Please make a graph of your baseline behavior and 1) Bring it to class Thursday, or drop it off in my psych office mail box, or email it to me. Whichever is easiest for you. For the post discuss what your target behavior is, how you are going about recording it (did you have to make any changes in the way you were recording your behavior since baseline etc.). What is your unit of measurement and what is the units of time you have chosen? You will begin your intervention this week. What is your reinforcer or punisher? Why did you choose this? What reinforcement schedule are you using? Why did you choose this? What are the antecedents that may be problematic in changing your behavior? What are some antecedents that may be helpful in changing your behavior?
Please let us know if you have any questions.
1. For the post discuss what your target behavior is, how you are going about recording it (did you have to make any changes in the way you were recording your behavior since baseline etc.).
My target behavior is to increase writing behavior in a dairy. I am recording it by counting the number of sentences I enter each day at the end of the week. This was my original plan but I changed it last week to a simple yes/no. However, as I began to graph my baseline I found it more interesting to see in detail what days I entered more into the diary, thus I have resorted to my original plan to record the sentences entered on a daily basis. This is unrealistic to maintain however, which is why I attempted a simple yes/no, but for this activity I will count sentences out of interest.
2. What is your unit of measurement and what is the units of time you have chosen?
My unit of measure meant is # of sentences entered. My unit of time is the days of the week.
3. You will begin your intervention this week. What is your reinforce or punisher?
My initial reinforce was sleep, however I changed that into a contingency. The contingency of completing my diary entry for the night would result in going to bed earlier. I changed this reinforcer again last week and decided I could use differential reinforcement. I decided I could encourage writing behavior in general by allowing myself to write in other books throughout the day and that would count as the dairy entry for the day.
4. Why did you choose this? What reinforcement schedule are you using?
I chose to differentially reinforce this behavior because punishment would not be an effective method of reinforcement. It is expected that by differentially enforcing all writing behaviors I eventually adapt to transferring these notes to the dairy and then writing notes solely in the dairy. But until then I could differentially reinforce the behavior and transfer the notes from the books into my dairy. This is a Variable Interval schedule of reinforcing. Reinforcement is variable and occurs at intervals.
5. Why did you choose this?
I chose this schedule because it is most realistic to the behavior I am trying to change. Writing in a diary is not a consistent behavior. It varies overtime and occurs at different intervals throughout the day.
6. What are the antecedents that may be problematic in changing your behavior?
The antecedents that would be problematic to this behavior change is the time of day I write in the dairy. If I choose to write at night time I am more likely not too because of variables such as dinner, tiredness etc.. If I write in the morning, I am more likely to forget because I am in a rush to get the day started. Thus the factor of differentially reinforcing writing behaviors in general, throughout the day becomes more understandable.
7. What are some antecedents that may be helpful in changing your behavior?
An antecedent I see being most beneficial to this behavior change is having my dairy next to bed. By having the diary next to the bed I am prompted to write either in the morning or night. I would obviously prefer to enter at night, but even being prompted in the morning will give me a greater chance of remembering to emit the behavior.
My target behavior is to eat healthier in the dinning centers on campus. In order to record my behavior I set 4 different criteria in which I must meet at each meal, recording how many criteria I meet at each meal. After determining how I would record my behavior, I had to change some of the criteria’s I had set for myself. Originally I had set my individual criteria as the following:
1.) not eat fried food from ‘Sparks’ the fried food station in Rialto.
2.) Eat one fruit or vegetable at every meal in the dinning center.
3.) Do not drink soda or chocolate milk while in the dinning center.
4.) Only allowed 3 deserts throughout the week.
After thinking of how I would record my behaviors, I decided that my sub-goal of eating 3 deserts a week would be hard to record based on my method of recording my behavior. I decided to eliminate this sub goal and replace it with drinking one glass of water at every meal. In order to remember what I was eating at each meal so I could record it in my chart, I took pictures of my meal using my cell phone, then would record the criteria I met for each meal at the end of the day based on the pictures I took. For my method of measurements, I am using days as my unit of time measurement and recoding the number of criteria I met at each meal (indicated by different symbols on my scatter plot).
For my reinforcer, I chose to reward myself with a ‘cheat day’ where I can eat whatever I want in the dinning centers on Fridays when I meet 4 of the 5 criteria everyday at each meal. If I do not meet these goals throughout the week, I am punished by not allowing myself to have my ‘cheat day’. The reason I chose this reinforcer was because I knew it was unrealistic to take things that I really like out of my diet completely. I also chose this method because it turned something that was initially a punishment to me (taking away food that I really enjoy eating) and turned it into a reinforcer that would encourage me to give up the things that were un healthy for me 6 of the 7 days out of the week.
The biggest antecedent that will be problematic to my target behavior is the food that is being served in the dinning center. This is something that I really have no control over and has a great deal of influence on my behavior. Antecedents that may help my behavior is the area in which I sit in the dinning center. By sitting on the opposite side of the fried food station in the Rialto, I will not even have to look at the food being provided at that meal which will help in my goal to not eat those specific foods.
My original target behavior was to make the dean’s list for the fall semester 2013. Since I cannot record that behavior presently, I have altered my target behavior to making the dean’s list this semester. In order to target behaviors that would hinder my goal, I created baseline graphs to track my process and to highlight problematic areas. I made three lines graphs with each representing homework, project/paper, and test scores from E-Learning. My y-axis in each graph represents the point percentage out of 100 I received for that test, homework, paper, etc. The x-axis represents time for every academic week since the beginning of the semester up until today (Thursday). Each different colored line in each graph represents a different class.
As I have begun my intervention to increase my grades I have implemented reinforcement. I chose reinforcement because it emits positive consequences, will encourage my behavior, and I will ultimately be happier than if I used punishment. I decided to use an intermittent schedule of reinforcement by rewarding myself at the end of each week. If, at the end of each week, I have received at least two A’s I will reward myself by spending an additional $20 on anything I want (beer, ice cream, etc) for the weekend. If however, I have received a grade less than a B- within that week I will not allow myself any additional money to spend (limit of $30 per weekend). Additionally if my assignments have not been graded during a week but my grades remain high/stable, I will spend an additional $10 on anything I want for the weekend. At the end of each month if my gpa is 3.5 or higher I will reward myself with a shopping spree. Finally, when my target behavior is achieved (make the dean’s list) I will reinforce my behavior with a vacation trip. I chose the reinforcement of money because I enjoy many different things and I infer that if I had chosen something more specific such as eating ice cream, I would have become sick of my reinforcement and it would no longer function as one. I chose the shopping spree at the end of each month because I love to shop and my behavior of achieving good grades will be well reinforced with shopping. I limited my shopping to each month because I cannot afford to shop each week. Finally the end of the year trip is a great stress reliever and will continue to reinforce my behavior throughout many semesters. Some antecedents I could see as problematic include the nice weather outside and Facebook (since many of my assignments are online). When the nicer the weather outside, the less I will want to be stuck inside doing homework or studying. Some antecedents that are helpful include setting a time schedule integrating homework, going to the library, and working on homework with my boyfriend (he is very focused when we do homework).
My target behavior is decreasing the amount of time that I watch television to three hours a day. I am recording this by writing down how much time I spent watching TV immediately after I am I finished.
My unit of measurement is the number of hours I have watched TV at the end of each day. The unit of time I have chosen is each day of the week (Monday-Sunday).
My reinforcement is being able to go out with my friends on the weekends if I have reached my goal at the end of each week (every Friday). I chose to do this because it will encourage me to get things done. If I watch less TV I will be able to get more homework and studying done so I will not have to worry about doing it on the weekends. I chose to use continuous reinforcement because if I continue to reward myself I will keep emitting the behavior of watching less TV.
One antecedent that may be problematic in my situation could be if I need to watch videos for a class or in class. Another could be if I don't have any homework or if all of my friends are busy I will get bored and probably break down and watch TV when I know I shouldn't. An antecedent that could be helpful is making a tentative schedule for each of my days. As long as I know I can keep myself busy each day I will not watch TV.
My target behavior to decrease is the amount of TV watched on a weekly basis. I am recording it by keeping a log of the hours I watch each day. Initially I had chosen to try to keep my TV watching at 2 hours or under each day, but instead I have chosen to change it from a daily basis to a weekly basis, so trying to watch no more than 10 hours of TV a week (just during the school week, not the weekend). I decided this because I often watch basketball, and times of games vary. If a game goes into overtime or is a little longer than usual, I may go over the original 2 hours that I had decided on. So instead, if I am close to 10 hours (say I’m at 7) and it’s only Wednesday, that means the next two days I have to be extra-conscious and time my TV-watching carefully. When watching TV, I will start a timer on my phone in case I get carried away and forget the time. I think that this is a realistic target and an attainable goal.
1. My unit of time is days of the week, while my unit of measurement is the number of hours of TV watched.
2. As a reinforcer, I initially was going to reward myself after I received a B+ or above on a paper or test (assuming the good grade was a result of having more time to study from not watching TV). I decided that I wanted to keep my reinforcers and punishers within the realm of my main target behavior. So I decided that if I am able to stay at or below 10 hours of TV watching a week, that I would reward myself with watching a movie on one day of the next week, not counting towards my 2 hours for that day. As a punisher if I go over the 10 hours, I will decrease the next weeks total by 2 hours, from 10 to 8 hours and will not be able to watch the rewarded movie.
3. I chose this reinforcer because it is a motivator and something that I really enjoy doing (I love watching movies a lot), and because it was very realistic and something that fits right into my program. The punishment is simple and at the same time helps to decrease the target behavior that I want reinforced.
4. Some antecedents that may be problematic is not having a good night sleep, because when I am really tired I’m not as productive and tend to lounge around and watch TV. Also not having a mental or physical schedule of the day can cause me to get off task. Another could be using my computer for long periods of time and end up watching videos online, which is pretty much the equivalent of watching TV.
5. Some antecedents that may be helpful in changing my behavior is knowing what I’m going to watch when I turn on the TV, so I can put a sleep timer on the TV and won’t have the opportunity to go over 10 hours a week. It would also be helpful to have a schedule for the day laid out in writing so I am able to stay productive throughout the day.
My overall goal is to live a healthier lifestyle so I have made three sub goals that are my target behaviors in order to make them specific enough.
1. Eat two servings of fruit each day
2. Work out two times for 45 minutes each time each week.
3. Consume up to 1400 calories everyday.
I have a sticky note on my computer that asks if I have worked out that day and a place to check off for every day of the week. This is put into an excell document. I take pictures of everything that I eat or drink throughout the day with my phone and a picture of the nutrition label if it is available at that moment. For food eaten on campus all of the nutrition facts are online for me to go to and record each night how many calories I have compiled into an excell document. The pictures also show me the servings of fruit that I had that day and are also recorded in that excell document.
I have chosen to take an overall measurement of whether all three of my tasks have been met weekly. So I will have a graph that shows how many of my target behaviors were met for the entire week. The number of target behaviors met will be the vertical axis and the week number will be the horizontal axis. I will have graphs of the individual target behaviors so that I may see if there is progress in each one individually and this will allow me to see if changes need to be made to a specific target behavior in order to meet the weekly requirements. I will measure the calorie intake dailiy and graph it with calories as the verticle axis and days of the week as the horizontal axis. I will measure my work outs with the number of workouts as the verticle axis and the days of the week as the horizontal axis. The same approach will be used with the number of fruit servings, by substituting the number of workouts and the number of fruit servings as the verticle axis.
I have chosen to use food as a reinforcer. Specifically, the reinforcer is allowing one day of the next week to have a food or beverage that does not count towards the daily calorie count. I chose this as my reinforcer because it is something desirable to me to be able to not have to worry about the calories in something that I eat or drink (which means it will probably be something sweet and junky and that is desireable because its tasty). I am using a fixed interval reinforement schedule. This allows me to combine my three target behaviors and have one simple reinforcer for all of them. Using a fixed interval schedule I will all the reinforcer if all three target behaviors have been met all week. This allows me to be driven towards all of the behaviors and also allows for their to be too much reinforcement to where it no longer is valuable.
During collection of my baseline data I noticed that the only days that I did not meet my requirement for calorie intake was when I was at home eating rather than eating on campus. Knowing this I need to make sure to have better options with more fruits when I am not on campus so that I can more easily emit my target behavior. An antecedent that is helping in changing my behavior is simply knowing that it is being tracked. When we are observed we act differently than when we are not.
1. My target behavior is to reduce the amount of soda I drink at work. Sometimes I go a little overboard because I work right next to the machine. It is also hard to control because the caffine helps me get through the long, busy lunches. My target behavior would be to reduce the consumption to two sodas a day. I would like to make it so I drink one before and after the lunch rush.
2. My unit of measurement will be number of sodas that I drink in a shift. I limited it to work because I do not ever drink pop outside of work because I never am motivated to buy it. I will have to keep a little notepad and mark down the time and the number of sodas consumed. My x-axis will be the days that I work and my y-axis will be the number of glasses of soda.
3. For my intervention, I really wanted to make the reinforcer somewhat immediate and rewarding. I decided that each day that I only consume two or less glasses of soda, I will reward myself with a smoothie from my workplace. These smoothies are very delicious and they are also good for you. This, in a sense, reinforces me in two ways. It tastes good and I know that I am doing my body good.
4. My reinforcement schedule is getting the reward everyday after my shift if I meet my goal. This way, the whole time I am drinking the smoothie I can bask in my success and I will try to repeat that process to obtain this satisfaction. It is important for me to reinforce every shift because it will get me in a routine and after every shift I am forced to look at my number of glasses and either reinforce it or punish it by not getting a smoothie.
5. Antecedents, in my case, are working in my favor, and against it. It is hard for me because I work less than five feet away from the pop machine. I can see people obtaining it and drinking it all day at work. It is almost impossible to avoid looking at it. Also, when other employees get drinks, they offer to get others. It is hard to say no when they ask in that manner. I will ask my coworkers to not offer me any soda. One way I can use antecedents to my advantage would be to look at the smoothie banners across the cafe. This way I can keep reminding myself of my reward and I will be clear on what I need to do to obtain it. I could also bring a gatorade or something of that matter to work so I have other options and another place to go drink besides next to the pop machine.
What is your target behavior?
My target behavior is to save money and not purchase anything outside of my budget each week. My budget includes all my bills plus groceries since eating out costs me the most money outside of my budget. I’m going to record this by documenting everything I purchase that isn’t included in my bills/groceries budget and record the data in a notebook each day. I did have to change the incriments of time in how I recorded my data. I was going to do every week but it wouldn’t have given me enough day to day data to make a presentable graph.
What is the unit of measure and what is the units of time you have chosen?
The unit of measure I used was dollars. I chose to use this because it represents the best unit while recording the data on how much money I spent. This will give me an idea of how much I’m spending on a weekly to monthly basis. The units of time I used was days. I did days because each day there is a potential to spend money outside of my budget and I wanted to keep track fairly accurately. Each day I record how much extra money I have spent excluded from my budget of bills and groceries.
What is your reinforce or punishment?
I decided to go with a reinforcer because it emits positive consequence. Also this gives me something to look forward to at the end of my data collection. I used going out for a nice dinner as my reinforcer. This allows me to save money throughout the month yet still get the benefit of being rewarded for saving money in the long run. I used the month reinforce schedule. I want to save as much as possible for the month and then reward myself if I don’t go over $100 of my budget. This allows me a little leeway each week which is about $25 in case I slip up. This was chosen because it helps me get into the saving mindset while also giving me some time to see how much I saved over the week. This also allows me to eat out at the end of the month and reward myself with a good dinner.
One antecedents that may be problematic is unexpected bills, this could be caused by numerous things. One way would be getting a parking ticket would not be included in my budget but its still $10-15 I wasn’t planning on spending. Other things could include a flat tire, car problems, a family gathering, birthday celebrations. An antecedent that could be helpful in changing behavior could be me being able to choose what I spend my 25 allowance on. If I keep as much of this as possible each week I would be able to minimize a bad occurence and still stay close to budget.
My target behavior is to jog three times a week for at least 30 minutes. I am going to record my behavior by writing down every time I go for a jog and for how long I jog for. The changes I will make to my line graph will be for the x-axis. Instead of having every day of the week on the graph I will put : Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 along the x-axis. This way my chart will account for the three days that I jog for instead of having gaps in my line graph. The unit of measurement that I am using for my y-axis is the amount of time spent jogging in minutes. The units of time that I have chosen are days. As stated previous, I chose days because my target behavior is to jog three times a week. I think by measuring my time in days my data will be presented in a clear way. My reinforcer will be implemented at the end of the week when I have jogged for three times that week. My reinforcer will be frozen yogurt. I hardly ever get frozen yogurt and I really enjoy it. Therefore, I think it will serve as a great reinforcer. As I stated earlier I will reinforce myself every week after I have ran for three times that week for at least 30 minutes. Therefore, my reinforcement schedule will differ depending on when I jog for the week. As I continue my behavior change and if I am successful, I will try to jog for four days a week instead of three. The antecedents that may be problematic while trying to change my behavior are the weather. I am planning on jogging outside because it is the easiest way for me to emit my target behavior. Some antecedents that may be helpful in changing my behavior are having nice weather, and staying on top of my homework so I feel as though I have time to jog three times a week. When it is nice outside it motivates me to go outside and jogg, its more comfortable for me to run and its more enjoyable. Also, by putting new music on my ipod I am more willing and motivated to jog. On the other hand when it is cold and rainy ( like this week has been) it is very difficult for me to get motivated to go outside and jog.
1. What your target behavior is, how you are going about recording it?
My target behavior is eating healthier. I’m recording it my writing the amount of fruits and vegetables I’m eating each day. I did have to change it a little because recording it was too difficult in the ways I stated last week. I’m going to focus on eating more fruits and vegetables because this is easy to monitor and will increase eating healthier the more I eat them.
2. What is your unit of measurement and what is the units of time you have chosen?
My unit of measurement is the number of serving of fruits or vegetables I have in one day. I will record my daily intake after each meal in my phone. I will record the intake by the day.
3. What is your reinforcer or punisher? Why did you choose thing?
If I eat 4 servings or more of fruits and vegetables in a day, I get to watch one episode of prison break. This is a strong reinforcer because I’m addicted to watching it and I’m currently in the middle of season three. I have to know how it ends!
4. What reinforcement schedule are you using? Why did you choose this?
I’m using a fixed ratio schedule. If I eat 4 servings of fruits and vegetables in a day, I will be rewarded at the end of the day. I choose this schedule because I will have reordered all the data for the day and will know if I have met my goal or not.
5. What are the antecedents that may be problematic in changing your behavior?
If I go out the night before, I’m less likely to eat fruits and vegetables. I’ll want more fried food or something I can get out at a restaurant. Also fruits and vegetables are more expensive at the stores and I don’t have a lot of money to spend on groceries.
6. What are some antecedents that may be helpful in changing your behavior?
Working out is something that helps me to eat healthier. After working out I don’t want to eat crappy food, and more fruits and vegetables sound more appealing.
My target behavior is to floss my teeth once a day before I go to bed. To make sure that I have an accurate baseline I decided to put a notepad and pen next to my sink, that way I can record every night that I successfully floss my teeth Sunday night – Thursday night. I have found that this is an attainable goal for me and it’s only benefitting me. There are no downs to this behavior. I want to increase the likelihood that my next dentist appointment goes smoothly and I have good results.
How I am measuring whether or not I fulfill my target behavior is if every night (Sunday-Thursday) I floss my teeth or not. I either emit the behavior or I don’t.
As a reinforcer I am using to give myself the weekend off from flossing if I successfully floss every week night that I have already dedicated. That could be seen as punishment because I’m taking away something but I feel like this is something somewhat “aversive” so it’s still reinforcement because I am taking away the aversive part. However, if I do not floss before I go to bed Sunday-Thursday then I will make up for it by flossing on the weekends.
I chose this reinforcer because I am a huge teeth person and it’s something I notice on other people. I love getting compliments on how nice of teeth I have from my dentist and I want to continue getting those praises. My boyfriend just recently started flossing his teeth every night before bed also, so I have a little motivation to keep up with him. Also, this can be very beneficial for my teeth and can only do good.
An antecedent that may become problematic in my target behavior is if I am too tired at night to floss. 9/10 night I brush my teeth before bed but sometimes I am way too exhausted to even do that so I foresee myself doing that if I go out one night and don’t come home until 2am. Then the last thing on my mind will be to brush and floss my teeth.
An antecedent that may be helpful in changing my behavior is that when I see my boyfriend flossing his teeth that will remind me to do the same. Also, I think having my notepad and pen by the sink will also help remind me and be a very good antecedent for me to continue my flossing before bedtime.
Terms: reinforcer, aversive, target behavior, emit, punishment, goal
My target behavior is spending less money on things I don’t need. This includes anything from clothes, to alcohol. Obviously there are some things that I need to spend money on, like groceries, rent, utilities, puppy food, etc. I have been recording my behavior by saving my receipts every time I purchase something. Then I go back, look at the receipts and record in a notebook how much I spent, what I bought, and the day I bought it. I only record the things down that I don’t need however. If I go to hyvee or something and buy candy and pizza, I record that down because it’s not something I need. But if I also picked up a prescription and toilet paper or something, I won’t write that amount down. I realized that in my original plan I didn’t plan on recording the day in which I spent money. I quickly realized that it would probably make more sense to write down how much I spend in a day, instead of how much I spend in a week. The unit of measurement I chose was currency, in $25 increments. The unit of time I chose is days. I’m going to use buying myself something at the end of each week as my reinforcer. I will only be able to buy something if I am successful in spending less money each week. Whatever I choose to buy for myself however, will cost no more than $30. If I spend anymore than that, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of saving money, but it will still be a good reinforcer because it will motivate me not to spend so much. Antecedents that are going to be problematic for me are going out on the weekends. When I’m around people I tend to have a few drinks, and when I have a few drinks I feel like I need to eat my weight in food. All of these things add up and I usually spend a lot of money by the end of the night. Another antecedent is going to the mall. Whenever I go I can never just walk around, or buy something small. I have to spend a lot of money and buy lots of new clothes. Staying away from the mall will help me to change my behavior. If I’m not in mall, or a place I like to spend money, I probably won’t spend it. Staying busy with other things like working out or doing my homework will keep me from hanging out with my friends on the weekends so much and spending money on food, drinks, and taxi cabs.
1. Discuss what your target behavior is.
My behavior is getting fit. My target behavior is to work out at the gym that I currently have a membership with for at least an hour at least three to four times a week between Monday and Friday. (If I feel spontaneous I can work out on Saturdays and Sundays)
2. How are you going about recording it?
Before I leave I will mark the time on my calendar on the corresponding day. Then when I get done working out, I will put the time in my iphone and once I return home I will right that second time down on the corresponding day as well. With that information, I will graph it on a bar graph at the end of the week.
3. What is your unit of measure? What is the units of time you have chosen?
My unit of measure on the vertical axis is starting at zero and going up to three with a set interval of every half hour. My unit of measure on the horizontal axis is the days of the week with the corresponding dates.
4. What is your reinforcer or punisher? Why?
While trying to curb my shopping, and save some money, I decided that my reinforcer would be that every three weeks, I would treat myself to three new items—be the books, clothes, shoes, etc. A punisher would just make me not want to go to the gym even more.
5. What reinforcement schedule are you using? Why?
I will be using an interval reinforcement schedule that way I have something to look forward to after working very hard for those three weeks.
6. What are the antecedents that may be problematic in changing your behavior? What are some antecedents that may be helpful in changing your behavior?
Homework. Work. And life in general. Being a full time student and working full time does not always make for a schedule that is compatible with keeping a work out routine however by using a gym that is open 24/7, I can keep my options open. My boyfriend, who is also ready to lose some weight, is going to be a good motivator to keep me going.
Taget behavior:
My target behavior is to cut back on chewing tobacco by 50%. After doing my baseline I figured out that i chew on an average of about 10 times a day which is way too many so cutting back by 50% would obviously make it only 5 times a day. My plans for after i get comfortable with 5 a day is to cut back by a couple more.
Recording data
To record I am going to count how many times i chew each day and what time. My chart is an excel sheet that has a time every 2 hours so I can see when in the day I like to chew the most to see what could possibly be triggering my behavior.
Reinforcer or punisher? why?
I am going to use a reinforcer. My reinforcer is going to be if I make my goal for the week then I can chew as much as I want on Sunday. My goal is an average of 5 per day. NOT exactly 5 a day. That way if I chew 6 times one day out of the week and only 4 another day I will still get my 5 a day average and still be reinforced. I feel like the thought of being able to chew as much as i want on sunday will really help me through the week. If i used a punisher and said if i didnt' make my goal for the week then i couldn't chew at all on sunday i think that would be pointless because the chances of me doing it anyways would most likely be high.
Antecedents
Some antecedents that make me do this behavior would be after a meal, while studying, when i'm stressed, when i'm bored, watching a movie. Many things make me want to chew and even when i'm not craving a dip I like having something in my lip because i'm so used to it. Some things that could possibly help while trying to cut back are gum and not bringing a can with me everywhere I go. Not bringing a can with me everywhere I think will help me cut back majorly. If i have a can, i'm going to chew. Also, when i buy tobacco I buy 5 cans at a time. I think if i start only purchasing 1 can at a time that will make me slow down because I know i can run out a lot faster and walking to the gas station can be a hassle and I hate doing it. This will help me not chew when it is unnecessary and not needed because that is probably more than half of my dips in one day.
The behavior I am trying to change is being more productive, and I felt I would feel compelled to do so if I were awake earlier in the day. My specific target behavior is waking up in time for breakfast 3 times a week. This will not include weekends and I will not include Mondays either. I chose this specific behavior because the reinforcer is included. By waking up in time for breakfast at the dining center downstairs, I am reinforced by breakfast. I chose Rialto breakfast as a reinforcer because I love breakfast. Also, I feel with waking up the reinforcer must be immediate or I would not feel compelled to leave the loving embrace of my bed. Rialto food kind of sucks, so it could arguably lose it's reinforcing power, but they always have fresh orange juice, cappuccinos, and cereal. My love of cereal alone leads me to believe that it will not lose it's reinforcing power any time soon. I am using a continuous reinforcement schedule, because every morning that I do wake up in time for breakfast I am reinforced by breakfast. I chose this because it would be foolish to wake up for breakfast and not reinforce myself with it on particular days. I am not trying to record anything other than whether I do or do not wake up in time for breakfast. Therefore, every time I do wake up in time for breakfast I just have to put a little check in my assignment book on that day. As far as units of measurement go, I am recording by the day. As I will be graphing this though, I need a unit for my other axis. I was advised against using the top of the graph for compliance and the bottom for non-compliance as it would be hectic and hard to see trends. Assuming I use 0-100 for my numbers, I will probably have my noncompliance set at 25 and compliance at 75 so that it is easily observable. I would say the biggest antecedent involved in the behavior of waking up is the time in which I go to sleep. It would be detrimental for me to expect to wake up at 7 and then stay up until 3 playing call of duty. On the other hand, if I were to go to sleep at 10 then I would feel well rested when I woke up at 7 after a full 9 hours of sleep.
1) The target behavior I am going to record is working more on school work more than I already am. I will not have to change the way I am graphing the information because it is working. I average about five hours of work a week which averages out to an hour a day not counting the weekend. I want to at least double this amount for the week.
2) The units of measurement I am using on the Y-axis are number of hours and the units of time I am using on the X-axis are days of the week starting with Monday.
3) My reinforcement for this behavior is raising my grades. I chose this because for me it is a great reinforcer for me because who doesn't like getting better grades. It will also be good in the long run because I could make the dean's list and be ellagable for more scholarships.
4)I will be using continuous reinforcement because I am not incharge of changing my grades. So as long as I do well on homework and study to do better on test I should see reinforcement by my grade going up. I chose this because it is the only one that fits the type of reinforcement I chose. I can not controll when the professor grades the homework or test but I know that at a certain point I will be reinforced.
5) Some atnecedents that could be troublesome to my behavior is events in my schedual that could conflict with me doing school work. I have events for SigEp and intramurals which could be problamatic. Another thing that could affect it is I might not have a lot of school work to which would show up on the graph as me not doing work when in reality I did do work but I did not have a a lot.
6) Some antecedents that could be benificial to my behavior is having close due dates or big projects for classes. Both of these would elicit a school work behavior from me and I would emit that behavior. I could also set up discrimulative stimulous by setting a pile of the work I needed to do on my desk and nothing else, put notes up saying what I needed to do for the day, or put an alarm on my phone reminding me to do work.
My target behavior is to eat at least one serving of fruits and veggies a day. I usually take notes on my phone when I am at the rialto and then write down what I ate in a notebook later. It seems to be working for me alright, so I don’t think I will need to make any changes. My goal is two eat at least one serving of both fruit and veggies a day. I have decided that instead of recording lunch and dinner I will just record how many servings per day. It works better this way because it encourages me to eat as many servings as I want. I can also count breakfast if I decide to eat it. This will also be easier and make more sense when I re-do my graph. My graph will look better and be easier to follow and understand. My reinforcer for eating at least one serving of fruits and veggies a day will be eating whatever I want on the weekend. I think this will be a reinforcer; it’s nice to be able to eat some junk food on the weekend while hanging out and relaxing. Fixed interval schedule is the one I am using, because it is every weekend that I will be reinforcing myself by eating anything I want and not worrying about getting my fruit and veggies in. Some problems could arise because I don’t always like what fruits and veggies they serve in the dining hall so it could be hard to get my servings in if I don’t like the options. However I plan to go to the grocery store and get something I know I like so that I can have those things as back up.
My target behavior is to increase my daily water intake by drinking 42oz of water every day. I kept track of how many ounces I would drink using my water bottle. Originally I was going to record full bottles of water; instead I changed it to recording ounces instead. That way I don’t have the inconvenience of yes/no data.
My unit of measurement is ounces of water drank. My unit of time is days of the week.
My reinforcer will be ‘other drinks’. For my baseline I also recorded other beverages I drink. I don’t necessarily want to cut them out altogether, so I am using them as a reinforcer. If I drink my target behavior goal, I can then reinforce myself with another beverage. I am changing my schedule of reinforcement though. I was going to count my water intake for the day and if I reached my goal, I would allow myself my reinforcement the next day. As we know, if the reinforcement isn’t relatively immediate, the strength of the reinforcement lessens. So instead I’ve decided within a day, once I drink 42oz of water I then can have another drink. If I don’t drink 42oz of water within a day, I don’t reinforce myself.
One antecedent that could be problematic is forgetting my water bottle. I know if I bring it with me I will use it. However I typically spend all day on campus and if I forget it at home, I’m sure I won’t drink as much water as I would have, having it with me.
From my baseline data, I noticed most often I drink ‘other drinks’ at dinner. I believe this would be a helpful antecedent in that if I drink my goal of 24oz of water before dinner, I can still have the ‘other drink’ with dinner as my reinforcer.
1) For the behavioral change product, I decided that my target behavior is to spend less money. I am going to do this by reducing the amount of times I go out to eat a week instead of eating at home or bringing a sack lunch to school. My goal is to only eat out twice a week max. Since I use eating out as a social activity, this limit gives me one day during the week and one day during the weekend to eat out.
2) I record each time I eat out on a booklet I keep in my wallet. I find this fitting because I will need my wallet to pay for the food to in will be convenient to tally the meal when I go to pay. I have not made any changes to my baseline.
3) My unit of measurement is how many times I eat out during the day. Days will be the unit of time I am using.
4) I will use differential reinforcement instead of punishment to reward myself for only eating out twice a week. If I succeed in eating out only twice a week, I will reward myself with a small, cheat treat like frozen yogurt, cold stone or Starbucks. If I do not succeed, I will keep working on my goal until I achieve it. I chose this because it is something to look forward if I succeed instead of something to fear if I fail.
5) Antecedents that will be problematic are potential social situations. I tend to eat out the most when it is a lunch or dinner date with friends to get together and catch up.
6) An antecedent that will be helpful is just staying home. When a friend suggests getting food, recommend cooking dinner with groceries already in the kitchen.
My target behaviors are to:
Spend at least 3 hours exercising in a gym every week, and
Complete several workouts each time I visit the gym, such as:
-Run on the elliptical for at least 10 minutes
-Curl 20 pound weights for at least 30 reps
-Press 20+ pound weights for at least 20 reps
-Ride the exercise bike for at least 20 minutes
I am making two graphs of my target behaviors: one of the time spent in the gym per week, and one of the specific target behaviors emitted per gym-visit.
My reinforcer is that I can do whatever I want on Saturdays as long as I have spent at least 3 hours in the gym per week and completed all of the tasks per gym visit. Whatever I haven't done by Saturday has to be doubled on Saturday. Using Saturday as a reinforcer really works well because I have the right to do absolutely nothing. However, I've been using Saturdays to bond with some friends by going rock climbing at the WRC. If I don't complete my target behaviors for the week, I will have to face the embarrassment of telling my friends that I'm not allowed to go rock climbing with them until after I finish my workout. Also, a natural reinforcer is that when I do choose to go rock climbing, I have much more strength on weeks when I worked out.
One antecedent that is helpful in changing my behavior is that I sometimes workout with one of my friends, and it is a good motivator to go to the gym. Another one is that I have decided to go to the Health Beat in the union if I can't make it all the way out the the WRC. This makes it much more convenient to exercise, because it's right in the middle of campus. One thing that might make it harder to workout is having the self discipline to go exercise even if the alternative is to sleep in. I love sleep, and it is difficult to give it up for something that's going to make me even more exhausted. However, if I decide to stay home from the gym in the morning, I will make myself get up and do something so sleeping in is not the alternative.
My target behavior is to increase the amount of water I drink throughout the week. My goal is to drink at least 16 ounces each day. I decided this was going to be my target goal because I know I don’t drink enough water for my body to be hydrated and because it is also better for my skin.
I am recording my behavior by recording each evening how many ounces I drink per day. I usually drink water at the dining centers for lunch and dinner and then try to drink a water bottle throughout the day. The cups I approximated to be 9 ounces and the bottles of water I approximated to be 16 ounces. For my graph the x-axis is the day of the week and the y-axis is the ounces of water. The graph varied quite a lot depending on the day and what I did that day. Some of the days that were higher I went out to eat so I drank more at the restaurants, as well as days I worked out. I drank more water right after my workout, usually a whole bottle.
My reinforcer is a candy bar at the end of the week if I reach my goal of drinking 16 oz of water per day. I didn’t reach my goal this week, so I didn’t receive the candy bar, however last week I did. This is continuous reinforcement, because each week I reinforce myself. I chose this reinforce because I don’t normally buy myself a candy bar. Some antecedents include working out, eating, and going out to eat.
Terms Used: target behavior, target goal, reinforce, continuous reinforcement, antecedents
1)My behavior is getting into shape by working out. My target behavior is to workout Mon-Thur with the workout that I have been following since winter break but have started to weed away from.
2)I will be recording my workouts in my workout journal and then also will be marking down everyday that I workout in my data journal for BMOD. My data journal will be typed into excel so I can make a graph and track my progress.
3)My unit of measurement is just by day. So either I worked out Mon-Thur or I didn't. If I miss a workout but end up doing in on a day other than its specific day then I get half credit since I did the workout but not just when I was supposed to.
4)My reinforcer is that if I workout Mon- Thurs then on the weekend I get one free meal where I can eat whatever I want since I've already been trying to eat healthier everyday.
5)This will be a fixed ratio schedule since I have to hit a certain number of days that I workout every week to get my reinforcement.
6)Some antecedents that might affect me are social influences, homework, and distractions like TV or my computer. I will have to try and control these by having a set time each day that I workout so I know that during that time I have to be working out and not doing something else.
1) My target behavior is to decrease the amount of TV, netflix, and movies I watch in a week. My goal is to watch less than 240 minutes each week.
2) I am recording my data on a spreadsheet app on my iPod. I will than copy it into excel so I can create the graph. I have had no problems recording it in this fashion.
3) My unit of measurement is minutes. I cannot exceed the 240 minute total during the course of a week. My unit of time is weekly but I am recording day by day so I can spot problematic antecedents that may influence the target behavior.
4) My reinforcer is watching 2 hours of my choice of TV, netflix, or movies the following week if I successfully obtain the target goal. I choose this because I don’t think punishment would motivate me to change. Also, I still like media, so why not reinforce the behavior I want to decrease with a little of the same. The overall goal to not let media have such a hold in my life. That doesn’t mean a little is a bad thing.
5) Problematic antecedents would be my friends house (they watch a lot of TV), sports bars, and anywhere where internet access is possible. I am most concerned with the internet part, it is so easy to watch videos online. Even without a Netflix account there is still the opportunity to watch an endless number of movies and TV shows.
6) Positive antecedents include my room (no TV), school, and work. Getting rid of the TV was the best decision. It's tough getting used to not having one but my media consumption has dropped dramatically.
1. The target behavior I have been modifying is calling my sister twice a week on every Wednesday and every Sunday. The goal is to speak with her for longer than 5 minutes each time I call and to have conversations about what is going on in her life (family issues and college). I am recording it by inputting reminders in my phone to call my sister at 7:00 PM on each day. It is easy to see if I hit my goal of speaking with her for 5 minutes or longer by looking at the call history. After each conversation, I take notes in my phone about what we spoke about.
2. My unit of measurement is if I call her twice a week. My unit of time is the amount of time of spend speaking with her.
3. My reinforcer is to treat myself to an ice cream cone each Sunday if I hit my goal. This is much more effective than punishment because I love ice cream. It is effective because I will not get satiated because I never eat ice cream.
4. I chose this because I eat very healthy throughout the week and I wanted to reinforce myself with an ice cream treat. The schedule I am using is a fixed ratio. If I call her twice a week, I am reinforced with an ice cream cone.
5. I chose this type of schedule because it makes the most sense. If I make the phone calls, then I get to receive my positive reinforcement.
6. The antecedents that might be problematic are dealing with both of our schedules to determine when we both have time to speak. Also, I have not told her that I am going to call her twice a week and I am unsure if I should. I want her to know that I do truly care and I’m not just calling for school. Another antecedent might be if we are away from our phones or not. I am unsure if I call and she doesn’t answer if she will call me back. It might lead her to simply texting me which doesn’t allow me to achieve my goal. In addition, there are times when she is in a bad mood and simply does not want to talk to me.
7. An antecedent I see being most beneficial to changing my behavior is making sure to make follow up calls if she does not answer. I need to be persistent to ensure I get her on the phone to build our relationship.
Target Behavior:
My target behavior is to increase the amount of miles I run per week from ten to twenty miles. Given that warmer weather is here, I will want to be outside running more so I figured this would be a good way to train myself for longer distances. I can either run on a treadmill or outside with a pedometer that I already own. The miles only count when I’m running/jogging, not walking.
Recording:
I am going to record it by writing down in a journal every time I run. I will record the miles and the time (just to see if I end up improving in my mile time). Along with the duration, I will also record the intensity because some days I will incorporate sprints or hills into my run. Also, since I will only be increasing my mileage by 10% each week, I will be making a data chart of my mileage every week so that I can make sure I am not increasing too much too soon.
Unit of measurement and time:
My units of measurement include the mileage number while the unit of time is the days of the week, beginning with Monday.
Reinforcer:
I thought hard about what I wanted to use as my reinforcement. I knew that I wouldn’t want to use punishment, because that will turn my intrinsic motivation to run into an extrinsic event that I won’t want to do. I don’t want to deprive myself of rest days, because I know those are important for any athletic person and I didn’t want to allow myself to be gluttonous and have a cheat day where I ate whatever I wanted because doing so makes running more difficult. Given all those factors, I decided my reinforcement would be one day where I will have a “me day” which can include going to hot yoga, doing my nails, or watching Netflix all day.
Reinforcement Schedule:
I am using a fixed interval reinforcement schedule by choosing one day of the following week to have the day to myself and doing whatever I please. I chose this because since I am measuring miles per week, I will calculate if I met my goal at the end of the week.
Antecedents:
Antecedents that may be problematic in changing my behavior is school, work, homework, sleep, time, and possibility of injuries. Since we are approaching the end of the school year, the workload is increasing and the time spent studying increases for final tests and projects. Another problematic antecedent is that the time I spend babysitting varies each time, so if the parents arrive home late, I may not have time in my day to complete my run since I will be putting homework first. Also, I have to make sure I get at least 8 hours of sleep per night otherwise I won’t have the energy to run. Shin splints are also very common in runners and I get them when I run too much, so making sure I only increase by 10% each week is critical.
Antecedents that may be helpful in changing my behavior is the weather and school ending. With warmer weather I am more likely to go out and run because I enjoy being outside. Also, since I plan on keeping this behavior intervention plan for a long period of time, not having school will allow me to have more time to complete my mileage.
The target behavior for my behavioral change project is eating healthier making my target behavior eating six small meals a day. Within those six small meals I must not eat fast food and each meal is limited to 266 calories to retain a 1,600 calorie per day diet. My unit of measurement is calories and the time frame I have chosen is meals per day. My reinforcer is that if I can maintain my target behavior Monday through Saturday, Sunday will be a free day meaning I can eat whatever I want that day. I chose this reinforcer because I have done a similar eating regimen during a time in my life that I was working out and it worked really well for me. The reinforcement schedule I am using is fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement because a certain number of days are needed to pass before I am reinforced. However I am only reinforced if after the 6 days have passed I have maintained my target behavior for those days. I chose this reinforcement schedule because it made sense for my target behavior. The antecedents to my target behavior vary with everyday life. If one day I wake up late before class and I am unable to grab something to go that is healthy then that meal is either going to be skipped or I will result to grabbing something on campus that isn’t as healthy. Other antecedents that benefit my target behavior are eliminating all junk food from my house so I am forced to pick healthy choices as well as buying healthy meal options such as Lara bars and Clif bars for meals on the go.
My target behavior is to increase the amount of time I read my bible everyday.My unit of measurement will be minutes per day. I am measuring the amount of time a day that I read my bible. I could also just measure the day as a whole if I read my bible at all in one day, but I wanted to get more information to measure because now I can have a specific set of number instead of just yes and no for each day. What is your reinforcer or punisher? I think my reinforcer would be that if I read my bible for over twenty minutes I will allow myself to listen to one song on my iPod before I fall asleep. Because I love music and I always want to listen to music before I sleep so this would be a good reinforcer, but also I would have an intrinsic reward of being more knowledge with my faith and feeling the satisfaction of reading my bible in order to grow in my faith. Why did you choose this? I choose this because I will read my bible on my iPod anyway so I will have the device accessible and I love listening to my music before bed, but now it will be motivation to remember to pick up my iPod and read first then listen to music. What reinforcement schedule are you using? I am using the variable interval schedule of reinforcement, because after every 20 minutes of reading I will allow myself one song. Why did you choose this? I choose this because variable interval is used when you are reinforced after every certain amount of time. What are the antecedents that may be problematic in changing your behavior? I need to change the time I go to bed because that antecedent it dependent on if I fall asleep while reading, but this is a problem because I don’t typically get tired until late and if I try to go to bed early I end up waking up at weird times in the night. What are some antecedents that may be helpful in changing your behavior? Also I could just change the time of day that I read in general which could affect my alertness and comprehension of what I read. This could be helpful for my behavior because I would hopefully stay awake and I would able to take better notes.
Terms: behavior, reinforcement, variable interval, antecedent, measurement.
My behavior I want to modify is working more on school work during the week. More specificly I want to at least double the amount of time working in comparison to my baseline. I am going to record this my making collumns with the days of the week, Monday through Friday. Under each of those collumns I will write down the amount of time I work on school work in minutes. At the end of the day, given that I work at intervals, I will add up the times and put a total in minutes under the day. I have not been in need of change in the way I record my data. It has been working perfectly well and is easily orginized.
The units of measurement I will use to record my behavior is in minutes. I will record how many minutes I work on school work each day. My units of time will be each day of the week besides Saturday and Sunday. My reinforcer will be playing xbox for an hour or two every other day and grades improving. I chose this as a reinforcer because I feel it is a great way to relax for me and can allow me to hang out with friends. I like playing FIFA so this will be the game I will play. My schedual of reinforcement will be fixed interval because it will be every other day so I know when it will be given. I chose this becuase I feel if it was an everyday thing, it would become saturated and loose its effect. If I did random I do not feel as if it would have been a good reinforcer and I think better grades fills the gap of random.
Some antecedents that could be problamatic with changing my behavior are other engamgements I am envolved in. These could take up my day and not leave me with enough time or any time to complete my behavior change. Some antecedents that could be be helpful are having free time. This would give me to do school work. I could also set up discrimulative stimulous and put school work in a pile on my desk to remind me to do it. I could also set an alarm on my phone to remind me to do work.