being humiliated because she is being broadcast on the street and also on YouTube. I do not advocate for punishment, but I imagine that this will have taught the girl a lesson.

But in behavior modification we prefer to utilize reinforcement. Reinforcement is a technique in which we attempt to elicit desirable behaviors out of an individual. Rather than focusing on behaviors we do not want to be emitted, we focus on teaching behaviors we desire to have emitted. Positive reinforcement is the addition of something desirable that results in an increase of the likelihood of a behavior occurring. Negative reinforcement is the taking away of something undesirable, like removing chores for the week due to desirable behaviors. The consequence of reinforcement feels good. You want to continue certain behaviors because you like reinforcement. I hope this was a good quick review and good laugh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kpTvm6CYA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS8Mg-JWSg (see 0:58 - 1:10)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMut-jVPQkw

The topic I chose was token economies. But token economies used with monkeys. I chose this because of a recent story in the newspaper telling about economic research done with monkeys. There is a long history of research showing that all kinds of animals can learn to work for tokens that can be exchanged for other things. The token becomes a conditioned reinforcer because it takes on the qualities of the primary reinforcer by being exchanged for it.

The current research is slightly different (see specific reference below). It was done at Yale University in their primate research center. The tokens were small circular pieces of metal with a hole in the center. They were a little larger than a quarter. The first part of the study involved teaching the monkeys that these meaningless objects could be exchanged for primary reinforcers such as a piece of fruit. The researchers said this took “some time,” but it wasn’t clear from the articles exactly what their procedure was. It doesn’t seem like this ought to take long at all.

Once the monkeys would reliably exchange a token for a piece of fruit or other bits of food, the researchers began to manipulate the “economy.” For example, they might vary the “price” by varying the amount of fruit or food that could be exchanged for a token. Or again, they might vary the schedule of how often the monkey received food for the token. They did not call this a schedule, but used the word “consistency.” They could also sometimes give bonuses for a token. The researchers seemed to have only a few things that the monkey could “spend” the money on, so I am not sure how much of a generalized reinforcer the tokens really were.

Unlike much of the past work on animals and tokens, the researchers were not trying to see if they could then use the tokens to teach other behaviors. Instead, as described above, they were trying to see if the monkeys followed the economic laws of supply and demand.

They found that they were. Monkey’s preferred a safe certain smaller choice over a larger riskier one. The monkeys would steal tokens from each other when they could and immediately try to spend them. Monkeys never saved tokens but always spent them. One researcher claimed that one pair of monkeys exchanged sex for a token.

The researchers never used any of the language or terms of behavior modification- even though the language of behavior modification seemed to describe very well what was going on. The researchers just set up the “economy” but never tried to “teach” the monkeys any behaviors. For example, could you get the monkeys to save under certain conditions? I wondered what kind of environment you would have to have to get a monkey to save. Humans learn to save so why can’t a monkey? It would be interesting to compare this work with token economies in children. Young children are always unlikely to save unless they are taught in some way to see its benefits and then learn some way to put off the immediate reinforcement for a delayed one. I would be interested to see more research done on the topic.

http://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/

http://digitaljournal.com/article/310960

http://www.ted.com/talks/laurie_santos.html

Key terms: token economy, reinforcer, reinforcement, schedule of reinforcement, conditioned reinforcer, generalized reinforcer, behavior modification, environment, immediate reinforcement, delayed reinforcer, condition, exchange

I wanted to find out more information to how different types of reinforcement modify classroom behaviors. I wanted to research this topic because I think it’s interesting how they are applying behavior modification to the classroom.
I found that by using reinforcement in the classroom it improves student motivation and performance. When trying to modify a behavior it states that the teacher needs to find a target behavior, which we talk about in class that if you want to change or modify a behavior you have to get specific enough that both sides know that behavior needs to be modified, this is called a target behavior. By identifying a target behavior you are not allowing any confusion on what is expected from the student, it helps to clearly describe the desirable behavior that is incompatible with the challenging behavior.
Once a target behavior is identified and clearly explained to the student the teacher needs to find out what motivates the student to emit the desired behavior. They are added incentives in the classroom, which will help the student, perform the desirable behavior. Something else that works is using the token economy that we talked about in class, is it a type of reinforcement that after a behavior has been emitted a specific reinforcer is used as a “token” for that behavior.
This will all help in modifying a behavior and with the use of reinforcement along with positive reinforcement in the classroom operant condition is occurring because after the behavior as occurred the student is being reinforced so it is more likely the behavior will occur again in the future.
I liked researching this topic because it is an example of the concepts of behavior modification and seeing how it is used in the classroom and through reinforcement, behaviors can be modified.

Terms; reinforcement, behavior modification, emit, operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, target behavior, token economy

http://www.ttacnews.vcu.edu/2010/01/reinforcement-in-the-classroom-improves-student-motivation-and-performance.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/positive-reinforcement.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_4556420_use-positive-reinforcement-classroom.html

I chose to do my blog on token economies. After learning about token economies it made me realize how many areas in life implement this strategy to elicit our behavior. Restaurants use this technique so often. When they do this they use some kind of object (typically a card) to be redeemed after a certain amount of time or a certain number of uses. This creates an incentive for the customer to come back to the establishment to receive the reward (reinforcement) for being a returning customer. In order for these objects to be effective, the place of business needs to have some kind of safeguard to protect people from taking advantage of the token economy and cheating them out of sales. A restaurant on Hudson Rd. that I go to once in a while uses this business strategy. After nine or ten meals (and punches on a card for each meal) a customer gets a free meal worth up to ten or twelve dollars. There have been at least three times I have chosen to go to this restaurant instead if another one when going to eat out in Cedar Falls. Other examples of token economies would be gold stars for young kids on schools for behaving appropriately or for doing what the teacher asks, etc. The younger the kids are the easier it is to keep the tokens safe from unauthorized influence. The older kids are more creative and conniving. They are more likely to try and add (golden stats) to their name or change something on the list do they do not have to work as hard to get the reward. When implementing a token economy, one must be able to keep it safe and secure from outside influence, have tokens easily replenished and only so the person in charge of it can get more tokens, must have reasonable requirements before the reward (reinforcement) is given. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VlRQ3XHmFJo
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sufoKRcHNVs
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=czxYKHP91YI

Terminology: reinforcement, token economy, elicit, behavior, implement, technique.

The topic I chose was token economies. But token economies used with monkeys. I chose this because of a recent story in the newspaper telling about economic research done with monkeys. There is a long history of research showing that all kinds of animals can learn to work for tokens that can be exchanged for other things. The token becomes a conditioned reinforcer because it takes on the qualities of the primary reinforcer by being exchanged for it.

The current research is slightly different (see specific reference below). It was done at Yale University in their primate research center. The tokens were small circular pieces of metal with a hole in the center. They were a little larger than a quarter. The first part of the study involved teaching the monkeys that these meaningless objects could be exchanged for primary reinforcers such as a piece of fruit. The researchers said this took “some time,” but it wasn’t clear from the articles exactly what their procedure was. It doesn’t seem like this ought to take long at all.

Once the monkeys would reliably exchange a token for a piece of fruit or other bits of food, the researchers began to manipulate the “economy.” For example, they might vary the “price” by varying the amount of fruit or food that could be exchanged for a token. Or again, they might vary the schedule of how often the monkey received food for the token. They did not call this a schedule, but used the word “consistency.” They could also sometimes give bonuses for a token. The researchers seemed to have only a few things that the monkey could “spend” the money on, so I am not sure how much of a generalized reinforcer the tokens really were.

Unlike much of the past work on animals and tokens, the researchers were not trying to see if they could then use the tokens to teach other behaviors. Instead, as described above, they were trying to see if the monkeys followed the economic laws of supply and demand.

They found that they were. Monkey’s preferred a safe certain smaller choice over a larger riskier one. The monkeys would steal tokens from each other when they could and immediately try to spend them. Monkeys never saved tokens but always spent them. One researcher claimed that one pair of monkeys exchanged sex for a token.

The researchers never used any of the language or terms of behavior modification- even though the language of behavior modification seemed to describe very well what was going on. The researchers just set up the “economy” but never tried to “teach” the monkeys any behaviors. For example, could you get the monkeys to save under certain conditions? I wondered what kind of environment you would have to have to get a monkey to save. Humans learn to save so why can’t a monkey? It would be interesting to compare this work with token economies in children. Young children are always unlikely to save unless they are taught in some way to see its benefits and then learn some way to put off the immediate reinforcement for a delayed one. I would be interested to see more research done on the topic.

http://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/

http://digitaljournal.com/article/310960

http://www.ted.com/talks/laurie_santos.html

Key terms: token economy, reinforcer, reinforcement, schedule of reinforcement, conditioned reinforcer, generalized reinforcer, behavior modification, environment, immediate reinforcement, delayed reinforcer, condition, exchange

I decided to look a little bit deeper into B.F. Skinner. Skinner was the man responsible for his work in operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement, the Skinner box, and the controversial baby in a box. We have talked about all four of these in class so I decided to look up any other machines or inventions that Skinner made.
The first thing that I found was the teaching machine. It was a very simple machine with a set of questions on a piece of paper. You would answer each individual question and write the answer in a window on the machine. After answering the question you would then twist a knob and immediately see the correct answer. Skinner developed this as a classroom aide to keep the level of learning at relatively the same pace. Smarter students who go through the questions faster don’t have to wait for the slower students to catch up. The teaching machine relates to psychology because it provides immediate and regular reinforcement to the user.
Another of Skinners inventions was the pigeon ping-pong table. I didn’t believe that something like this would have existed but the video shows a working pigeon ping-pong table. The pigeons would hit the ball across the table with their beak and if the ball got past the other pigeon, the pigeon would be reinforced immediately with a piece of food. This applies to what we are learning in class because it is essentially the same thing as the Skinner box in that the pigeon gets reinforced immediately for emitting a particular behavior.
http://www.bfskinner.org/BFSkinner/AboutSkinner.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXR9Ft8rzhk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGazyH6fQQ4

For this weeks topical blog, I decided to look farther into Differential Reinforcement. This interests me because it wasn't exactly clear to me on what it was. This relates to the class because we have recently been talking about DRO.

According to one of the articles I found, DRO is defined as, "A procedure where positive reinforcement is provided only when the target behavior is not displayed for a specified period of time." In short, you are pretty much reinforcing the absense of an aversive behavior. Some good things about it is that it is easy to use and works directly with undesired target behaviors. On the downside, it does not teach or increase any particular behavior, and there is the risk of accidentally reinforcing the aversive behavior.

One way to go about implementing a DRO is to go by certain steps, according to a source I found.
For step one, define the behavior of concern in very specific, observable terms. Be sure the definition is precise so that anyone observing would be able to determine the same target behavior.
For step two, figure out how often the behavior occurs.
For step three, in order for the person to be reinforced, they have to withhold from emitting the undesirable behavior. Be sure to tell them every time why they are reinforced.
For step four, if they aversive behavior does occur, restart the time.
For step five, return to step 2 to monitor progress and determine the length of the next day's time periods.

Also, DRO is used as an alternative to punishment when attempting to modify and autistic children aversvie behavior. Punishment is not as effective and the reinforcement is a more positive way to help the child emit the more desirable behavior more often, instead of the bad behaviors less often.

http://cdd.unm.edu/swan/autism_course/modules/behavior/dr/lecture03.html
http://www.behavioradvisor.com/DRO.html
http://www.polyxo.com/discretetrial/challenging.html

terms used: aversive, modify, behavior, reinforcement, punishment, desirable, DRO, emit, emitted, target behavior

I decided to take a step back and look at an overall issue of behavior modification. This day and age, people are looking for every chance to raise the “perfect” children. One common topic of discussion is the way to use behavior modification techniques on children in order to gain their compliance. There are discussions of reinforcement vs. punishment and token economies. One youtube video I watched was specifically designed to help parents of children with autism to use schedules of reinforcement and other behavior modification reinforcement techniques in order to modify and elicit a specific behavior from an unresponsive child. It is clear through research the reinforcement has a longer lasting effect on behavior. In terms of autism, token economies can also be very useful and a rewarding experience for the child. The token economy can be used to motivate someone who would not be able to communicate or be communicated with through normal means. With an autistic child, it is important to also control the antecedents. In order for the situation to be controlled and keep the child in the best situation possible in order to effectively modify the behavior.
As autism becomes more and more prevalent, it will be important for parents to understand effective behavior modification principles. It is clear in class and in research that positive reinforcement is always better than punishment and token economies can be used to teach and modify behavior. I personally am interested in this because in high school, I worked with a girl with severe autism. It was always difficult to get her to do new activities and in retrospect, we used a lot of reinforcement and token economies. For example, when she would ride her bike in PE, she would get a jelly bracelet put on the handle bars of her bike for every lap she completed. She was always really excited by this and could later turn them in to do a puzzle or read a book.
Terms: behavior modification, reinforcement, punishment, token economies, schedules of reinforcement, elicit, behavior, antecedents

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K8YuX6me8E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGc8dFdQsJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEnF-wrpuIE

Token Economies

Reading this weeks topical blog topic illicits the desire in me to further learn about token economies and some real life token economies that are being used in the real world today. Token economies fit into behavior modification because we have learned about them in previous chapters. They are often a tool used in modifying certain target behaviors in a pleasurable way. I became interested in them when we had to think of examples of our own token economies in the last class and I thought it would be interesting to learn about them more in greater detail. After emitting the behavior of researching this topic further I have learned some good information.

A token economy is a system of behavior modification based on the principles of operant conditioning that uses systematic positive reinforcement of a target behavior. The reinforcers are tokens or symbols that can be exchanged for a back-up or secondary reinforcers. A secondary reinforcer is something that can be exchanged for the tokens that the person actually wants, such as candy, cigarettes, or privileges. It is often used with children, but also adults. Token economies are used in many environments from school to the household. It seems to be very well suited for kids with ADD, ADHD, Autism, and children with developmental disorders.

The most well known example of a token economy is money. Money, being just pieces of paper, is not very rewarding in itself. Although, when you attach a value to it and give it the ability to be exchanged for other, more reinforcing things it becomes a token economy. Other examples of a token economy are punch cards, sticker boards, and chips.

http://www.polyxo.com/visualsupport/tokeneconomies.html
http://www.kidsmakingchange.com/TokenEconomy/cms/Token_Economy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_economy

Terms: illicit, emit, token economies, target behaviors, pleasurable, positive reinforcement, reinforcers, secondary reinforcer,

I chose to look into the difference between discriminative stimuli and stimulus control. First off the definition of discriminative stimuli is something that influences the probability of an individual emitting a certain behavior. Stimulus control is manipulating an environment to elicit a certain behavior.

I have had an issue throughout the semester attempting to keep these two definitions separate. I had looked up several examples in order to help me remember. I found that people can be discriminative stimuli as well as throwing a ball at someone’s head increases the chances that they will emit a ducking behavior or catch it. Stimulus control are road signs, traffics lights, and having a classroom at a lower temperature will increase the chances of an individual bringing a jacket next time.

Now that I know which ones are which I needed to come up with an example that fit under both categories so I can keep them straight. I decided to use the behavior of driving. While driving, an example of a discriminative stimuli would be having my mom in the passenger seat, because I know she will tell me to stop driving like a maniac and then use positive punishment and scold me. When driving an example o stimulus control would be a stop sign, which elicits the behavior of stopping at an intersection.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discriminative-stimulus.html

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/stimulus+control

http://www.intropsych.com/ch05_conditioning/discriminative_stimuli.html

Terms: discriminative stimuli, stimulus control, emitting, elicit, positive punishment.

For this assignment I chose to focus more on the different potential functions of behaviors. Recently, for another psych class, I had to do a self directed observational study of students on campus. The assignment focused around differences between genders, and so I decided to perform this research using different behavioral functions as a way to demonstrate these differences. My hypothesis was that in the afternoon (as opposed to the morning) college women would be more likely than college men to purchase coffee from the Union on campus. The data strongly supported my hypothesis as 67 of the 89 students that purchased coffee between 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm were female. My theory was that in the afternoon, the need for an energy boost would be much lower than in the morning; this means that coffee drinking would likely be serving an alternate function. In this case it was serving a social function for women as they can get together after class and have coffee together. This reflects the generalized emotional-support based friendship style of women, whereas men's friendship styles are generally activity based (sports etc.) and they are much less likely to grab coffee and chit-chat. Doing this research was very interesting and it made me want to know more about different functions of behaviors. One article that I found online pointed out that while many times we engage in the same physical behaviors, they are often for entirely different reasons. Lets take a group of smokers for example. They are all emitting in the same exact activity of inhaling tobacco smoke, but it is entirely possible and even likely that they have entirely different motives. Smoker #1 smokes as a nervous habit because it is a stress reliever. Smoker #2 smokes because all his friends smoke, so it is an obligatory social activity. Smoker #3 is trying to lose weight. And smoker #4 just thinks that it makes him look cool. All of these individuals are engaging in the same behavior, but not at all for the same reason. It is interesting to recognize the motivations and functions of our behaviors in order to either change them for the better or realize that they are in fact beneficial.

terms: functions, behavior, observational study, hypothesis, emitting, behavioral class

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

http://www.pbis.vcu.edu/2009/11/getting-started-with-functions-of-behavior.html

http://www.community-networks.ca/Uploads/Files/QABF.pdf

I have emitted the behavior of researching autism in my research methods class and it was recently brought up in our class, as well. I decided to look at behavior modification strategies for children with autism.

Autism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that interferes with the way the child relates to the world. They may have a hard time communicating or understanding what behavior is appropriate for the situation. Through all the information some problem behaviors children with autism emit would include hitting, crying when not hurt of sick, throwing items, or flopping around on the floor. The function of these behaviors could be they relieve the child’s frustration, they receive attention, or the child is over stimulated and could possibly need a break. Also they need to be able to emit the behaviors we take for granted like communication and learning to use the bathroom. It is more difficult to teach a child with autism these behaviors. To modify the child’s behavior there needs to be a goal set with a specific target behavior. The person trying to modify the child’s behavior should also know how long and how well the behavior needs to be performed and what the antecedents for the behavior are. This will aid in knowing when to reinforce the behavior. One method of behavior modification is called the count and mand. This is where the child is throwing a tantrum and the adult will count from 3 to 1 in their head while showing the child the fingers. If the child does not get to 1 finger without starting the tantrum again the counting will start over if they do get to 1 then they can mand for an item. There needs to be a stimulus an antecedent to the desired behavior so the child knows when they should emit that behavior. A stimulus can be a voice command, a light flicker, or anything to basically get the child’s attention. Once the stimulus has been emitted then the person needs to observe the child’s response to determine if they desired behavior occurred. If the desired behavior occurred the consequence will be the child is rewarded. There are three main types of reinforcers: those that are eaten, those that are felt (games, toys, sensory), and those that are social. It is important to find a reward that works for the child and it may take time to find the one that will fit the child. Without behavior modification children with autism face problems like not being able to communicate at all and not learning to use the restroom like Daniel (boy in the video). Behavior modification and reinforcement can help these children live a better life.

Term used: emit, behavior, elicit, function, goal setting, target behavior, antecedent, stimulus, reinforce, consequence, reinforcement, reinforcers, behavior modification

http://www.autism-behavior-strategies.com/Autism-Behavior-Strategies.html
http://specialed.about.com/cs/devdelay/a/autistic1.htm
http://vimeo.com/6748618
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002494/

In emitting the behavior of choosing a topic involving behavior modification, I chose to write about toddler behavior during the terrible twos, since I spent the Easter Holiday with my two nieces. The youngest is nine months, while the older child is three years old. It seems like the terrible twos have extended into another year for the three year old and I was interested in seeing if this is a normal stage for her, and what can be expected.

The term terrible twos was coined in the 1950s with pressures of families to be perfect, but it was realized that every child is different and each age brings new joys and challenges. Every parent is different as well, in how they handle each situation or outburst with methods of discipline or modifications that they set in handling the child’s behavior. Behavior issues can begin as early as the age of one and last until the age of four.

The biggest problem with the terrible twos is not that the child is misbehaving, but they aren’t sure how to express what they are wanting or what is bothering them. A large part of what they hear from others is the word “no”, to prevent them from harm or injury to themselves or others. They have not yet developed a language to express themselves, so they often resort to throwing a tantrum to get attention or something that they want and to express their growing independence and they don’t have a language that can easily express their needs. At times they will resort to hitting, biting and other tantrums in trying to get their way.

These child development stages are considered normal and vary with genetics, cognitive, physical, family, cultural, nutritional educational and environmental factors. Children reach different levels at different times and is very normal.

Much of the behavior modifications can be changed through sleep pattern changes. A child at this age needs to have about 13 hours of sleep per day, getting eleven hours at night with a two-hour nap during the day. If this is maintained, behavior modification will also change. Another behavior modification method is having a regular routine for meals and being consistent. Limits also need to be set by not giving into tantrums, taking away privileges and use time-out while providing a safe environment for playtime.

My nieces’ behavior is found to be very normal. My parents confirm that I had gone through similar behavior modifications, and believe my niece will out grow these behaviors soon.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/08/25/living/terrible-twos-myth-parenting/index.html

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

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/toddlers/a/05_terrble_twos.htm

Growing up and living life just how we want is ideal right? Have you thought of what you’re actually doing? No, probably not. If you ever watch someone and wonder, “Why on earth are they doing that or acting that way?” you are most likely judging their behavior towards someone or what they are doing which is a behavior as well. We do many behaviors without realizing it. However, we also don’t do a lot of behaviors because we know they are wrong. We know this because at one point we did them and were punished for them or saw someone being punished for them. This is what I want to go more in-depth about and am choosing as my topic.
First, let’s talk about how we get trained into doing certain behaviors. When we are babies we cry and cry until our parents come and check on us and give us attention, well they are reinforcing our behavior. The process never stops with your parents. I say this because when you’re learning new things and doing things, your parents are always saying “good job” or “Keep it up” or “you’re such a smart boy/girl.” Parents are constantly reinforcing your behaviors. However, parents are also good at punishing you’re behaviors. Growing up do you remember getting in time out? Yeah, I think most of us have been there. Parents used time out, spanking, pointing at, yelling, and the worst of taking away our toys as punishers so we wouldn’t do something ever again. They were punishing our behaviors that they didn’t like and didn’t want us to do. Although our parents don’t really stop reinforcing or punishing our behaviors, more people start to do so as well.
When you first start school you go into preschool or kindergarten and start getting behaviors rewarded or punished by those teachers. In kindergarten they used the stop light colors for our behaviors of the day. If you had a good behavior all day you stayed on green and received a sticker for a weekly chart and at the end of the week you got a prize, but if you were slightly naughty you went to yellow and if you continued to be naughty and emit behaviors they didn’t want you to emit you moved to the red and got a note sent home to your parents. One not getting a prize and everyone else getting one sucks, so that’s already punishment but to also have a note sent home to your parents where you are going to get punished again sucks even more! Teachers are smart and really do not want you misbehave. Getting reinforced and punished for you behaviors by teachers and school staff doesn’t end until you are done with school and college but even more people add on to reinforcing and punishing your behavior.
Once you are old enough to have a job and earn money for yourself so you can have freedom, most people jump on that opportunity. Well now you have certain rules and behaviors you need to do to achieve in your job. Employers elicit certain behaviors from us by setting rules and standards for us to obey pretty much.
This is a continuous process that we go through are entire life. Also a process we continue without realizing it to our kids, students and ect. People sometimes uses things to reinforce our behaviors or use things to punish our behaviors. They add something desirable to make it positive reinforcement or take something desirable from us to make it positive punishment. However, they can also add something that is undesirable to punish us as well.

Terms:
Punishers, emit, punishment, reinforced, punished, reinforcing, punishing, behavior, elicit, reinforce, punish, desirable, positive, reinforcement, positive, punishment, undesirable
Sites:
http://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/schoolwide-classroommgmt/critters-rewarding-positive-behaviors
https://www.polk-fl.net/parents/studentservices/documents/psnrewardingbehavior.pdf
http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2011/03/05/rewarding-students-for-good-behavior/
Kind of fits but goes against the rewarding system however it states how students are rewarded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgZz0zmFo4A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeM7685XG9s

I find punishment interesting because it's so simple. Really, so is almost all of behavior modification. You want to get rid of a certain target behavior and replace it with something else? Great! All ya gotta do is nip it in the butt right away. Now, once you've discovered your problem, will you take something positive away? Or, will you add a negative consequence?

Have you ever forgotten to call your girlfriend after you promised her you would as soon as you got off work? Then your girlfriend ignores you the next day at school because she's so mad that you forgot? You were positively punished. Chances are, if your girlfriend ignores you for an entire day just because you forgot to call her, (Whether you think she's overreacting or not), you're probably going to do everything you can to remember next time you make that promise. I mean, who wants ignored by their girlfriend for an entire day??

Have you ever brought home a midterm grade report to your parents and they see that you failed that class? After they had told you time and time again to put down the controller and open up a damn book? Then you had your phone, xbox, laptop, and/or social privelages taken away. You were negatively punished. Your parents threatened all of those punishments the entire semester, but you just though, "Oh whatever, they won't really do that to me!". Well, sorry Charlie but, they did. And now that you know that they did? I highly doubt you're going to let that happen again. You're going to emit the behavior of studying your butt off for that class so you pass it at the end of the year.

And, finally, have you ever gone out in the dead of winter to start your car, but it refuses to completely turn over? That's an extinction burst. You're used to it just starting up right away, but because it's so cold outside, it make your engine too cold to function properly. You will try every trick in the book to start that damn thing. You will try to turn the key slower, or faster, or take it in and out a few times to see if its the key thats busted. Finally you'll get so fed up that you just hit the steering wheel, get out of the car and kick your tire because you're so irritated. You didn't get the reinforcement that you were expecting.

Behavioral punishment is all around us. I could go on and on with examples. You shot someone? Oh, sorry, you have to go to prison. You got caught speeding again? Looks like you won't have a license for a few weeks. Positive or negative, it's always there. As is extinction. Your newborn baby always cries at night. If you don't go in there and console them, they're just gunna keep crying right? Wrong! If you reach a point where they just know they get attention for crying? Then you've got an even bigger problem on your hands. It's time to close all the doors, put the ear plugs in, and just let them cry it all out. It's bound to get worse before it gets better. But, I guarantee when that first night of complete and utter silence hits? You'll all be sleeping like a baby.

This stuff is everywhere in life! It's just that no one knows that it is because it's never been given a name! Or, rather, it has. It's just the fact that no one tells us about it until we take a class on Behavior Modification.

Terms: Behavior, Consequence, Target Behavior, Punishment, Negative Punishment, Positive Punishment, Extinction, Extinction Burst, Emit.

http://www.safeandcivilschools.com/products/scs_overview.php
http://www.maineautismconference.org/documents/PositiveReinforcementNegativeReinforcementandDiscipline.pdf
http://specialed.about.com/od/glossary/g/Extinction-Eliminating-Problem-Behaviors.htm

For this blog I wanted to look a little deeper into different Schedules of Reinforcement. This was a concept discovered by Skinner in the use of Operant Conditioning. First of all these are used during Intermittent Reinforcement which means that you use the reinforcement only some of the time. First the schedules are split into groups of Ratio or Interval which means that the reinforcement will be based on either amount of times (ratio) or a literal time schedule (interval). Next, you must choose if your reinforcement will be fixed (constant) or varied (somewhat random). It is important to note that the varied schedule does average out to the same as a fixed or constant reinforcement. The difference is the varied schedule does not give the same amount of reinforcement every time. Let us look at some examples of these reinforcements. Fixed Ratio can be explained as a salesman who gets a bonus for every some many items he sells. It has nothing to do with time or average simply if he sells the target amount in a day or a month he will get he same reward. On the other hand when we talk about fixed interval that is explaining something such as a two week paycheck period one might have at their job. So let us review the four different schedules of reinforcement. Fixed Ratio and Variable Ratio next is Fixed Interval or Variable Interval. Partial reinforcement is generally resistant to extinction because there is no pattern. On the other hand those on fixed time schedules not only have to worry about extinction but also about the Post Reinforcement Pause. This happens after the reinforcement is given there is a small window of time where there is a temporary break in responding.

post reinforcement pause, reinforcement, schedules of reinforcement, extinction, reward

http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedules.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ofbt16AJgg

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=tpr

So far the main topic we have learned about in this first couple of readings is the basic ABC’s or behavior modification, the antecedents, behavior and consequences. So while I was trying to think of a topic to use for this assignment I wanted to apply it to this area of behavior modification. I then remembered the first thing we did in class, we all wrote on the board something we want to change or do more of, and I wondered when is a time that everyone does this. The answer I came up with is new years resolutions, and thus the topic for this assignment. I will explain why they fail, how to succeed and also relate them to my own personal experiences with the topic.
New years is a fresh start, a clean canvas for many of us it’s the perfect opportunity to kick those bad habits such as smoking, junk food, drinking, drugs etc. While picking up new things such as healthy eating, exercise, spending more time with family; but if this is such a perfect time to do so why do so many new year resolutions fail? After doing some research I discovered that there are many reasons why they fail, the first article I looked up brought an interesting point. They said that people use the new years things as a way to motivate themselves but in reality they just aren’t ready for it or haven’t set themselves up to succeed. Another big reason why resolutions fail that I saw while researching is unrealistic goals, or are unprepared/ plan poorly for these goals.
A lot of these reasons for failure relate directly back to the ABC’s of behavior modification. If we want to workout more and lose weight than we need to be prepared and change our behavior in order to yield the consequence that we want. For example you need to change your behavior from watching a movie to working out when at home. We also need to change our antecedents in order to change the consequence. For example if you want to stop drinking, however every Monday night you go to the bar to watch football. If you change the antecedent to watching the game at your house instead then the behavior of drinking a non-alcohol drink becomes easier.
One article I researched explained how your new years revolution could succeed or fail bases on one psychological theory. This theory is operant conditioning. Like with the ABC’s obtaining a desired behavior is learned through consequences. Rewarding a behavior will increase it, failure to reinforce a behavior with either a reward or punishment will slowly start to diminish the behavior, and punishing the behavior will decrease the behavior. After further researching how operant conditioning can help us in achieving our goal I found guidelines to how it works. First your goal must be specific that way the rewards and punishments can relate specifically to your goal. Rewards and punishments should be implemented consistently and be monetary. They best rewards and punishments are those that occur almost naturally such as pride, praise, verbal complements and punishment in forms of disappointment or shame.
I can say that in the past I have both failed and succeeded at my new years resolutions. After doing the research for this assignment I found myself looking back and trying to think of why some failed and others succeeded in terms of what I have learned so far. For example, last year my targeted behavior was to get good grades in all my classes during the spring semester. I thought I could prepare myself my getting all the material things needed but I didn’t plan well psychologically. I know now that changing the antecedent could have helped me in my goals greatly. Had I studied at the library instead of in my room with all my distractions maybe I would have studied longer. A couple of years ago I decided to try to get more exercise and as a whole become healthier. I succeeded in this goal and I realize why after doing this research. I made little goals that were obtainable along the way. I reinforced my good behaviors with rewards such as pride when I looked into the mirror, fitting better into my clothes and noticing progress. But in times where I fell short along the process by eating unhealthy or skipping the gym I felt shame and anger with myself which in return made me not want to repeat that behavior or in this case skip they gym.
In conclusion I think researching this topic if nothing else has allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the ABC’s of behavior modification and operant conditioning. Along with how they can be applied to our New Year revolutions and or emit any behavior.

Terms used: Target behavior, emit, Antecedent, punishment, reinforcement, operant conditioning, consequences, rewards.

Urls https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201012/why-new-years-resolutions-fail

http://www.betreatedwell.com/behavior-therapy.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/31/new-years-resolutions_n_6396324.html