Before you begin this assignment, please go to the following site and read a couple of topical blog posts that were done by students last semester at: http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2012/04/topical-blog-week-14-due-thursday-1.html#comments
Notice that some are quite a bit better than others.
Next what we would like you to do is to find a topic from what we have covered so far in class that you are interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. But use at least 3 sources (only one video please).
Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the section we have covered so far, and why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize the topic, and then write about the topic. At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
By integrating/synthesizing I mean to take what your read/experienced from the internet search (and from chapter 1 if you like) organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using that information. This is hard for some people to do - many students write what we refer to as "serial abstracts." They are tempted to talk about the websites rather than the topic proper. They will talk all about website #1, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #2, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #3, and then write some kind of conclusion. Serial means one after the other...This what you DON'T want to do!
At first it is a real challenge to get out of the habit of writing "serial abstracts," but I assure you once you get the hang of it it is much easier to write using the integration method. And besides this is the way researchers and scientists write their technical reports and findings - many of you will have to be able to do this for other classes and for jobs that you may eventually be hired for so now is a good time to learn this skill.
Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Note: we have relaxed the grading scale since this is the first time you have done one of these assignments. Next week we will resume the normal grading scale.
Let us know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
Extinction is a topic mentioned in section 2.4 that I wanted to illustrate and explain further what it is all about and how it affects the outcomes of our behaviors. Extinction is the process of eliminating an undesirable behavior that was previously reinforced through consistent removal of that reinforcement over time.
In order to understand extinction we need to understand the process of reinforcement. Reinforcement is a procedure in which we increase the likelihood a particular behavior will happen again. There is positive reinforcement as well as negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement involves the addition of something that holds positive valence to someone so it increases the likelihood that a particular behavior happens again. Similarly negative reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated but it involves the removal of something that holds negative valence for someone. Reinforcement plays a role in extinction because extinction is the withholding of reinforcement for a behavior that was previously reinforced. A case report done by Carl D. Williams demonstrates a successful extinction with a two year hold who previously in the first eighteen months of his life was reinforced for crying in his crib when put to bed at night. How the extinction process occurred was that the parents and aunt of the child stopped coming back into his room at night when he cried. The child would display “tyrant-like behaviors” when the parents would put him in the crib and leave before he was asleep. In order to stop the target behavior of the child’s “tyrant- like behavior” they would put him to bed, shut the door and not go back into his room. It was documented that the first time the extinction occurred it took the child 45 minutes to fall asleep on his own without any form of reinforcement. Every night after that, the time it took for the child to fall asleep without being reinforced lessened until the child displayed extinction burst. An extinction burst is characterized by temporary increase in the undesired behavior and usually happens when the extinction procedure has just begun. While an extinction burst cannot be explained using the reinforcement theory it can be explained using the perceptual control theory. The perceptual control theory states that behaviors are not controlled but the perception of a situation is. Actions are varied to override the effects of a perceived unpredictable environmental disturbance. The child, in reaction to a disruption in his environment, emitted an extinction burst to increase the likelihood that his parents would come back into the room and reinforce him. Toward the end of the extinction process the aunt made a mistake and came into the room after the child started crying. This reinforced the child and therefore they had to start the extinction process all over again.
Extinction also produces variability in behaviors that topographically have the same function. For instance if we try opening a door but cannot we will try and jiggle the knob, push on the frame or kick the door to get it open; this can be aversive. To avoid undesirable variability in behaviors when introducing extinction, we can use the method of conditioning to reduce those behaviors in which are problematic by reinforcing the ones that represent themselves as desirable.
Removing an undesired behavior can be difficult at however. During the case report involving the two year old child crying at night one person caved during the extinction process and they then had to start from scratch. Shown on the graph from time one of the extinction process to time two, time two (when they had to start from scratch again) took a couple days longer to extinguish the behavior than time one. Reinforcing a behavior during the extinction process results in a prolonged process the second time around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Successful_extinction_procedures
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/59/2/269.pdf
http://www.minddisorders.com/A-Br/Behavior-modification.html
Terms: extinction, behavior, desirable, reinforced, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive valance, negative valence, target behavior, extinction burst, perceptual control theory, classical conditioning, reinforcement theory, emit, elicit, desirable, aversive, variability, topographic function
My topic of choice, Punishment, is first introduced more in depth in section 2.3. In order to introduce this concept I will have to explain the difference between Positive Punishment and Negative Punishment in order to give the reader a better understanding between the two. The whole point of punishment is to extinguish a target behavior that you may find aversive or unpleasant. After determining the unpleasant target behavior that is being emitted, one must decide how to go about extinguishing this behavior. One way of doing so is, Positive Punishment, which is the introduction or addition of an aversive stimulus upon emitting an undesirable behavior. For example, if my roommate continues to snore loudly I may kick his door loudly every night until he eventually may stop. Negative Punishment, however, is the exact opposite. It consists of the removal of a desirable stimulus upon emitting an undesirable behavior. A child may enjoy playing with a specific fire truck toy a lot. So, upon the child emitting the behavior you find undesirable, you take the toy truck away. The child has been punished in hopes that he or she will stop the behavior that you find undesirable. A good example of this comes from the opening theme of one of my favorite TV shows, “The Simpsons”. In the show’s intro, Bart is always shown writing the same sentence over and over on the chalkboard. In the clip shown below (0:10 in) Bart is writing over and over, “I will not drive the principal’s car”. In this situation, both the principal and Bart’s teacher see him driving the principal’s car as a negative valence; therefore Bart is faced with an Aversive Outcome. This is just a very simple example of negative punishment that gives the basic idea of the concept.
There are other factors that are important to include when it comes to punishment, such as when the punishment occurs and how intense the punishment may be. If Bart’s teacher had simply yelled at him for a moment and then sent him home, it would not be intense enough and probably would not be very effective. Timing is also very important. If one is punished a few hours after the aversive behavior is emitted, it is likely that the behavior may be repeated again. In an article by Kendra Cherry linked below, she states that punishment is most effective when it immediately follows a response. Consistency is also a very important aspect. If one is punished only second or third or fourth time that the behavior is emitted, it is too inconsistent because the one emitting the behavior knows that he or she can still perform this behavior with a decent chance of not getting punished.
There is an interesting take on why punishment occurs within our society. In a study published by researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara, scientists have suggested that punishment has even come from evolutionary theories. For example, they believe that our ancestors were often in small communities that looked out for each other, so when we see bad things happen to other it is our “basic instinct” to look out for our fellow humans. It is also suggested that it is something that is learned through times from our ancestors and from the people we are surrounded with, which I found to be a very interesting point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M5w8--YtUg
http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/negative-punishment.htm
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/09/27/ucsb.evolutionary.psychologists.study.purpose.punishment.and.reputation
Terms Used: Positive Punishment, Negative Punishment, Extinguish, Target Behavior, Aversive, Undesirable, Desirable, Stimulus, Aversive Outcome, Negative Valence
For this assignment I chose to look further in depth into the topic of classical conditioning because it not only was a recent topic discussed in our reading, but I have also been interested in the concept ever since I took intro to psychology my junior year of high school. Now that I am in a behavior modification class, my interest has only increased and I would like to continue to learn more about it.
In order to understand classical conditioning, it is first important to discuss how classical conditioning was developed. At the beginning of the 20th century, researcher Ivan Pavlov accidently stumbled upon classical conditioning while conducting research on the digestive system of dogs. In his research he found that dogs would begin to salivate even prior to the introduction of food. He then paired a specific stimulus, ringing a bell, with the introduction of food. Soon enough the dogs learned that when they heard the tone of the bell they would be fed, creating what we know today as classical conditioning. John Watson, a psychologist following the work of Pavlov believed that the processes of classical conditioning could be used to explain all parts of human psychology from speech to emotional response. He claimed that everything was a simple pattern of stimulus and response and conducted another famous study entitled the Little Albert Study where he used classical conditioning with a young child. In a more recent study done in 1966, Garcia and Koelling were also able to demonstrate classical conditioning through the use of rats and sweet tasting liquid and pairing it with an injection in which would make the rats ill. The rats eventually learned through classical conditioning not to drink the water.
After looking at the development of classical conditioning, we can now look at the principles behind and key components of this psychological phenomenon. Classical conditioning is defined as a theory in which learning a new behavior involves the association to a separate stimulus. What this means is that when learning a behavior, a specific stimulus is used as a cue to a second stimulus, associating on stimulus to the other. An easy way to think about classical conditioning is to think of it as learning by association. Before conditioning takes place, all organisms experience an unconditioned stimulus, a stimulus that elicits a response prior to conditioning, which in turn leads to an unconditioned response, an automatic, natural response to the unconditioned stimulus. Once the unconditioned stimulus is paired with conditioned stimulus, learning can take place based on the amount in which the stimulus is presented and has a successful response and a conditioned response if formed. Along with forming a conditioned response, they can also become un conditioned once again through the form on extinction. This happens when the paring of a conditioned stimulus and response are no longer associated with one another, a conditioned response no longer happens. In some case’s organisms may experience what is called spontaneous recovery in which after a period of extinction, the organisms begins to respond once again to the conditioned stimulus. Along with extinction, generalization can occur when a small difference is made to the stimulus, or a similar stimulus takes place that elicits a response from and organism.
Terms: classical conditioning, behavior, stimulus, response, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/classical_conditioning.htm
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/ClassicalConditioning.htm
http://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html
One topic I find interesting is the belief that reinforcement is more effective than punishment. In our behavior modification class, Dr. MacLin generally uses reinforcement examples rather than punishment. I find this interesting because I had never considered using reinforcement instead of punishment in certain contexts. The argument behind this belief is that reinforcement is less aversive and alleviates the problem on a more long term scale. Such advantages of using reinforcement include that it strengthen and enhance relationships, does not lead to avoidance or avoidance related aggression, and the consequences to reinforcement are desirable. The disadvantages to punishment include aversive consequences, it is only effective when punished immediately following an undesired behavior, and when administered harshly can seriously damage a relationship. I agree with using reinforcement versus punishment. Referring back to my childhood I was much more inclined to emit a desired behavior if it involved a desirable consequence. For example, in school I frequently emitted a disruptive behavior by talking while the teacher talked. One teacher I recall specifically would punish me with the most evil scowl I have ever encountered. This consequence worked in reducing the frequency of my disrupted behavior, but had to be emitted continuously throughout the year. The punishment was aversive to me and was the main source of my negative relationship between myself and my teacher. Alternatively to this teacher, I had another teacher who used a token economy for reinforcement. To reinforce myself and the class, my teacher gave our class a gold star each day we emitted undisruptive behaviors during class. Once we had reached 10 gold stars, we received a reward as a class. These rewards included an extra recess, a snack, a talent show, etc.
B.F. Skinner was a major advocate for the superiority of positive reinforcement versus punishment in altering behavior. According Jueves (2011), Skinner argued that punishment was not simply the opposite of positive reinforcement; positive reinforcement results in lasting behavioral modification, whereas punishment changes behavior only temporarily and presents many detrimental side effects. He therefore believed that behavior should be altered using reinforcement as much as possible, just as I do. I believe one of the most important places to use reinforcement rather than punishment is in an educational setting.
In schools many teachers often use punishment. Their reasoning includes that it is easy to administer, can be used for all types of students and problem behaviors, and has been widely used for centuries. In 2002, Atkins performed a study which led to the conclusion that punishment in education generally alters behavior temporarily and has been shown to cause more harm than good. Atkins also found that punishing practices may actually increase the severity of the very problem behaviors that they are trying to reduce. With these findings, teachers should be trained on how to effectively use reinforcement in classroom settings. The University of Northern Iowa is known as a teaching school. I think that all teaching majors should be required to take this course in order to increase their knowledge and skills of modifying behavior. With their knowledge obtained, students will prosper by learning to emit desired behaviors that will be beneficial not only in the present, but in the future as well.
http://www.larimerhumane.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=159&Itemid=15
http://kristinhricko.weebly.com/reinforcement-and-punishment.html
http://behaviorism-behaviorism.blogspot.com/2011/11/reinforcement.html
Terms: emit, behavior, positive reinforcement, punishment, consequence, frequency, aversive, desirable, undesirable, reinforcement
For this assignment I chose to do more research on classical conditioning which was covered in the last section we talked about which was 3.2. I chose this topic because I enjoy learning about it and would like to see what else is said about it besides what I have learned already in class. Classical conditioning is a learning process which occurs through associations between a environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. Classical conditioning was also discovered by Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov did an experiment using dogs. The neutral signal was the tone sound and naturally occurring reflex was salivating in response to food. With classical conditioning there are different steps. The unconditioned stimulus is unconditional, natural, and automatically triggers a response. The unconditioned response is the unlearned response that occurs naturally in response to the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned stimulus is a neutral stimulus that after becoming associated with the unconditioned stimulus becomes a trigger to the conditioned response. The conditioned response is a learned response to the previously neutral stimulus. To help explain classical conditioning there is certain terminology that is used. The process of learning a conditioned response is called acquisition. The reverse process that is unlearned is called extinction. If the conditioned stimulus is given for any time without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will be extinguished. Also, if the conditioned stimulus is presented later, the conditioned response will return and the return of this temporarily is called spontaneous recovery. Another example of classical conditioning used other than the dog example is it being used to treat phobias. To treat phobias, Wolpe believed that the link between the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus must be broken so that the therapy can work. There was a lighting example to follow this which was that the lighting which is the conditioned stimulus and thunder which is the unconditioned response must be broken so that the therapy can work. Then finally on youtube I found a video that explains classical conditioning from Ivan Pavlov. In this video it explained exactly what he did and showed a video of him doing all of that using a dog like he did. He explained that if the neutral stimulus is given alone a response occurs as if the stimulus was still there conditioning has taken place.
Terms: stimulus, conditioning, classical conditioning, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned response, unconditioned response, extinguished, extinction, spontaneous recovery, neutral stimulus
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/classcond.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Classical-Conditioning.topicArticleId-25438,articleId-25345.html
http://appsychtextbk.wikispaces.com/Real+life+applications+of+classical+conditioning
I’ve always loved working with children and at a daycare I worked at we used positive reinforcement techniques often. Reinforcement has been proven to usually be more effective than punishment. It’s important to use this technique properly especially when interacting with young children. As we have learned through Bandura’s bobo experiment, children model after what they see and are influenced by their environment. It’s important that we first explain the specifics of positive reinforcement in children.
According to Kids Making Change, to positively reinforce children, one must catch the child doing something you want them to be doing and immediately praising them for it. This is specifically the process of immediacy that we have discussed in class. For reinforcement or punishment to be effective, the consequence must be delivered directly after the target behavior has been emitted. A specific example of this for children is verbal praise or spending more quality time together. Another example would be to give the child a fixed interval schedule for a task to be completed. If it is done within the constraints reward the child (What to expect).
We know that positive reinforcement tends to be more successful than punishment, but why does this specifically work on children? Humans are very sensitive creatures. Punishments can be very demeaning and damage one’s self-esteem, especially one of a child, but they tend to be less time consuming than reinforcement techniques. Reinforcement also allows the child to feel good about them and to boost their self-esteem, which is something that is so important to gain at such a young age due to the child’s self-esteem following them into adolescence and through adulthood. This positive self-image will motivate the child to continue the desired behaviors in order to receive the desirable response; therefore, in the long run, everyone is happy. Unfortunately there are occasions where punishment is used instead. According to Teaching Community, teachers have physically covered student’s desk or themselves in objects to represent bad behavior, shaming the student. Although most punishment is typically not this aversive, it causes the child to have a negative connotation on the reinforcer and if it is traumatic enough can cause emotional damage. It does take more effort and resources to implement positive reinforcement, but it is worth it and there are different places for support. (Kids Making Change).
The use of effective positive reinforcement promotes a long-term behavioral change instead of the short-term compliance that the child emits when they’re punished. The environment that is created through the use of positive reinforcement where the parent recognizes the child’s efforts and responds to their attempts can also help create a stronger and more positive bond between the parent and the child. Overall, the use of positive reinforcement when trying to modify a child’s behavior will create a well round child that has a positive outlook on good behavior with secure attachments with others. (Livestrong).
Terms: aversive, reinforcer, punishment, positive reinforcement, reward, fixed interval schedule, emitted, target behavior, immediacy, positively reinforce, Bandura’s bobo, model, reinforcement
http://www.livestrong.com/article/498167-what-are-the-benefits-of-positive-reinforcement-in-kids/
http://www.whattoexpect.com/toddler-behavior/teaching-positive-reinforcement.aspx
http://kidsmakingchange.com/positive-reinforcement/
http://teaching.monster.com/benefits/articles/7377-punishment-or-positive-reinforcement-which-one-works?page=2
After analyzing the concept of intermittent reinforcement in Section 2.5, it occurred to me that both the US government and business’ must control the population using both punishment and positive reinforcement. A government that continuously punishes its people to shape the behavior of society is generally run by some authoritarian figure/party, however the US is not, thus it must use sorts of positive reinforcement too. Further, because positive reinforcement requires consistent reinforcement, another form must exist because society doesn’t have the resources to consistently reward the good behavior of every citizen. This leads me to my point of interest in intermittent reinforcement-reinforcement that does not occur consistently, rather it occurs occasionally yet still elicits the behavior on a continual basis. It looks to be one of the most reliable tools of reinforcement governments and business can use to shape behavior (Website1). A very relevant example is the Panera Bread rewards card. The card is not based on any reward points system, rather you show your card and every now and then you will be rewarded with a free pastry. Although customers are not rewarded every time they spend money at the store, there is just enough reinforcement to suggest it will occur again thus customers emit the desired behavior continuously.
After further research, my assumption that the government and businesses use it as a form of control deepened after learning intermittent reinforcement slows the process of extinction (Website2).If the government/businesses want to sustain a behavior but can’t reinforce every time a desirable behavior is emitted, they would want to look to prevent the chances of extinction occurring, thus intermittent reinforcement would prove very effective! An example would be work bonus’. It is unrealistic to reward an employer every time they emit a desirable behavior, however an occasional work bonus should be severe enough for employees to continue emitting the behavior. Of course this is dependent on the severity of the reinforcement, but as illustrated in our readings, it works. A work bonus will have a severe enough impact on the consequence of working, without reinforcement on a continual bases (money for a trip to the bahamas), thus it will emit desirable behaviors until the next bonus occurs.
Of course you could take the concept of intermittent reinforcement down from the philosophical discussions of government/business control, to the behavior of a tantrum throwing child-the example used in class and a common theme of parenting websites (Website3). If a parent gives into the tantrum of a child on an occasional basis, it will make it harder for the parent to extinct the behavior because the child cannot discriminate on when they will or wont be punished, thus the behavior continues.
The overall concept of intermittent behavior is fascinating. It seems like the sneaky or crafty version of manipulating behavior. The blatant rewarding and shaping found in Thorndike and Skinner’s theories are quite different to this concept of occasional reinforcement. It is interesting to think that it may be a more effective form of reinforcement then either of these scientists because it doesn’t require as many resources and energy, yet has the ability to elicit desirable behaviors on a continual basis, such as spending money!
TERMS: intermittent reinforcement, punishment, positive reinforcement, shaping, reinforcement, elicit, behavior, emit, desirable, extinction, reward, consequence, severity, discriminate, manipulate, Thorndike, Skinner
Website1 - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000386
Website2 - http://www.intropsych.com/ch05_conditioning/intermittent_reinforcement.html
Website3 - http://www.authorsden.com/categories/article_top.asp?catid=11&id=53575
I chose to write about extinction bursts. This is talked about in section 2.4 of our text. This fits into what we have already learned because extinction bursts occur when a behavior that is normally reinforced, is not anymore. As we have already learned, reinforcement and punishment are at the core of behavior modification, so extinction bursts are a crucial part of reinforcement and behavior modification. I am interested in extinction bursts because it is fascinating seeing what lengths people will go to, just to be reinforced again.
An extinction burst occurs after a target behavior is not reinforced. Not only is the behavior not being reinforced, it is not being reinforced, when every other time the target behavior was performed, it was reinforced. In order for there to be an extinction burst, there must first be a behavior that was extinguished. Once extinction occurs, it is followed by an extinction burst. Extinction bursts are sort of like temper tantrums. They are a last ditch effort to be reinforced. A person is so desperate to be reinforced for their behavior, because they are normally reinforced, that they do pretty much anything they can to try to be reinforced again.
The easiest way for me to think about this is picturing a child at a grocery store. What do most children do when they make a trip to the supermarket? Ask for a treat—some kind of candy or sugary drink they don’t really need. Parents usually give in and get them what they asked for, for the sake of the shopping trip going smoothly, and the sanity of everyone in the store. Now imagine that the child already had his/her fair share of sugary treats that day, and the parent really wants to get some sleep that night. They aren’t going to allow the child to get what they want. We’ve all seen or experienced it, the child is going to throw the biggest, loudest, most obnoxious tantrum they can, hoping that they get the candy of their choice. This is an extinction burst. The target behavior, asking for a treat, is no longer being reinforced (mom and dad won’t let the child have the treat). This particular target behavior is normally reinforced, (mom and dad usually give the child a treat so the trip goes smooth), and when it is not this time, extinction is occurring. The child, desperately trying to be reinforced, cries, screams, and throws their body in the middle of the aisle until, hopefully, they are reinforced again.
The problem with extinction bursts is that the person usually is reinforced again. In situations like the one above, this is not a good thing. If the child is reinforced after throwing a tantrum, or having an extinction burst, they are going to ask for candy every time they go to the store, and throw a tantrum every time they are not allowed candy at the store, because they know their parents will give in again if they have already given in once. If you are rewarded for your behaviors, you are more likely to continue them. This is the idea behind reinforcement.
Extinction bursts happen all the time, and they might not be as obvious as a child throwing a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket. Take, for example, sitting at a red light. When the light turns green, all the cars ahead of you start moving, you follow suit, and you eventually arrive at your destination. Say the light turns green, but the car ahead of you does not start driving. Maybe their car stalled, maybe they fell asleep, or maybe they just aren’t paying attention to the lights. Impatiently you lay on the horn, maybe say a few cuss words, and just all around prove how much road rage we Americans have. This too, is an extinction burst. We were not reinforced when the light turned green and we are suddenly desperate for that reinforcement—we have places to be! We do anything we can to get the other car’s attention, so we can be reinforced, and get to where we’re going.
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/07/extinction-burst/
http://drgeraldstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/what-children-need-from-parents-iii-beware-the-extinction-burst/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TVUVt59uHU
Terms: extinction bursts, behavior, reinforced, reinforcement, punishment, behavior modification, target behavior, extinguished, extinction,
The topic I chose to explore is Pavlovian conditioning. This topic is discussed in section 3.2; I believe it is further expanded on in section 3.3, but that has yet to be assigned. Classical conditioning is relevant to behavior modification in the sense that all behaviors are either learned (conditioned) or unlearned (unconditioned). I think that modifying a behavior is very similar to conditioning. Behavior modification is about increasing or decreasing a target behavior to elicit an acceptable consequence. In doing so, the organism must learn that the target behavior is desirable or aversive to itself or others. Such that the stimuli associated with the responses will determine if that target behavior’s consequence is tolerable.
After reading section 3.2 and recalling information from previous psychology classes on the topic, I became interested the idea of conditioning. More so, in previous classes I had a difficult time keeping straight US and UR from CS and CR, and the S/R from the R/S. With this assignment I thought it would be an opportune time to really cement my understanding of which is which.
Behaviorism is essentially learning through interactions within the environment. As we have already learned, the environment can act as a part of the antecedent in the ABC’s of behavior modification. The environment can shape behavior and determine the consequences of that behavior. Learning to be salient of the stimuli in our environments can determine our behavior and its consequences. In classical conditioning, learning is associating behaviors with conditioned stimuli or natural stimuli (unconditioned). A lot of behaviorism, I feel is all about the associations between environmental stimuli and target behaviors.
As stated in our reading, Pavlovian conditioning is mainly a stimulus response relationship. Firstly our stimulus response relationship is biologically related. This would be the unconditioned stimulus and the unconditioned response. In other words, an unconditioned stimulus is a natural unlearned stimulus. The smell of food is an example of an unconditioned stimulus. Furthermore, and unconditioned response is naturally occurring and is unlearned; such as, becoming hungry in response to the smell of food.
During Pavlov’s experiments, Pavlov added a conditioned stimulus (the bell). He found that using the conditioned stimuli eventually lead to the dogs eliciting the unconditioned response. A conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that was previously neutral; it then is associated with the unconditioned stimuli and ultimately elicits the conditioned response. Pavlov used the bell as the conditioned stimulus which was followed by the food (US) and the dogs would salivate (UR). By conditioning the dogs in this way, lead to a conditioned response. A conditioned response is a learned response to previously neutral stimuli. In Pavlov’s case, the sounds of the bell (CS) lead to the dogs salivating (CR).
I found interesting in one of my sources below is that the unconditioned stimulus can act as reinforcement or punishment. This then ties back into two major themes in behavior modification.
Terms: conditioning, classical conditioning, behavior modification, target behavior, elicit, consequence, aversive, stimuli, behaviorism, antecedent, salient, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, reinforcement, punishment
http://uwf.edu/jgould/classicalvsoperant.pdf
http://www.learning-theories.com/classical-conditioning-pavlov.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/classcond.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo7jcI8fAuI
For this this assignment I decided to go over punishment that we learned about in some detail in section 2.3. I chose this topic in the context of how it relates to the deterrence of crime. What I learned from researching Jeremy Bentham, who was concerned with moral and civil reform in the punishment strategy of the English government in the 1700’s, was that he understood that punishment must be proportionate to the crime or undesirable act that was committed by an individual. In terms of behavior modification, the introduction of an aversive stimulus or the removal of a positive stimulus must match the severity of the crime that has been committed. An aversive stimulus may be any kind of punishment that limits freedom of a person. The removal of a positive stimulus may be forcing the criminal to stay in a place away from his family. However, no matter what the punishment is going to be, it cannot be greater that the crime. The consequences of the behavior must be matched by equally distributed punishment that addresses the qualities of the crime.
Bentham continued on this topic of punishment by saying there can be good or positive motivation for punishing an offense and there can also be bad or negative motives from dealing with an offender. What I drew from he’s writings was that those who are distributing punishment especially in government positions need to be careful with what type of attitude they are emitting while following through with the punishment act. If they are eliciting an attitude of anger and rage, they are sending the wrong message to the criminal to whom they are administering the corrective punishment.
One idea that Bentham had on the physical characteristics of humans as it relates to pain is that all humans do what they can to seek pleasure and avoid pain. This theory and been shown to hold some merit when other scientist have observed these patterns. If this is true, than the frequency and the severity of the punishment has to be such that it provides just enough pain that the subject will not want to emit that behavior again. This ties directly in with what we have just recently learned concerning shaping the desired target behavior of the subject. In order for this to be accomplished, the reinforcement must be continuously reinforced. If the subject is allowed to associated pleasure with an undesirable act even for a brief time, there is a chance that we will not be able to correct that behavior through positive or negative punishment as a method of reinforcement.
http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=53164813-9a78-419a-8818-e4f40e643f5f%40sessionmgr104&vid=4&hid=103
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/bentham.html
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Terms:Undesirable, desirable, behavior modification, aversive, stimulus, positive, negative, emit, fequency, target behavior, elicit, positive punishment, negative punishment, consequences
For this blog I really wanted to learn more about superstitious behaviors. I was really interested how concepts of reinforcement and punishment can help shape a behavior. I see a lot of superstitions in sports and players around me, so it has always get me interested. Sometimes we are so used to emitting these behaviors that we might not even think about it when we are doing it. It might just become part of your routine that you do not think about. However, if you excluded the behavior, it may increase your feeling of anxiety.
We talked about how punishment and reinforcement contribute to superstitious behaviors. It is a false belief that a certain set of behaviors will elicit a certain outcome. This is where punishment and reinforcement come into play. Maybe one time you emit the behavior and it is followed by a very rewarding outcome. The next time you do not elicit the behavior, and by chance, a negative outcome ensued. This is a strong reinforcement in favor of the behavior. Superstitions are nothing more than that, they are not actually true. They are a behavior, or set of behaviors, that we elicit because we believe it will emit a good outcome. This isn't always the case but once we start believing in the behavior, we are more likely to remember the times that it worked. We are also more likely to conveniently forget the times when it elicited a negative outcome.
I was really curious on the behavioral reasons why people elicit these behaviors. I know it is because we falsely believe it will emit a positive outcome, but why do we feel the need for this? Resent research has given us three reasons. They all have to do with self handicapping and uncertainty. Superstitious behaviors reduce uncertainty, decrease feelings of helplessness, and they are an easy form of coping strategies. So, we use superstitious behaviors to give us a feeling of control over a situation. It does not just include sports, it includes every little routine you do in everyday life. It is human natural to want to feel in control and superstitious behaviors give us a feeling on control.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/09/03/scientific-view-of-superstitious-behavior/17698.html
http://www.essortment.com/superstitious-behavior-cause-cure-36002.html
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/psychology-of-superstition
terms: elicit, emit, coping strategies, superstitious behaviors, reinforcement, punishment, outcome, self handicapping
Punishment is the topic that I chose to look into more deeply. I chose punishment because it is something that I have found most interesting out of some of the other topics we have studied. I am interested in this because it is something that most people see as a bad thing. We have learned in class though, that that is not necessarily true. I also find this interesting because of the different forms of punishment there are. The forms of punishment that we have learned about in class are positive and negative punishment. Positive punishment involoves the introduction or addition of something aversive after an undesirable behavior is emitted with the goal of decreasing the frequency of the undesirable behavior. Negative punishment on the other hand involves the removal of some desireable stimulus after an undesireable behavior is emitted with the goal of decreasing the undesireable behavior in the future. An example of positive punishment would be something like when you give your dog a swat on the butt for getting into the garbage. You introduced something that is aversive to the dog in the hopes of decreasing the freaquency of him getting into the garbage. An example of negative punishment would be something like when your parents take away your cell phone for racking up a huge bill. The took away something that is desireable to you in the hopes of decreasing the freaquency of over-using your cell phone.
One example of punishment that I find hilarious is dog shaming. Dog shaming is a way that some dog owners have started punishing their dogs. When the owners dog does something naughty, its owner snaps a picture of them with a sign saying what naughty thing they did and post it on the internet. My favorite example though is a video that I have used in a previous assignment. It is of a dog named Dallas who gets in big touble for eating a bag of cat treats while his owner is out of the house. When his owner comes home he starts investigating and Dallas just can't hide the guilty look on his face. Dallas's owner shames on camera and then posts it on the internet for the world to see. Just the tone of his owners voice was enough to punish Dallas. The dog knew he was in touble and there was no hiding it. At the end of the video Dallas's owner sends him to his kennel. This would be an example of positive punishment because he is introducing something that is negative to his dog in the hope to derease the freaquency of Dallas eating an entire bag of cat treats again. Although this is a silly example, punishment techniques like this can be seen in everyday life. According to one source, punishment is an important part of B.F. Skinners Theory of Operant Conditioning. According to Skinner, punishment involves applying a stimulus after a behavior in order to reduce likelihood that the behavior will occur again in the future. People often confuse punishment with negative reinforcement though. The best way to remember the difference between the two is to remember that punishment ALWAYS involves reducing a behavior and negative reinforcement ALWAYS involves increasing a behavior (about.com). Some other studies suggest that punishment can have negative effects on children as they grow up. According to some studies children who are spanked, hit, or pushed, as a form of punishment may be at an increased risk for mental problems later in adulthood. Problems can range from depression and anxiety disorders to drug and alcohol abuse. Research done at the University of Manitoba shows that between 2 and 7 percent of mental disorders in their studies were linked to physical punishment. Although these numbers are small, parents still need to take this into consideration when they are punishing their children. Punisment should never be borderline abuse.
Terms: punishment, negative, positive, aversive, negative reinforcemnt, emit, behavior
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5gqHMCyiSc
http://psychology.about.com/b/2011/08/12/punishment-psychology-definition-of-the-week.htm
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-06-28/spanking-mental-problems/55964610/1
The topic I chose to talk about was punishment. Punishment is a topic that we have discussed frequently in class and a topic we learned about from the readings. Negative and positive punishment is very interesting to me because the effectiveness of them depends on which one works better in certain circumstances. Punishment is used to decrease/extinguish a specific type of behavior. By either removing something desirable or adding something aversive, the punishment is aiming at changing the person’s behavior. Punishment is used because the behavior the individual is emitting is unacceptable by society or against the law. Something that amazes me is how punishment affects individuals in different ways. In one of my links, it discusses the consequences and punishments of an OWI. Even with the apparent punishments and warnings of the aversive consequences that will proceed the behavior of drinking and driving, some people ignore this or take the chance. They take the chance and drive anyway. Some people even emit this behavior multiple times and get charged multiple times. It is mind boggling that this punishment does not have much of an effect on some people in this world.
In one of my videos, a nanny is caught on tape for abusing a child. It seems that the nanny is punishing the child for no apparent reason. The child is emitting a behavior of playing with a ball which elicits a behavior from the nanny to physically abuse the 11 month old baby. It just makes me sick. The consequence of this target behavior will be the woman ends up in prison. Hopefully this decreases her behavior and is never allowed to nanny again.
Punishment is an aversive form of modifying someone’s behavior. It shouldn’t be used as much as reinforcement but it frequently is. Reinforcement is thought to be seen as manipulating people but I don’t agree with this. It honestly increases behavior and this will make our society better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16ts-MP_GXQ
http://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/ods/owi.html
http://abcnews.go.com/US/miss-mayor-candidate-marco-mcmillian-found-dead/story?id=18614617
I chose to do my assignment on positive reinforcement. Reinforcement was one of the first topics we covered in class because it happens to be very important in behavior modification. Positive reinforcement is talked about in depth in section 2.2. I am interested in learning more about positive reinforcement because I was a nanny for five kids the last year and the youngest child was a six month old. I and the other nannies all used punishment to deal with the kids and so Abigail, the six month old, picked up the word “No” when he started talking. She started telling us no whenever we wanted her to do something she didn’t want to do. So she totally turned it around on us. The reason I want to learn more about positive reinforcement is because when I have children someday I don’t want their first word to be “no” and I don’t want them to tell me no. Also, I just got a puppy two weeks ago and I find it to be great timing because I will be learning how to modify my dogs behavior using reinforcement.
Positive reinforcement is the addition of a pleasurable stimulus to elicit a positive target behavior. For example, in school the most positive reinforcement would be a good grade on a test or verbal reinforcement, such as “good job.” A good way to remember what positive reinforcement is, is to think of what positive is. That would be think of it as if something is “added.” Negative reinforcement would be the opposite. In negative reinforcement something would be “subtracted”. I liked the way one of my articles described reinforce. In my article, titled, Psychology 101, reinforce refers to strengthen. To strengthen the response to a stimulus you might want to positively reinforce the target behavior. Whenever the target behavior is emitted immediately reinforce the person, dog, or whatever it may be. Since I am currently trying to potty train my puppy I decided to look up benefits of positive reinforcement for dogs. According to the video I have posted positive reinforcement is much better, longer lasting and are much safer than any other techniques when training a dog. Initially, I think everybody wants the good behaviors to last. Positive reinforcement can help with that. The positive reinforcer has to be immediate and stay constant for a while.
Terms: positive reinforcement, elicit, pleasurable, emitted, target behavior, negative reinforcement.
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/reinforcement.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-NBJfZM_RY (21 seconds)
http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/positive-reinforcement.htm
One topic that we looked at this semester that I found very interesting was the differential reinforcement of other. I really liked this because it seemed like an optimistic side of psychology that we usually do not get to see. The differential reinforcement of other focuses on the notion that reinforcement is always more effective than punishment. With this, the differential reinforcement says that instead of punishing someone for emitting the aversive target behavior, you should reinforce them for not emitting that behavior for a specified amount of time. I have included a video that illustrates differential reinforcement of other in a disruptive school kid. Instead of punishing the student every time he interrupted or wouldn't do his math problems, the teacher decided to reinforce him every time she noticed him behaving. The incentive was something as simple as putting his name in a drawing for a prize. The majority of studies involving differential reinforcement are related to unruly, aggressive, or mentally retarded school kids. An example of this would be Claire, a 4 year old autistic girl who doesn't play well with others. To reinforce her all they would need to do was allow her to be in the front of the lunch line. This reinforcer, all though less desirable than the punisher was aversive, still held more power in the change of her behavior. A study was done implementing this in a classroom of 25 schoolchildren, and initially, the differential reinforcement held more influence than the punishment did. Eventually, through more studies, they found response cost to be the most effective (Conyers et. all). In this study, baseline disruptive behavior was at 64%, and after differential reinforcement it was down to 27%. Throughout all studies the evidence says that differential reinforcement is an effective way to change the target behavior more easily and effectively than if punishment were to continue to be used. Shortly after this was implemented, Claire started responding positively. While the teaching aid was in the room, her hitting was extinct. Even when the teaching aid had left though, her hitting remained significantly lower than what it was at the baseline. The little boy from the video started emitting positive behaviors in the classroom as well. This isn't as scientific a study as the case of Claire, but it is a solid example of the process in action.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1284517/pdf/15529899.pdf
http://www.cdd.unm.edu/autism/autism_course/modules/behavior/dr/lecture03.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPOQEdDc48Q
Terms: Differential reinforcement of other, reinforcement, punishment, emit, behavior, aversive, desirable, target behavior
I decided to further extend my research on token economys. They were discussed in section 2.2 of reinforcement because token economys are secondary reinforcers. I decided to research token economys because they are used in classrooms, correctional facilities, and with mental rehabilitation. It is likely that I will work in one of these environments after graduation so I decided to learn more about why they do and don't work. Tokens are secondary reinforcers because they are not needed for survival like air,food, and shelter (primary reinforcers) but we learn to desire them because tokens can later be exchanged with other desired objects such as toys or fun activities. Token economys work under reinforcement and punishment because giving a token immediately after a desired behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will happen in the future. Tokens can also work to extinguish undesired behaviors through punishment. Because tokens are desired, losing tokens is aversive. Having tokens taken away decreases the likelihood that the behavior will be displayed in the future. Now that I have integrated what I have learned about behavior modification with token economy's here is a little breakdown of the links.
The first link is very simple and breifly decribes why token economys are a part of behavior modification, it gives a purpose, some resources needed in setting up a token economy, and involves some risks.
The second link is extremly useful in terms of understanding how token economys are based on the principles of operant conditioning and how they can be used in the classroom. Some examples include the importance of identifying target behaviors and establishing operation when setting up a token economy. It is important for the people in charge of the tokens, and those trying to earn them to know exactly what behaviors will earn tokens, and what behaviors will result in losing tokens in order for the tokens to properly become reinforcement, punishment, and to avoid confusion and frustration. It is important to know what resources (cost, staff, training) are needed to impliment a successful token economy. This also provides case studies on token economys.
The third link is a youtube video of token economys with small children that breaks down everything I have discussed about token economys previously. This video, although very simple, I included because I think it is something that any parent could watch and see how token economys could be used with chores, homework, sharing and other behaviors that parents might want children to emit in the home setting. I also liked it because towards the end it gives a kind of "dos and don'ts" when setting up token economys with children and the video was more professional then some of the other token economy examples.
http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Token-economy-system.html
http://www.auburn.edu/~lal0011/8550/CFR2005.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybIr6NCfA2U
Terms: token economy, reinforcement, punishment, secondary reinforcers, primary reinforcers, extinguish, aversive, operant conditioning, target behavior, establishing operation, emit
I chose to look deeper into the different reinforcement schedules including continuous reinforcement, variable ratio, variable interval, fixed ratio, and fixed interval. This fits right into what we have been studying in class with using reinforcement procedures and is the main focus of section 2.5. I wanted to learn more about this after learning that it is almost always optimal to use reinforcement rather than punishment. I work a lot with children and thought it would be both interesting and beneficial to learn more about these reinforcement schedules so that I can learn which ones to implement in certain situations that will bring about successful behavior changes in the children that I work with, because as of now the day care that I work with uses punishment as one of our main forces of behavior modification.
The three sources that I found information included the basic explanation of each reinforcement schedule. If a reinforcement schedule is fixed then the reinforcement is given after a set number of times that the behavior is emitted, making it a fixed ration schedule, or after a fixed amount of time have lapsed of perforning the target behavior, making it a fixed interval schedule. If a reinforcement schedule is variable then the reinforcement is presented after an average or what seems to be random amount of times that the behavior is emitted, making it a variable ratio schedule, or after an average or what seems to be random amount of time has passed of the behavior being emitted, making it a variable interval schedule. If a reinforcement schedule is continuous then the reinforcement is given after each time that the target behavior is emitted.
Each article made the point that continuos reinforcement is the best thing to use when first attemtping to condition a behavior, especially if one is trying to do so with children. This allows for the subject to quickly learn an associationg between the target behavior and recieving the reinforcer. All of the articles also believe that once that associaton is made that there should be a gradual withdrawl from the continuous reinforcement and should be changed to one of the other reinforcement schedules listed above. It was also stated that it has been shown that using variable schedules is more effective than fixed schedules in the long run, though using fixed schedules can be used such as continuous reinforcement to form the association and than be weined to a variable schedule. Using the variable schedule makes it so that the subject can not figure out the schedule and use that knowledge to manipulate it. Another suggestion given was to use a longer duration between reinforcements saying that this makes the reinforcement that much more pleasurable. Though this must be done so carefully because if too long of a duration is given then the desire for the reinforcemnt may die out with the subject feeling that the reinforcement is not worth emitting the target behavior.
Terms Used- reinforcement schedule, continuous reinforcement, variable ratio, variable interval, fixed ratio, fixed interval, punishment, emit, target behavior
http://www.limbicnutrition.com/blog/20-dont-shoot-the-dog/
http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ceed/publications/tipsheets/preschoolbehavior/schedule.pdf
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedules.htm
For my research I wanted to look into punishment. Punishment is aversive and is something that will decrease the likelihood that the unwanted behavior will be admitted again. This topic is interesting to me because I think a lot of parents still use punishment when trying to control a behavior in their children. I don’t remember being punished a lot when I was little, this was probably because I was quiet and didn’t like upsetting adults.
I found quite a few parenting web sites that encouraged what they called proper punishment. Not that long ago it was considered acceptable for teachers to hit or spank a child if they were misbehaving. Even though that is not allowed in classroom anymore parents still use physical punishment on children. This is what I and many of the parenting sites don’t consider to be “proper punishment”. The people who use physical punishment often justify whipping their children or spanking them with belts, or piping. In a video I found from CNN it shows a man in Texas who whips his daughter repeatedly with a belt. The daughter begs him to stop and starts to cry. Believe it or not this man was a judge in family court cases. Some of these radical punishers (like the man Anderson Cooper interviews) claim research supports them and that by punishing children in this way we are making them better citizens in the future. However many researchers have found just the opposite. That physically punishing a child is negative to that child’s psychological well-being and that it can make a child become aggressive and untrusting. Aggressive children all too often grow into violent adults. Psychologists agree that what happens to us as children affects who we go to be as adults. Radical people should be properly educated about punishment; they need to understand other forms of punishment can be affective. Many of the parenting and family websites I found suggest that punishment isn’t all that affective and that deviating or distracting a child is better. They also say that instead of punishment, reinforcing good behaviors can also be affective. This we learned about in class and is something I think teachers and parents should keep in mind when they need to discipline a child.
http://www.northshorefamilies.com/whypunishmentdoesntwork.html
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/opinion/sendek-corporal-punishment
http://life.familyeducation.com/behavioral-problems/punishment/42970.html
Terms: Punishment,aversive,behavior,emit, reinforcing,
I chose do look further into the concept of superstitious behaviors. Reading briefly about this concept in an earlier section get me thinking about all of the superstitions that myself and my teammates emitted over our ten years of part taking in athletics together. Some of them more realistic then others, a big one was the Lord’s Prayer before every game. Even if we lost, that was one tradition that did not change. We would however slightly change some of the other rituals such as wearing the same spandex, sports bra, and ribbon—as well as going through the same motions and eating the same foods every game day. While I have lived with the superstitious behavior due to participation in athletics, this is not the only area that elicits these behaviors. Research that has been done, has shown that soldiers, medical staff, police officers, religious deities, etc… all have their own form of following superstitious beliefs. I found it interesting because the consequences of each superstitious action can lead to profoundly different things based on their field.
In the research that I looked at however, the primary focus was on athletes—particularly college athletes. All of these articles at some point mentioned in detail or passing the importance of Skinner’s work on the foundation and mentality surrounding superstitious behavior. Just to recap, Skinner had a box that would reinforce the pigeons every so often—not on a specific schedule—and the behavior exhibited right before the reinforcer was introduced was then repeated over and over again until the animal experienced a sort of extinction burst and would then start to do other behaviors that one may associate with a reinforcer. With this in mind, the researchers set out to answer a variety of questions all pertaining to the analysis of the behaviors deemed to be superstitious based off of a lose definition that states that these behaviors are considered as such when one has put a significant or magical meaning to an otherwise mundane or ordinary thing.
According to Mowen and Carlson (2003) from Oklahoma State University, in the exploratory research that they conducted, a certain personality of a person can be obtained. They stated that this personality might include characteristics such as “a lower need for learning among older adults, higher level of sports interest, a belief in fate, and a decreased belief in heaven and hell (pg 1045).” They go on further to state that those who would fall into this category, would also believe in astrology and the like—this reminded me of Penny from The Big Bang Theory. Those personal, according to another study, find a higher level of superstition when there is more pressure or importance being put on a game—also equally out to a bigger and more desirable reinforcer. Along with this personality profile, others have also depicted reasons or motives behind the use of such behaviors. One main one looked at is when something is very uncertain. Lacking control of a situation could be a major issue and elicit behavior from an individual that could possibly border on the OCD level. However, this was not found to be true when discussing an internal locus of control malfunction but more so when discussing the external or the environment we live in that can at times be very aversive. This same study conducted between researchers from East Tennessee State University and Georgia Southern University also noted that those having God based fears or beliefs, were more likely to take part in superstitious behavior.
There are also different types of this behavior. The researchers from Tennessee and Georgia looked at the differences between males and females and found that those that believed in a God or deity were part of more prayer related rituals—more common among males. While males and females exhibited similar rituals when it came to looks and clothing, the frequency of team rituals was much higher for females then males. One tradition that I found at some points disturbing was the tradition of burying the mascots at the entrance of the field facing the scoreboard so as to cheer on the team—Texas A&M.
While I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as research on this topic goes, I feel as though I learned a great amount of new information as far as gender differential and frequencies of certain practices over others.
http://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol8Iss2/Superstition.htm
http://paulvanlange.com/files/Schippers%26VanLange.pdf
www.interscience.wiley.com
Terms: Behavior, Rituals, Frequency, Superstition, Desirable, Reinforcer, Elicit, Aversive, Skinner, Reinforce, Schedule, and Extinction Burst, Emit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_9ZZaPDtPk
This is a video with a questionable example of negative reinforcement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement
This source helped clear up some of the gray areas of what counts as a reinforce-able behavior
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premack_principle
This went along with the video, because I think it could possibly be a better explanation for what was going on as opposed to negative reinforcement
I decided to do a bit more research on reinforcement and punishment. I feel like I have always understood the gist of it all, but when we have to find examples of specific types of reinforcement or punishment, it is important to know more than just the gist.
A few weeks ago I ran into a video that uses Family Guy and American Dad clips to explain positive and negative reinforcement. The video has an adequate example of positive reinforcement, however I think that the negative reinforcement example seems more like punishment. For the negative reinforcement example, they suggest that the target behavior is to get Chris to do his homework. Technically the way Lois gets Chris to do his homework is by removing a stimulus (the television). However, I believe this shows negative punishment, with the target behavior being Chris watching TV in lieu of doing his homework, and they remove a stimulus to lessen the frequency of the behavior.
Had the creator of the video used that as an example of positive reinforcement, they could have suggested that it was a display of Premack's principle...that emitting a less desirable behavior (homework) would be reinforced by getting to partake in a more desirable behavior afterwards (TV).
Another reason why I think that the video's example is wrong is because my other sources say that negative reinforcement involves the removal of an aversive stimulus -Not just the removal of a stimulus- to increase the behavior.
Another very important thing that I learned is one of the limits to behavior modification. Although we can modify behaviors in more ways than we can count, the only official behaviors we can modify are the ones that we can quantify. This would include rate, duration, magnitude, and latency. If it is not in some way quantifiable, we cannot observe whether or not our reinforcement or punishment had any effect on the behavior.
Terms:
Negative, Reinforcement, Behavior, Premack, Punishment, Positive, Target, Removing, Stimulus, Lessen, Frequency, Emitting, Desirable, Reinforced, Aversive, Increase, Modification, Quantify, Rate, Duration, Magnitude, Latency.
The topics that I researched for this assignment was scheduled reinforcement and antecedent . There was one particular subject that kept popping up from my search that caught my eye. It was studies, blogs, and videos that had to do with helping a person stop smoking cigarettes. This past new years, I promised myself that this was the year I would quit. Even though I did not feel that I was smoking in great amounts, I know it is still unhealthy for me to do so.
http://www.cancer.org/healthy/stayawayfromtobacco/guidetoquittingsmoking/guide-to-quitting-smoking-other-methods-of-quitting
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/quit_smoking_cessation.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xABOSrCLVYM
This first website I found had lots of information from knowing when you are ready to quit to how to fight the urge to smoke physically and mentally, to explaining different treatment methods. One of which used the idea of fixed ratio, decreasing the amount of cigarettes over a period of time. The article describes how an individual can set a certain amount of cigarettes they allow themselves a week. The importance of doing this slow fixed ration over time is to first minimize withdrawal effects and secondly to decrease the chances of relapse. I started doing this the first week of January, allowing myself no more than 4 cigarettes for the week. I am now down to 1 cigarette when I drink socially, normally every other weekend (IR). The second website also talks about similar fixed ratio and interval ratios with the introduction of explaining the importance of keeping track of your progress, either on a graph or just writing it down. The third website I found talks about changing your surroundings such as hanging out with people who do not smoke or support your decisions to quit smoking. By doing this one would be able to control their behavior by controlling their antecedent. Being able to control who they are around and their environment can greatly help the individual in pursuing their goal. For example now that I have only allowed myself to smoke one cigarette when I socially drink, I have a friend that I go out with that holds my cigarettes to ensure that I only smoke one. This also helps because when I feel like I want another cigarette, my friend helps in reminding me why I shouldn't being my support system. I hope to use these techniques to complete my last step to actually stop smoking completely.
Terms
Behavior, interval ratio, fixed ratio, antecedent, schedule reinforcement, decrease, target behavior
I chose to do more research on reinforcement. Reinforcement fits into section 1.2 and 2.2 and is a solid foundation for everything we have learned in behavior modifications so far. I am interested in doing more research on reinforcement for a couple of reasons. One reason is because I want to have kids one day and I know reinforcement is the one of the best ways to teach children. The second reason is because a lot of examples used in class are about training animals with reinforcement. I have a very rowdy dog and a spoiled cat and I often wonder if it’s too late to train them. Regardless if I can train my current animals, it will be helpful to be well rounded in my knowledge of reinforcement when it comes to training future animals.
The word reinforcement means to strengthen and is used to increase the frequency of a specific behavior. For example, in order to increase the behavior if a child picking up his toys, you would give the child a desired sticker in order to increase the behavior of picking up his toys. More specifically, this is referred to as positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement, as opposed to negative reinforcement, is the addition of something desirable in order to increase the likelihood that the target behavior is emitted. For the example previously used, the target behavior is picking up the toys. The reinforcement and consequence is the addition of the desired sticker. The antecedent is a dirty room. So, a mother gives her son a sticker for picking up his toys. The boy is happy to have received the sticker and in the future, continues to pick up his toys in hopes to receive more stickers. The antecedent of the example is scattered toys, the behavior is picking up the toys and the consequence is receiving a desired sticker.
As mentioned earlier, there is a second form of reinforcement—negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is the removal of something undesirable in order to increase a behavior. Note negative is referring in the behavior of taking away something and in this case, something desirable. For example, I nag at my friend when she is late and ultimately makes us both late to wherever we are supposed to be. My friend finds my nagging and complaining undesirable. To get the nagging to stop, my friend makes more of an effort to be on time. This is the removal of something undesirable to increase a behavior. In this example, we are removing the undesirable nagging from me to increase the behavior of my friend being on time. The antecedent in this example is my friend and me making plans to meet at a certain time. The behavior is my friend being on time and the consequence is that the nagging stops.
Both positive and negative reinforcement are preferred ways to modify behavior. Though I chose to research more on reinforcement, there is another way to modify behavior known as punishment. Punishment is not the same as reinforcement but they seem to go hand in hand. Punishment is the addition of something adverse in order to decrease a behavior. For example, spraying a cat with water in order to decrease to behavior of tearing up the toilet paper roll is punishment. The antecedent is the cat and the toilet paper, the behavior is tearing up the toilet paper roll and the consequence is the cat being sprayed with water. Because of the adverse consequence, the cat will decrease the behavior of tearing the toilet paper. This is not a preferred form of behavior modification because it is adverse. Reinforcement is preferred by most behaviorists.
Terms: Emit, reinforcement, behavior, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, desirable, adverse, punishment, consequence, antecedent, target behavior.
http://autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/content/reinforcement
I chose this website because it gave great examples that were related to raising children.
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/reinforcement.html
This website was helpful because it was a very simple outline explaining all aspects of reinforcement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement
I chose Wikipedia because it had a lot of helpful information that was well organized.
I consider myself to be a behaviorist therefore I chose the concept of Positive Reinforcement which is always my favorite subject to talk about as well as research. The foundation of my research has come from my own experience with positive reinforcement, my intro to psych class and now this behavioral modification coarse as well as the many sites I have visited throughout my own journey to change some of my own behaviors through positive reinforcement.
The most interesting thing to me is why isn't positive reinforcement used more often by everyone including myself I have to admit. What I have learned from research and through my reading that BF Skinner's early research with animals, by rewarding the animals they would repeat the action. It was through that founding discovery that positive reinforcement bloomed. The Law of Effect was the foundation and Thorndike's research was what led to BF Skinner's research. Through one concept came another and another like reinforcing stimulus which is a key concept in operant conditioning, then punishment, conditioning all of it is stemmed from reinforcement in same way.
Some of the basic techniques to positive reinforcement are great concepts when raising children. I have seen them used in the secondary schools and now in college as well. Positive reinforcement can really go along way. The basic ways to get children to do as you would like is to reward them when they do the action each time they do it. That will then cause them to do it more often. Reinforcement is the key to learning and as I just saw on a Video recently which was assigned due to another snow day, it can really make a difference in the outcome of any research. The true positive reinforcement techniques involve using praise to bring out the best in anyone are just like endless possibilities. That is because the consequences of positive reinforcement can be endless possibilities of some of the greatest things. It truly is a wonderful experience to see the true consequence of a target behavior that you wanted to modify and through the reinforcement stimulus & positive reinforcement the behavior modification did occur almost like a transformation from moth to a butterfly.
Here are the three website that I used as reference for this assignment:
http://itls.usu.edu/~mimi/courses/6260/theorists/Skinner/Skinner.html
http://www.apa.org/education/k12/using-praise.aspx#
http://parentingtechniques.co/1256/positive-
reinforcement-parenting-techniques-2/
Terms: behaviorist, positive reinforcement, reinforcing stimulus, conditioning, punishment, research reinforcement stimulus, target behavior, consequence, behaviors, BF Skinner, Thorndike, operant conditioning, law of Effect, and reinforcement.
In honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness week, I thought I’d search the web for news articles regarding the subject of eating disorders. What I learned is eating disorders are much more complex and should be given more attention and awareness than what it currently does. There’s a stigma often associated with eating disorders that it’s often just young women trying to lose weight by going on these crazy “fad” diets or completely restricting themselves of food for an amount of time. However, this disorder is a mental illness that impacts many people every day of their life and is constantly misunderstood by the general public. Throughout reading various articles, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation comes to play in eating disorders as well as positive punishment.
Eating disorders include anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder. Although a person may not be completely “classified” with an eating disorder, they still may be on the slippery hill that leads to them by showing many behaviors and emotions, such as shame over their body, anxiety, and/or depression. Magazines, television, and movies all portray beautiful, thin women every day and we are constantly hearing about weight loss stories and how to lose those last extra pounds. This constant advertising has the extrinsic motivation that starts people to pressure them to looking like models that are airbrushed because they believe it will bring them happiness and control over their lives. Society constantly puts value on being fit and healthy. Intrinsic motivation also comes to role when a person puts so much value over constriction of their diet and foods they intake.
Often with bulimia or binge-eating disorder, an individual uses positive punishment on themselves by going on fasts or purging after eating an unhealthy meal. Fasts and food restriction are an example of positive punishment because that person is introducing an aversive stimulus (starving them) in the goal of losing weight or stopping themselves of emitting the behavior of binge-eating in the future. This mindset deteriorates a person and hope of recovery needs to be introduced to them. From the article of, “Eating Disorders: 10 Ways to Have a Better Relationship With Food,” written by Lexi Petronis, an interview of a dietitian is told about the complexities of an eating disorder and the cookbook she co-authored with a previous anorexic woman. Lori, the woman being interviewed, discusses how foods shouldn’t be classified as healthy or un-healthy because that is what leads to eating disorders. A person can still incorporate pizza and sweets into their diet, if they are eating mindfully.
As stated in all three articles, support and trust is what can help a person take the road to recovery when they are ready.
Terms: Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Positive Punishment, Emitting, Aversive Stimulus
Sources:
http://www.shape.com/blogs/shape-your-life/national-eating-disorder-awareness-week-everybody-knows-somebody
http://news.health.com/2013/02/26/5-must-know-facts-about-eating-disorders/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/eating-disorders-women-and-food-better-relationship_n_2782333.html
The topic that I have chosen is reinforcement. Reinforcement was the first topic discussed in the class, and is a topic that is continuously built upon in our readings. I am interested in the topic of reinforcement because of its abilities to change behaviors. To state in my own words, reinforcement is to increase the behavior happening in the future. There are two kinds of reinforcement, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is when there is an addition of something desirable. Negative reinforcement is the removal of something aversive. Reinforcement has been demonstrated by experiments throughout the years by several researchers, such as B.F Shinner and Ivan Pavolv. Reinforcement has also been demonstrated through TV shows and commercials as well.
Both Shinner and Pavolv studied the concept of reinforcement with animals and humans in the 1900’s. They discovered that presenting a stimulus directly after a desirable behavior is made makes target behavior more likely to occur more frequently in the future. Therefore, concluding that reinforcement is to increase the behavior happening in the future. Shinner studied those behaviors of rats and their eating behaviors. Pavlov observed the behaviors of dogs and the relationship between salvation and their food. Throughout their experiments they discovered that there are two types of reinforcement methods. They found that not only can a desirable stimulus be added to increase the behavior in the future, but also an unpleasant stimulus can be removed to increase the behavior in the future. These two scenarios are known as positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is where a pleasurable stimulus is added to increase the behavior. Negative reinforcement is where an unpleasurable stimulus is taken away to increase the behavior.
Reinforcement is all around us and is in our everyday lives. We are reinforced to go to class because we know if we go to class we will receive points for attending. Therefore, knowing that we are receiving points for going to class we are reinforced to show up. This is an example of positive reinforcement because something pleasant is being added to increase the behavior in the future. Just as we can point out what we are reinforced to do in our daily lives we can also see example of reinforcement on television. There are several episodes of the TV show Family Guy where reinforcement is demonstrated, as well as several other movies and TV shows. In the chip shown below there is a boy who is positive reinforced by receiving a bunny for giving his dad something he wanted. The bunny is the pleasant stimulus being added or given to the boy, therefore reinforcing him to give his dad things that he wants in the future. The second part of the clip shows the mom taking away TV from her son because his report card is bad. This is a great example of negative reinforcement because the TV (aversive stimulus) is removed so that getting bad grades (target behavior) doesn’t happen anymore. Therefore, increasing the emitted behavior of getting better grades in the future. As stated, we are being reinforced to do things all the time. Reinforcement is often overlooked because it is so much apart of our everyday lives.
"The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called 'conditioning'. In operant conditioning we 'strengthen' an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent." (Science and Human Behavior, 1953)- B.F Shinner
Terms: reinforcement, reinforcing, reinforced, behavior, emitted, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, stimulus, target behavior, aversive, desirable, unpleasant, pleasurable, pleasant, B.F Shinner, and Pavolv.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_9ZZaPDtPk
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
http://www.scienceclarified.com/Qu-Ro/Reinforcement-Positive-and-Negative.html#b
I was very interested in taste aversion because of how it has affected me and others that I know. John Garcia did an experiment with rats dealing with taste aversion. I have learned that taste aversion is more common in kids but that it can affect anyone. If you eat something and then get sick from it or after have eaten it then you might associate that food with sickness and will probably not eat that meal again because of the unpleasant experience after eating it. This is a form of classical conditioning. It is thought that taste aversion and how fast it can condition a response is due to a physiological defense that our body has. I know that this has affected me with eating at certain restaurants that I got sick from and now can't stand the smell of the place anymore. Another example is that a friend of mine got sick from drinking a certain type of alcohol and now gets sick even seeing others drink it. When the person stops eating or drinking the item that got them sick it is very reinforcing to them when they don't get sick anymore. Since learning of taste aversion some have used it to their advantage to get animals not to eat certain foods or other animals. Although the food itself might not have been the cause of the sickness most people associate the sickness with the food so that is conditioned to be aversive.
http://www.conditionedtasteaversion.net/tbr.html
http://www.helpingpsychology.com/taste-aversions-a-psychological-perspective
http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch05_conditioning/taste_aversion.html
Terms:taste aversion, conditioning, aversive, reinforcing, classical conditioning, unpleasant
As a woman, I am grateful for women like Mary Whiton Calkins who opened doors for women in the world of education. She attended Harvard and completed everything needed to be in order to receive a Ph.D., and yet she did not receive it. I think it was very strong of her to endure this, and also to turn away the same degree offered by a different college. Even though she was the first woman president of the APA, she never received that degree; I thought it was really stubborn of Harvard to withhold that from her, even later in life. I feel very lucky to have been born in a more accepting time than that of Calkins’. However, from what I’ve read so far, some male psychologists were more ahead of their times and more accepting of women psychologists. In this case, Munsterberg, James, and other males who allowed women in their labs, and also advocated for women like Calkins to receive their Ph.D.’s. I’ve read about her research on association and memory, and her intelligence is captivating. Her studies on paired-associate learning and recency with number responses and color stimuli seem to be some of the most well-known, as I’ve seen in my research. The most interesting thing to me while researching was her research on dreams, even though she was embarrassed of it later on in her life. Calkins stated that a dream was, “a reproduction of the persons, places, and events of a recent sense perception.” In most senses she was right, and Freud backed some of her points. Another theory she had was that dreams were somehow related to organic influences and external stimuli. The fact that she kept at her studies and received an upper level education during a time when most people would look down on her for it gives me a greater respect for her. This is what most intrigued me to choose her as a research subject. I would like to further study women like Mary Whiton Calkins who experienced the same setbacks as she did— Washburn and Ladd-Franklin, for example.
Terms: Mary Whiton Calkins, American Psychological Association, psychologist, Munsterberg, James, paired-associate learning, association, perception, memory, recency, stimuli
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/calkins.html I chose this resource because of the amount of content on the page; after reading, could tell that this was quality.
http://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/achievements-of-mary-whiton-calkins.php After three pages of Google resources, this was the most quality resource I could find. Most of them were exactly the same, but this one stood out as different; interesting read.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdjbOxyRwEM&playnext=1&list=PLds6m8-J9mFi3_AWha3UewkQ5Z4nMAXZ7&feature=results_video I wanted to get a little more background information on the status of women’s rights at the time in all aspects, as Calkins was ahead of her time in saying that discrimination of women was “illogical.”
This post was for another class, please disregard/delete.
But you have to admit Mary Calkins was awesome.
Reinforcing and Punishing Children with ADD/ADHD
This topic interests me because my little brother, 16, has ADHD; I also have several friends and friends with family members who have been diagnosed with the disorder. Growing up, it was a constant struggle between him and my mother, who wasn’t very good with handling him at times, but no parent can be perfect. I was interested to see what kind of parenting techniques psychologists recommend, as I have never really researched it in depth before. It relates to what we have read about reinforcement and punishment in chapters so far. One article I read discussed “start” and “stop” behaviors, which, in contrast are behaviors that parents want their kids to start and stop doing. Technically, one is supposed to use more reinforcement than punishment with these kids, even though I think this should be true for all children. However, I’m sure it is much more critical to do so with children with ADHD. Parents of these kids need to criticize less, which my mother was never really very good at. It probably had something to do with the way her stepmother raised her, which is evident when we get together as a family and from what she has told me about her childhood. See, my grandma is very strict and has a spotless house; I think my mother babied my brother a little too much when he acted up, as not to emulate the way she was raised (which was not pleasant for her). I wonder if it is possible to use too much reinforcement. For example, she would make excuses (like his disorder, problems with his dad, or skipping meds) for his bad behavior at times which really frustrated me, because she was in a way reinforcing the bad behavior. She would defend him, and then she would wonder why he repeated the behavior. Furthermore, I was a pretty good child, and my mom was really good with praise and punishment with me. So, when my brother started acting out, I think she got frustrated easily. Some articles also gave the tip: “don’t nag.” Nagging can eventually lead to extinction, and your words will no longer have an effect if you are constantly doing this. In terms of punishment, parents should avoid too harshly punishing their children. It can cause anger toward the parent and may cause the child to act out even more, which we have learned in class. I can think of some times when I felt I was too harshly punished, and I still resent my parents for those events. Lastly, something I learned was that “a happy parent results in a happy child.” We connect with our parents and feel what they are feeling, so if our parents are too stressed, depressed, or angry, we feel these things also. This can make us not want to have a connection with that parent, so we may try to distance ourselves. This can help lead to or reinforce ADD/ADHD behaviors.
Terms: ADHD, ADD, punishment, reinforcement, punishment, psychologists, behaviors
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/771.html I chose this article because the content was immense and there were many good tips on parenting ADD/ADHD-diagnosed children.
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/1879-2.html This was an article from the same website above, and I really enjoyed reading the content the site had to offer. It was kind of a spin-off of the last article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVV_ZhpK9aM This video features a psychologist who specializes in ADD and ADHD in children. He had a lot of interesting advice on the topic.
I chose to research extinction, which is also mentioned in section 2.4 of our readings. Extinction basically means that the learned response is no more when the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus are not paired together anymore. So for example, if you are doing an experiment like Pavlov did with dogs and salivating, if the dogs are not rewarded after the bell sounds with food, they will not salivate anymore. Before, when they were rewarded right after the bell sounded they salivated. This is an example of extinction. It is best, if you want to extinguish a behavior, to use reinforcement. As with any modification of behavior, it is found that reinforcement works best to elicit the desired behavior rather than punishment. To obtain the goal of extinction, the conditioning must be consistent. For example, if someone is conditioned to be afraid of a loud noise, if the stimulus is not consistently used, the response will eventually become extinct. A number of studies have been done (like little Albert) where the participant should be desensitized after being conditioned to become afraid of something during an experiment. Desensitization involves a process where people are conditioned to become used to the stimulus instead of fearing it. Something that I learned while researching additional to what we have learned in the text is that extinction can be achieved through extreme experiences. Pavolov came up with three stages of breakdown dealing with extinction, later on, he found a fourth that demonstrated the dogs whose lives were threatened forgot everything that they were conditioned to do. After they experienced this, it was more difficult to retrain them. To be successful in creating extinction there are several factors that must occur; the reinforcer must be small. If you use a large amount of reinforcing it will take longer for the behavior to be learned. It is best to continuously reinforce the desired behavior, if the reinforcer is not consistent the participant will take longer to learn what they need to do or not do. Overall, be consistent and use small reinforcers if you want to be successful at extinction.
http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/morris5/chapter5/custom1/
http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/conditioning/extinction.htm
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/psyc390/pdf/4-5-extinction-and-punishment.pdf
Terms: reinforcers, extinction, elicit, desensitization, stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, learned response, reinforcement, punishment, desired behavior