Topical Blog Week #4 (Due Wednesday)

What we would like you to do is to find a video clip off the internet illustrating a discriminative stimulus and how it affects behavior.

For this clip we would like you to:

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This clip shows a prank in which men go into what they think is a men’s restroom at a lake or a swimming pool. Then the prankster switches the sign to that of a women’s restroom. The men walk in on a group of women who begin to scream, and then the men walk out confused and embarrassed.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior in this video is going into the proper restroom. The men think that they are going into the men’s room. This behavior first occurs at (0:00) in the video and continues throughout with different victims of the prank.

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
Normally, the consequence of the behavior is being able to use the restroom. In this case, the consequence is women screaming.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
Under normal circumstances the consequence would involve the addition of something desirable, which would be the use of the bathroom. In the prank situation, the consequence involves the addition of something undesirable, which is the women screaming.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is wanting to use the restroom. Some of the people look like they might want to use the restroom to change clothes, and not just because they have to go to the bathroom. Entering the restroom is a topographical behavioral class, which is why I think the antecedent is the use of the restroom, because it can serve several functions.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the sign on the wall that designates each door of the building as either the men’s room or the women’s room.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior because it elicits entry into the proper restroom. The men look at the signs and then go into the restroom that is marked for men. After they are pranked and come out of the restroom, they look at the signs again (which have been switched) and then go into the other restroom which is now marked as the men’s room.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A= wanting to use the restroom
B= entering the proper restroom
C= being able to use the restroom

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
Normally, this behavior results in positive reinforcement because when you go into a restroom you are able to use it. This is why the discriminative stimulus elicits entry into a certain restroom. In this case, that reinforcement is denied because people think that they went into the wrong restroom. Instead they are positively punished by the women screaming at them when they walk in. What makes this clip funny is watching the extinction burst that these men go through after being pranked. They keep looking at the signs because now the discriminative stimulus is eliciting a behavior to keep out, since both doors have been changed to women’s room signs.

Terms: target behavior, consequence, undesirable, antecedent, topographical behavioral class, function, discriminative stimulus, elicit, positive reinforcement, positive punishment, extinction burst

Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfEdCbbQAgM

1) This clip comes from the TV show The Middle and it shows Frankie (the mom) trying to wake up her son Axl so he is ready in time to catch the bus for school. Axl won’t get up after multiple times of being asked nicely by his mom so his mom starts to punish him for it.
2) The target behavior that I am using that illustrates the reinforced behavior is Axl continuing to lay in his bed when asked to get up by his mom. This occurs at 0:07, 0:20, 0:24, and 0:31.
3) The consequence of the behavior is Frankie flipping the bed over that Axl is laying in, which makes him fall onto the floor. Another consequence is Axl getting sprayed by a water bottle.
4) The consequence involves the removal of something undesirable which would be getting thrown out of bed and getting water sprayed on his face.
5) The antecedent is Frankie going to wake up Axl in time for the bus.
6) The discriminative stimulus is Axl’s bedroom because it sets the context for the behavior and consequence to happen.
7) The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior because it is where the target behavior takes place and the consequence that comes after. The discriminative stimulus acts as an antecedent in this case
8) A=Frankie going to wake up Axl
B=Axl continuing to sleep and not get up
C=Frankie flipping the bed over and spraying water in Axl’s face
9) This is an example of negative reinforcement because it decreases the likelihood of Axl staying in bed when asked to get up by his mom. Getting flipped onto the floor and having water sprayed into his face is something aversive, and makes it so that he won’t repeat the behavior again. It involves taking something undesirable away.
10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3gAaaXvzGo
11) Terms: discriminative stimulus, target behavior, behavior, consequence, antecedent, aversive, reinforcement, negative reinforcement

1)This clip involves Sheldon, Leonard, and Penny from the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon and Leonard cleaned Penny’s apartment while she was sleeping. That morning Leonard is particularly sarcastic and Sheldon isn’t catching on. Leonard is trying to teach Sheldon how to recognize sarcasm and even has to hold up a sign because Sheldon misses it again.

2)The target behavior is Leonard explaining when he’s using sarcasm to Sheldon. (0:14-0:22, 0:30-0:50, 1:52-2:11, 2:52-3:06) Leonard has to remind Sheldon multiple times when he or Penny are being sarcastic. This behavior continues to be reinforced because Sheldon keeps mistaking the sarcasm.

3)The consequence is that Sheldon becomes more aware of sarcasm but still tends to mistake when it’s being used.

4)The consequence is adding something desirable because Sheldon is growing in awareness.

5)The antecedent is Sheldon and Leonard having a conversation, because conversation usually needs to occur for sarcasm to occur.

6)The discriminative stimulus is whether Sheldon interprets sarcasm correctly or not. If Sheldon is right his knowledge is reinforced by Leonard acknowledging he is right. But if Sheldon is wrong, his mistake is positively punished by Leonard who either tells him he’s wrong or holds up a sign to indicate he read the situation wrong.

7) The target behavior is directly affected because if Leonard explains to Sheldon each situation he’s using sarcasm in, Sheldon should begin to interpret the sarcasm better.

8) A=Sheldon and Leonard’s conversation
B=Leonard tells Sheldon when he’s using sarcasm
C=Sheldon becomes more aware of the sarcasm

9) This is an example of positive reinforcement because every time Sheldon misinterprets sarcasm Leonard either points it out or holds up a sign and he is trying to increase the frequency in which Sheldon recognizes his sarcasm correctly.

Terminology: Sarcasm, target behavior, reinforced, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, interpret, positively punish, affected, frequency, increase

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5RVXYEX2L4

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This video clip is a scene from the Scooby Doo movie. In this clip Scooby is wondering through the woods following signs that say "Hamburgers this way". After following the signs he runs into a monster instead.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is Scooby following signs to hamburgers (:08).

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence is that he falls into a trap and runs into a monster.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves something undesirable because there ends up being no hamburgers and a monster instead.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent in this clip is walking through the woods.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the signs leading Scooby to the monster.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus tells Scooby which way to go when searching for the hamburgers.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A= Walking through the woods
B= Following the signs to find hamburgers
C= Finding a monster instead

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of negative reinforcement because it involves the removal of something desirable (hamburgers) resulting in Scooby being less likely to wander off in the woods.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAN4G19LTDk

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Target behavior, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, and negative reinforcement.

1) In this clip a man on a bicycle is shown running a red light and then getting pulled over by a cop. The other man on the bike (with the camera) stops at the red light and doesn't get pulled over by a cop.

2) The target behavior of this clip is "stopping at a red light". The bicyclist is stopped at the red light at the beginning of the clip and another bicyclist is shown running the light. At :35, a cop car is shown pulling over the bicyclist that ran the light.

3) The consequence of this behavior is not getting pulled over and removing the possibility of getting a ticket.

4) This consequence removes something undesirable--in this case, getting pulled over and getting a ticket.

5) The antecedent is seeing a red light.

6) The discriminative stimulus is the red light.

7) The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior of stopping at the light because the consequence of not doing so is also illustrated in the video: the person who stops at the light doesn't get pulled over (reinforced) while the person that runs the light gets pulled over (punished).

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Red stop light
B=Person stops at the red light
C=Doesn't get pulled over/get a ticket

9) This is an example of negative reinforcement because the consequence will likely increase the stopping behavior and also removes something adversive--a ticket.

10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYk7wP9sw4w

11) Terminology: target behavior, discriminative stimulus, antecedent, behavior, consequence, punishment, reinforcement, negative reinforcement, adversive

What we would like you to do is to find a video clip off the internet illustrating a discriminative stimulus and how it affects behavior.
For this clip we would like you to:
1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This clip is when the bulls beat Cleveland in the NBA playoffs, when Michael Jordan hit a buzzer beating jump shot over Craig Ehlo.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior the bulls emit, is passing the ball to Jordan to shoot the game winning Jump shot. ( :01)
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of this behavior is the Bulls winning a playoff clinching game.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the addition of the positive valences of winning, your fan’s excitement, and continuing of their journey of winning the NBA world championship.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The Antecedent is the game clock. The game clock was about over, which elicited the passing behavior of the bulls to Michael Jordan, to take a quick shot to beat the buzzer.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the same as the antecedent in this scenario. The discriminative stimulus of the nearly over game clock increased the likelihood of passing to the clutch player Michael Jordan, to take the game winning shot.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus of the game clock, affects the target behavior by increasing the likelihood of the bulls emitting a passing behavior. The bulls know Michael Jordan is their go to player at the end of a game, so when they needed to score quick, do to the discriminative stimulus of the game clock, it encouraged the bulls team to pass to Jordan.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Winding down game clock

B= Bulls passed the ball to Michael Jordan

C= Bulls win the game
9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of positive reinforcement. This is positive reinforcement because the addition of winning, continuing a playoff run, and the fan’s excitement will reinforce the bulls to pass to Jordan next time when they need a game winning shot. So this behavior will increase.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH5YA5qJnpo
11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Consequence, target behavior, antecedent, elicited, emit, discriminative stimulus, positive reinforcement

1. I found a clip from a Bulls-Kings basketball game earlier this week. In the clip Joakim Noah get's a foul called on him that he felt he didn't deserve. He complains to the official who gives him a second technical resulting in his ejection. After being ejected, Noah starts screaming at the officials and has to be taken away by a security guard.

2. The target behavior is Noah screaming at the officals.

3. The consequence of screaming at the officials is that they ejected Noah.

4. The consequence involves the removal of something aversive to decrease a behavior.

5. The antecedent would be the foul that was called on Noah

6. In my opinion the discriminative stimulus is the sporting event. Because of the circumstances of the sporting event, basketball players are emitting all sorts of behaviors on the court. Joakim Noah elicited a foul call by one of the referees after he emitted a rule breaking behavior. He emitted a screaming behavior at the referees which caused the ejection.

7. In this context, if Noah wasn't playing in the sporting event at all, he wouldn't have received a first or second technical foul and then a subsequent ejection. Therefore the basketball game is a discriminative stimulus.

8.
A= second technical foul
B= Noah screams at officials
C= Officials eject Noah

9. I didn't find this to be positive or negative reinforcement but rather negative punishment because when putting yourself in the shoes of an official, you are removing something aversive (screaming) to decrease that behavior from happening in the future.

10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urfdwK-IC6M

11. elicit, emit, discriminative stimulus, negative punishment, antecedent, behavior, consequence, target behavior, aversive

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.

This is clip from the show Big Bang Theory, Where Sheldon is trying to train Penny to behave how he want her to.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).

Penny being quite/not talking
0.45 and 1.03

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.

Sheldon gives her a chocolate when she stops talking.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.

The addition is being rewarded with chocolate

5) tell us to the antecedent is.

Talking to much

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.

being rewarded with candy

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.

Penny know to talk less, no talking candy. When she gets a phone call she leaves and is given another piece thus reinforcing the positive behavior

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Penny talking
B= Sheldon giving her chocolate when she stops
C= Penny talking less

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.

This is an example of positive reinforcement because by rewarding Penny with chocolate every time she is doing the target behavior

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_mIEnnlF4

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

reinforce, positive behavior,antecedent, target behavior, positive reinforcement

1) A group of men are playing tackle football in a field. One of the players is Betty White, who gets yelled at by the team for performing poorly. Betty White is given a Snicker’s candy bar to eat, and then is transformed back into a younger man feeling “better” and more like himself. He then can play tackle football more effectively.

2) The target behavior at :19 seconds, is to eat a snicker’s candy bar when feeling hungry and weak.

3) The consequence of the target behavior that the person feels satisfied enough to play and function normally.

4) The consequence involves the addition of something desirable because it reinforces the feeling of satisfaction and energy.

5) The antecedent is playing a tackle football game with friends.

6) The discriminative stimulus is playing on an empty stomach.

7) The discriminative stimulus of playing on an empty stomach increases the probability target behavior, eating a snicker’s candy bar, because it has been reinforced to satisfy hungry needs.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A= Playing tackle football on an empty stomach
B= Eating a Snicker’s candy bar to feel satisfied
C= Feeling satisfied and performing to full capability
9) This is an example of positive reinforcement because eating a snicker’s candy bar increases desirable feeling of satisfaction.

10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ya0-OZ58s

11) positive reinforcement, desirable, satisfaction, antecedent, behavior, consequence, target behavior, discriminative stimulus, reinforces

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This clip is one of the Super Bowl commercials from this year. The gazelle was being chased by the cheetah. A male who was wearing Sketchers attempts to protect the gazelle by running and catching the cheetah.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is the man is wearing Sketchers Gorun2 shoes (from 1:55-2:05). The commercial’s main objective was to increase the frequency that individuals will buy and wear this particular Sketchers item, so it is also trying to appeal to the audience by wanting them to elicit the behavior of purchasing these shoes.

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of the man emitting the behavior of wearing the shoes is that he can run fast. With this, he is able to catch the cheetah that is chasing a gazelle. He is also able to save the gazelle from the dangerous cheetah, being saved is pleasurable for the gazelle. This becomes an aversive consequence for the cheetah because he is unable to capture the gazelle and is tied into a knot.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the addition of something desirable for the person (and the gazelle).

5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is being in the savanna and the gazelle is being chased by a cheetah.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
A discriminative stimulus sets the occasion for an operant response to occur, so essentially it is the antecedent. It could lead to a variety of potential responses depending on the environment.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
A discriminative stimulus affects the chance of an individual emitting a particular behavior. Being able to run fast in the savanna is important for survival. Thus, it elicits the behavior of wearing Sketchers Gorun2 shoes.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= In the savanna
B= Wearing Skechers Gorun2 shoes
C= Can run fast

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of positive reinforcement because it involves the addition of something positive. Wearing the Sketcher Gorun2 shoes elicits the behavior of a person being able to run incredibly fast. Since the consequence was a desirable one, this will increase the likelihood of the person emitting the behavior of wearing the shoes again. This could be an example of an establishing operation, because it makes the reinforcer more reinforcing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ar2GFstGV4

Terms: Target behavior, frequency, elicit, behavior, emit, pleasurable, aversive, consequence, antecedent, discriminate stimulus, establishing operation, reinforcer

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This commercial shows how if you wear axe you can have a girl in the middle of the grocery store come up to you and dance provocatively just because of the cologne you are wearing. If you don't wear this cologne you wont have this happen to you.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior in this clip is being being alluring to the opposite sex with your sent or cologne. This is reinforced when the women stops pushing her grandma after she smells him and starts dancing to get his attention. Which reinforces the male to where the cologne to be more attractive for the women.

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence for this behavior is getting the girl to come and dance for him provocatively.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the addition of something desirable because it reinforces the attractiveness for the girl.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is at a grocery store but more of in the produce aisle with the guy putting fruit out,

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the guy to wear the cologne.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus is for the guy to wear the cologne to get the girl to think he is attractive because of the sent he has coming off him. If he didn't have the sent the girl wouldn't have came on to him.

8) Please list the ABC's of target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Grocery store
B=smelling like the sent
C=Getting the girl

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is a positive reinforcement because if you wear the cologne you get the girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0eatKWtVJU

reinforcement,behavior,consequence,target behavior,stimulus,antecednt

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
In this episode of SpongeBob Squarepants it is Sunday at the Krusty Krab and SpongeBob, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs forget to change the closed sign to open, however, they are not aware that the sign says close. Mr. Krabs gets hurt and is taken to the hospital, leaving Squidward in charge for the rest of the day. Squidward presumes to take the day off. Squidward worries all day (has terrible thought and dreams) that SpongeBob will jeopardize the Krusty Krab and runs back and forward to the restaurant and ultimately doesn't get a day off.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is Squidward getting his day off from work which becomes reinforced with Mr. Krabs leaves for the hospital and leaves Squidward in charge of the Krusty Krab while he’s gone.
1:05
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of not noticing the open/closed sign on the door results in Squidward having to run back and forward to the Krusty Krab, ultimately resulting in his not day off, because he keeps having negative thoughts about leaving SpongeBob alone at the restaurant.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the removal of something undesirable, Squidward, ultimately, not being about to take his day off/relax.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is the Krusty Krab.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the sign on the Krusty Krab declaring the restaurant open or closed.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior because it determines whether or not the restaurant is open for business, and if the sign had said open then Squidward wouldn't have tried to take a day off, but if it had said close then he probably could successfully token his day off.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Squidward is put in charge of the Krusty Krab
B= Squidward leaves/takes a day off
C= Squidward becomes anxious and nervous about leaving SpongeBob there alone and continually runs back and forward from home to the Krusty Krab
9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This would probably be a form of negative reinforcement because it was the addition of something undesirable, Squidward being unable to successfully enjoy his day off because of his worrying.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvRHfYB5AuQ
11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
negative reinforcement, undesirable, discriminative stimulus, target behavior, antecedent, consequence, reinforced

1) Briefly describe/summarize the clip.
In this video, two characters, Mindy and Danny, from the Mindy Project are on a plane, and Danny comes back to the back of the plane because he sent Mindy to get him a bottle of water, and he walks up to her, takes the water out of her hand and starts kissing her.
2) Tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior in the video is Mindy returning a kiss after Danny initiated one. This occurs at about 28 to 30 seconds into the 1 minute video clip.
3) Tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of the behavior is Mindy and Danny (finally) kissing.
4) Tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the addition of something desirable, I assume based on the passion behind the scene of them kissing.
5) Tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent to Mindy returning Danny’s kiss was the close, intimate, and amorous nature of the relationship between Danny and Mindy. The nature of this relationship has been leading up to this kiss for two seasons; it was inevitable.
6) Tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is Danny initiating a kiss because this causes Mindy to return the kiss.
7) How does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus affects Mindy’s behavior in that Danny (finally) initiating a kiss with Mindy is enough for Mindy to realize that she should return the favor and kiss him back. The pleasurable nature of the kiss from Danny couldn’t have hurt either. Because if Danny had been a bad kisser or someone that Mindy had not wanted to kiss, then Danny initiating a kiss on Mindy might have resulted in the behavior of Mindy pushing Danny away, rather than the behavior of Mindy kissing Danny in return. This would have been more of an example of positive punishment.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A=the nature of the relationship between Danny and Mindy
B=Mindy returning the kiss from Danny
C=Danny and Mindy kiss
9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This would be an example of positive reinforcement because it involves the addition of something pleasurable, that pleasurable thing being the kiss with Danny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow_GRm5PQuE
Terms used: target behavior, consequence, behavior, desirable, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, pleasurable, positive punishment, positive reinforcement

1) Briefly describe/summarize the clip.
a. This clip is of the Poppy Girls, who are singing in a large arena in the UK. After the completion of their song about soldiers coming home after the war, an announcer states that one of the Poppy Girls’ father is serving in the Indian Ocean, so he wasn’t able to be at this event to see her sing. She starts crying and then the announcer says they have a surprise, at which point, the father, a royal naval officer, comes walking down the stairs of the arena. The young girl rushes into his arms.

2) Tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
a. The target behavior is the Poppy Girls singing, which illustrates the reinforced behavior, as upon the conclusion of their singing, the audience will clap. (1:00-3:15)

3) Tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
a. The consequence of the singing is that the audience claps and cheers.

4) Tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
a. The consequence involves the addition of something desirable – accolades.

5) Tell us to the antecedent is.
a. The antecedent is the arena full of people.

6) Tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
a. The discriminative stimulus is the father.

7) How does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
a. The father (long gone on tour) affects the little girl by surprising her, which causes her to run toward him.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
a. An arena full of people
b. The Poppy Girls singing.
c. The arena full of people clapping.

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
a. This is positive reinforcement. It teaches the girls that every time they perform well, they will be provided with cheering and accolades, reinforcing their love of performance with praise.

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOKOSV3uM8Y

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
a. Target behavior, reinforced behavior, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, behavior, positive reinforcement

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This clip is a commercial where people are eating, drinking, and having dessert. They overeat and have to take Nauzene.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).

The reinforcing behavior is eating. These people are hungry so they are eating. (they don't want to be hungry.)

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.

The consequence is over-eating. They are starting to feel nauseous. People eat to fill their stomachs. This is a satiating behavior, but they are consuming too much so now it is undesirable.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the addition of something undesirable. If the people would eat until they were full and would not over consume then it would be the addition of something desirable.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.

The antecedent is wanting to eat. People don't want to starve and the way to fulfill this is by eating. This type of behavior would be classified as functional behavior.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.

The discriminative stimulus would be the signs of being hungry.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
This stimulus makes the people eat to fulfill their hunger, however these people over-eat.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Hunger pangs
B=over-eating
C=taking nauzene

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of positive reinforcement. I say this because the medicine will relieve you of any nauseous feeling from over eating. Nauzene is allowing people to over eat and feel no consequence. (so they can eat all the food/drinks they want and have no pain)

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHlXSREk1G0

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Reinforcing, consequence, undesirable, antecedent, functional behavior, discriminative stimulus, positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement.

What we would like you to do is to find a video clip off the internet illustrating a discriminative stimulus and how it affects behavior.
For this clip we would like you to:
1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This is a clip from the TV series Gilmore Girls that takes place at Luke’s Diner. Lorelei is at the diner and demands coffee from Luke. A little background information on Lorelei is she is obsessed with coffee and Luke always comments on how unhealthy her addiction to coffee is. To try to prevent her from drinking more coffee he tells her that he doesn’t have any- however she persists and eventually he gives in and gives her a cup of coffee.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
Luke gives Lorelei her coffee about 2 minutes in the video, which is a part of the second clip of the video series.
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
Lorelei is happy.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
It involves the addition of something desirable because Lorelei loves coffee.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is Lorelei wanting coffee.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
Luke is the discriminative stimulus because he thinks that Lorelei drinks too much coffee so he tells her that he doesn’t have any more coffee in order to get her to stop drinking coffee because she has a major coffee addiction.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus of Luke trying to get Lorelei to stop drinking coffee does not work because Lorelei is persistent so she keeps asking until finally Luke gives her coffee. The only thing this did was delay the target behavior.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Lorelei wants coffee

B=Luke gives her coffee

C=Lorelei is happy
9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of negative reinforcement because Luke gave Lorelei the coffee to avoid further nagging from her.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zRT_XRyyTg
11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Negative reinforcement, discriminative stimulus, antecedent, and target behavior.

1) The clip is from the show Once Upon a Time. What happens is Cora (who is the Mother of Regina; Regina is engaged to Snow White’s father) manipulates Snow White into telling her the secret that Regina doesn’t love the King and that she wants to instead marry the stable boy. Cora manipulates Snow’s behavior by talking about how much she loves her daughter, doesn’t want to lose her, and how she would do anything for her daughter’s happiness. The lacking of a mother for Snow (since her mother died) works as an establishing operation since Snow doesn’t want anyone else to experience the aversive experience of not having a mother. After Snow White divulges some of the secret, Cora lovingly calls her “sweet Snow”, strokes her hair, and assures her that Regina won’t lose her mother. These make up a behavioral class of expressions of comfort. Differential reinforcement of other also occurs by Cora comforting and praising Snow after telling the secret. This is the case because normally divulging a secret would involve something aversive or a punishment.
2) The target behavior is Snow telling the secret (1:30).
3) The consequence of the behavior is Snow being comforted/praised (1:58).
4) The consequence involves the addition of something desirable.
5) The antecedent is Cora expressing how she only wants the best for her daughter.
6) The discriminative stimulus is Cora saying “I don’t want us to lose each other. If only there was a way that I could show her how I feel. That all I want is her happiness” (1:16). This statement that Cora makes sets the occasion for Snow to tell her the secret.
7) Due to the establishing operation mentioned earlier, Cora saying that she will do whatever it takes to make her daughter happy convinces Snow White that despite being told by Regina to keep her secret away from Cora, she decides based on Cora’s behavior it’s worth it.
8) A= Cora says “I don’t want us to lose each other. If only there was I way that I could show her how I feel. That all I want is her happiness” (1:16)
B= Snow White tells the secret (that Regina isn’t in love with her fiance, the King)[1:30]
C= Cora comforting/praising Snow
9) This is a case of positive reinforcement because it involves the addition of pleasant stimuli (Cora comforting Snow).
10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FijuPVsRgaU
Terms: behavior, establishing operation, aversive, behavioral class, target behavior, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, positive reinforcement, punishment, differential reinforcement of other

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This clip is from Family Guy. It starts with Peter and Chris watching a TV show when Lois comes in. She turns of the TV and says that Chris cannot watch TV until his grades improve.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is Chris studying better than he was earlier in school.
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of the behavior is Chris not being able to watch TV, and is required to study.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the removal of watching TV which is the removal of something desirable.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is Chris’ report card coming in.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is Chris’ room, which is where he is sent to and required to study.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The stimulus makes it more possible for Chris to get better grades than he was previously receiving in school.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A= Chris’ report card comes in
B= Chris receiving bad grades
C= having to go study

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of negative reinforcement because Chris is gaining something undesirable, which is having to study.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX4cGhQW5Ec

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Consequence, antecedent, reinforcement, discriminative stimulus, and target behavior.

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
I used a clip from the Lifetime TV series Dance Moms. In the clip, the dance teacher is going through pyramid, rating the girls from worst to best from the last dance competition.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior I am using is winning the solo division. This is reinforced by being placed top on the pyramid. (1:54)

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of the behavior is being recognized as the best dancer in the group.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the addition of something desirable because it reinforces dancing well and being placed at the top of the pyramid by being told you are the best dancer in the group.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent for this clip is going to a dance competition.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus for this clip is dancing well at the competition.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior because if Chloe did not dance well at the competition, then she would not have won her solo division.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Dance competition
B=Winning solo division
C=Best dancer

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of positive reinforcement because it involved the addition of something desirable. As a result of chloe doing well, she was placed at the top of the pyramid. This being added to her day at dance, will reinforce her to keep doing well so that she will emit the behavior more often, in order to be named the best dancer more often.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc3h9kPzpdk

Terminology: target behavior, reinforced, antecedent, consequence, discriminative stimulus, positive reinforcement, emit, behavior

1. In this clip John Stamos and some girl are eating yogurt together. John has some yogurt on his lip and the girl wipes it off with her finger and eats it. John then puts more yogurt on his lip and the girl kisses it off. He then spills yogurt on his pants and some crew guys make him take his pants off so they can clean them.

2. The target behavior is to get the girl to touch John’s face.

3. The consequence is that John gets affection from a cute girl.

4. The consequence involves the addition of something desirable.

5. The antecedent is eating yogurt.

6. The discriminative stimulus is John getting yogurt on his face.

7. The discriminative stimulus causes the target behavior.

8.
A= eating yogurt
B= John gets yogurt on his face
C= Girl wipes off yogurt/touches John’s face

9. This is positive reinforcement because there is the addition of something good.

10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrcaeAumAZo

11. Terms: target behavior, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, addition, positive reinforcement

1) I found a clip of a shark sighting in the water on a beach. The man filming is just your everyday guy who is not the greatest recorder but you can see how the people react to the shark.

2) The target behavior in the video is getting out of the water.

3) The consequence is to not get bitten by the shark.

4) The consequence would be the removal of something undesirable which is the shark. Take away the shark.

5) The antecedent would be having the shark in the water.

6) This would be a discriminative stimulus because once every one hears that there is a shark in the water, they immediately start to yell at others to get out of the water. Thus the shark in the water is causing the people to react in a common behavior.

7) The people begin to tell others to get out of the water once they hear there is a shark in the water. It is a common reaction that people get when they hear this. Thus causing the reaction of getting out of the water to not be bitten or worse eating by the shark.

8)
A=Shark in the water
B=Get out of water
C=Not be bitten

9) This example would be a negative reinforcement since we are removing the shark from the situation.

10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zzs2s0x2c8

11) TERMS: Target behavior, consequence, antecedent, undesirable, discriminative stimulus, negative reinforcement

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
The clip I chose is from YouTube and it is basically a compilation of drivers running red lights. The scenarios are all very similar. The video starts up, an intersection is displayed along with a clearly visible changing light, yellow to red, or just a red light. Most drivers stop, like they are supposed to, but some, whether they were not paying attention or on purpose, run through the red light. Running a red light results in an accident every time in this video.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is driving through an intersection, 0:22-0:30.

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of the behavior is a car accident.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
Following the accidents, the consequence involves the removal of something undesirable. The consequence is an accident, so damaged or not running vehicles are removed, or taken out of commission.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is the intersection

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the red light

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The intersection lights go from green to yellow and then red, the yellow lights let drivers know to slow down, and the red lights throughout the video direct drivers to stop before entering the intersection, so the yellow and red lights elicit a slowdown and a stop behavior and the drivers emit such behaviors, well most did anyway. Either some chose to ignore the stimulus of were not paying attention, so they proceeded to go through the intersection, each ending in a car accident.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A=Intersection
B=Driving through intersection
C=Car accident

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of punishment, since the behavior is likely to decrease. It will decrease because no one wants to continuously damage their vehicle, harm themselves or others, and possibly lose their licenses. And it is considered negative because something is being taken out of the “equation” and that is the cars involved in the accidents, they are taken out of commission, taken off the street, and so on.

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yxO_PO7jhc

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
target behavior, consequence, undesirable, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, elicit, negative punishment, emit

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip. This is a clip from Modern Family showing Manny driving a car past a girl working a lemonade stand. The girl stares at him and smiles, while Manny stares her way and drives past.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video). The target behavior is the girl staring at Manny during 0:08-0:10.

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is. The consequence is that Manny will feel good.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable. The consequence involves the addition of the girl staring at him, which to Manny is very desirable.
5) tell us to the antecedent is. The antecedent is the girl having a lemonade stand.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is. The discriminative stimulus is also Manny driving the car.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior. The discriminative stimulus elicits the staring of the girl towards Manny. Or setting the occasion for Manny to get a response from the girl.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Girl having lemonade stand
B= Manny driving by
C= Girl stares at Manny
9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why. This is an example of positive reinforcement because it is adding the girl staring at Manny.

Terms: target behavior, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, response, elicits, positive reinforcement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knjzUuFJXr8

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This is a clip from the TV show the big bang theory were Penny is trying to teacher one of her friends Howard how to fish. Howard and his friends are not the outdoor type but Howard is going on a fishing trip with his father in law so he needs to know how to fish so he can impress him.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is for Howard to be manlier and know how to fish. Which means for him to be able to hook the warm on the hook. This happens around the time of 1:56.
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of this behavior is that Howard will know how to fish and will impress his father in law by being more manlier. And that he feels good about himself when they are cheering for him saying that he can do it.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the attention of something desirable. Because Howard gaining to knowledge that it takes to impress his father and the feeling for being manlier and that boast his confidence.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is that Howard’s father in law invited him to go on a fishing trip together and that makes Howard have to practice and find someone to teach him.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is that not only is Penny trying to reinforce Howard but the fact that Howard feels the pressure to impress his father-in-law and that he has two of his friends there that being his cheerleaders.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus of his friends being there and cheering him on affect the target behavior because they make the reinforce more reinforcing by only giving him an audience to impress. The reinforce would be less reinforcing if Howard was doing this by himself.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Howard being invited to the fish trip.
B=Howard trying to learn how to fish.
C= Howard learns how to fish there in impressing his father-in-law and feeling better about himself.

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is positive reinforcement because Howards friends are not taking anything bad away from. What they are doing to giving Howard something positive which is the knowledge of knowing how to fish and the cheers that he can do it.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFYtv90onhs
11) terms
positive reinforcement, discriminative stimulus, antecedent, consequence, target behavior,

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This video clip is about an automatic door that fails to open.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
Guy waits for the door to open automatically (0:35)
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The automatic door does not open
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the removal of something desirable, because the automatic door fails to open when the guy stands in front of it.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is exciting the building.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the automatic door.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior because the door fails to open when the guy stands in front of it.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A=Exciting the building
B=stand in front of the automatic door
C=door fails to open
9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of negative reinforcement because the door failed to open, which will reduce the frequency of the guy standing in front of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_TASt9QWXk
11) Terminology: consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, target behavior, negative reinforcement

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
Its from the movie 'the Break Up'. Vince Vaughn is at a chicago cubs game and sees a pretty girl so he buys her a hot dog to get her attention.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
Buying a hot dog for a pretty girl
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
Got the girls (jennifer aniston) attention(not shown in this clip) but in the movie at the end of the game he gets her to agree to a date .
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
Its positive reinforcement because it adds a pretty girl into his life.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is the baseball game.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
Being at the baseball game makes him get the hot dog vs something else because thats a common thing to buy at a baseball game and the guys are walking around selling it.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
If he wasn't at the game he would have not been able to buy he ra hot dog like that.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Baseball game
B=Buying a hotdog
C=attention from pretty girl.

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
Positive reinforcement because he receives a pretty girl in his life.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sJaglGoByg

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. positive reinforcement,

1) Tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (be careful as there are often many behaviors in a video and you need to isolate the behavior of interest). MAKE SURE IT IS A BEHAVIOR AND NOT A BEHAVIORAL CLASS. The target behavior is trying to get the dog interested in a toy for fetch. The owner uses reinforcement by moving around the toy with the dog before releasing the toy for the dog to retrieve. Moving the toy around gets the puppies attention and makes them interested in the toy.
2) Next tell us what the consequence of the behavior is. Moving the toy around reinforces the puppy to want to play and increases the likelihood of them being interested in what is going on.
3) Then tell us how, that consequence will increase the frequency of the behavior. Dogs are very playful animals, so by moving a toy around it grabs the dogs attention and makes them interested in playing with their owner.
4) Tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something or if it involves the removal of something. The consequence is adding movement to the toy which is increasing the dogs interest in what is going on.
5) Finally tell us to the antecedent is. The antecedent would be grabbing a toy that the dog would want to play with.
Please then list the ABC's of the behavior
A= picking a toy
B=
moving the toy around C= the dog becomes interested in playing with the toy
Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. The movement of the toy is positive reinforcement because it increases the dogs interest in playing with its owner.
1. The target behavior is getting the dog to come back to the owner after releasing the toy. The punishment is the leash the owner has on the dog that restricts it from running away from its owner.
2. The leash prevents the dog from running away from its owner and not bring the toy back to her. The consequence from this is the dog coming back to his owner.
3. The leash restricts the dog from going very far away from its owner. This decreases the dogs chances of running away and not bringing the toy back to its owner. This is punishing the dogs freedom, but leading us to the target behavior of the dog returning back to his owner after the toys is being thrown.
4. The consequences removes the dogs freedom causing him to return back to his owner!
5. The antecedent is the leash.
6. A= leash B= restricted from continuing forward C= dog returns in direction of owner
Copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpmrfOOMjyA
Terms: Target behavior, reinforcement, punishment, antecedent, consequence,

What we would like you to do is to find a video clip off the internet illustrating a discriminative stimulus and how it affects behavior.

For this clip we would like you to:

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.

This is a clip of a drunk driving PSA. In it you see a guy drinking at his girlfriends' dads birthday party. They leave and he gets behind the wheel of the car after having a "few" drinks. He drives and crashes into a parked truck injuring himself and killing his girlfriend.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).

The target behavior in this clip was driving drunk.This occurs at around (:03-:06)

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.

The consequence of the behavior is crashing into a parked truck.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.

The consequence involves the removal of something undesirable which was crashing. Crashing is undesirable for many reasons including your insurance will go up, you can harm yourself and others (ie the drunk driver was injured and his girlfriend was dead), and you can go to jail for it. All of these are undesirable things that will result from the behavior.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.

The antecedent is the car.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.

The discriminative stimulus is the guys confidence in his ability to drive after having drinks.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.

It affects the target behavior in that because the guy felt he would be fine to drive even though he had already had many drinks and was under the influence of alcohol.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Car
B=Drunk Driving
C=Crashing

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.

This is an example of negative reinforcement because it will most likely result in the guy never drinking and driving again, which is lessening the likelihood he will drink and drive again, since he crashed (addition of something undesirable) and he killed his girlfriend in the process (removal of something desirable).

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otR8V7rlnjA

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Terms: behavior, antecedent, consequence, descriptive stimulus, undesirable, desirable, negative reinforcement, target behavior.

Topical Blog Week #4
For this clip we would like you to:
1) Briefly describe/summarize the clip:
This clip is a scene from Employee of The Month. Vincent (Dax Shepard) and Zack (Dane Cook) are competing against each other at the supermarket where they are both employed. The contest requires them to scan all items in their carts as fast and as accurately as they can. The winner will be reinforced of his hard work with a prize and title of fastest checker. They both are also trying to regain the attention of their female co-worker (Jessica Simpson).

2) Tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video):
The target behavior in this clip is scanning the items fast. Vincent and Zack both emit this behavior at (:44) into this clip.

3) Tell us what the consequence of the behavior is:
The consequence of emitting the target behavior is winning the contest.

4) Tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable:
The consequence involves the addition of something desirable, winning a prize and the title of fastest checker. And possibly the girl. (Jessica Simpson)

5) Tell us what the antecedent is:
The antecedent is working at a supermarket.

6) Tell us what the discriminative stimulus is:
The discriminative stimulus is the fact that they are participating in a contest.

7) How does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior?
Normally one would not scan items as fast as they could when helping a customer. The fact that the discriminative stimulus is being part of a contest, elicits the behavior of Zack and Vincent to work as fast as they can.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A=working at a supermarket
B=scanning items as fast as you can
C=winning a prize and title of fastest checker

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of positive reinforcement. The winner receives the addition of a prize and the title of fastest checker. This increases the likelihood he will continue to work his hardest at whatever work task may be presented to him.

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U8k98LPpjg

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post:
Reinforced, target behavior, emit, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, elicits, positive reinforcement.

1) Briefly describe/summarize the clip- I chose a clip from the show Community Abed has a list of things that he needs to do to make his first year of college the best experience possible. One of the things that list is to "pants" somebody, or pull down someone's pants.

2) Tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video)- The target behavior is when Abed emits "pantsing" Troy. (1:26)

3) Tell us what the consequence of the behavior is- The consequence of this behavior is that Abed gets to cross something off of his list.

4) Tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable- The consequence involves the addition of something desirable because Abed gets to cross something off his list which in his mind makes his first year of college experience more pleasurable. So he is adding pleasure to his life by pantsing Troy.

5) Tell us what the antecedent is- The antecedent is Abed and Troy being friends. Abed and Troy elicited the pantsing because it is far less likely that Abed would have pulled down a strangers pants.

6) Tell us what the discriminative stimulus is- The discriminative stimulus is Abed's list.

7) How does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior- The list makes it more likely that Abed would emit the behavior of pulling down someone's pants. If it weren't on a list for him to check off he would not have done it.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Troy and Abed being friends
B=Abed pulling Troy's pants down
C=Abed checks something off of his list

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why- This is an example of positive reinforcement because Abed gained a college experience off of his list and it brought him satisfaction so he will continue to try to check things off of the list that he has come up with.

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XRLKhvIge8

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post- Target behavior, elicit, emit, antecedent, consequence, positive reinforcement,discriminative stimulus

1. Summarize the clip
This clip is about Sheldon and Amy and their Valentines weekend together. They're on a train. Amy is mad at Sheldon because he has hardly spoken to her since they got on the train. Amy tricks Sheldon into taking her on this weekend get away because she wants more romance in their relationship. The weekend was supposed to be something they could both enjoy but Amy tricks Sheldon into coming along. In a sarcastic way Sheldon decides to be romantic by; sampling the wine, and gazing into Amy's eyes, and then kissing her (1:15).

2. The target behavior in this clip is Amy wanting more Romance on Valentines Day, so she tricks Sheldon into a weekend get away.

3. The consequence of the behavior is Sheldon figures out that Amy was tricking him when she said this would be a weekend they could both enjoy, not just more romance.

4. The consequence adds something desirable because she pretends to act all romantic by drinking the wine and gazing into Amy's eyes, but then he kisses her.

5. The antecedent is Amy wanting romance on Valentines Day.

6. The descriptive stimulus is whether or not Sheldon will be romantic towards Amy or not. In a sarcastic way he drinks the wine and gazes into Amy's eyes but then he kisses her.

7. The target behavior is affected by Sheldon figuring out why Amy wanted to go on this weekend get away.

8. A= Amy wanting romance on Valentine's Day
B= Amy plans a weekend get away, but doesn't tell Sheldon the real reason why she wants to go on the trip.
C= Sheldon figures out that Amy didn't plan a weekend that they could both enjoy, she planned a weekend of romance.

9. This clip is an example of positive reinforcement. Amy uses reinforcement to convince Sheldon to go on this trip with her, and he does. She wanted romance on Valentine's Day. The two of them get into a fight about Sheldon ignoring Amy. That's when Sheldon figures out the real reason Amy wanted to go on this trip. So he sarcastically pretends to be romantic until they kiss.

10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zva3SRxQCv0

11. Terms used: Positive reinforcement, reinforcement, target behavior, descriptive stimulus, antecedent, desirable.

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.

This clip is about a woman who tries to jump over a river because there is a small gap of land in between. She tries jumping halfway onto the gap of land and then jumping from the gap onto the other side of the river. She ends up falling into the river.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).

The target behavior is when she tries to jump over the river. This happens at 34 seconds into the video.

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.

The consequence of the behavior is she fell down into the river.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.

It involves the addition of something.

5) tell us to the antecedent is.

The antecedent is wanting to cross the river.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.

The descriptive stimulus is that gap of land halfway in between the river that reinforced her behavior of crossing the river because she thought she could jump on it.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.

The descriptive stimulus (the gap of land in the middle of the river) is what influenced her target behavior (trying to jump over the river) because she thought she could jump halfway onto that gap of land and be able to cross. She did not know she would fall down into the river.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A= wanting to cross the river
B= jumping over the river
C= falling into the river

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.

This would be an example of positive reinforcement because she could have used the descriptive stimulus (the gap of land) to cross the river and it would have been positive BUT since she fell down during the point and did not successfully cross the river, it could be considered negative reinforcement because she might not ever want to continue or try that behavior again in the future.

Terms: target behavior, consequence, antecedent, descriptive stimulus, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, ABC's, reinforced behavior

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26TCceYV8cU

1)briefly describe/summarize the clip.
This clip is of a teenage guy who is standing near a beach with a sign that reads “Kiss Me I’m Desperate”. Some people obey the sign and give him a kiss, while others laugh, or look uncomfortable, and keep walking.

2)tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is for a girl to kiss the boy holding the “Kiss Me I’m Desperate” sign.

3)tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence of the behavior is the boy gets kissed and continues to hold the sign. He continues to hold it because he received the desired behavior and no longer feels desperate.

4)tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence involves the addition of something desirable. The boy receives a kiss, which is desirable to him, so the boy continues to hold the sign.

5)tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is a desperate boy holding a sign saying “Kiss Me I’m Desperate”.

6)tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is the sign the boy is holding saying “Kiss Me I’m Desperate”. The sign sets the occasion for the operant response to occur, and the operant response would be kissing the boy. Regardless of whether or not the girls emit the behavior of kissing the boy, the sign is still a discriminative stimulus. It sends a message of what behavior is being desired.

7)How does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminative stimulus, the sign, affects the target behavior, kissing the boy. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that the boy would probably not be kissed by so many girls if he was not holding the sign. Girls read the sign and usually felt bad for the boy. Some girls thought the sign was funny, or they wanted to make their friends laugh by following the instructions of the sign. Signs have more power over us than we realize! People like to obey signs and make others happy. The girls probably did not want the poor boy to feel desperate, so they gave him a kiss.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= A boy is holding a sign saying “Kiss Me I’m Desperate”
B= Girl kisses the boy
C= Boy continues to hold the sign

8)Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the addition of something desirable that leads to the continuation of a behavior. Girls emit the behavior of kissing, and the boy finds this desirable. Because he finds this desirable, he continues to hold up the sign and hopefully receive more kisses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_47A9Z28U3I

Terms: target behavior, consequence, undesirable, desirable, antecedent, behavior, consequence, discriminative stimulus, emit, positive reinforcement, set the occasion, operant response

1. The clip that I picked for this blog is From a NFL game. It shows a Chicago Bear emitting a huge hit on to a San Diego Charger. Then the crowd cheers and the pass is rules incomplete due to him losing the ball because of the hit.

2. The target behavior is tackling a person as hard as they can to bring them down because they have a ball in their hand.The reinforcement for this behavior comes in many forms both negative and positive reinforcement.

3. One of the many consequences I am going to highlight is the crowd reaction to the hit laid on this player.

4. The consequence involves the addition of the pleasurable action of cheering. He is a professional athlete they are in it for the money and the fame. This hit was also "hit of the week" so many other people praised his hit.

5. The antecedent is he is playing in a foot ball game. This elicits the player to make actions to win.

6. The discriminative stimulus in this video is also the antecedent. That he was playing a football game, big hits like this are a part of the game.

7.The discriminative elicited the hit that is seen in this clip. The situation of a football game makes it legal for these men to hit each other like they do. If the discrimnative stimulus had not been there this play would most likely be in jail for assault. It makes the target behavior legal.

8.
A= Playing in a football game
B= Laying a huge hit onto the other player
C= being praised for this hit by the crowd and commentators

9. This is an example of positive reinforcement. Because he was given praise a, pleasurable reinforcer, the chances he lays hits like this even more when he is playing football are going to go up.

10.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kD6h4tPNCk

11. Terms used-Target behavior, reinforcement, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, consequence, emitting,elicit, antacedent, pleasurable,

1) Meg is trying elicit the belief of God in Brian. She does this by emitting a game of fetch with a cross. When Meg throws the cross, it is a discriminate stimulus because it is apparent that Meg wants Brian to fetch it. Brian decides to appease this and fetches the cross. When he has the cross, Brian is reinforced by getting to chew on it like a dog toy.
2) The target behavior is Brian running to fetch the cross. This happens 21 seconds in.
3) The consequence of this behavior is that Brian gets to chew on the cross like it is a dog toy.
4) The consequence involves the addition of something pleasurable because Brian enjoys chewing on the cross
5) The antecedent of this behavior is that Meg is trying to get Brain to take the cross
6) The discriminative stimulus is Meg throwing the cross because it makes it clear that she wants Brian to fetch it.
7) The discriminative stimulus elicited the behavior that Meg wanted.
8) A= Meg wants Brian to take the cross and she throws it
B= Brian fetches the cross
C= Brian gets to chew on the cross like a dog toy
9) This is an example of positive reinforcement because the addition of something desirable made it more likely that Brian would play fetch with the cross in the future
10) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mKM3nVnfCg

Vocab: elicit, emitting, discriminate stimulus, target behavior, stimulus, reinforced, consequence, antecedent, positive reinforcement

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip. - This is a clip from the show "Friends". Joey and Pheobe are at Rachel's apartment and Rachel is thinking about beginning to talk/flirt with a new guy. Joey gives his advice to Rachel and also tries it on Pheobe as an example.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video). - The target behavior in this video is Joey giving flirting advice to his friend Rachel. (0:03-0:10)
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is. - Rachel takes the advice from Joey that flirting isn't all that hard and she decides to call the guy.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable. - The consequence involves the addition of something desirable. Rachel wanted advice/confidence to give the guy a call and ask him out and now she has that advice/confidence.
5) tell us to the antecedent is. - The antecedent is Rachel asking for advice.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is. - The discriminative stimulus is Rachel's apartment.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior. - If this situation wasn't at Rachel's apartment, then her friends might not of been there to elicit Rachel to ask for advice, thus causing her friend Joey to emit the behavior of giving advice.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Rachel asking for advice
B= Joey giving advice
C= Rachel taking/using Joey's advice
9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why. - This is an example of positive reinforcement because since Rachel took and used Joey's advice, Joey is more likely to give advice to people in the future.
10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjQ1xD6UL-4
11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Terminology used: Antecedent, behavior, consequence, positive reinforcement, emit, elicit, target behavior, discriminative stimulus, desirable.

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.
In this clip of the show, Big Bang Theory, Sheldon tries to train Penny to not talk by reinforcing her with chocolate.
2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).
The target behavior is Penny not talking. (.46 seconds and 1.03 minutes)
3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.
The consequence is Sheldon giving her chocolate when she does not talk.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.
The consequence is the reward of chocolate.
5) tell us to the antecedent is.
The antecedent is Penny talking.
6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.
The discriminative stimulus is being rewarded with chocolate.
7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.
The discriminate stimulus affects the target behavior because when Penny receives a phone call she answers it, then leaves the room and when she leaves the room she is offered chocolate.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Penny talking
B= Receiving chocolate when she is quiet
C= Less talking
8) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.
This is an example of positive reinforcement because she receives a reward when she emits the target behavior.
9) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_mIEnnlF4
11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Reinforcement, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, target behavior, positive reinforcement, emit

1.This clip is from an episode of Family Guy. In the episode Peter and Brian are walking through the grocery store. While walking they happen upon a wet floor sign and stop in caution of the wet floor. However, another man comes walking through and slips and falls due to the wet floor.

2.The target behavior in this clip that is emitted is Peter and Brian being cautious of walking through the water because it may be slippery (0:00-0:02). This is the target behavior because the grocery store wants the behavior of being cautious around wet floors to increase.

3.The consequence that is elicited by this behavior is Peter and Brian not falling down. The consequence of not falling down would be considered the intervention of this target behavior.

4.The consequence of this target behavior is taking away something that is aversive, which in this clip is preventing Brian and Peter from falling.

5.The antecedent in this video clip is being in the grocery store.

6.The discriminative stimulus in this video clip would be the wet floor sign.

7.The discriminative stimulus elicits the behavior by setting the occasion for the operant response. The operant response in this clip would the patrons obeying the sign and being cautious. The patrons being Brian and Peter are then reinforced for their response and that is why the sign would be the discriminative stimulus.

8. A= Grocery Store
B= Being cautious while walking on the wet floor
C= Not falling when walking

9.This clip would be an example of negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement means that a behavior is increased due to taking away an aversive stimuli. In this clip the behavior of being cautious while walking across the wet floor is increased by taking away the aversive consequence of falling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQW2twxWvjU

TERMS: target behavior, emitted, consequence, elicited, behavior, intervention, aversive, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, setting the occasion, operant response, reinforced, negative reinforcement

1. In this clip it is Christmas time and Penny comes over Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment to exchange Christmas gifts with them. Sheldon plans to open Penny’s gift and then go back to his room and bring out a present that matches the level of her present, he has several different options in his room. Sheldon opens his gift only to find that Penny had one of Sheldon’s idols, Leonard Nimoy, sign a napkin he used. Sheldon is then so enthused by this gift that he can barely stand and he runs back to his room while Penny and Leonard exchange gifts that are inside jokes between the two of them. When Sheldon returns, he brings out all the gift options he got for Penny, only to feel it is still not enough so he gives her a hug, which is a big deal because he never hugs people.

2. The target behavior in this clip that illustrates the reinforced behavior is Sheldon opening his present from Penny. (0:23-0:42)

3. The consequence of the behavior is Sheldon receiving the signed and used napkin of Leonard Nimoy, one of his idols.

4. The consequence of this behavior involves the addition of something desirable. The consequence was an addition because before opening the gift Sheldon did not have in his possession the signed and used napkin. If he had not done the behavior of opening the present, he never would have gotten the napkin. This addition was desirable because Sheldon was ecstatic to receive the napkin, he was so thrilled that he couldn't stand and felt the need to give Penny multiple gifts and give her a hug, which is never does. Had the consequence been the removal of something aversive, Sheldon would have not gained anything new in his life, but instead lost something he found unpleasant.

5. The antecedent to this behavior is Penny coming over to Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment at Christmas time.

6. The discriminative stimulus to this behavior is the present.

7. The discriminative stimulus, the present, elicited Sheldon to open the present. Even further, the present elicited Sheldon to open the present because he knew that opening the present would mean his behavior would be reinforced. The discriminative stimulus signals the organism of what operant behavior to do, it signals the organism of what to do in order to be reinforced. Penny comes over to Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment often, but because this time she came over to their apartment with the discriminative stimulus, a present, Sheldon’s behavior changed in response to the stimulus. The present signaled to him that he needed to open it, it signaled to him that he would be reinforced by the contents of the present for emitting the behavior of opening the present.

8. A= Penny coming over to Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment at Christmas time.
B= Sheldon opening the present from Penny
C= Sheldon receives a napkin signed and used by Leonard Nemoy, one of his idols.

9. This is an example of positive reinforcement. It is positive because Sheldon had something added to him after emitting the behavior. If it would have been negative, Sheldon would have had to lose something in the consequence. Had he not emitted the behavior, he never would have gotten the napkin. It is reinforcement because the consequence increased the likelihood of Sheldon emitting the behavior in the same antecedent again. If Penny were to come over with a present again, Sheldon is much more likely to open the present. If would be punishment if Sheldon was not likely to emit the behavior again, like if Penny had given Sheldon a present that he found very aversive.

10. URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlhHTdDqoBc

11. Terms: target behavior, reinforced behavior, consequence, behavior, desirable, antecedent, discriminative stimulus, elicited, positive reinforcement, emitting, negative reinforcement, punishment, aversive, organism, operant behavior

1.) This clip is a comical Mr. Bean clip which shows the process for him of getting up in the morning and getting ready for the day. It's supposed to be funny because of how difficult it is for him to get out of bed and start his day, but I did see an example of a discriminative stimulus in this video.

2.) The target behavior is getting him up and out of bed in the morning. This happens at the beginning of the video at :21.

3.) The consequence of getting out of bed is not only getting up and getting ready for the day, but no longer having to be disrupted by an alarm clock or whatever it is someone uses to wake up.

4.) The consequence involves the removal of something undesirable. No one likes the sound of their alarm clocks in the morning, especially the old fashioned, obnoxious beeping ones. It's an awful sound and an awful way to wake up, but that's kind of the point. Because it's annoying and people want it to stop, they'll usually get up instead of hitting snooze and waiting for it to go off again. It's also usually loud and annoying enough to wake someone up the first time it goes off.

5.) The antecedent is Mr. Bean sleeping and it being morning time; time for him to get up and ready for the day.

6.) The discriminative stimulus is the alarm clock going off, and in Mr. Bean's case, also the water pouring out onto his foot which is another way he uses to wake up because the initial alarm clock doesn't seem to be enough.

7.) The sound of the alarm clock will affect the target behavior because it encourages Mr. Bean to get out of bed. Not only is the alarm clock the discriminative stimulus in this case, but the water is as well. Both of these things serve as a nuisance, which elicits the behavior he emits of getting out of bed because that's the only way he knows these things will stop going off to try and wake him up.

8.) A= Mr. Bean sleeping and it being morning time.
B= The alarm going off in an attempt to wake Mr. Bean up, which means the behavior is waking up.
C= The consequence is that the alarm stops going off and the water stops pouring out onto his foot.

9.) This is negative reinforcement because it removes something undesirable. By getting out of bed, the noise of the alarm will stop and the water will stop pouring out onto his foot. These are both things that are alarming and annoying to Mr. Bean, and he knows the only way to make them stop is to get out of bed.

10.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXPLhE_z57M

11.) TERMS: Consequence, Discriminative Stimulus, Target Behavior, Antecedent, Elicit, Emit, Negative reinforcement

1) The clip that I am using is from the third season of the HBO show Game of Thrones. In this clip Jon Snow has an arrow aimed at him from his former love Ygritte.
2) The target behavior is Jon telling Ygritte that he loves her, this begins at about 0:56.
3) The consequence of the target behavior is that Ygritte wounds him, instead of killing him. The clip shows him being shot with arrows but a follower of the show would know that she never misses her aim and if she had wanted to kill him, she would have.
4) The consequence in this case involves the continuation of something desirable, life. Because he is shot, that is unpleasant. However, when the scene ends Jon still has his life which is definitely desirable.
5) The antecedent is Ygritte finding Jon at a watering hole after he had run from their battle.
6) The discriminative stimulus is Ygritte and Jon having had a previous relationship.
7) If Jon and Ygritte had not had a previous relationship, Jon saying that he loved her would have elicited no effect. As it were, Ygritte loved Jon back which caused her to emit a crying response.
8) A: Ygritte cornering Jon at a watering hole
B: Jon telling Ygritte that he loves her
C: Ygritte wounds, rather than kills Jon
9) I am unsure whether is an example of positive or negative reinforcement. It seems like positive reinforcement because of the continuation of Jon’s life, which is definitely not the removal of anything. However, it could also be negative reinforcement because the consequence involved the removal of Jon’s impending death by his former love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OuAa2tCBps
Terms: target behavior, antecedent, consequence, discriminative stimulus, reinforcement, elicit, emit, positive, negative

1) In this cartoon clip, a guy is sitting on a chair at a nude beach with a beach ball on his lap to keep himself covered. Some girls run up- both are naked and he reacts to this site and the beach ball goes flying.
2) The target behavior is being nude at a nude beach. this occurs at the very start of the video.
3) The consequence is that this dude gets to see some ladies in ways he probably wouldn’t get to see them in a normal setting.
4) This is the addition of something desirable. He gets to see naked women.
5) The antecedent is a nude beach.
6) The “Nude Beach” sign is the discriminative stimulus.
7) The discriminative stimulus basically says, “Hey, man. This is a place where you don’t have to wear clothes. And you probably shouldn’t wear clothes here.”
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A= Nude beach
B= Hanging out at a beach naked
C= Seeing naked women
9) Positive reinforcement. Reinforcement is any behavior that increases the likelihood that the behavior will happen again. In this case, seeing naked women will increase the likelihood that this guy is going to go back to the beach. It’s positive reinforcement because it is the addition of a desirable consequence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwMoSN0J_Tg
Terms: reinforcement, positive reinforcement, discriminative stimulus, antecedent, ABC’s of behavior modification, target behavior, consequence, and behavior.

1) Kelly and James Cantor (Paltrow and Mc Graw) are lying in bed. Their relationship is rocky, and Kelly tries to emit physical romance with her husband through means of a touching behavior. But, because of the tension in their marriage, his reaction is a pulling-away response, which creates extinction . He knows he has elicited a hurtful feeling of rejection within his wife, so he tells her the story of when they first met.
2) The reinforced behavior is when James Cantor is initiating an apologetic response to his wife by telling her the story of how they met (00:56). This is the target behavior, because it is implied that he tells her this story often to make verbal amends. When he does this his wife emits joy as a listening
3) The consequence of the target behavior is Kelly smiling, thus showing happiness. She also says something in response to James’ story, but the immediate consequence is her smile.
4) The consequence involves the addition of something desirable. James rejects Kelly’s desire for intimacy and he feels sorrowful for depriving her of it, so to reconcile he tells her a story, this makes his wife happy, and she is at least superficially satiated.
5) The antecedent is James and his wife lying in bed after they have just discussed Chiles Stanton, the young, female singer on tour with them. Kelly tries to make a move, James responds to Kelly’s attempt at intimacy with a negative punishment, by turning away, he then feels bad after they lie there in silence, so he tells her a story he knows will make her happy.
6) The discriminative stimulus is also the antecedent; it is the couple lying in bed in this instance. At night when people are lying down, they tend to be reflecting on immediate issues, or past issues, and in this case the clip opens up to the couple discussing one of the up-and-coming singers that is on tour with them. Kelly believes her husband to have an attraction to this other woman, and also believes that the public adores this younger woman as well. Because of the couples loss depicted earlier in the film, Kelly is trying to reconstruct their marriage into the relationship that it once was.
7) Lying in bed targets the behavior by creating a context of reflection. The sorrow that comes from this reflection creates the specified behavior of James telling the story to his wife.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A=Lying in bed
B=James tells the story of how the couple met
C=Kelly smiles with happiness
9) This is an example of positive reinforcement, because Kelly’s nostalgic smile in response to James’ story is the addition of something desirable, that will increase the likelihood that James will use this story when he wants his wife to be happy, even though their relationship is almost severed.
10) Terminology: elicit, behavior, response, emit, reinforced, target behavior, consequence, deprived, satiated, extinction, antecedent, negative punishment, discriminative stimulus, context, positive reinforcement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhiZFyAY7pk

1)This clip is from Remember the Titans. Rev, the quarterback, breaks his wrist during the football game in a play and will not be able to play the rest of the season. They needed to put in a sub, so the coach talks to Ronnie and Ronnie the alternate quarterback fills in for Rev. Ronnie is successful as a quarterback and they win the game!

2)The target behavior I am using is Ronnie throwing a good pass while playing as the quarterback.(2:02) This is the target behavior because Rev, the original quarterback was taken out of the game and the team wanted to continue to do well without their main quarterback, leading to the target behavior of Ronnie throwing a good pass.

3)The consequence of the behavior is a completed pass (pass received) by his teammate. This is the consequence because once Ronnie threw the good pass, the consequence was a football instantly received by his teammate.

4)The consequence involves the addition of something desirable, in this case the addition is yards gained on the field. Since Ronnie threw a good pass and his teammate received the ball, they gained (added) yards on the field, which is pleasurable.

5)The antecedent is Ronnie playing on the football field. This is the antecedent because without Ronnie playing football, he would not have been able to emit the behavior of throwing the ball, which then led to the catching of the ball.

6)The discriminative stimulus is the coach talking positively to Ronnie, giving him positive praise. The coach giving positive words to Ronnie affects the likelihood of emitting a particular behavior. The coach had to talk to Ronnie for Ronnie to go out on the field and play. Without the discriminative stimulus of the coach speaking, Ronnie would not have played.

7)The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior because without the coach talking to Ronnie, Ronnie would not have (gone out on the field) and would not have had the confidence or direction to do what was required of him on the field (throwing a good pass). The coach gave Ronnie words and motivation to believe in his abilities, just as a coach should do. This happened time and time again, before the ABC's and after, to continue the cycle. The coach not only gave this positive talk to Ronnie before he went out on the field, but he continued to give positive words (yelling, talking, praise) each time he emitted these behaviors. (Discriminative stimulus, the coach increased the likelihood Ronnie would emit the target behavior, a successful throw/pass (by consistent positive talk/feedback).

8)Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=Ronnie plays
B=Ronnie throws good pass
C=Teammate catches pass

9)This is an example of positive reinforcement because there is the addition of something desirable, gained yards (and gained confidence) which will increase the likelihood that this behavior will occur in the future. Ronnie will play, throw good passes, and his teammate will receive the ball.

10) http://youtu.be/PDiZA-SRksg
(whole scene with all the parts necessary for this blog post,:58-2:05)

11) Terms: Target behavior, consequence, behavior, desirable, pleasurable, antecedent, emit, discriminative stimulus, and positive reinforcement

REW

What we would like you to do is to find a video clip off the internet illustrating a discriminative stimulus and how it affects behavior.

For this clip we would like you to:

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.

This clip is about making people choose the stairs over using the escalator. The clip shows a team that make the stairs look and act like a piano to entice people to choose the stairs instead of the escalator.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).

The target behavior is using the stairs instead of the escalator. (0:38)

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.

The consequence is an increase in the number of people choosing to take the stairs. Taking the stairs produces musical sound.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.

This consequence involves the addition of something desirable (something fun).

5) tell us to the antecedent is.

The antecedent is a Odenplan, Stockholm Subway/Train station

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.

The discriminative stimulus is taking the stairs at the Odenplan, Stockholm subway/train station.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.

As most stairs do not produce music, the introduction of making the steps look like and act like a piano (discriminative stimulus), people choose to take the stairs (target behavior) because it is now fun to do.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A= Odenplan, Stockholm Subway/Train Station
B= Take the stairs instead of the escalator
C= The stairs make music when stepped on and people have fun

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.

This is an example of positive reinforcement, as the musical stairs increase the likelihood a person will emit the stair taking behavior at the Odenplan, Stockholm subway/train station.

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

11) Terms: Positive reinforcement, Target behavior, consequence, antecedent, discriminative stimulus

1) A baseball player hits a home run in the first pitch of the game.

2) The target behavior is emitted immediately as the video begins. A man throws the ball at another man; the second man hits the ball. The target behavior is hitting the ball.

3) the consequence is that the crowd cheers for him.

4) The consequence involves the addition of something pleasurable, which increases the frequency.

5) The antecedent is being in a baseball field.

6) The discriminative stimulus is playing a professional game of baseball (on the baseball field.)

7) The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior being emitted of hitting the ball because if you are in a baseball field there aren't necessarily any rules for you to follow. You and your friend might throw a ball back and forth and the target behavior may never come about. But the discriminative stimulus of playing a professional game implies the sequence that it is played based on the rules and the context. The players know that hitting the ball is good during a professional game and that if they hit it they will receive praise.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A=being in a baseball field
B=hitting a ball
C=crowd cheering

9) This is an example of positive reinforcement because it involves the addition of the pleasurable applause that increases the frequency of players hitting the ball.

10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCw6XQ5-oug

11) positive reinforcement, target behavior, antecedent, consequence, emitting,
behavior, increase frequency, pleasurable, elicit, discriminative stimulus

1) briefly describe/summarize the clip.

Ankeny's show choir performing at National's.

2) tell us what behavior (target behavior) you are using that illustrates the reinforced behavior (please note what time it occurs in the video).

The target behavior is to get the audiences "approval" and proof of enjoyment by getting them to clap and cheer by a well executed performance. This is done at about 2:05 and many other times throughout the performance.

3) tell us what the consequence of the behavior is.

The consequence of the behavior (the cheering and applause of the audience) is that it fires up the show choir and gives them a burst of confidence and energy.

4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable.

It involves the addition of something desirable. (The performers feeling a sense of accomplishment)

5) tell us to the antecedent is.

The antecedent is performing on stage for a national competition.

6) tell us what the discriminative stimulus is.

The discriminative stimulus is the theater/stage they are performing in.

7) how does the discriminative stimulus affect the target behavior.

If they were performing in a class room it wouldn't have the same effect. People are expecting a performance to occur in a theater on stage and go there with the intention of enjoying a performance.

8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:

A= Show choir performs.
B= Audience cheers and applauds.
C= Show choir gets pumped up.

9) Now state if this is an example of positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement. Explain why.

Positive reinforcement for both. The audience cheering reinforces the show choir to want to continue performing and perform well. The show choir performing well reinforces the audience to want to keep cheering and applauding in order to see a great show.

10) When you are done copy and paste the URL at the bottom so we can go and see the video you used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvVCQqOtL0E

11) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Target Behavior, Behavior, Consequence, Antecedent, Discriminative Stimulus, Positive Reinforcement.

What we would like you to do is to find a video clip off the internet illustrating a discriminative stimulus and how it affects behavior.
For this clip we would like you to:
1) This clip is an episode of a mini series called Making Fiends. This episode is the first episode in their series and we are just being introduced to the characters. The main characters are Charlotte (blue girl) who is very positive, naïve, and just wants to make friends with everyone and the other main character is Vendetta( green girl) who strongly dislikes everyone, creates fiends, and has it out for Charlotte. In this episode it is Charlotte’s first day of school and it is shown that Vendetta has the whole controlled out of fear, including her teacher
2) The behavior I chose to look at in this episode is when the teacher’s fear of Vendetta causes him to shorten his lesson and allow the students to go to recess. This behavior occurs at 3:02 in the episode.

3). The consequence of this behavior is that the students are allowed to go to recess. The teacher’s fear of Vendetta elicited him to emit the behavior of allowing them to go to recess early.
4) tell us if the consequence involves the addition of something desirable or if it involves the removal of something undesirable. The consequence added something aversive for the teacher because he was not able to complete his lesson. The consequence also involves the addition of something desirable for students because they are able to go to recess early.
5) The antecedent is the classroom in this example.
6) The discriminative stimulus is Vendetta’s presence and her fiends. Another discriminative stimulus could be the teacher’s fear of Vendetta based on the punishments she has elicited on him in the past, meaning the creation of fiends to make his life more difficult.
7) The discriminative stimulus affects the target behavior because if the teacher did not fear Vendetta and her fiends, the lesson would have continued as planned instead of ending early due to the teachers fear of Vendetta.
8) Please list the ABC's of the target behavior in the clip prior to the introduction of the discriminative stimulus:
A=Classroom
B=Ending the lesson
C=Recess for the students
9) This is an example of positive reinforcement because of the addition of a desirable stimulus for Vendetta and the other students. Because her teacher fears her she knows that her behavior will be reinforced and she will continue her behavior of controlling others out of fear.
10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohiCYu14lY0&list=UU15em__eAmR-FfPUgaogd6Q
11) Terms: positive reinforcement, desirable stimulus, discriminative stimulus, target behavior, elicited, punishments, consequence, desirable, aversive, emit, ABC, antecedent, behavior

1) The clip that I wanted to look at is from the show the Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon is trying to get Penny to act and do what he wants her to do.
2) Penny not saying anything and being quite
0.45 and 1.03
3) Sheldon rewards her by giving her a chocolate when she stops talking.
4) He is rewarding her by adding the chocolate with the behavior that he wants to get out of her.
5) The antecedent is Penny talking to much
6) The discriminative stimulus is being rewarded with the chocolate.
7) Penny learns that when she is quite she gets chocolate, later she gets a call and leaves the room and is given some chocolate reinforcing the behavior that Sheldon is looking for out of her.
8)
A=Penny talking
B= Sheldon giving her chocolate when she stops
C= Penny talking less
9) I think that this is an example of a positive reinforcement by rewarding and adding the chocolate when Sheldon gets the behavior that he wants.
10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_mIEnnlF4

Topical Blog Week #4
I decided to research differential reinforcement of other (DRO) for this assignment. In section 2.1 it is briefly mentioned because it says it will be covered fully in later chapters, but I wanted to research it further because I was very intrigued by the idea of focusing on identifying target behavior that you would normally punish, and instead reinforce the absence of that behavior. When I read the section I first thought that DRO meant that you changed the target behavior from one that you would like to decrease to one that you would like to increase, that way you are using reinforcement instead of punishment, which increases the effectiveness of the behavior modification. For instance if you wanted to decrease the behavior of drinking soda, instead of punishing yourself every time that you emitted soda-drinking behavior, you reinforce yourself every time you emit water-drinking behavior. By reinforcing yourself, you increase the amount of times that you drink water, thus indirectly decreasing the amount of times that you drink soda.

While I was researching I came to learn that DRO does not necessarily mean that you are reinforcing a different target behavior, it may mean that you are reinforcing the absence of that target behavior. The webpages that I read instructed someone to observe how frequently the target behavior occurs (these webpages were directed towards children with mental illness such as autism and children disrupting the classroom) in a certain amount of time. Once the frequency of the behavior is established the person wishing to modify the behavior then creates a time interval schedule. The example that one of the websites provided involved a student, Timmy, who interrupted his teacher 5 times over a 30 minute time span, so the teacher then told him that if he didn’t interrupt for 5 minutes he would get a star, and if he earned enough stars then he would receive extra recess time. As you can see, instead of punishing Timmy when he interrupted, the teacher instead reinforced the absence of interrupting-behavior and she used star stickers and extra recess time as the consequence to increase his non-interrupting behavior.

We have discussed in class that it is easier to modify behavior when you implement reinforcement rather than punishment and researching DRO has shown me how exactly to use reinforcement in situations where you would like to decrease behavior, thus making the behavior modification more effective. In my research, I could not find any videos that displayed DRO, so I have attached three different websites that I gathered information from to this post.

URL’s:
http://www.behavioradvisor.com/DRO.html
http://www.grrec.ky.gov/CaveWeb/autism/ASD%20Webpage/Module%203/-%20How%20To%20DRO.pdf
http://autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/sites/autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu/files/DifferentialReinforcement_Steps_0.pdf

Terms: differential reinforcement of other (DRO), target behavior, punish, reinforce, behavior modification, emit, consequence

The topic that I chose to research on is satiation and deprivation. After reading section 2.1 on satiation versus deprivation, I became interested in how deprivation and satiation can play a role in modifying the efficiency of the consequence. The research on this topic discusses about deprivation and satiation in humans and animals just as stated in section 2.1.

After researching on satiation and deprivation, it became clear to me that satiation may be temporary and the consequence may be reinforcing at different times. Also, these events are observable and measurable. For instance, Sam is tired of the music he is listening to right now but, he likes the music so, he might want to listen to it later again. This is similar to the example of eating hamburgers given in section 2.1. Hamburgers may be reinforcing to you. However, if you eat hamburgers every day, it will eventually become aversive and you will want to stop eating it for a while.

In contrast to satiation, deprivation is when the effectiveness of a reinforcer is increased. Depriving an organism of an event will increase the reinforcing effectiveness of that event. The example in section 2.1 states that although you have been having hamburgers every day until you get less satisfied with it, if you go two or three weeks without it, a hamburger will be quite reinforcing to you again. In one of the websites that I found, which is actually a research article, an experiment on activity-based anorexia with rats was carried out. In this experiment, the researchers tested whether food deprivation would increase the effectiveness of wheel running as reinforcement for lever pressing. The results showed that the effectiveness of wheel running as reinforcement was expected to be greatest under conditions of food deprivation. Therefore, food deprivation increases the reinforcement effectiveness of wheel running. Also, satiation, by spontaneous or forced activity in a running wheel, decreases the effectiveness of food reinforcement.

In animal experimentation where primary reinforcements are applied, some condition of deprivation is necessary. For food to operate as a reinforcer, the animal must be deprived of it for a given period of time prior to the beginning of experimentation. Under these conditions, food operates to strengthen the target behavior under study, provided that the organism has been deprived. On the other hand, if food is presented frequently enough in a long time period, there comes a point when the response rate drops off because satiation is beginning to take place.

These are the three websites that I obtained information on satiation and deprivation from.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFEQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ao.net%2F~holmanh%2FLundin%2Fdoc%2FLundin-p177.doc&ei=mU3QVOz0H5esyASJlIHQDw&usg=AFQjCNEalAQRuFuyzlIacQ63_QYpedD-cw&sig2=mDu5R0Q3arbBaiXpfddf1Q
http://people.eku.edu/janssenk/reinfslide.ppt/sld012.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1348286/pdf/jeabehav00044-0086.pdf

Terminologies: Satiation, deprivation, reinforcer, reinforcement, aversive, target behavior

I chose to do more research on the subject of deprivation. Deprivation has the same definition here in behavior modification that we use in the real world every day: Withholding any stimulus which serves as reinforcement to an organism. This is of interest to me because upon reading the word deprivation, the first thing I thought of was food deprivation, and I asked myself "Does this apply to the thousands of people across the globe that are dying of food deprivation?".
Come to find out, the answer is yes. Deprivation of food elicits a starvation and malnutrition inside the human being being deprived. An example in Section 1.4 of the book was the example of depriving the rat of a certain percentage of food when he usually was allowed to eat freely. Typically, this is the case with people who end up being deprived of food. The lack of reinforcement with food leads to punishment in a sense. In humans, when they are given the food, it acts as a reinforcement. Withdrawal or deprivation from the food is punishment, because they are not benefitting from the deprivation.
Relative deprivation is defined as the lack of resources to sustain the lifestyle, diet, activities and amenities. Obviously, the example of food deprivation would be applicable to this as well. The behavior of starving can be a reaction to the antecedent of having no food to eat. Unfortunately, the consequence of this could be death or extreme malnutrition.
On a less depressing side of deprivation, an example could be a college student being deprived of sleep while away at school. This deprivation is a negative punishment because you are taking something away that the student enjoys and needs. This could also be an example of relative deprivation, as the definition states it is the lack of resources to sustain lifestyle, and sleep sustains lifestyle activities. This is also a punishment because it is not increasing the desired behavior.

http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu22we/uu22we0f.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_deprivation
http://www.universityherald.com/articles/11044/20140822/college-students-are-more-sleep-deprived-have-trouble-managing-stress.htm

Terms: behavior, target behavior, antecedent, consequence, emit, deprivation, punishment, negative punishment, reinforcement

The topic I am going to research for this assignment is why some athletes elicit superstitious behaviors. This fits in with what we are talking about in class because we have been talking about antecedents (reason why a person would emit a certain behavior), behaviors they perform, and then the consequence that these behaviors have on their life, athletic performance, etc. I am interested in researching this topic because I actually have many superstitious behaviors that I elicit before each track meet (wear the same socks, do the same warm up, eat the same food, etc.).
The definition of superstitious behavior is: “Superstitious behavior arises when the delivery of a punisher or reinforcer occurs close together in time with an independent behavior.” Because of this behavior that has accidently been either reinforced or punished, the athlete that performed that behavior has an increased chance of performing that behavior again if they received a pleasurable consequence. If they received an aversive consequence, then they have a decreased chance of performing that behavior again.
Once a person or athlete has found a certain behavior that they believe to help their performance, they begin to elicit this behavior before every competition in hopes that they will again perform well. One positive thing that comes out of these superstitious behaviors (and I know this from experience) is that emitting these behaviors prior to a competition; you get a confidence boost, which could be the reason you perform better.
Another main reason athletes emit these types of superstitious behaviors is to have a sense of control while they are playing the game. If an athlete has a good luck charm such as shoes, socks, or jersey; it gives them a sense of confidence and comfort that makes them feel that everything will go well as long as they have that with them. For example, I wear the same socks and uniform for every single track meet that I participate in because I believe that they are lucky. Doing this little rituals or emitting these behaviors prior or during their competition helps these athletes get into the right state of mind and focus on their performance.
It may seem odd that athletes have believe this little behaviors that the emit can influence the outcome of their entire performance, but when the confidence part is added, it seems a bit more reasonable and understandable to non-believers.

Terms: consequence, antecedent, behavior, elicit, emit, punishment, reinforcement, aversive, pleasurable.

http://www.mckendree.edu/web/scholars/winter2012/mouyard.htm

http://www2.psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/wasserman/glossary/superstitious%20behavior.html

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/sportspsychology/a/superstitions.htm

For this topic I choose New years resolutions of getting fit but related to reinforcement. I think reinforcement in a positive wat is important when trying to achieve goals. This topic is a very hard goal to accomplish for a lot of people. People want to loose weight to look more skinny and somehow fit in society. However, this should not be the main goal. In my opinion the main goal should be to get healthy. Reinforcement plays an important role because by positive reinforcement we keep motivated and we can have lees breakdowns. For example, a person that wants to loose 20 pounds, should use as a reinforcement a picture of a body she wants to achieve. Another reinforcement is weighting ourselves every week. However, if we don’t loose the desired weight that quickly we might get disappointed and stop. Having a picture or picture yourself of how you want to look, will act as a reinforcement by modifying the behavior and increasing the behavior of working out more or eating more healthy. 



As I did my research on this topic, I found a source of tips to keep consistent with our new year’s resolution. Some of this tips include plan ahead, be realistic, outline a plan, talk about it and stick to it. A reinforcement to this will be after loosing a couple pounds we should reward ourselves and feel accomplish and keep the frequency of this behavior. According to webmd.com, a lot of people make loosing weight their primarily goal. I personally think this is true, many college students try to make this their new years resolution but not too many stick to it. However, I know a couple of students that since they have a plan, and they have seen results they reinforce this behavior, by making better food choices, more healthy choices.



Reinforcers usually are for desirable behaviors. However using somethings as reinforcers may lead to satisfy our desires but might be poor choices or not really good behaviors. For example, working out for an hour and after eating an entire pizza doesn't mean is a healthy choice. The reinforcement will be working out in order to be able to eat, but the consequence will be that you will gain a lot of weight. With this topic a reinforcement is always needed, but we need to keep in mind that to get a fit body, it requires time and dedication. For this, in my opinion, it would be good to have more than one reinforcement. The consequences of a reinforcement usually are pleasurable so this mean it will have a positive outcome. Since this goal will take time, the reinforcement will become a self-reinforcement because we are focusing on changing a behavior in ourselves rather than focusing on behaviors of the world.



Another tip that may play an important role in this topic is help. You can start working out with a friend or a family member, but they will be reinforcing themselves and you to eep the workout or the healthy living styles. Reinforcement have an antecedent, a behavior and a consequence like punishment. however, keep in mind a reinforcement is usually to increase a behavior that is a desirable behavior. We may have as a consequence a not positive behavior but we need to be aware of that. As used in two of this web pages I did my research on, getting fit will take time but you are your self-reinforcer you just need to look for yourself and if you really want it you can make it. 



Terms used: Behavior, modification behavior, antecedent, consequence, reinforcing, reinforcement, self-reinforcement, punishment.

URLS:
http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/new-years-resolution-get-fit
http://life.gaiam.com/article/10-tips-help-you-keep-your-new-year-s-resolution
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/exercise/top-6-new-years-resolution-mistakes

I chose to talk about ‘differential reinforcement of other’. Although this was something that was barely touched on in this chapter I think the concept is intriguing and I wanted to learn more about it. The idea is that we see a behavior we don’t like displayed by someone else and we change the behavior by introducing an alternative behavior that will be rewarded. Any parent will probably tell you about temper tantrums (explosive bouts of anger, crying, screaming, etc.). We want to change the behavior but punishment will lead to the behavior being exhibited at times when the person thinks they won’t be punished. Instead of punishing the bad behavior we can teach an alternative and preferred behavior and reward that instead. Hopefully, this will lead to the extinction of the bad behavior.
Fortunately, one does not have to look hard to find examples of this being used effectively. When I searched ‘Alternative behavior’ on Google Videos the first thing that came up was a social worker who had been using this effectively to reinforce good behavior in those on the Autism spectrum. She used this behavior modification technique to change the behavior of someone for a variety of reasons. Maybe the behavior is disruptive, difficult to deal with, or destructive. Once we have built a positive relationship with the person whose behavior we want to change we can begin to model the correct behavior we want displayed. B.F. Skinner tells us that nothing is learned with punishment. When people display the disruptive behavior, the target behavior we want to change, it could be because they don’t know what else to do. We start by communicating why the target behavior is bad and telling the person what alternative behavior would be preferred and why it’s important. We then lead by example and model that behavior. When we see the preferred behavior we reward it to reinforce it.
For instance, a mother and young child are in the supermarket and the child wants to get some candy, the mother refuses and the child throws an embarrassing tantrum. The antecedent is not getting candy, the behavior is a tantrum, and the consequence can be a mad mother. The mother can explain that this behavior is disruptive and will not lead to being rewarded with candy (the last thing you want to do is reinforce the tantrum). The mother can now introduce alternative behavior that will be rewarded, such as asking for fruits and berries instead of candy or, having the child ask what they can do to be rewarded with candy. The mother can ask the child to demonstrate the behaviors they have just learned and reward those. Now, when the child wants candy they will hopefully elicit one of the alternative behaviors instead of emitting a disruptive one.
Links:
http://education.byu.edu/youcandothis/teaching_alternative_behaviors.html
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ315356
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uaEXTwCOis
Terms: DRO, behavior, target behavior, reward, punishment, elicit, emit, alternative behavior, antecedent, consequence

I chose to talk about positive reinforcement, and specifically positive reinforcement for children with ADHD as my topic. It fits the sections we've been covering as we have defined and looked at all different examples of reinforcers. As an alternative to punishment, reinforcement tends to be more effective, especially in the case of a child with ADHD. The reason I was interested in this was because we talk a lot about reinforcing children in Behavior Modification, mostly because it's an easy example. But also, I work with children everyday, and the majority of them are diagnoses with behavioral issues. The most common one being, ADHD. It interested me to research positive reinforcement for them as it is something I practice, with or without knowing, everyday. It also could be helpful in further work I do with kids.
When I looked up this topic, plenty of articles came up in response. It is common for kids with ADHD to be punished for their undesirable or aversive behaviors. This can be done with simply telling them "no" constantly. Even though in some cases it may work, the research I found said that the most effective way to decrease an undesirable behavior and increase a desirable one was reinforcement. Not punishment. Many articles refer to this as "the power of praise" stating that recognizing the good things a child does will be more effective then constantly punishing them for the bad things they did. The research also said this might be a leading reason as to why kids with ADHD have low self-esteem. Because punishment isn't effective and rather, is just hurtful, the children suffer long term ideas of being a "bad kid" and the caregivers don't feel like there is anything left to do for them.
The video clip I found shows many children with ADHD explaining their difficulties with their disorder, and how meditation has helped improve their behavior. It decreased the likeliness of them being stressed, being fidgety, or having difficulty finishing homework. We can use this as an example of positive reinforcement. It is positive because it's adding something in (meditation). The children before the reinforcer had issues with their emotions, getting stuff done, had high stress, and couldn't sit still. These undesirable behaviors led people to punish them or be harsh with them to try and improve it. But punishment was not working. Instead a more positive route was taken, meditation, which had positive valence or outcomes. The children as individuals after say they have less difficulties with their ADHD, so they continue to practice meditation, and it increases the amount of more desirable behaviors such as; getting stuff done, controlling anger, being able to sit still, and reducing stress. This could be set up in the ABC model. The antecedent would be the child has trouble with their ADHD, the behavior would be for them to meditate, and the consequence would be that they're able to perform more desirable behaviors. This makes it more likely that they will meditate again.
Another example used in the research was having difficulties with children sitting down. A common issue with ADHD kids is that they cannot sit still. Instead of punishing the child for getting out of their seat in class every time, the teacher could reward the student for the times they see the child in their seat. Giving them a reward, or simply praising them. This is something I use in my work with kids a lot as well. There are times the whole group is getting rowdy, and cannot pay attention or listen. When I see my kids with ADHD following the rules, which is the desired target behavior I want to reinforce, sometimes I make an example of them in front of their peers. For example saying to the entire group; "I really like the way _____ is sitting quietly and waiting patiently and following directions." This praises the child, increasing the likeliness they will do it again, and also encourages the other children to follow their lead, because they want praise too. By doing this I have just reinforced that behavior, and some of my most problem children with ADHD, when put in the context of that same situation, they will do the desired behavior because they know it will be reinforced.
Overall throughout the research I've done, my own experiences/interests, and what we've learned in Behavior Modification; positive reinforcement tends to be most effective than punishment. After a while the punishment effects the child no more, and they might emit new alternative behaviors that are also undesirable in certain contexts so they can continue doing the aversive behavior. If reinforced more often for the desirable behaviors, you can modify and manipulate them by increasing the likeliness of them doing it again.

Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcy2jF1EXjk
http://www.positivereinforcementforkids.com/p/positive-reinforcement-for-adhd.html
http://www.adhdtogether.com/school-life-with-adhd/managing-behaviours/reinforcing-positive-behaviour

Terms: reinforcement/punishment, positive reinforcement, behavior modification, manipulate/modify, positive/negative, valence, aversive, desirable/undesirable, alternative behavior, target behavior, context, ABC model, antecedent/behavior/consequence, reward, emit

I decided to write about reinforcement in general and also a little on differential Reinforcement (DRO) and explore how it is effective and why. This topic was interesting to me because I like the idea of reinforcement. Like I have said before I have a little brother who is very messy and does not clean up after himself. It seems obvious now why repeated attempts to tell him to remember to clean up after himself were not working because our punishment was too weak. Also there was no reinforcement offered so it has been a learned response elicited by my mother and me to make a mess and listen to an instruction, then maybe follow through with it. The proper way to handle this situation now is to first clearly define the target behavior. Which would be we want Alec to hang on a hanger in the downstairs closet everyday at 3:00pm. Once this is established we can then reinforce the behavior with vocal praise or an array of reinforcements. On the other hand, while trying to elicit this behavior we also must use punishment in the beginning of the conditioning. A positive punishment such as every time the coat is on the floor he must clean the kitchen after dinner.
On the other hand Differential Reinforcement or (DRO) is used by rewarding a person when the adverse behavior is NOT displayed. The difference about DRO is that there is no punishment involved. You reinforce when the behavior is not emitted and you ignore when it is. This can be extremely beneficial in a school environment especially dealing with mentally ill students. The way a teacher might use the DRO method is almost the same formula as earlier. First find a specific target behavior you are trying to reduce or increase. Although next the teacher must make a time table or baseline for when the behavior does occur. For example of many times a student disrupts the class by banging on his desk. A reinforcer is only to be given if the negative behavior stops longer than the intervals. In a class setting the way to stop an adverse behavior such as banging on the desk the teacher might physically hold the child’s hands and explain “No, banging on the desk.” When behavioral control is beginning to be met the reinforcements other than verbal praise must be explained why they are being given.
This is a way to elicit a target behavior with only positive reinforcement which to me is the best way for a child to learn. Although a dog reacts well to punishment a child who is still in a critical period of development should not have to face a punishment especially in a classroom setting where ridicule and embarrassment is at risk.

Elicit, reinforcement, reinforcer, punishment, negetive punishment, target behavior, DRO, behavioral control, positive reinforcement,baseline

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297716/

http://courses.unt.edu/behv/5150/files/DRprocedures.htm

http://education.purduecal.edu/Vockell/EdPsyBook/Edpsy10/edpsy10dra.htm

Since I am a nanny for 2 little boys, I thought it would be interesting to look more into reinforcement. Since I often use this tactic when I am trying to get the boys ready for school, to eat their breakfast, or even to get them to stop picking on one another, I thought I’d delve farther into in and see, does it actually work? How does it work so well? And also is there ever a bad time or situation to use reinforcement. This fits in really well because since our first ready of chapter one, we have been discussing how reinforcement works, whether it be positive or negative. Further reading has continued to build and dig deeper into why reinforcement and punishment work.
What I already know, from taking other psychology classes as well as from our reading thus far, is that reinforcement is used when we want a particular behavior to continue in the future. We can either use negative reinforcement; which is removing something so the behavior will continue in the future; and positive reinforcement is adding something so that the behavior will continue in the future.
According to one website I looked at, positive reinforcement is used by many coaches, teachers, leaders and anyone involved in working with small children. Another website giving information to parents and teachers who work with autistic children explains the difference between bribery and reinforcement. For many, who do not know as much about psychology as we do might think these two actions are the same. However, they are not. Bribery comes before the behavior is done whereas reinforcement comes after, which is very important to remember.
Many childcare providers and parents use positive reinforcement all over the world because they believe that since positive reinforcement does not punish a child, harm the child, lower the child’s self-esteem, or cause the child pain that it is much more effective than punishment.
When working with children, it is also important that we remember not all children will be motivated or effected by the same types of reinforcements. The reinforcement being used must be desirable to the child. One article mentioned the following ways to decide whether or not a certain of reinforcement will be effective; looking at what has motivated the child in the past, asking the child what they like and dislike, Look at their deprivation state - what do they want, that they cannot easily get, try to make sure the reinforcement is practical, ethical and valid for the behavior being targeted.
Reinforcement was pioneered by popular psychologists such as; Ivan Pavlov, Edward Thorndike, John Watson, and B.F. Skinner. Many of us are familiar with Pavlov’s experiment dealing with the salivating dogs. Pavlov discovered that after pairing the ringing of a bell with the delivery of the food the dogs began to salivate. After a while, he realized that just the ringing of the bell and no deliverance of the food, still made the dogs begin to salivate.
A few of the articles also talked about the idea of satiation and extinction. If a child is given a reinforcement after he or she brushes their teeth before bed time every single night and then all of the sudden they stop receiving that reward, the child may quit that behavior of brushing their teeth because they no longer have the reinforcement.
Another tip mentioned on the austismhelp.org website is that “Timing is critical to the effectiveness of positive reinforcement. It is important for an individual to feel that the goal is achievable and that reinforcement is attainable.” Another idea that Pavlov looked into was the idea of reinforcement schedules. It is important to consider at what ratios and intervals are you giving reinforcement to certain behaviors.
Terms: reinforcement (positive/negative), punishment, extinction, satiation, reinforcement schedules, Pavlov
http://www.positivereinforcementforkids.com/
http://www.autism-help.org/behavior-positive-reinforcement-autism.htm
http://schoolimprovementnetwork.blogspot.com/2012/01/teaching-positive-vs-negative.html

Reinforcement seems to be a hot topic -- in the psychology world and in the everyday world. While many people toss around the word reinforcement, not everyone seems to be able to quite pin down what it means or how to use it properly. In this blog, I want to explore reinforcement and how it can be used to decrease the likelihood of nail biting. This is relevant to our readings this week because in 2.1 we are still discussing reinforcement and punishment and how it applies to behavior modification. This serves a purpose for me and I'm hoping that by researching this topic independently I can gain the knowledge I need to kick this bad habit. More often then not people punish for behaviors like nail biting, but as referenced in the textbook B.F. Skinner states that reinforcement is more effective than punishment.
By using this train of thought, it occurred to me that I have to change my behavior (nail biting) to make reinforcement possible. The behavior is now NOT biting nails. To increase the likelihood that this behavior occurs, negative reinforcement or positive reinforcement needs to occur.
The first step in increasing the behavior, is targeting what is triggering the behavior. In this example, the behavior could be triggered by stress, boredom, or even something as serious as OCD. One could attempt to eliminate the trigger for the behavior, however all of the examples used are inevitable if had. Because of this, it is necessary to find a way to increase the behavior (stop biting nails). One particular website that I am using states that by using negative reinforcement on a nail biter (snapping oneself with a rubber band after biting nails) they will decrease the likelihood of it occurring again. If all goes well, this is actually positive punishment -- this is so because it adds something (a snap of a rubber band) but it decreases the likelihood of the behavior (biting nails) to occur again. According to B.F. Skinner, this would in fact not be the most effective way to eliminate nail biting. Once again, he stresses that reinforcement is the key to changing behavior, not punishment.
So to increase the likelihood that nail biting does not occur, one must take away something that will strengthen the likelihood or they must add something that will strengthen the likelihood. If I were to go a certain amount of time without biting my nails, I could reward myself with a manicure from the salon (using positive reinforcement). By gaining something (the manicure) I am increasing the likelihood that the behavior (not biting nails) will occur again.
However, there is another way to look at this. If by not biting my nails I lose something (like short, bloody nails) I am negatively reinforcing the behavior. This consequence is naturally occurring. This consequence is important because B.F. Skinner stated that negative reinforcement works the best when the consequence is directly after the behavior. In this case if you were biting your nails and you started bleeding, the consequence would be directly after. Interestingly enough you could also say that by losing the short bloody nails I am gaining long, healthy nails (which would then be positive reinforcement). Either way, it is working towards increasing the likelihood that the behavior (not nail biting) will occur again.
What I have taken away from all of this is that when trying to get rid of nail biting, one should not treat nail biting as the behavior. Rather, treat NOT biting as the behavior. It is much easier to reinforce this behavior (not biting) than it is to punish biting. What also seemed to jump out in my research is for the reinforcement to work, the individual has to want to change their behavior. I feel as though this is an important distinction and people should note that attempting to change someone's behavior against their will isn't always effective.
http://www.completelyyou.com/blog/beauty/stop_biting_nails/index.html#.VNKWmWjF-So
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/negative-reinforcement-examples-definition-quiz.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imkbuKomPXI

I chose to research discriminatory stimulus. I find discriminative stimulus interesting because it seemed to have a lot of depth to me. My research proved to me that there is indeed a lot more to it than we have learned so far. I found information on research that has been regarding the functioning of discriminative stimuli as well as a page that helped me understand it a little better personally before I read the other two pages. Overall I now understand discriminative stimuli better, and have a better understanding of ways that it can be applied. This applies to our class material both because it was covered in our readings and because it has to do with one way that behavior can be controlled: stimulus control. I find it interesting that so many things elicit behavior from us, and yet we hardly give most of them a second thought. We stop at stop signs, don’t use items that have out of order signs, and don’t go into areas marked as restricted. We are ruled by discriminative stimuli and usually don’t even recognize it.

There are several interesting things that have been shown about discriminative stimuli. Researchers have found that the relationship between the discriminative stimulus and the reinforcer can give the organism information about what the reinforcer is during normal instrumental learning- learning where the reinforcer is contingent on a response. Instrumental learning is much like operant conditioning. In other words, the organism begins to be able to anticipate what reinforcer it will get based upon what behavior it emits. They have also found that discriminatory stimuli are additive- this means that if you condition an organism to respond a certain way in the presence of two or more discriminative stimuli and then present those stimuli to the organism the chances are higher that it will respond as desired than if you had presented it with only one of them. For instance, if I conditioned a dog to bark when I played a sound and also conditioned it to bark when I showed it a picture of a cat, it would be more likely to bark when I played the sound and showed the picture at the same time than if I only showed the picture or played the sound.

How might we examine our own lives with this information? How could we use it to help people change for the better? An example situation that I can think of right away is one where there is both a “restricted area” sign and a police officer. We can anticipate what reinforcer we would receive by either obeying or not obeying- going in would lead to confrontation and possibly being arrested, but obeying (emitting the behavior those two discriminative stimuli are trying to elicit from us) we will be reinforced by having nothing negative happen to us and being able to go about our lives as usual. Also, because there were two stimuli present instead of only one of the two, we are more likely to emit the desired behavior. Stimulus control over our behavior has been achieved. When you say it like that, as someone studying behavior modification would, it reminds me of a passage from A Brave New World: “The victim of mind manipulation does not know that he is a victim, to him the walls of his prison are invisible and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people because is servitude is strictly objective.” It’s scary to think that if someone were going to try and control you- or a population- that the tools and concepts we are studying right now would be some of the weapons in their arsenal. These concepts can also be used for good though, like to help people quit smoking. Using a behavior modification procedure on a person that involved several discriminative stimuli from which they knew what to expect as a reinforcer should they emit the desired behavior could be just as effective as the example with the police officer above. It’s all about the intent of the application of these techniques. You can make it so that one man in a black uniform with a sign behind him can keep an entire population of people from walking past him, or you can help your average person make a behavior that is a negative force in their life go extinct. With this much information being conveyed to me from just three websites, it’s interesting to think how much change a person equipped with all of the knowledge and enough power could cause.

Terms: discriminatory stimulus, elicit, stimulus control, reinforcer, instrumental learning, contingent, response, operant, behavior, emit, behavior modification procedure

http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0097-7403.14.2.155

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1832170/

http://uwf.edu/jgould/classicalvsoperant.pdf

I chose to look up more about B.F. Skinner and operant conditioning. I work with children a lot, and I plan to work with them in my future career, so behavioral psychology is something that I use and will use a lot. Children love to be reinforced, and Skinner said that it is always better to reinforce than to punish. I think that his idea of operant conditioning is extremely useful. I use reinforcement with the kids when I want them to listen better, clean up their mess, eat their meals, go to bed, put pajamas on, do their homework, and much more. When I was using reinforcement in the past, I never realized I was actually using B.F. Skinner’s idea of operant conditioning. Behavior modification is something we use almost daily in our lives, whether we realize it or not. That’s what I find interesting about it, and I especially find B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning interesting.
B.F. Skinner is only mentioned briefly in section 2.1 of our reading, but he has always intrigued me. He is a behavioral psychologist, so the topic of him and operant conditioning fits into the entire class perfectly. It especially fits into this section, because the section talks about behavior modification and Skinner studied how to modify behavior by using reinforcements. Skinner is a behaviorist who is credited in creating the concept of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is the process of changing a behavior by using reinforcement, which is presented after the desired behavior is emitted. He defined operant as “any active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences”. There are three possible consequences that can follow a behavior: neutral consequences (these neither increase or decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated), punishers (these decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated), and reinforcers (these increase the probability of a behavior being repeated).
There are four schedules of consequences used in operant conditioning. They are: fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, and variable interval. Fixed ratio is when a reinforcer is given after a certain number of correct behaviors. Variable ratio is also when a reinforcer is given after a certain number of correct behaviors, but after a reinforcer is given, the number of correct behaviors needed for reinforcement changes. Fixed interval is when the first correct behavior is reinforced after a set amount of time has passed. Variable interval is also when the first correct behavior is reinforced after a set amount of time has passed, but after the reinforcer is given, a new time period is set. The new time period can be shorter or longer.
Behaviorism is a very interesting topic to me, which is why I chose to look up more about B.F. Skinner and his operant conditioning theory.

Terms: behavior, operant conditioning, reinforced, punish, reinforce, reinforcement, reinforcer, emitted, consequences, punisher

Links:
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/behavior/operant.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

It seems that not many people have looked further into extinction, so that is what I will be doing for this assignment. As we've learned, extinction occurs when a behavior was normally reinforced, but now is no longer reinforced. This means that when a behavior occurs, the consequence that usually occurs suddenly no longer comes. I am interested in learning about extinction because we have not discussed it much in class yet and I was hoping to broaden my knowledge of what it means and where it can occur in real-life situations.

Research has shown that extinction is the most effective way to stop an undesired behavior and make it the least likely that the undesired behavior will occur again. Extinction can be applied to many things, ranging from minor behavioral problems to more serious mental issues, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The way that extinction can occur is by ignoring the undesired behavior. However, it is important to note what can happen when this sudden ignorance of a behavior occurs. The individual emitting the undesired behavior is used to being reinforced for this behavior, so when the reinforcement is ceased, at first the undesired behavior can actually increase in occurrence in an attempt to get the reinforcement back.

In behavior modification, this is referred to as an extinction burst. For example, In ADHD, extinction is a good tool to use to stop the individual from being disruptive, and it can actually teach them to control their outbursts. The way extinction is beneficial in ADHD is that instead of acknowledging the individuals outbursts, you acknowledge their good behavior instead. This can help boost the individuals confidence and can help shape his behavior to be reinforced for good behavior. This is classic, textbook behavior modification.

As stated before, extinction is a widely-used tool in behavior modification. It is not limited to mental disorders. It can be applied to your home with your dog, or even as simple as an unwanted scream your child does to get attention. Among parenting, extinction is often used in this fashion. Reading up on extinction has shown my just how applied behavior modification is in my own life, and I'm quite certain my parents used behavior modification in one way or another on me. Reading this makes me realize that our behaviors are being modified constantly, and it is actually very eye opening.

Lastly, it should be noted that extinction is not an end all, cure all option and it does not work in every case. For example, if the undesired behavior involves self-injury, ignoring the behavior is not likely to work. This would be where the option of behavior replacement would come into play. This can redirect the problem behavior into something that is, at the very least, not personally harmful, and ideally it would be a positive behavior. On top of all this, there are a plethora of other ways to modify a behavior, such as punishment and reinforcement.

Terms: Extinction, reinforced, consequence, behavior, emitting, punishment, reinforcement,
Links:
http://ac.els-cdn.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/S0166432814007402/1-s2.0-S0166432814007402-main.pdf?_tid=18bc2c28-acda-11e4-87f0-00000aacb361&acdnat=1423101524_3439738a1b45d68bebe744dd5dfe5ff7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4aJWa8W_Rs

http://specialed.about.com/od/glossary/g/Extinction-Eliminating-Problem-Behaviors.htm

B.F. Skinner and reinforcement are at the core of behavior modification. Skinner was one of the first psychologists to look at the causes of action as they relate to behavior and he developed the theory of operant conditioning as a result. Since operant conditioning can shape behaviors, I want to know what is the most effective way to shape human behavior? Since this is a behavior modification class, I might as well know the best techniques, and B.F. Skinner is the obvious place to start.

B.F. Skinner was the father of operant conditioning, but operant conditioning relies upon reinforcement. As we have covered, reinforcement comes in either the positive or the negative variety. You either add something desirable or remove something undesirable. This will cause the probability of the behavior occurring in the future. This is the basic reinforcement principle that has been discussed in class so far. But where does this lead?

It leads to operant conditioning. Operant conditioning means to change behavior by using reinforcements for desired behavior. Behavior is followed by a consequence, and this consequence can have no effect on the behavior, strengthen the behavior, or weaken the behavior. Operant conditioning uses the reinforcement consequence to strengthen a desired behavior. To demonstrate how reinforcement can modify behavior (which is operant conditioning), Skinner used positive and negative reinforcement of rats. Negative reinforcement refers removing something undesirable as a consequence. Skinner ran electrical shock through rats. To get the shock to stop, the rats had to press a lever. Eventually, the rats pressed the lever immediately to remove the undesired shock.

Skinner showed that positive reinforcement works as well. He placed hungry rats into a box with no food. The box contained a lever that would dispense food if it were pushed. Dispensing food is a positive reinforcement to the rat to keep pushing the lever. Skinner conditioned the rats to behave in a certain way. But what if the food hadn’t have been delivered after the lever had been pushed?

Schedules of reinforcement are an important concept. How do you get people to do the desired behavior most often? Basically, you reinforce them every so often. Reinforcement can either occur after a given number of responses or after a given amount of time. You can make the amount of responses/time known or unknown. The technical terminology for this is fixed or variable ration schedules (amount of responses) and fixed or variable interval schedules (amount of time). The rats in Skinner’s experiment experienced a fixed-ratio schedule of 1-1, meaning that every time the lever was pushed, food was delivered. Skinner could have made a fixed-interval schedule that dispensed food once every 30 seconds, a variable-ratio schedule that dispensed food after every 2ed, 5th, 8th, or some other random number of pushes, or a variable-interval schedule that dispensed food after 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 60 seconds, or any other random length of time. All of these schedules of reinforcement would have the same effect on the rat of increases its behavior of pushing the lever. And so it would seem that for a simple-minded rat, the fixed-ratio schedule of 1-1 reinforcement to behavior works the best.

But humans are more complex than rats. We respond differently to different types of, and different schedules of, reinforcement. So after all of this, to answer the question posed at the beginning, it is positive reinforcement on a variable-ratio schedule. We don’t know how long we must do the behavior, and that is what makes variable-ratio schedule so effective. We know a reward is coming, we just don’t know when so we keep going until we are reinforced.

*http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
*http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/reinforcement.htm
*https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/learning-7/operant-conditioning-47/schedules-of-reinforcement-200-12735/

Terms: B.F. Skinner, operant conditioning, positive/negative reinforcement, fixed/variable-ratio/interval schedule of reinforcement.

Discrimitive Stimuli is defined as a stimulus in the presence of which a particular response will be reinforced. In class we have been learning about the ABC’s (antecedent, behavior, and consequences) and the term discrimitive stimuli have been brought up now in the chapter 2 of the reading. Discrimitive stimuli is a type of antecendent, which elicits a behavior that leads to some type of reinforcement, or in some cases the discrimitve stimuli tells you that you will not be reinforced. I am interested in this topic because of how it was brought up in the book with the stop sign and pop machine example.

Discrimitive Stimuli is all over the place, little did I know. TV shows like Scared Straight, crosswalk signs, or my favorite thing on TV now, Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I have not seen the show Scared Straight, but from what I have heard from my friends, it is a show that is based on about ten different kids each episode that are brought in to a jail for a day two. The kids are shown many different discrimitive stimuli’s from hearing about what the imprisoned did to go to jail and how long their sentence is to getting their life threatened. Discrimitve stimuli’s come in all forms, some are there to threaten, to warn, to take caution, etc. The TV show Always Sunny in Philadelphia is more of ‘take caution’ stimuli. In the episode Frank takes too much acid and thinks he is locked in a bathroom, and the only way out is through the toilet. Frank makes of full of himself and is then reinforced to not take as much next time. Other discrimitive stimuli’s aren’t as obvious, like crosswalk signs. When you see a crosswalk sign you attention then focuses on people around you, making sure to not hit anyone around. All three of these examples have a discrimitve stimuli as the antecedent, a behavior followed, and consequence after that, which in most cases is reinforcement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scared_Straight!
https://www.google.com/search?q=crosswalk+sign&espv=2&biw=1094&bih=595&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=mPPSVOu2B46xyATjh4GICg&ved=0CB0QsAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEx5HPrNPfw

I chose to write about the topic of grounding children as a disciplinary action. I thought it would be interesting because it is a very common punishment for parents to use and I was curious about the effectiveness of grounding. I believe it fits in with what we have been learning about in class because it is a form of punishment and because we have briefly covered the topic of Satiation. We have discussed that people tend to prefer reinforcement over punishment and I was curious about how that fit in with many of the ways that parents discipline their children. I know that punishment and discipline can mean two different things and be used interchangeably so I aim to be clear and not get confused between the two.
Grounding can be a very natural habit in the heat of the moment. It is a tactic that many parents (especially with teenagers) use to change the behavior of their children. The articles I found talk about how grounding can make your child resentful and not change the behavior. They mention how there is an appropriate time to ground your children. Lastly, they talked about how harsh punishment can be aversive, which we learned people don’t like, and can have no effect.
How do we turn ‘punishment’ into what behaviorists call punishment? We learned in class that reducing the likelihood of a behavior happening is referred to as punishment. It can only be called punishment if the consequence changes the behavior. One of the articles explains that grounding is only an effective punishment if the behavior involves a social setting or being social. This is because grounding is the removal of the time that the child is being social or doing things with his friends. The article explains that the consequence needs to be natural which is just like the ABC’s. The consequence needs to be in context with the behavior.
Grounding should not last longer than a few days. The reason that it should not last longer than a few days is because it does not change the behavior if it lasts longer than that. It also can have other bad effects such as the child losing their social status.

terms: consequence, punishments, aversive, Satiation

http://fatherhood.about.com/od/effectivediscipline/a/grounding_teens.htm
http://www.empoweringparents.com/Why-Harsh-Punishments-for-Children-Teenagers-Dont-Work.php
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/appropriate-time-teenager-grounded-for-3708.html

For my topical blog post this week, I chose the topic of grounding teens and whether or not it is effective. This fits into what we have read about for this week because grounding is a sort of negative punishment and can also be an establishing operation. I am interested in this because I wanted to know of different ways that establishing operations and/or different types of deprivations are used on humans, how effective negative punishment would be and at what point would negative punishment become too extensive and stop working.

What I found on these websites was that the main way of grounding was to keep teens from using their cell phones, computers, cars, privacy and video game consuls. This was considered taking away freedoms and seems to be the most effective way of punishment. When grounding teens, it is also acting as an establishing operation because you are making that teen appreciate whatever you are taking away. For example, the teen might think that privacy in their own room is a right when really, it is a privilege that can be taken away. I picked a clip from a movie called Freaky Friday to demonstrate a way to take away privacy and how the main character, Anna, interacts with her mother after the room to her door is taken away and her mother responds with, “Privacy is a privilege, Anna.” This gets Anna to talk to her mother but after the door is gone for too long, Anna gets used to not having a door and it no longer has a punishing effect.

Negative punishment can stop working if it goes on for too long. The punishment should happen right after the behavior happens so that the teen knows what they are being punished for and it needs to be for a short amount of time otherwise the teen will adapt to not having it just like in the example that was given in the video clip. The teen also might start to think that you are just being an enemy to them and will start to resent you instead of thinking of the behavior that they need to fix. Basically, the child will forget why they are being punished and the message you are trying to convey will become less clear.

The final problem with giving negative punishment, according to these articles, is if you take everything the teen has away at once, it will make the punishment less effective. The reason behind this is because, “The child has nothing left to lose,” and can send them into a full on rebellion because what more can you do to them? When taking things away, don’t take away the privilege to go to their own sports practices or youth groups because this could make them give into peer pressure when they get back because they are trying to get their social status back and will most likely do anything to get there.

In conclusion, negative punishment can work as an establishing operation because it makes whatever you are taking away a stronger reinforcer. Negative punishment can also act as a way of deprivation but can also become too much if it goes on for to long, everything is taken away at once, and can be bad if they are deprived of their own social gatherings because the need to keep social status at that age is very important and can make them give into peer pressure.

http://www.netplaces.com/positive-discipline/punishment-the-third-factor/deprivation-as-punishment.htm

http://fatherhood.about.com/od/effectivediscipline/a/grounding_teens.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB2fUjeDR30

Terms: Negative punishment, establishing operations, deprivation, reinforcer

For this week’s blog, I have decided to do more research on the topic of Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior, or DRO for short. This term comes from section 2.1, and is a clear example of how some behavior manipulations are better than others. In behavioral terms, according to Amanda Reagan from the Caveland Regional Autism Team, is “The delivery of reinforcement when the target behavior has not occurred during a specific period of time.” I chose to quote this definition rather than rephrase it because I liked its use of behavioral language. Another way to explain DRO would be describing it as the extinction of inappropriate behaviors combined with the reinforcement of appropriate behaviors. Although section 2.1 did not use the term extinction when describing Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior, it makes sense in application. An example of a DRO would occur when you are trying to not eat dessert after every meal. Instead of punishing yourself for grabbing that ice cream cone after dinner, it would be more beneficial to reward yourself with a 20 minute nap for deciding to skip on post-meal desserts. B.F. Skinner proposed that it is significantly more effective to reinforce a behavior than to punish one, which is supported by the success of DROs. Another interesting aspect of DRO is the implementation of scheduling. Some undesirable behaviors may cease more quickly if they are reinforced on a situationally appropriate schedule. An example of a scheduled method of Differential Reinforcement of Other would be taking a four year old girl (with a bed wetting problem) to ice cream every Saturday afternoon if she was able to go Sunday thru Friday without having an accident. Looking forward to the ice cream would give her a positive reinforcer as a reason to not pee in her pull ups at night time. Once this schedule has been mastered, it could be extended so that ice cream was rewarded after two weeks of passed time without incident, up to a month. If the schedule is too spread out as to where the reinforcement seems not worth the behavioral change, it would be less effective. There are many techniques that can be used within DRO efforts to tailor to specific classes of behaviors, or people of varying needs. Not all methods of DRO work for everyone.

In summary, using reinforcement to increase a desirable behavior that is opposite of the undesired behavior is an effective way to manipulate target behaviors.

Terms-Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO), behavior manipulations, reinforcement, target behavior, extinction, punish, reward, emit, elicit.

http://www.grrec.ky.gov/CaveWeb/autism/ASD%20Webpage/Module%203/-%20How%20To%20DRO.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGBlPFb1lFY

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qLfFSwBDcLMJ:https://www.gvsu.edu/cms3/assets/2CF6CA25-D6C6-F19E-339DC5CD2EB1B543/secondarylevellinkprograms/differential_reinforcement.docx+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

The subject that I decided to delve deeper into is that of shaping one's behavior. More specifically, the ease at which you can manipulate another, by doing simple things, into emitting a certain behavior. Behavioral shaping is basically the process by which one systematically and differentially reinforces successive close trials to a terminal behavior. This subject relates to the class because that's practically the basis of what the entire class is about. All this information we've discussed, about positive/negative, reinforcement/punishment, etc., has important dealings with shaping behavior. So pretty much, this topic is within every section that we've covered. Plus, it is a subject that you can implement to improve the well being of your everyday life and I find that pretty cool.
Whether it is attempting to make a aberrant behavior extinct or reinforcing a desirable behavior, it can prove to be very helpful having a good understanding of how to manipulate another's behavior. By doing this extra research I was able to get some different perspectives and pick up some new ideas. One such thing was when trying to elicit a desirable behavior out of someone, it can be easier to break the issue down into smaller steps. So if I'm training my roommate's dog to sit and stay and every time I leave the room, he gets up, then it might be a better method to break it down into smaller steps. First, I'd tell him to sit and I'd move a few steps back, and if he stayed put, I'd tell him, "good boy", and give him a treat. Next step would be moving a bit further back and rewarding him and then moving even further back, thereby slowly getting him used to what behavior I'm trying to get him to emit. This also makes you feel like you're accomplishing your goal much quicker, since it's easier to succeed at several small tasks than it is to take on a giant challenge all at once.
Another method that can be helpful is knowing how to spot out and eliminate interfering stimuli that can retard you from getting your desired terminal behavior. For instance, roommate's dog is being trained again, and again isn't listening. What's the issue? Well, maybe its the 14 other people in the house that are exciting/distracting the dog. So, the 14 people are interfering stimuli - kick them out. The dog is now calm and focused enough to give a damn and listen to what you're trying to communicate to it, therefore creating a more hospitable behavioral shaping environment.
When it comes to shaping one's behavior, there are often very simple things that can easily manipulate a person into emitting a specific behavior. For example, by either making/holding eye contact or staring up and away from a wandering teacher, several students working together can elicit their patrolling teacher into emitting the behavior of walking to and spending more time on certain side of the class, depending on whether they made eye contact or looked away. Other simple things just as even saying "thank you", or visibly making an effort to listen to someone, can reinforce a person to be much more willing to help out or open up to you. That way you get to hear about all the drama, like why Brad cheated on Regina.

-https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201412/the-secrets-eye-contact-revealed?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPost
-http://www.behavioradvisor.com/Shaping.html
-http://peelingtothecore.weebly.com/behavior-shaping.html

Terms:Behavior, shaping, emitting,elicit, extinction, reinforcing, desirable, deprive, stimuli, positive/negative reinforcement/punishment.

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.

The topic that I chose to write about for the week four topical blog is positive reinforcement with children.

This topic really interests me for a few reasons. For one, I come from a really big family. I have four brothers and one sister. As you can imagine, with that many siblings I have seen my fair share of reprimanding. Having seen so many different parenting styles among each of my siblings, I have often wondered which styles of parenting are more effective in modifying the behavior of your children. I chose to look in to positive reinforcement because I think that it will prove to be the most effective.

In reading some of the comments in this thread, it seems to be the general consensus that reinforcement is better than punishment when it comes to modifying the behavior of children. This seems to be due to the fact that reinforcement has a positive effect whereas the effect of punishment can be quite adverse.
After looking around on the web, I found that this consensus was one that was quite commonly agreed upon by many professional psychologists.

One of the websites that I found stated that one reason positive reinforcement is so good for children is that it boosts their self esteem and allows them to feel accomplished and good about themselves. This concept is one that is very important to children, especially as they begin to grow both mentally and physically. This boost of self worth is also one of the reasons that positive reinforcement seems to be so effective. It's no surprise that when something is pleasant, we tend to recreate the behavior that caused the pleasantness. So it makes sense that children would respond well to being rewarded for their good actions.

Another Site that I found had other reasons for using positive reinforcement with your children. It stated that positive reinforcement can help the bond between parent and child grow and strengthen. A healthy bond with parents is very important to the development of a child. Not only that, but a strong bond with ones parents is a very good indicator of whether or not a child will be well behaved.

Through my research, I have come to the conclusion that positive reinforcement is far superior than punishment. I think that it is much more beneficial to the child and the parents, and that it is more effective in producing the desired outcome.

www.positivereinforcementforkids.com
www.parenting.com/article/things-you-shouldnt-say-to-your-child
https://www.extension.purdue.edu/providerparent/PDF%20Links/PositiveReinfRewards.pdf

Terms:Positive reinforcement, negative punishment, positive, punishment, elicit, response, behavior,

The topic I chose to talk about on this blog post is reasons to change behaviors. It seems really cut and dry that there are only the 4 reasons to change a particular behavior: the behavior bothers us, it bothers others, it is illegal, or will lead to trouble. Just sitting back and thinking, it seems like there must be some other reason to change a behavior. Really when you look back and think about it, you could pretty much put every behavior you change into one of these categories for the reason behind the change.
At first I may have thought I found why somebody might want to alter a behavior other than the four reasons: somebody is making you change it. The Forbes article linked below talks about how to make employees more affective and that you basically need to force employees to elicit certain behavior for production purposes. Corporate culture has changed over the past years and they say that keeping up with culture is necessary to help a company keep up. The antecedent is that culture has changed and it is necessary to change so does that make it fall in one of those four categories?
Other articles about behavioral change talk about changing for mostly personal reasons all of things talk about why changing a behavior for children is important. We put a lot of emphasis on this for the same reason we put emphasis on training puppies; if they learn behaviors when they’re young then they are more likely to hold onto them longer. The two other articles are about dogs and children. The one really looks into the best way to have your child behave in the classroom and the best ways to have a children fix bad behaviors: positive vs. negative punishment and positive vs. negative reinforcement. The other is just a simple how to teach your dog to stop barking.
I use these as samples to show how that most of these behaviors are changed for one of the four reasons mentioned above. In these last 2 it was clearly to stop bothering others. You could make the argument that both of them will lead to later trouble and that is also in the four categories. You could also make the argument that forcing workers to change behaviors is also something that might lead to organizational trouble if they don’t do them. You could essentially make an argument for anything to fall into at least one of these categories.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/08/17/3-things-you-can-do-to-change-peoples-behavior/
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6030/
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/dogs/tips/how_to_stop_barking.html
Behavior, behavioral change, elicit, antecedent, positive punishment, negative punishment, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement

Typical Blog week 4

The topic i chose is if positive reinforcement helps the likelihood of a wanted behavior to occur more in toddlers. After reading section 2.2 on Reinforcement I was interested in if this works, since I am going to be an Uncle in February I thought I would do more research on if Positive Reinforcement works for a desired behavior.
As stated in section 2.2, Positive Reinforcement is the introduction of a desirable stimulus, contingent upon emitting a target behavior, with the goal of increasing the frequency of a response. I found out in my online research that giving toddlers natural attention; like smiling, hugging, extra privileges, or even positive compliments can provide the best likelihood of a child doing the desirable stimulus more frequently. Positive reinforcement could also make the child always expect something after doing desirable so you do not always want to reward them for doing a positive behavior they already do and the researchers also stated that using behavior chart with stickers could help get over a difficult hump but not to rely on them so the child can understand that the positive behavior is good to do but they will not always expect a reward for it. I also found out in my research done was that you want to give out a lot of verbal positive reinforcement as well like; good job, or thank you, or a pleasant I Love You. Another thing I read was using a egg timer and ask the toddler to finish a simple task before the timer goes off and they will be rewarded. An example of this could be, finish picking up your blocks before the timer goes off, and we can read a book before bath time, or something along the line so the toddler can be set up for success and be rewarded with the task completed. I found out in my research that giving Positive Reinforcement can boost a child's Self-Esteem, which could boost a child's character development in the future. In my research I found it is important to give positive reinforcement rather than positive or negative punishment because children enjoy receiving things they like for doing something good instead of receiving something bad for not doing the desired behavior, so this will help me be the child's Favorite Uncle, as well as help shape the childs future, and modify his behavior in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xDr2tPJCUY

http://www.uni.edu/~maclino/bm/book/sec2.2.pdf

http://www.whattoexpect.com/toddler-behavior/teaching-positive-reinforcement.aspx

http://www.newkidscenter.com/Positive-Reinforcement-for-Children.html

TERMS: Positive Reinforcement, Reinforcement, Desired Behavior, Response, Target Behavior, Desired Stimulus, Modify, Behavior, Positive Punishment, Negative Punishment

I chose to research positive reinforcement. I think it is interesting that you can alter and individual’s behavior simply by adding something positive. In class we talked around how you can modify behaviors with positive reinforces and how often we do it without noticing. An example we talked about was how when someone opens the door for us we smile and say thank you. By doing that we are reinforcing the person to continue to open the door for us because they know they will be rewarded with a smile and gratitude. While doing my research I found a video from the big bang theory where Sheldon is using operant conditioning by using positive reinforces for penny for when she does something he thinks is a correct behavior. By doing this the behaviors that are correct are increased because they are rewarded there for increasing the likelihood of doing it again. In another article I read I learned about more than just one type of positive reinforcement; natural reinforces, token reinforces and social reinforces. I think it’s interesting that these reinforces happen to us every day and we also give them every day yet we don’t even realize that we do or receive them. I want to start using positive reinforces on myself specifically token reinforces I think that I can help myself become a better student and increase my study time and getting my homework completed on time by doing this.
Reinforcement, Reinforce, Reinforced, Positive reinforcement, Operant conditioning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt4N9GSBoMI
http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/positive-reinforcement.htm

For this week’s blog, I have decided to do more research on the topic of Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior, or DRO for short. This term comes from section 2.1, and is a clear example of how some behavior manipulations are better than others.

In behavioral terms, according to Amanda Reagan from the Caveland Regional Autism Team, DRO is “The delivery of reinforcement when the target behavior has not occurred during a specific period of time.” I chose to quote this definition rather than rephrase it because I liked its use of behavioral language. Another way to explain DRO would be describing it as the extinction of inappropriate behaviors combined with the reinforcement of appropriate behaviors. Although section 2.1 did not use the term extinction when describing Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior, it makes sense in application. An example of a DRO would occur when you are trying to not eat dessert after every meal. Instead of punishing yourself for grabbing that ice cream cone after dinner, it would be more beneficial to reward yourself with a 20 minute nap for deciding to skip on post-meal desserts.

B.F. Skinner proposed that it is significantly more effective to reinforce a behavior than to punish one, which is supported by the success of DROs. Another interesting aspect of DRO is the implementation of scheduling. Some undesirable behaviors may cease more quickly if they are reinforced on a situationally appropriate schedule. An example of a scheduled method of Differential Reinforcement of Other would be taking a four year old girl (with a bed wetting problem) to ice cream every Saturday afternoon if she was able to go Sunday thru Friday without having an accident. Looking forward to the ice cream would give her a positive reinforcer as a reason to not pee in her pull ups at night time. This is an example of fixed interval scheduling, which is an effective method to not elicit the target behavior of bed wetting. Once this schedule has been mastered, it could be extended so that ice cream was rewarded after two weeks of passed time without incident, up to a month. If the schedule is too spread out as to where the reinforcement seems not worth the behavioral change, it would be less effective. This is also known as ratio strain. There are many techniques that can be used within DRO efforts to tailor to specific classes of behaviors, or people of varying needs.

It is important to note that not all methods of DRO work for everyone, especially when self-reinforcement I being implimented. Sometimes the reinforcement of a 20 minute nap for not eating dessert isn’t enough to motivate someone to emit the behavior of skipping out on the ice cream. The reinforcement has to have an incredibly positive valence and a high value to be effective. Rewarding yourself with a pack of your favorite gum may not be enough to avoid cigarettes for the day, for example. Not all behavior modification strategies work for everyone!

In summary, using reinforcement to increase a desirable behavior that is opposite of the undesired behavior is an effective way to manipulate target behaviors.

Terms-Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO), behavior manipulations, reinforcement, target behavior, extinction, punish, reward, emit, elicit, fixed interval schedule, ratio strain, valence, self-reinforcement

http://www.grrec.ky.gov/CaveWeb/autism/ASD%20Webpage/Module%203/-%20How%20To%20DRO.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGBlPFb1lFY

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qLfFSwBDcLMJ:https://www.gvsu.edu/cms3/assets/2CF6CA25-D6C6-F19E-339DC5CD2EB1B543/secondarylevellinkprograms/differential_reinforcement.docx+&cd=2&hl=e

I chose to write about extinction this week. Extinction occurs during behavioral modification. Extinction is the process of stopping reinforcement of behaviors which have been previously reinforced. As i was reading more about this i came to realize that extinction is used quite often by parents, teachers and even friends. After reading more about extinction it was interesting to se how often it is used in the real world. The youtube clip shows how a parent might use extinction to end a behavior of a child. The clip explains that the child has a bad habit of sleeping with the mother every night, this is a problem for the mother because it is hard on her and she becomes very tired. When the child screams and begs for her mother the mother will reinforce this behavior by sleeping next to the child, this is obviously not good. The extinction happens when the mother places the child in his crib and stops reinforcing the child's behavior of screaming and begging. In the video it was surprising watching extinction work, at exactly 3:45 in the video you can hear extinction occur, the child is screaming and yelling at his mother then after extinction the child just stops. i was worried about the video, i wasn't sure if there would be a good example or not. Unfortunately the video didn't show any form of extinction burst or discriminative extinction. spontaneous recovery, if it was shown in the video, would occur after a few nights of putting the child to bed without any screaming or crying, the child would then scream and cry all throughout the night for a short amount of time. It is surprising how often extinction is actually used, previously i thought it was only a laboratory term used in specific case studies.

Terms
Extinction, extinction burst, spontaneous recovery, behavior, specific behavior, aversive, reinforcement, punishment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R63JKIAOY8

http://psychology.about.com/od/eindex/g/extinction.htm

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

The topic that I will be looking at for this week’s assignment is Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning. I have been interested on this behavior modification technique because of I believe it’s very effective. I also wanted to do more research on it to learn how this technique can be used as a way to stop alter certain bad habits or addiction into a more desirable behavior.

Classical Conditioning was developed by the Russian Psychologist Ivan Pavlov and was done through his tests on dogs. This experiments were known as Pavlov’s Dog’s in which Pavlov examined the salivation in dogs in response to being fed. Pavlov noticed that the salivation was not a behavior that is learned by the dog instead it is “hard-wired” in them as a response to food. This was a huge discovery because from this he learned that he could trigger the salivation by the dog with anything as long as he associated the food, which in the case of his experiment, was the sound of a bell ringing.

Through my research, I learned a few new terms that relates to classical conditioning and these were Unconditioned Stimulus (US), Unconditioned Response (UR), Neutral Stimulus (NS), Conditioned Stimulus (CS), and Conditioned Response (CR). The US is the stimulus that elicits an unlearned behavior and this unlearned behavior is the UR. In the case of Pavlov’s Dogs, the US is the dog food or meat powder and the UR is the salivation that the dog emits. The NS is a stimulus that does not cause any response unless it is paired with a US and could be anything that is neutral in the test environment. The NS that was used was ringing the bell. The CS is when the NS and US are paired to produce a stimulus that causes the dog to react by salivating and this salivating from the CS is the CR.

This was a brilliant discovery because after the experiment has ended the sound of the ringing bell which was initially a neutral stimulus now causes the dog to salivate even without the presence of food producing a conditioned response. After further research, I have learned how this technique of pairing NS and US to produce CR can be used to treat addictions. For example, a study showed that this behavioral technique is used a way to reduce the risk of heroin addicts relapsing once they get out of rehab. This works by form of extinction which is shown in the Dog’s experiment. Extinction occurs after the ringing of the bell does not cause the dog to salivate after doing it several times without the presence of food because they have un-learned the association between the bell and food. This is used in the Cue Exposure Therapy in which drug addicts are exposed to environments that triggers them to crave the drugs without the presence of drugs. This is done in hopes that the learned association between the cues and the euphoria of the drug would weaken.

Terms: Classical Conditioning, alter, desirable behaviors, unconditioned stimulus (US), unconditioned response (UR), neutral stimulus (NS), conditioned stimulus (CS), conditioned response (CR), elicit, emits, extinction, association, cue exposure therapy.

http://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html

http://www.learning-theories.com/classical-conditioning-pavlov.html

http://www.alternet.org/story/155008/pavlovian_conditioning_for_heroin_addicts%3A_how_manipulating_memory_can_treat_addiction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI

My topic this week will be about extinction. Extinction fits into the section because we have covered it in our weekly reading. I am interested in this subject because it is a technique that we often use without realizing that we are using it. Whether it is at home, in the classroom or at work. The three aspects of the topic that I want to talk about for this assignment are what extinction really is, how it affects our lives, and different examples of extinctions are emitted on our day to day basis.
Extinction is very well known to be used on problem children with aversive behaviors that are hard to control. They are also known to be used on children that are learning the right and wrong behaviors as they are growing up. Extinction can be used on anyone really but mostly used for behavioral problems or issues. According to study.com, extinction is when you remove a pleasurable reinforcer that maintains a behavior that you want to eliminate. Unlike extinction, reinforcers do the opposite of what extinction does. They add a behavior that increases or strengthens the frequency of a behavior. For example, praising a child for her good grades or giving a dog a treat after sitting. What extinction provides is that when the reinforcers are no longer present, the aversive behavior will eventually cease. While using an extinction technique, you also experience Extinction bursts. Extinction bursts are when you ignore a problem behavior, the behavior tends to escalate. It tends to increase in frequency or intensity. For example, when you take your child to go grocery shopping, when you get there, she starts to whine. In order to stop her whining, you get her a candy bar. Every trip to the grocery store, you find yourself getting her a candy bar to stop her whining at the store. Eventually you decide to stop buying candy bars and she starts to whine even more. After a few trips to the store without buying candy bars, she stopped whining and only whined when she saw the candy bars in the aisle and by many trips after, she realizes that whining will not get her the candy bar at all so she stopped whining altogether. This is not only known as extinction but also as extinction bursts because they occur more often than just one extinction. After the extinction burst has been amplified, it is important to show a method of modeling. Modeling is a person or thing that shows what the “right” or pleasurable behavior is and the person causing the extinction bursts tends to model or repeat that same behavior. It is also important to acknowledge or praise the person that stops the aversive behavior.
For example, if you are a teacher in a classroom and have a disruptive student that is constantly bursting out answers without raising their hand, you do not want to give them any attention. The best thing to do is to wait for a model behavior or another student that consistently raises their hand to answer questions and praise them for doing so. Once the disruptive student realizes the other student was praised for raising their hand instead of disrupting the class, the disruptive student is more than likely willing to model the good behavior.
Extinction is a great tool for children with ADHD as well. Since children with ADHD tend to be disruptive, extinction can teach them how to model other children behaviors and control their aversive behaviors. Instead of punishing children with ADHD, it is important to acknowledge their good behavior because this will help motivate the child to continue their pleasurable behavior and boosts their confidence.
Extinction can be used in any setting. Whether it is at home with your children, at school in the classroom or at work. You can usually always get the outcome you are looking for but it is not always guaranteed that extinction will always work. Sometimes people try to use extinction and believe that the results will be instant but unfortunately, it does take a few tries before it is completely implemented. The example of modeling tends to work a lot quicker but also isn’t a guaranteed behavior that is going to give you the outcome that is desired. So if you plan on using extinction or modeling as a behavioral correction, be prepared to be really patient with your experiment. Patience usually tends to give you the desired outcome of an experiment.

URLS:

http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-extinction-in-conditioning-definition-lesson-quiz.html

http://specialed.about.com/od/glossary/g/Extinction-Eliminating-Problem-Behaviors.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4aJWa8W_Rs

Terminology: extinction, technique, emitted, pleasurable, reinforcer, behavior, frequency, praise, increases, strengthens, eliminate, punishment, aversive, experiment, modeling

Megan Hasley
The topic that I chose was topographical behavior in relation to autism. We just recently learned about topographical behavior and I think that the way that it relates to autism is very interesting.
There is a reason for every behavior; even if the answer does not appear to be readily available there is always a reason for the behavior of autistic children (educateautism). According to the autism blog, in certain situations you should also focus on the function of the behavior and less on the topography because we need to understand how the behavior serves the child, instead of focusing on what it looks like.
In cases that involve autistic children the topography of the behavior can be very important because you need to define what the behavior that is occurring is. The reason for this is that saying what is happening does not describe why it is happening (educateautism). This is important when it comes to children that fall on the spectrum because understanding why they are behaving in a certain way is extremely important in order to correct the behavior. Children who have autism usually have more severe and increased topographical behaviors (ncbi). In order to correct the behavior it is important to understand why the behavior is occurring so that the correct course can be taken in altering it.
Another reason that behavior may occur is that there is a reinforcement that is maintaining the behavior (educateautism). The behavior needs to be corrected so that it is not being positively reinforced. If the reinforcement is gone, then the behavior will be easier to change.
http://www.educateautism.com/behavioural-principles/functions-of-behaviour.html
http://theautismblog.seattlechildrens.org/whats-the-function/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598746/

Throughout the first couple weeks of classes we have talked about behaviors, how we define them, and briefly on the ways we can reinforce or punish a behavior to increase or decrease its likelihood. This week I would like to focus on the behavior category of sugar intake. I have heard the rumors that the less sugar you take in the less you crave it, but is there any evidence behind these rumors? Many times sugar is used as a reinforcement. For example when you are trying to potty train a toddler or if you are on a diet and you have had a good week you reinforce the desired behavior by allowing yourself or the toddler to have some form of sugar. What I am interested in is that if deprivation is used in an attempt to increase the reinforcement of the reinforcer of sugar, if it actually has a counter effect of decreasing the person’s desire for the reinforcement; almost like satiation.
The three topics I am going to talk about are how to best decrease intake, the short term and long term side effects of decreasing sugar intake, and specific examples of how people felt about consuming large amounts of sugar after a prolonged decrease in sugar intake.
Until I started looking into this topic I was completely oblivious to the fact that there is sugar in many everyday items. For example personally I do not eat ketchup so I am not consuming the extra sugar but I was extremely surprised to find out that ketchup has a lot of sugar in it. There are many others things such as bread and milk that are often overlooked when people are trying to cut out sugar. It is important when trying to cut out sugar to look at the label and ingredients of every item you are wanting to consume and check the sugar contents. Before you can recognize all of the different names or titles sugar can take on a label. This can be things such as fruit juice or high fructose corn syrup but also many other names so just remember that sugar can be tricky to find. The obvious way to cut sugar out of diet is to void deserts.
There are two ways to attempt to decrease the intake of sugar. The first is through cold-turkey. This is when you completely stop all excess sugar intake all at once. Attempting to decrease sugar in this manner will have more extreme side effects than gradually decreasing intake. Gradually decreasing intake is when you slowly but consistently start to decrease the amount of sugar you have every couple days or weeks until you are only consuming the desired amount. This style of decreasing intake seems to have less extreme side effects but does take longer to reach the desired goal. No matter which path is taken on the road to decreasing sugar intake there are going to be short term and long term side effects.
The first short term side effect(consequence) that might have is an increase in cravings for sugar. The body uses sugar in many different ways and normally a decrease in sugar intake the body will figure out how to find a balance within itself but first it is going to encourage the consumption of sugar because it is the easiest way it knows to receive sugar. The next short term side effect may be that the diet of the person needs to change so they are still receiving enough nutrients and vitamins that they were before. This can be a big problem for people who are trying to cut out sports drinks or nutrition bars. There can also be things such as headaches or body shakes that occur depending on the amount of initial consumption, otherwise known as the baseline. The more long term side effects are things such as improvement in your health and more stabilized levels of energy and focus. There can also be non-desirable side effects such as reacting badly when large amounts of sugar are consumed after a long period of decrease but for the most part side effects are viewed as desirable.
After reading an individual’s personal story and looking the long term side effects or decreasing sugar intake it is clear that decreasing sugar intake has desirable long term effects even if the short term ones are not desirable. The consequences of decreasing sugar intake seem to be sleeping better, weight loss, more desirable blood pressure and heart rate, more constant energy and focus levels, and also a decrease in non-desirable things such as less cramping.
After looking into decreasing sugar levels it has come to my attention that if you are trying to decrease sugar levels in an individual as a deprivation there is a very fine line to walk. If the amount of sugar is decreased too much the person will not longer have such great cravings for it but if it is decreased the right amount the person’s cravings will increase greatly.

Terms:behaviors, reinforce, punish, increase, decrease, behavior category, reinforcement, deprivation, satiation, baseline, consequence, positive desirable, non-desirable

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-foster/no-sugar-diet_b_1397439.html

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/short-term-side-effects-decreased-sugar-diet-1397.html

http://www.rd.com/slideshows/sugar-addiction/#slideshow=slide14

BNC
1)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.
Topographical vs Functional
I thought that the first part was interesting in the section 1.5 about the different types of behaviors such as topographical and functional. Topographical meaning the way they look and functional meaning what they do or accomplish. I found this interesting because it discussed how similar actions can have different meanings. I always find this stuff fascinating.

2)What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
For this assignment I would like to look deeper into the comparison and contrasts of these two behavior levels. I would also like to look at more examples of this so I can start to be aware of them in my every day. Lastly I feel as though getting to know the background and history of how these behavior classes formed would be an interesting aspect to this topic.

3)Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Topographical, the form of behavior verses function, the purpose of the behavior are the definitions I’d like to make clear before going further into the information I found. Comparing these two behavior levels is interesting. When comparing and contrasting one another I notice that the function of the behavior describes why the behavior occurs in comparison to the topography of the behavior describes the form of the behavior. Another way to view them is the function of the behavior refers to the contingencies under which the behavior occurs whereas the topography of the behavior refers to a physical description of the behavior. These both allow us to understand things in a different way. The function of the behavior allows us to understand the behavior with respect to the environment. On the other hand, the topography of the behavior allows us to understand what the behavior looks like.
While researching this topic I wanted to find some good examples of these behaviors. A good example for function behavior is when a student throws a tantrum in the classroom and starts to take off his or her clothes. The result is going to the principle and being sent home, the function is escape. The student wants to escape what it is he or she is doing. Taking this same scene from the functional example, the topographical description would need to describe in detail what it is the child did while throwing this “tantrum”, what actually occurred. This would be then focusing on the surrounding.
It was hard to discover the exact history on when these two behaviors came about but I did get some interesting facts about why topography is so important. “It’s important for creating appropriate interventions for children whose disability is in part defined by behavior, such as Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities and autism spectrum disorders.” FBA- Functional behavioral assessment was made originally for people with mental intellectual disabilities or autism. These individuals have a hard time to explain why they performed a certain behavior; this assessment then is to try and analysis why they did such actions. Although I did not find out a lot about the history I did find out why these behavior levels were important and how they are being used in today’s world which is neat.

4)At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://www.educateautism.com/behavioural-principles/functions-of-behaviour.html

http://www.centerforautism.com/Data/Sites/1/media/PRACTICING_SOLUTIONS_FOR_ADDRESSING_CHALLENGING_BEHAVIORS.pdf

http://specialed.about.com/od/glossary/g/Topography-Of-Behavior.htm

http://specialed.about.com/od/ABA/a/The-Function-Of-Behavior.htm

1)
I choose to discuss discriminative stimuli in the classroom. Discriminative stimuli are antecedents that tell us what behaviors will be reinforced or punished. The example in the section was a stop sign. It tells us what to expect for a behavior and whether or not we obey this antecedent, we will possibly be reinforced or punished. I felt this was an interesting topic in the classroom. Rules are always being enforced and they tell us what we should expect, and whether children obey these rules with result in reinforcement or punishment.
2)
I want to focus on the most common rules in an elementary classroom, what behaviors are more likely to be reinforced, and what to consider when giving a punisher.

3)
After reading a few websites, the top most common rules in an elementary classroom would be 1) listen to the teacher, 2) follow directions, 3) come to class prepared, 4) keep your hands and feet to yourself, and 5) raise your hand to speak. I thought this was interesting because these were common rules when I was in elementary school. I think these are the most common rules in the classroom because they will help students create appropriate behaviors that will help them in the future, whether they're in a lab, attending a lecture, or simply at home with their family. These rules will also help children elicit respectful behaviors as well. When students are behaving well and following the rules, teachers are advised to encourage the student and be consistent with their reinforcements. A good way to have the children follow these discriminative stimuli is by keeping them busy and having a challenge. Busy students are less likely to elicit disruptive behavior. When being disruptive and not following the rules, a punisher may be elicited. In classrooms, punishers should be used with care and compassion. The teacher should think about the disrupting behavior and decide whether or not it is a behavior that can be turned around by reinforcing the opposite behavior. A way a punishment technique can be determined is by asking the student how they feel they should be punished for what they did or didn't do. The rules are the discriminative stimuli and they should be respected by not only the students, but by the teachers that are enforcing them as well.

4)
http://k6educators.about.com/od/classroommanagement/qt/Introducing-Your-Class-Rules.htm
https://www.teachervision.com/classroom-management/teaching-methods/6400.html
http://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/challenging-students/what-every-teacher-should-know-about…punishment-techni

1.) After reading through the last two sections of this chapter of the book, I have decided to do more research on comparing and contrasting Deprivation and Satiation. These are two topics that students seem to be confused about and sometimes seem to think that they are like, when really they aren’t at all. This fits into the reading because it is covered in the last reading and chapters we have already covered in class and in the reading. Many people talked about deprivation in their last blog and we discussed it in class last week. I decided to research more on deprivation and satiation because it was a topic I was still confused about the difference and how they could relate, so I decided to do some investigating.
2.) The three aspects I want to cover in this blog are what deprivation and satiation is, examples of the two that we see in daily life, and what I think is the best method. I want to cover what deprivation and satiation is, because people think they are the same when really they are polar opposites. It is important to know examples of these to really understand what they actually are and how to spot them in daily life. And it’s always important to know how to use them effectively as psychology students as we go out into our careers.
3.) The first thing I want to cover is what deprivation and satiation is. Satiation happens when the consequence has lost its effect on the participant. Another way to look at it is that the participant has had enough of the reinforcer. This usually happens during positive reinforcement. Another thing that can cause satiation is aversive consequences. According to the book, “Economists call this a diminishing margin of return. Satiation includes providing unlimited access to the reinforcer, making it a problematic method. Through this process, it gets rid of any motivation to engage in the target behavior. Deprivation is when the reinforcer is taken away or reduced for a period of time. This increases the effectiveness of the reinforcer and rate of behavior. It also increases relevant learning and performance. What satiation and deprivation both have in common is that they are both establishing operations. They are both known to alter the effectiveness of a consequence.
An example of satiation is from the book and involves hamburgers. If you like hamburgers and it is used as a reinforcer, that will cause a positive result in behavior. Although, if we have too many, we might get sick and it will become less desirable to us. The hamburgers have become aversive if you eat enough of them. After you eat too many hamburgers, the hamburgers will fail to function as a reinforce. However, deprivation makes the stimulus more reinforcing. If you take a break from the hamburgers for a week or two, the hamburger will become more desirable again. Another example that I talked about in my previous blog is sleep deprivation. It is when someone is having a hard time falling asleep. After a study was done, the workers might have been a bit cranky but they still got their job done fairly well so they could go back home to sleep. Going back home after work would be what would motivate the workers to get the job done.
In my opinion, I think it is best to stick with deprivation if you have to choose between the two. After looking at many different types of research on both satiation and deprivation, deprivation is shown greater success, than those who have used satiation. Satiation is known to eliminate motivation, where deprivation is shown to increase motivation to improve a target behavior.

Terms used: Deprivation, satiation, behavior, aversive, consequence, target behavior, reinforcer

http://www.sage-ereference.com/view/cbt/n3116.xml
http://apeachfortheteach.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-satiation-principle-it-feels-little.html
http://www.scienceofbehavior.com/lms/mod/glossary/view.php?id=408&mode=letter&hook=D&sortkey=&sortorder=&fullsearch=0&page=3

1. 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.
- My topic for this week’s topical post is on the subject of reinforcements and consequences and how they relate to animal training. This topic relates to our subject matter through our class readings and more specifically with this weeks readings in satiation and deprivation. I found this topic to be interesting because animals are animals, they can be wild or tamed and I think it is interesting how we can elicit certain behaviors without being able to communicate verbally.

2. What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
-For this topic I would like to expand and elaborate on three subtopics of animal training. The first would be satiation and its affects on behavior modification on animals. For the second subtopic I will discuss Deprivation and how it manipulates and animals behavior. And lastly I will discuss punishment and how it pertains to animal training.

3. Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic
- When teaching a dog or any animal it is important to reinforce the behaviors that you are trying to encourage. Food or treats is a good way to reinforce these behaviors but can giving them to many treats actually do the opposite of reinforcing the behavior? The answer is yes and no. The initial presence of the stimulus which, in this case is the treat, will serve the purpose of reinforcing the behavior, but providing excess of the stimulus can also cause a few problems. The first of these problems is that if the dog is indulging in stuffing his face with treats over a period of time he/she might forget what behavior is even being reinforced. The bigger problem that occurs with satiation is that the importance or effectiveness of the stimuli will we reduced. For example we are much accustomed to having running water at our disposal in our every day lives, so using running water as a reward most likely wont have the same affect on us as it would in say a third world country where clean water is harder to come by. This is the same for animals so if you provide to much the stimulus then the stimulus becomes less and less reinforcing.
Contrast to satiation there is deprivation. Deprivation is the opposite of satiation and occurs with the stimulus is removed from the equation and the subject is deprived of the stimulus. How does depriving animal help train it though? It helps by reinforcing the stimulus as a reinforcer. Over time a dog might get used to treats and hold them to have less importance. This is until you take away the treats for a while (deprive), which in return makes the treats have more value. This can be used with not just treats though, but with other stimuli’s as well such as playtime, social interactions, and exercise. However while training a dog it is important to keep in mind that neither satiation nor deprivation should be taken to extremes as they might lead to ineffective results. It is also important to keep in mind that the stimulus has to be relevant to the animal. For example if you try to use food for the stimulus but the animal isn’t hungry then it wont hold any value.
When training an animal we tend to think that punishments are the way to correct bad behaviors. We tend to think that things like hitting, yelling, spraying or applying things like shock collars are the best way to extinguish a negative behavior. This type of animal training in known as aversive based training and involves the use of positive punishment to reduce a dog’s negative behavior. An example of this would be if a dog keeps emitting in the behavior of barking then applying a bark collar so that every time the dog barks it associates it with a discomforting shock, which in return discourages the behavior. Although this type of training can be affective, it can also cause an increase of aggression in dogs. Actions such as hitting or kicking rank the highest in leading to aggressive responses and leash and sound corrections rank among to lowest.
In summary there are to basic ways to train animals. The first, which is reward, based training, and the second, is aversive based training. Both of these forms of training are effective in modifying an animals behavior if done in the right way by avoiding extreme punishments, satiation, and deprivation.

4. Urls: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201205/is-punishment-effective-way-change-the-behavior-dogs

http://4pawsu.com/trainingmethods.htm

http://www.woofk9.net/blog/2010/10/15/The-use-of-deprivation-in-dog-training.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

Terms: deprivation, satiation, positive punishment, punishment, consequences, aversive, target behavior, elicit, emitted, reinforcement, reinforcer

I chose to look into intervention with children for my topic and this relates because of it being one of the terms throughout the book. I want to look and see when intervention is most positive or successful, and also how to get the point you want made across in the best way. Also whether positive and negative intervention both work.
The first source I used pointed out that there needs to be multiple interventions in order for the child to change his or her behaviors. The intervention should focus only on the child and that should be the only thing discussed throughout the intervention. The intervention will be held directly after the child does a certain behavior that either wants to be reinforced or punished in order to change it. The intervention is a consequence to a behavior that the person does which is why it needs to be done right after the behavior. The target behavior wanted needs to be addressed or the child will not know what the goal is and you cannot just name behavioral classes but actually functions that you want done. The target behavior is not only for the child that the intervention is for, but also for the person doing the intervention so we both are on the same page.
The replacement behavior also needs to be notified. Another website said that most reasons why the kids misbehave and need to have interventions is because they are trying to get out of doing something maybe in school or things were just not what they wanted to do. They said that in order for the interventions to be successful they need to not be nagging on the child but show positive reinforcement for the child to learn. As the child sees that the intervention is not a negative thing but you are both working together to change a behavior, things will run more smoothly for each the child and the person emitting the intervention.
Going back to the three things I wanted to find when researching this topic, I found in another article that negative punishment can work, however is not as successful. It all depends on the personality of the child but overall MOST children do not respond well to negativity and being told everything they are doing is wrong. This makes sense because we discussed in class that you can truly only learn through reinforcement and only learn to alter your behavior through punishment.
I also learned something new when researching this topic and found that there are different kinds of interventions for different goals and outcomes. Some schools I found have interventions before an unpleasurable behavior even occurs. This is called a preventative intervention. Reactive interventions are the ones discussed in class because these happen after a problematic behavior occurs.
URL's:
http://ec.ncpublicschools.gov/instructional-resources/behavior-support/resources/behavior-intervention-plan
http://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/challenging-students/teacher-behavioral-strategies-menu
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide.aspx?sid=4
(Another source was a document that was downloaded when looking up types of interventions)
Terms: reinforcement, punishment, intervention, target behavior, emitting,

1) 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.
I want to apply the reading to College students to participation in class. I think it relates because you can reinforce it, have to define as a target behavior, have to have observe agreement if you have multiple people overserving it. I think that it is common for most students to not participate in class if they do not feel rewarded. It is also something that is not clearly defined and can mean many things to different people. Many of my professors have expressed displeasure with lack of participation and I think you can apply the readings to this topic.

2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
Target behavior, reinforcement, observer agreement

2) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Participation is in class is not simple for a professor to define and also is difficult to determine how to reinforce and keep track of as well. Participation to some may be simply the amount of times they speak up in class, someone else might think that they should consider the value of each contribution to how much it contributes to class but then you have to determine what is valuable. Source 3 gives some problems for trying to get students to participate such as students might be shy, there might be disconnect between what students and teachers think of as participation and how it should be reinforced, and that professors might not be able to properly keep track of all of their students. If multiple people are trying to keep track of participation as well it may be difficult to have consistency on analyzing participation. Trying to define the target behavior for class participation can be difficult but is important to define if you want to gauge and improve participation of students. Source 1 give a holistic rubric for participation based on mutual agreement between the students and professor using a combination of preparedness, contribution to conversation, thoughtfulness in conversation, interest and respect for others, and participation in small groups. The scores are scaled one to six with six being the best score for participation. The participation score received is based on these combination of things. The target behavior is defined and a score is received. The problem with the professor not keeping track of participation could still occur however. One way to alleviate this is that the professor could have another party, such as a teaching assistant keep track of participation along with the professor or the professor could have students file a self-report and compare the two. Since the definitions of participation were agreed by the professor and the students in class there should not be much disconnect between the sets of observers on what to look for and observer agreement should be fairly consistent. There could still be a problem with reinforcement however since in grading participation there is no instant reinforcement of participation that occurs since grades are marked instantly. Professors need to work in ways to instantly reinforce participation when the behavior occurs. Source 2 give a solution to this that I thought was very clever. A professor decided to give imaginary bonus points to his students that would be rewarded upon participation. For example if they had a student that was giving valuable participation then he would give them a “bonus point” after that participation for instant reinforcement. The points had no effect on grades and were not formally tracked but it was received well by students and lead to more participation. This model gives instant reinforcement but could have some issues in defining the target behavior and having observer agreement if the professor does have the target behavior clearly defined.

3) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
Source 1. http://csufresno.edu/academics/documents/participation/grading_class_participation.pdf
Source 2. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/87567555.2011.591454?journalCode=vcol20
Source 3. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/rocca-litrevengagingstudents.pdf

1) 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.

For this week I decided that I would look into topographical vs. functional behavior because it is something that I think links all the behaviors together that we talk about it class. I was first drawn to the idea of topographical behaviors when I was reading the text where the examples of all the different types of waves were used. It is something that really makes a lot of sense but before I would have never considered waving a fly out of my face and waving goodbye to a friend to really have the same topographical behavior.

2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
For this week, I want to talk about the comparison of topographical and functional properties, what functional behavior assessment is, and I want to look at the link this has to autism.

2) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.

In the articles I read one of the big things that was discussed was why it is important to look at more than just the topographical behavior a kid may show. For example, a student who finds academics come easy to them may show a bad behavior when a teacher isn’t challenging them academically. For this reason it is important to look at the bigger picture when it comes to behaviors, rather than what you see in front of you. The functional behavior assessment looks at a variety of different things to help to analyze a behavior. During my research of topographical and functional behavior I realized that autism had come up many times so I decided to research a little more about it. What I learned was that functional behavior analysis is the most widely used therapy in helping those with autism. The article also stated that they try not to use the topographical behaviors to look at these behaviors but rather looking at they why of them. Another thing that was discussed throughout almost all the articles I read was how the antecedent, behavior, and consequences all related back to the topographical and functional behaviors. They chose to use the ABC’s as part of their analysis of pinpointing and targeting the behaviors.

3) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://cecp.air.org/fba/problembehavior/necessary.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis#Efficacy_in_autism

http://www.isbe.net/spec-ed/np_handouts/2012/session27.pdf

Definitions used: topographical, behavior, functional, antecedent, consequence, and target behavior.

The topic I am choosing is target behaviors and behavioral control. The three aspects I want to look at is how successful behavioral control is after figuring out the target behavior, how easy it is to identify all target behaviors, and is reinforcing and continuing a behavior using behavioral control is more successful than stopping a behavior.
Often the controlled behavior is successful if the antecedent is also controlled. If both the antecedent and the behavior is controlled completely it is very successful to have the controlled and predicted consequence that is wanted. Identifying the target behavior is really just breaking down completely each topographical and functional aspect of it. For example, if someone is bouncing their head they could be nodding to the beat of music or nodding as a hello or goodbye to someone. Once you can define both the topographical and functional part of the behavior and you decide the occasion or occurrence of the behavior then you have a target behavior!
In one of my studies that I read it stated how hard it is to change a behavior after it has been learned over a long period of time. They attempted to change a medical professionals ways in many different ABCs but were not successful in most of them. A lot of the other things I have read have shown some success rates in more children than in adults. With those children it was also proven that some punishments caused more bad behaviors while other kids the punishment would scare them to do the behavior again. It makes me feel like the results are all over the place and I can't get a factual opinion over which one is more successful and if they are extremely successful.
What I found really interesting about a lot of the articles that I read is the connection to controlling a behavior to suicide, depression, and bullying.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8956681
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0895435604002562/1-s2.0-S0895435604002562-main.pdf?_tid=1bdeb90c-5cc0-11e5-a4df-00000aacb35e&acdnat=1442441767_db71fa8c2607df38e229db91522e0812
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Icek_Ajzen/publication/248825016_A_Comparison_of_the_Theory_of_Planned_Behavior_and_the_Theory_of_Reasoned_Action/links/0f317539f25d619676000000.pdf

1)
I decide to focus in extinction because it is something we have covered in most of the past section and I find it very interesting. In my opinion it is really helpful to know the basic things about behaviors because that can help you every day, raising your children, training your animal, changing some unwanted behavior of yours.
2)
I would like to review the general meaning of extinction, extinction of disruptive behaviors in the classroom and also how it helps in dog training.
3)
When we talk about behavior modification the first thing that may come to our minds is Skinner’s theory. He is considered the father of the reinforcement theory because of all of his experiments on the topic. We have four different options when we react to behaviors. If it is a good behavior and you want it to occur again then it is better if you reinforce it. If an unwanted behavior occurs and you reinforce it, then the person will learn it and will repeat it. When an unwanted behavior occurs but you don’t reinforce then nothing happens, because there is no learning related to that behavior. And the last case is the one we want to focus on, which is extinction. When extinction occurs it means that there is no reaction to a behavior, so the chances of that behavior to occur again will decrease because you didn’t get anything from it. This is a good thing when we are dealing with bad behaviors and we don’t want them to happen again so we should not reinforce them.
For example, when we talk about a classroom, there are many occasions when we don’t want a behavior to happen because it is affecting the correct development of the class, so instead of giving social attention to the one that is bad behaving we can use extinction. It would basically consist in not reacting to the bad behavior but reinforce the good one. You may think that is better to punish that behavior so “it doesn’t happen again” but you don’t really learn anything from punishment but getting better at doing the bad behavior and not getting caught. Also it is important to combine extinction with positive reinforcement, so good behaviors occur again. It also matters the fact that the reinforcement should come right after the good behavior has been emitted so the kid can relate it to that behavior.
But we can find many other situations in life where we can apply extinction like for example animal training. Specifically I wanted to research about dog training because my mom is really scared of them because she always thinks that they are going to bite her, but I love them and I want to have them one day so I would like to know how to train them so they can be around my mom without her panicking. While I doing my research I found a funny example of dogs learn how to behave. When the dog breaks into the bin and you punish him he will learn that he can’t do it in front a person, but there is no punishment when the house is empty so he’ll do it then. So a dog proof bin would be our example for extinction because no matter how many times he tries to get in it, he will not succeed and he will stop trying at certain point. There was no need to punish the dog but to make it inaccessible for him.
In my opinion there are a lot of ways to modify behaviors and it is important to let people know about other ways than punishment. In a lot places children grow up “scared” of their parents’ reactions and I think that psychologists have a duty with society to change this. It not hard to educate people by teaching the most basic things to the people around you like family and friends, so the learning spreads out and reaches many other people.

4)
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Pr-Sa/Reinforcement-Theory.html
http://totallydogtraining.com/dog-training-language-what-is-extinction/
http://study.com/academy/lesson/reducing-undesirable-behaviors-in-the-classroom.html

1) The topic I researched was discriminative stimuli. It was talked about in section 2.1 of the text to discuss its role in the ABC’s and to get a little more in depth of what it was. I was interested in finding more about discriminative stimuli because it seems like an interesting concept to me. All of our decisions are based of off something and this stimuli helps regulate our decisions and it just made me think about other possible ways we could use a discriminative stimuli.

2) In this assignment I want to talk about what a discriminative stimuli is, how a discriminative stimulus is used to change behavior, and what the difference between discriminative stimuli and an establishing operation is.

2) Discriminative stimulus is the likelihood of a behavior happening because of a certain thing or event. In other words, it is used to trigger a desired outcome. There are two different types of discriminative stimuli, S- and S+, that tells the mind or body if the reinforcement is or is not available at that time. In a way it is kind of like operant conditioning because it increases to likelihood of getting to the target response.

A discriminative stimulus can be used to change behavior in many ways. There is not just one type of discriminative stimuli, it can almost be anything. The examples can range from a person, time of day, or even any item people come across. For example, when people come across a stoplight and the light is green they can keep on driving. However, if the light is red then is elicits a response from the driver to stop. If they don’t stop and keep driving, they are punished by possibly getting into a car accident or getting a ticket from the police.

The difference between a discriminative stimuli and establishing operation can kind of be confusing because they are kind of similar since they both are antecedents. An establishing operation is when a certain stimuli makes us want something more, where a discriminative stimulus kind of controls our behavior to tell us what we can do and how we can act in certain situations. An example of an establishing operation is when someone does all of their homework so they get an allowance and then they stop getting an allowance for a certain amount of time even though their homework was done. Then later they start getting an allowance again as a reinforcer.

3) http://psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2010/09/establishing-operation-vs-discriminative-stimulus.html - I found this URL searching in google and thought it represented my ideas well. It states the close difference between a discriminative stimulus and establishing operation.

http://www.intropsych.com/ch05_conditioning/discriminative_stimuli.html - I chose this URL because it states how a discriminative stimulus is used and what it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulus_control - I chose this URL because it helped me understand more about what a discriminative stimulus was.

Terms: discriminative stimuli, reinforcement, elicit, punishment, target response, establishing operation, antecedents

1)For the topical assignment of this week, after reading the two sections and doing some research to see what I could talk about this week, I chose to talk about satiation versus deprivation. These two terms took quite a few space of the section 2.1 so I figured out they were important enough to do some research and talk about them. From these readings I already knew some of the terms such as reinforcement and punishment. However, I never heard about either discriminative stimulus or satiation versus deprivation so when I was going to pick a topic I decided satiation versus deprivation because I liked it more than discriminative stimulus.

2)The three aspects I want to talk about are satiation and its effect, deprivation and its effect and the relationship between satiation and deprivation in research.

For satiation and its application I found a short video in which a kid asks his mother for candy and every time he asks for candy for the first couple times, the mother gives him one candy. However, the last time that the kid asks her mother for candy, she gives him all the candy and he ends up having stomachache due to eating too much candy. Even though the video is not great, it shows perfectly the effect that satiation elicits on the kid’s love for candy. The section refers to satiation as an establishing operation that elicits the feeling of being full. The consequence of this feeling of being full elicits an aversive response when the stimuli that gave us that feeling takes place again. We can see the connection between the experiment conducted in the video and the explanation given by the section.

Going along with the food topic for my second resource I looked up at Psychology Wiki where I found a definition of food deprivation and the effects that it has in our health when suffering from it. The website defines food deprivation as the restriction of the free access to food making the subject having to earn the right to access food. The common and first effects that food deprivation have on health are hunger and starvation. Food deprivation can lead to malnutrition which can have negative consequences for the cognitive functioning of the subject. The section refers to deprivation as an establishing operant that makes a stimulus more reinforcing, this means that deprivation acts as a reinforce producing in the subject desired for the stimuli. Connecting this term with the video that shows stimulus satiation, this will mean that if the mother does not give candy to her son every time he asks for it, this is going to increase the desired of the kid for candy. We can conclude that candy deprivation elicits the kid to emit the behavior of looking for new ways to get the candy.

For the last aspect that I want to talk about I found a research article that measures establishing operations and the positive effects they have on people. Deprivation and satiation were established to alter the subject’s food and social routines and see how they answer to those alterations. The results show that when comparing subjects one of them will take a little bit longer to react to social deprivation than the other. However, the overall results show that the subjects will have higher rates when responding to deprivation rather than to satiation. This shows variation in reinforcer effectiveness making deprivation a stronger reinforcer than satiation. According to the section these results show deprivation as a stronger reinforcer than satiation because it first has limited the access to the stimuli which increases the desired that the subject has for the stimuli eliciting a pleasurable response when the stimuli takes place. On the other hand, satiation is based on getting as much as you want the stimuli until you get tired of it and do not want to know anything about it for a while. Satiation has the opposite effect than deprivation on subjects and that is why it decreases the desired that the subject has for the stimuli and his/her reaction when it appears.

3)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_3QNYmEKkE

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Food_deprivation

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279573/

Terms and terminology used: satiation, deprivation, reinforcement, punishment, discriminative stimulus, elicit, emit, establishing operation, aversive, stimuli, consequence, reinforcing, reinforce, reinforcer pleasurable.

1)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.
After researching about topics from these sections 1.5 and 2.1, I have come up with the topic, behavioral classes and cultures. This fits into our sections because we are talking about the behavioral classes which are topographical and functional. These are things we don’t realize we are doing everyday life, and yet in other cultures they could be offensive or mean something completely opposite from your mean of this behavior. I think this is very interesting to look at all the different cultures and how some be behaviors may be the same, or some that I knew about.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
The three topic I would like to talk about would be topographical, functional, and culture. I’d like to mix it around so that you can know about what each behavioral classes is and a few examples with examples to culture as well and why it’s important we understand these differences if you are every planning to leave this country sometime.
2) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
The most interesting things that I found in section 1.5 would be about topographical and functional. I think it interesting to find out the different things in life that are either topographical or functional because I’ve never really thought about things like this in our everyday life. Topographical in the book is known as, the way a behavior looks. The example they gave in the book was about waving at someone. Some examples I came up for topographical would be kicking someone. This is all the same behavior but can come across differently in different situations. Kicking someone could be an accident let’s say in soccer, which isn’t aggression purposely for that person. It could also be a little kid kicking at their parents because something won’t go their way. In this was they are showing that they are really angry. You can tell that they are both doing the same behavior (kicking at someone) but the outcome from these situations are different. The soccer girl will probably say sorry, or the person getting kicked may not even notice, because it is a common thing in soccer. But for the little kid, he will most likely get punished because their parents don’t want the behavior to happen anymore.
On the other hand, the functional definition from the book is, what the behavior does or accomplishes. In the book there’s an example of opening doors. My example that I came up with for functional is getting eggs. This may not be the most amazing example, but the important part is that there are many different way to get eggs, but it all ends in the behavior of getting the eggs. For example you could go to any local store to get some eggs, or if you raise chickens you can just go to the hen house and get some eggs. You see how there are many different ways to go and get some eggs, but all end with the same thing.
Now cultures around the world are very different from one another. A behavior done in America could be completely different in let’s say, China. For example silence in America is usually uncomfortable and people take it as disinterest towards something. In China It is shown very differently. They take silence from another person as agreement. This example would be a behavioral class of topographical. I say this because they both start off with the same behavior, but the outcome it different. In many countries they emit a behavior like a thumbs up as trying to say good job. But sometimes than can cause an aversive feeling towards another culture or country like Iraq which is actually the same meaning as the middle finger in America. To get a reminder of the ABCs I’d like to use another cultural behavior example. Another aversive behavioral example would be the peace sign. Some places it’s to take picture, England it’s an insult. For example if someone visited England from America and was giving one of their new friends a peace sign snap chat just to pose for a picture, then that friend would react with disgust and never snap them back again. The antecedent for this situation is the cultural difference and them being friends. The behavior is sending a snap chat of them and a peace sign to a friend. The consequence for doing that is not getting a snap chat from that friend anymore. One example of a cultural behavior and confusions would be the rock on gesture. In America it is used in many rock bands showing interest in the music and the sign of rock music. On the other hand, In Italy the rock sing gesture is saying that your wife is unfaithful. So as you can tell, you need to watch what you are doing in other countries because you could make others made at you when you don’t even know it. If you are planning to go to another country, then a good idea would be to look up some gesture and cultural differences compared to your culture.

3) include working URLs for the three websites.
http://www.dimensionsofculture.com/2010/11/non-verbal-behavior-in-cross-cultural-interactions/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa_GCK-Czqs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationadvice/10055769/International-body-language-a-language-with-no-words.html
Terms: topographical, functional, behavioral classes, punishment, Antecedent, Behavior, consequence, emit, adverse

This week I am choosing to write about target behaviors. This is due to the fact that when I Google searched my first choice for the topic, it came up with a lot of random stuff. Now, on to plan B! I will be discussing 1.) what a target behavior is 2.) how specific it needs to be language wise, and 3.) what 3 things make up a good target behavior.
A target behavior is defined as any behavior that has been chosen to be changed. It should include the function. When searching the internet for this week’s assignment I came across an autism’s website description of function. According to this website (http://theautismhelper.com), a function is what the individual is getting out of the behavior. According to our textbook though, a function is the purpose. To have a good target behavior, one also needs it defined topographically, and to know what context the behavior is happening. To show examples of this, I will now draw on the delightful YouTube clip of a French bulldog named Oreo, and his owner/ trainer. In this video, the owner is using positive reinforcement to encourage the Bulldog to do a series of tricks. Each time she bends down she states clearly to the dog what she wants from him. This shows the dog what target behavior has been selected. To break this down, topographically, the tricks are the similar group that is trying to be performed. The context would be the dog being trained. The function, in the terms of the text book, of wanting the dog to sit would be for the dog to sit instead of stand.
This concept is simple to grasp overall, but it needs to be very specific. One cannot just say that the target behavior they want is for a better behaved dog. They need to define exactly which behavior they want changed. Say for instance this dog was constantly jumping on its owners upon entrance to a room. The behavior that would be changed is the jumping up. We can then do this by training the dog to sit upon entrance with the use of positive reinforcements.
Another example we can go to training boyfriends. Say the boyfriend is constantly leaving his shoes in the rug instead of putting them on the shoe rack next to the door, making it easier for everyone to trip. The girlfriend is then constantly picking up his shoes and putting them away. The target behavior is leaving the shoes on the rug. This is because this is the behavior that wants to be changed. The function of the target behavior would be to ensure no one trips. Topographically, this would be thrown in with cleaning. The context is an exchange between boyfriend and girlfriend to try to keep the rug clean. Now, the wanted outcome would be that the boyfriend would then keep his shoes off the rug, but that behavior is still yet to be seen.
Positive reinforcement
Target Behavior
Function
Topographical

http://study.com/academy/lesson/target-behavior-definition-example.html
http://theautismhelper.com/behavior-week-identifying-target-behaviors-function/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whS1LhnpN_U

1.) The topic I chose to do some research on for this week's assignment is on topographical and functional behaviors. The reason I chose this topic specifically is because I think that this is extremely important when trying to understand others who come from different backgrounds, cultures, etc. Nonverbal communication is huge when communicating with others, and it's extremely important and valuable to be able to understand how different behaviors can serve different functions so that we can effectively and appropriately communicate with and understand others.

2.) Three aspects I would like to talk about include: what topographical and functional behaviors are/what's the difference between them, why I think this is such an important topic with some examples given, and also how I think it's relevant to my everyday life and the lives of everyone else.

3.) There's a difference between the topography of a behavior and the function of behavior. Simply put, as explained in the one of the websites I found, topography is best described as "what" the behavior is and function is "why" the behavior is emitted. I think it's probably easier to understand topography because it's literally just specifying what the behavior is, such as waving, hugging, crying, etc. Understanding the function of behavior can be a little more complicated because there's a lot to consider when thinking about why people emit different behaviors. The websites I found explained that there are four different main reasons that everyone emits different behaviors. These reasons include: escaping a task, environment, etc., tangibility or the desire/want for a specific item, attention which is simply just wanting aknowledgement from others, and sensory which is that the behavior feels good. The other thing to understand about the functions of behaviors is that the same exact behavior can essentially serve different purposes, but ultimately people generally emit behaviors with the goal of being reinforced, although they're sometimes punished instead.

Even more so, and this goes into why I think it's so important to understand the function of behaviors, is that behaviors can serve different purposes in different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. For instance, in America we might hug someone even if it's someone we just met, but that may be really inappropriate or even viewed as disrespectful in other countries. This is why I believe that understanding how behaviors can serve different functions is so important because this allows us to develop a much deeper understanding of people around us. An example of this would be seeing someone cry. Often times, our instinct is to want to comfort someone when they're crying, such as if they're crying at a funeral in which case the crying would likely indicate that they are grieving. However, someone can cry at a wedding and it can be tears of happiness or just being grateful or overwhelmed on such a big day, but that doesn't necessarily mean someone would need to be comforted. The other thing about it is that in other countries, just the act of crying itself can be seen as being really weak or totally unaccepted. This would be in countries where it's discouraged to display emotions.

My last point with this subject is how this is relevant to my life specifically. I am a very compassionate person and I find it very important for me to be able to understand people around me, especially people that I'm closer to. Something that comes to mind that's sort of different than what this topic is, is the book The Five Languages of Love. This book essentially talks about how there are five different "languages" of love, which essentially means five different main ways to show love and five different main ways people interpret others' actions as being that of loving. For example, one of the categories is quality time. This applies to me because the best way to show me that you love me is to give me your time. I don't need or want to be showered with gifts, but giving me time is the most meaningful thing you can do. However, just because that's what works for me, doesn't mean that's what works for every person or even my closest friends. I have friends who would much rather receive a dozen roses and they would interpret that as being very loving. This relates to the idea of understanding the functions of behavior because the same exact behavior can be interpreted as something entirely different depending on the individual and/or the culture that you're interacting with.

The YouTube clip I found is a little dramatic, but I found it to be an entertaining way to help display how the same behaviors that we use can mean something entirely different, especially for aliens. (Fast forward to 1:37 of this clip until 1:52).

http://www.educateautism.com/behavioural-principles/functions-of-behaviour.html

http://flpbs.fmhi.usf.edu/Modelschools_08_09/Artifacts/Collier/Veterns%20Memorial%20Elementary/Behavior%20Principles.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viCosY2u6YU

TERMS: Function, Topography, Reinforce, punishment, emit, behavior

I have decided to focus on the difference between topographical behavior and functional behavior. I find this topic interesting, because until the class I never two different classes that behavior could fit into.

I plan to talk about the difference between the two classes of behavior, why topographical behavior is important, and lastly why functional behavior is important.

Topographical and functional are the two different classes that behavior can be put into. Topographical describes what the behavior is. For example walking, talking, or waving. Functional describes the purpose of the behavior and why it is being emitted. For example the person is walking in order to get to class, or a person is talking to someone so they can get directions, or maybe the person is waiving to get someones attention. When trying to understand a person's behavior it is important to know both the topographical and functional aspect the the behavior.

Understanding the topographical aspect of the behavior being emitted is very important. If you are trying to fix a specific target behavior then you will need to have a very specific topographical behavior as well. For example if a child is throwing a tantrum, you cant just say the child through the tantrum. A tantrum can be several different thing. One must be specific and say "the child threw himself to the ground, kicked his legs and screamed. They made no contact with any other person or object." This is a very good example of what topographical behavior is.

The functional aspect of behavior is just as important. This aspect explains why the behavior is taking place. Continuing with the tantrum example, Why is it that the child is throwing a tantrum is it because they are frustrated with their friends, perhaps they are having problems with their homework. By identifying why the behavior is occurring, a person may now be able to come up with some strategies to address the target behavior of throwing tantrums.

http://www.educateautism.com/behavioural-principles/functions-of-behaviour.html

http://specialed.about.com/od/glossary/g/Topography-Of-Behavior.htm

http://cecp.air.org/fba/problembehavior/necessary.htm

Terms: Topographical, functional, behavior, emitted, target behavior

1) 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.

I want to apply the reading to College students to participation in class. I think it relates because you can reinforce it, have to define as a target behavior, have to have observe agreement if you have multiple people observing it. I think that it is common for most students to not participate in class if they do not feel rewarded. It is also something that is not clearly defined and can mean many things to different people. Many of my professors have expressed displeasure with lack of participation and I think you can apply the readings to this topic.

2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?

Target behavior, reinforcement, observer agreement

2) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.

Participation is in class is not simple for a professor to define and also is difficult to determine how to reinforce and keep track of as well. Participation to some may be simply the amount of times they speak up in class, someone else might think that they should consider the value of each contribution to how much it contributes to class but then you have to determine what is valuable. Source 3 gives some problems for trying to get students to participate such as students might be shy, there might be disconnect between what students and teachers think of as participation and how it should be reinforced, and that professors might not be able to properly keep track of all of their students. If multiple people are trying to keep track of participation as well it may be difficult to have consistency on analyzing participation. Trying to define the target behavior for class participation can be difficult but is important to define if you want to gauge and improve participation of students. Source 1 give a holistic rubric for participation based on mutual agreement between the students and professor using a combination of preparedness, contribution to conversation, thoughtfulness in conversation, interest and respect for others, and participation in small groups. The scores are scaled one to six with six being the best score for participation. The participation score received is based on these combination of things. The target behavior is defined and a score is received. The problem with the professor not keeping track of participation could still occur however. One way to alleviate this is that the professor could have another party, such as a teaching assistant keep track of participation along with the professor or the professor could have students file a self-report and compare the two. Since the definitions of participation were agreed by the professor and the students in class there should not be much disconnect between the sets of observers on what to look for and observer agreement should be fairly consistent. There could still be a problem with reinforcement however since in grading participation there is no instant reinforcement of participation that occurs since grades are marked instantly. Professors need to work in ways to instantly reinforce participation when the behavior occurs. Source 2 give a solution to this that I thought was very clever. A professor decided to give imaginary bonus points to his students that would be rewarded upon participation. For example if they had a student that was giving valuable participation then he would give them a “bonus point” after that participation for instant reinforcement. The points had no effect on grades and were not formally tracked but it was received well by students and lead to more participation. This model gives instant reinforcement but could have some issues in defining the target behavior and having observer agreement if the professor does have the target behavior clearly defined.

3) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.

Source 1. http://csufresno.edu/academics/documents/participation/grading_class_participation.pdf
Source 2. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/87567555.2011.591454?journalCode=vcol20
Source 3. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm/rocca-litrevengagingstudents.pdf

I have decided to discuss and look into function and topographical behaviors more. This interests me very much because it has never occurred to me how big of a difference there is in them yet how simple it is. In section 1.5 the first major topic of discussion that it goes into detail is about these two behavioral differences. Although they are very different they work hand in hand and effect each other a lot. The book uses a great example by saying that all waves look the same, but they have very different functions just based on the situation it is being used in. For example we can wave to greet someone or say goodbye or even swap a fly away from our food and even though the action of the wave looks the exact same every time, the function of the wave is very different based on the action you are trying to accomplish. The door example was especially fascinating to think about because it is so simple yet something we do not think about. The look of a “handle” can be very different, but the function is the same every time, to get the door opened. This is the exact opposite of the wave example because the wave is the same, but the function can be completely different.
I would like to discuss how these two work hand in hand to help understand children and their disabilities. By using these two factors we can break down and look at why a student with disabilities do what they do as well as find a way to fix the problem as much as we can. I would also like to look into how these change based on where you live. Lastly I will look at how these two factors can be precursors for behavior, specifically problem behavior.
In my first discussion I will focus on autism in children for the sake of length because if we were to talk about the wide variety of disabilities that exist the paper would never end. We can see that when a student with this disability acts out in class they are just trying to take away from the fact that they don’t understand the concept being presented in class. The article from educateautism.com does a very good job describing the difference of the topographical and functional. Functional is why. Why they are doing the particular action and in this case they are doing it take the attention away from the fact that they don’t understand the topic, but topographical is the what they are doing. In this case the what is acting out, whether it is talking to another student or just simply yelling and throwing a temper tantrum. Whatever the action may be it is to accomplish the purpose of getting the attention away from the fact they don’t understand something. With this in mind we can see that the reinforcement is the ideal outcome for the person.
When we look geographically and also by experiments it has shown that there are very different aspects of how people act and why they do it sometimes because of depriation, if they are deprived from a certain thing, that makes them also emitted to a certain behavior as well. For example here in America a child may want something in a toy store and if they want something there they may ask over and over again, topographical, to get that toy, functional. If they don’t get it, it is likely they will throw a temper tantrum hoping it will make the parent get them whatever it is they want which is categorized as another topographical behavior. Comparing this to maybe an African child who probably doesn’t receive half of what an American child gets, if they were in a store and wanted something they would probably politely ask once or twice in hopes that they may get that thing they want and this is their topographical behavior. If this doesn’t work they will likely drop it and understand that there is a reason as to why they can’t have that particular item. Looking at an adult example, we adults here in North America take a lot of pride in the fact that we have freedom to believe what we want. Per say that two adults are arguing a topic and they have different beliefs, but they are strong as to what they believe. It is very easy to assume that they will likely get loud as to enforce their idea upon the other person. Looking at China we could see the same situation, but handled very differently. I would assume that they may accept the fact that they don’t want to believe the other person, but instead of getting loud and arguing they may just part ways which is their own topographical behavior and the functional aspect would be to avoid the confrontation all together.
Looking at precursors for problem behavior, topographical and functional can be a great way to predict this in a person. The topographical aspect is more easily understood because it is literally the actions someone is doing. The actions of a person can tell how a person will behave in future and even how they used to behave. A study done by the National Institutes of Health revealed that certain types of topographical behavior like leaving a situation or throwing a tantrum is a precursor to how the person will respond in other situations, whether they are similar situations or not. It showed that they were correct, when a specific action was done it told us that the person will respond in similar ways for all of their life situations, but the functional aspect is much more difficult to tell. Functional behavior is why they are doing it and looking at why a person does something is hard to tell because we are simply not in their head and don’t know why exactly they did what they did.

1.) http://www.educateautism.com/behavioural-principles/functions-of-behaviour.html
2.) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3251304/
3.) http://www.uni.edu/~maclino/bm/book/sec1.5.pdf

Terminology: Function, reinforcing,behavior, deprivation, deprived, emitted, reinforcer,experiment, topographical, punishments

my topic is behavior extinction. Behavior extinction connects directly with Behavior modification in that we are creating an extinction of a behavior that we view as negative.

(3 aspects) the three aspects that I would like to cover is Why use extinction, Process in Extinction of behaviors, commmon Failures of extinction behavior
(Why use extinction)
Extinction is used when in the interest of removing a behavior that is unwanted. Extinction uses the process of removing operant conditioning which can be used with the aid of reinforcing behaviors while a behavior is extinguished, in the hopes of a faster transition or even the need for a positive behavior to be embedded. these can easily be seen in dogs as well as humans. More than likely it is used with younger children and younger dogs/pets. In most of these cases extinction is combined with eliminating the behavior by use of alternative antecedents.
(Process)
The first thing to note in the extinction process is the use of a trigger. This is the use of a reinforcing behavioral term or action. This term could mean simply saying "no" or an example of an action would be a spank or hit. The next and crucial stem is to remain consistent. When I say this I mean that when you use extinction you need the trigger use the same trigger and use it every time the behavior occurs. The next component of extinction of behaviors that may be overlooked is the ability to spotlight these behaviors that need to be changed. Things like potty training a dog might be easily noticed, but an important issue with dogs is the time in which you direct the extinction process. In the scenario of a dog you want to reinforce the averse behavior almost right after the behavior is demonstrated. This is consistent in most cases of behavioral extinction. it is also important to note that at most times extinction is used to remove a reinforcer.
(Why does it Fail?)
Sometimes attempts at behavioral extinction will fail. This can involve a number of variables. At times it can be as simple as enough time has passed to basically relapse the behavior. In other circumstances the extinction failure occurs because of instructor issues. for example, if you do not consistently use the same triggers and use then at the time in which the behavior happens the triggers lose their specified meaning. When this happens it results in a resistance to the extinction. This makes it that much more difficult to remove the behavior or reinforcer. Other failures happen because of third variables such as another instructor/parent with different inconsistencies that you may have. For example, if you and your partner train a dog but train them with 2 different styles, or triggers, the dog may not develop an accurate understanding of what trigger to follow and connect the extinction with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfKjg20KM0s
This youtube clip shows a reenactment of a kid asking for a cookie and then an extinction of the behavior to ask for a cookie. the viedo then explains how this process should go and what people may do to hider the process.

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/w/wickelgren/psyc104/Chapter08_extinctionCLASS.pdf
This web source provides information about extinction and the different circumstances of extinction through the use of slides in a powerpoint style. the information goes in depth and rather great detail the process of extinction in both the reinforcing insturctor and client perception.

http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/guide/house-training-your-puppy
This web source is a cite where people go to learn how to properly train their dog. This web source I found made a good selling point to what to do when in the process of extinction of a behavior.

Terminology: Reinforce, Extinction, Operant conditioning, Averse, Reinforcement, Behavior, Antecedent.

1) 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.
I have decided to cover Inter-Observer agreement. We discussed this in the section in the reading. I have also learned about this in other classes. I am interested in this topic because I worked at Four Oaks for about three months before I came here to UNI and I experienced this frequently with my residents.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
I would like to cover the definition of Inter-Observer Agreement to make it more concrete in my head. I also want to cover at what percentage the inter-observer agreement should be at for it to be effective. Lastly, I would like to see how inter-observation fits into daily life and not just what we have seen in labs.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Inter- Observer agreement is when two different people report the same values for the behavior shown. Basically it is saying in behavioral terms, when a person emits the certain target behavior, the observer should then emit a reinforcement because of the behavior every time. The agreement is because this has to happen every time the target behavior is shown, not just with one observer. Inter- Observer agreement is the most common of measurement quality.
The book states that if Inter-observer agreement is not consistent the behavior will start to experience extinction because they are not getting the reinforcement they need. Obviously, for the target behavior to change they need to be reinforced frequently. With this being stated, though, we are human and the observers are prone to miss some of the target behaviors being emitted. Inter-observer agreements should be set at eighty-five to ninety percent as a rule of thumb. If the agreements do not reach at least eighty- five percent, the observers would then need to talk again about what exactly the target behavior is that they are looking for. It is crucial that the observers know exactly what the target behavior is. This is why your target behavior is so important in changing behavior. Without a precise target behavior, each of the observers could be reinforcing a behavior that is close to the target behavior, but not exactly right.
An example of this would be if in class we wanted to stop disruptive behaviors. First, the observers would have to figure out what actually is a disruptive behavior. After clarifying that, they would then watch the children for those behaviors. Let’s say that observer one said out of the ten students, students numbered 1,3,5, and 7 were emitting disruptive behaviors they then would see what observer 2 thought and if they agreed then they would have a 100% agreement which is extremely good. If not, there would be some discretions and then they would have to talk about it.

4) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_cooper_appliedbeh_2/73/18706/4788737.cw/index.html
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/reltypes.php
http://people.umass.edu/~psyc241/inter-observer%20reliability.htm

1) 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.
The topic I chose to write on is topographical behaviors. I am interested in this because it is such a simple concept that with proper training and knowledge can influence a lifestyle very heavily.

2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
In my assignment I would like to discuss what is topographical behavior, how it is used, and how it can affect a lifestyle.

3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.

Topography is a simple concise definition of a behavior that someone is emitting. An example of this is refusing to take out the garbage. In the example it has a simple and easy to follow behavior, taking out the trash, and that the person is not doing so. Topography is used to give an accurate and clear description, instead of simply stating something like the child is throwing a tantrum. Topographically speaking, tantrum is a very poor way to phrase it, because although we know what a tantrum may involve, there are a wide variety of things a child could be doing to have this tantrum. Is the child kicking and screaming? Are they simply crying loudly and obnoxiously for all to hear? Are they punching a sibling? All of these are classified as tantrums, but it doesn’t help in the behavior realm to end at that, instead we use topography to paint a simple portrait for others. This is a simple instance of why this is used in the field.

Next, how it is topography used. Topography is used, for example, with autistic children a lot. When a child has these mental conditions tantrums, as previously stated, are a common outlet of frustration. When working in the field with these kids, a simple, John had a tantrum at 7:30am, and also 2:45pm, does not help the parents, teachers, or counselor much. Instead we need to use topography to clearly define what John did, that way we can attempt to either extinguish these unwanted behaviors, or work with John to let him understand his “wrongdoings.” Also topographical behaviors can be used scientifically to determine if there are precursors to these behaviors, that way it can be possible to avoid these tantrums in the future. With a better descriptor it allows for better research data and adult interaction.

Finally, how it can affect a lifestyle. Simply put, in everything we do, details are key and allow us to move forward more easily. One easy example is if a group of friends wants to watch over each other with no technical knowledge of the field, they will probably bind each other to simple words like, make sure I don’t do X, X being some generic thing such as be lazy. What does lazy look like though, is it napping every day, is it playing video games a couple hours at a time, is it playing a couple rounds of a card game? The point is, with a generic idea like lazy, people think they know what they mean, but don’t. Instead, if someone knew about topography and describing behaviors, they might say, make sure I don’t sit on the couch and watch T.V. between these hours. Now the friends know what the guy wants them to watch out for and also keep him accountable for. This is how it can affect a lifestyle, whether it is shared with friends, coworkers, family, or simply kept to yourself, the more descriptive you are with a behavior, the easier it is to target to reinforce or punish. I would put money down that behaviors that have gone through extinction were targeted in some manner, and they could only be targeted with details not sweeping generalizations.

This is a brief understanding of what topography is in relation to behavior and how it is used and the effects it can have on a lifestyle.

4) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.

http://specialed.about.com/od/glossary/g/Topography-Of-Behavior.htm - This website gives a detailed description of the definition of topography and behavior.

http://www.educateautism.com/behavioural-principles/functions-of-behaviour.html - This website gives examples of topography of behavior and also reinforcement and punishment.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3251304/ - This website gives a research view to topography and how it can be used in an academic sense.

The topic that I have decided to focus on is target behavior. I have chosen this topic because I find it very interesting. Target behavior is a behavior that has been 'targeted' for changed, and can be observed and measured and must be positive. Meaning you need to focus on what someone could do, instead of what they could not do.

The first aspect of the topic that I would like to look at is how different emotions affect the a target behavior's progress in changing, how environments can affect a target behavior's progress in changing, and how age can affect a target behavior's progress in changing. The reason that I wanted to know these things is because I am really interested in the outside factors that influence the behavior modification process.

It seems like depending on the situation emotions can have an effect on target behavior and progression. In competitive situations anger and fear make negotiation tougher, because they both upset people. When people are happy it makes them more likely to participate in activities and do things. When people are happy, they are more reinforced to do things that they are asked to do. It is more effective to change a positive behavior rather than try and stop a negative behavior.

The environment is described as the area in which an individual lives, e.g. school, work place, local shops and facilities, and wider factors including the economy (such as prices) and technology. The environment definitely has an effect on the progress of changing the target behavior, because depending on the behavior that is trying to be changed it may only occur in certain areas such as just at school or just at home. People within the environment also have an effect on the progress of the target behavior because you might be willing to do something in front of your friends and peers, but as soon as an adult walks in a room you might not feel comfortable performing that behavior. When someone who may act as a threat to someone where they are put in an environment where they don't feel comfortable it causes people to not want to perform certain tasks or make them perform worse at tasks. This causes negative reinforcement.

Age does effect the process of target behaviors. This can be shown from when teens learn how to drive. When teens first learn how to drive they go through a lot of developmental changes in their lives that are not related to driving at all, however this can cause an issue when learning how to drive. Teens are also at that age where they seek sensation which puts them at a higher risk for getting in an accident, whereas adults are not as similar in that way and they get into less accidents. Because of the developmental things going on during teenage years and a lot of mistakes are made, sometimes behaviors that are made negatively reinforce what is going on.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1592526/
http://people.wku.edu/sally.kuhlenschmidt/psy443/projstep.htm
http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/18/3/184.full

Topical Blog Week #4
1) 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.
The topic that I chose to write about this week is the effects of sleep deprivation.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
The three aspects of the effects of sleep deprivation that I want to discuss it this assignment are some effects that sleep deprivation have on individual’s behavior and brain, health consequences that loss of sleep can have, and how sleep deprivation can cause your mind and body to decay.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Sleep deprivation can have many different effects on the mind and body. Most of the effects are negative and can cause negative behavior from individuals. Most of these effects also are or can lead to risk health. Some of these health risk are hallucinate, ramble, loss focus, increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack, and stroke. Also individual that are sleep deprivation have no activity in their temporal lopes. One that was discuss in each is how sleep cannot be cut short because without about an average of 7 hours of sleep a day individuals are not functioning at their best. Also because sleep is important part of staying healthy and without it individual’s brains can start to deteriorate and lead to changes in behavior.

4) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1690
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19961/
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/how-sleep-deprivation-decays-the-mind-and-body/282395/

Terms: Deprivation, consequence, behavior

The topic that I will be looking at for this week’s assignment is Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning. I have been interested on this behavior modification technique because of I believe it’s very effective. I also wanted to do more research on it to learn how this technique can be used as a way to stop alter certain bad habits or addiction into a more desirable behavior.
Classical Conditioning was developed by the Russian Psychologist Ivan Pavlov and was done through his tests on dogs. This experiments were known as Pavlov’s Dog’s in which Pavlov examined the salivation in dogs in response to being fed. Pavlov noticed that the salivation was not a behavior that is learned by the dog instead it is “hard-wired” in them as a response to food. This was a huge discovery because from this he learned that he could trigger the salivation by the dog with anything as long as he associated the food, which in the case of his experiment, was the sound of a bell ringing.
Through my research, I learned a few new terms that relates to classical conditioning and these were Unconditioned Stimulus (US), Unconditioned Response (UR), Neutral Stimulus (NS), Conditioned Stimulus (CS), and Conditioned Response (CR). The US is the stimulus that elicits an unlearned behavior and this unlearned behavior is the UR. In the case of Pavlov’s Dogs, the US is the dog food or meat powder and the UR is the salivation that the dog emits. The NS is a stimulus that does not cause any response unless it is paired with a US and could be anything that is neutral in the test environment. The NS that was used was ringing the bell. The CS is when the NS and US are paired to produce a stimulus that causes the dog to react by salivating and this salivating from the CS is the CR.
This was a brilliant discovery because after the experiment has ended the sound of the ringing bell which was initially a neutral stimulus now causes the dog to salivate even without the presence of food producing a conditioned response. After further research, I have learned how this technique of pairing NS and US to produce CR can be used to treat addictions. For example, a study showed that this behavioral technique is used a way to reduce the risk of heroin addicts relapsing once they get out of rehab. This works by form of extinction which is shown in the Dog’s experiment. Extinction occurs after the ringing of the bell does not cause the dog to salivate after doing it several times without the presence of food because they have un-learned the association between the bell and food. This is used in the Cue Exposure Therapy in which drug addicts are exposed to environments that triggers them to crave the drugs without the presence of drugs. This is done in hopes that the learned association between the cues and the euphoria of the drug would weaken.
Terms: Classical Conditioning, alter, desirable behaviors, unconditioned stimulus (US), unconditioned response (UR), neutral stimulus (NS), conditioned stimulus (CS), conditioned response (CR), elicit, emits, extinction, association, cue exposure therapy.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html
http://www.learning-theories.com/classical-conditioning-pavlov.html
http://www.alternet.org/story/155008/pavlovian_conditioning_for_heroin_addicts%3A_how_manipulating_memory_can_treat_addiction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI

1) 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.
My topic that I picked is Extinction. Extinction occurs in situations that were previously reinforced but are no longer reinforced. This fits into the section we have covered because in the previous sections we learned about positive and negative reinforcement. Extinction takes a deeper look into what happens with reinforcement (like if you stop reinforcing) which I find interesting. The examples in the book didn’t make much sense to me so I looked up more examples. I found one that I better understood and decided that I liked this topic.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
The three aspects of Extinction that I would like to cover are extinction burst, operant conditioning and spontaneous recovery.
2) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
The first example I found of extinction that I really understood I found on study.com. “Imagine you work as a clerk at a local grocery store. A mother and her young son come in the store regularly. The child always screams when he is checking out, until the mother agrees to buy the child some candy. For a long time, you witness the mother buying candy during checkout so the child will stop screaming. Then, one day, you notice the mother refuses to buy the child candy. The child become increasingly upset when denied candy; however, a few weeks later, you see the mother and child at the store, and the child does not scream for candy.” (LINK POSTED BELOW). I related to this with my dog. He would whine and whine because he wanted to go outside, even though he didn’t have to go to the bathroom I would take him out so he would stop whining. Eventually I stopped taking him out because I knew he didn’t have to go to the bathroom he just wanted to explore outside. When I stopped taking him out he would throw a fit. He would whine, then he would pace, then he would poke me with his nose to try to get my attention. His reaction to me no longer taking him out was an extinction burst. The behavior increased because he was mad he was not getting his way. Operant conditioning took place when he had learned that whining made it so he could go outside to smell things and mess around. Then, because I no longer took him out his whining didn’t get him anywhere. He learned that whining no longer would get him what he wanted, so he stopped. (He is trained to ring a bell when he actually has to use the bathroom so he still can let me know when he HAS to go.) Eventually He started whining again and I of course felt bad so I let him out again. My dog starting to whine again is an example of spontaneous recovery. He stopped because it didn’t get him anywhere, but eventually he started to whine again.
3) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-extinction-in-conditioning-definition-lesson-quiz.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Spontaneous%20Recovery
Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Extinction, spontaneous recovery, extinction burst, operant conditioning, reinforcement, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement

1) 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.
For this week I decided that I would look into topographical vs. functional behavior because it is something that I think links all the behaviors that we are talking about in classes together. I was first drawn to the idea of topographical behaviors when I was reading the text where the examples of all the different types of waves were used. It is something that really makes a lot of sense but before I would have never considered waving a fly out of my face and waving goodbye to a friend to really have the same topographical behavior. I also felt this example made it much easier to understand the idea of a topographical behavior.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
For this week, I want to talk about the comparison of topographical and functional properties, what a functional behavior assessment is, and I also want to look at the link this has to autism. This third question about autism didn’t come to me until I started doing the research. I then noticed that a lot of the different articles that I was reading had different things associated with autism in them. This interested me the most because I actually work with people with intellectual and physical disabilities and a couple of them do have autism.
2) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
I read many articles besides the three of these and one thing that they all had in common was that the articles I read all agreed that one of the big things that was discussed was why it is important to look at more than just the topographical behavior a kid may show. One of their examples was, a student who finds academics to come easy to them may show a bad behavior when a teacher isn’t challenging them academically. This is one of the many reasons it is important to look at the bigger picture when it comes to behaviors, rather than just looking at what you see in front of you. One of the articles talked about the functional behavior assessment. This assessment looks at a variety of different things to help a person to better analyze a behavior. During my research of topographical and functional behavior I realized that autism had come up many times so I decided to research a little more about it. What I learned was that functional behavior analysis is the most widely used therapy in helping those with autism. The article also stated that they try not to use the topographical behaviors to look at these behaviors but rather looking at the why of them. As many of the articles talked about, there is often an underlying cause to the behaviors that people elicit. Another thing that was discussed throughout almost all the articles I read was how the antecedent, behavior, and consequences all related back to the topographical and functional behaviors. They chose to use the ABC’s as part of their analysis of pinpointing and targeting the behaviors. I found their use of the antecedent, behavior, and consequences to be intriguing about the idea of behavior modification. As I have talked about in other blogs, I find it interesting that behavior modification is all so interconnected. As I pointed out earlier, the articles talked about there often being an underlying issue and that it was important to look at more than just the bad behavior that kids often show. I found this to be the most useful thing that I read about. I think that this is an important fact to talk about and to realize that there is often a reason behind each and every behavior that we show. Whether it be doing what our parents what us to do so we are about to be reinforced or whether we are acting out as a way for attention to show we maybe don’t like a situation that is happening, it is all important. Of all the things that we discussed thus far, this is one of the biggest things I will be able to remember about this class and take away for future use. This is just another reason why I believe this is one of the most useful classes a person can take for their future.
3) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://cecp.air.org/fba/problembehavior/necessary.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis#Efficacy_in_autism
http://www.isbe.net/spec-ed/np_handouts/2012/session27.pdf
Definitions used: topographical, modification, behavior, functional, antecedent, elicit, consequence, and target behavior.

1) 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.
I am talking about cultural differences in hand gestures, and how it relates to the topographical and functional aspects of behavior. It has always interested me how a completely innocent hand gesture in one place is offensive in a different place.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
I am going to talk about the differences between the topographical and functional aspects, what hand gestures mean in America and what the mean in other countries, and how cultural differences apply to this.
2) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize* them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
This week we learned about behavioral classes, and how there are topographical and functional aspects to behavior. This means that while certain behaviors may look similar or the same to each other, they don’t have the same function, they don’t mean the same thing. This immediately made me think of hand gestures. Of course, we all have common hand gestures that we know. We know that thumbs up means good job, sticking your finger out and then bending it towards yourself means you are telling someone to come here, and holding up two fingers means “peace man”. However, in other countries, these can mean different things. According to one of my sources, “Fundamental differences among people arise from nationality, ethnicity, and culture, as well as from family background and individual experiences. These differences affect beliefs, practices, and behavior and also influence our expectations of one another.” These gestures I mentioned fall into this category of cultural differences. In the Middle East a thumbs up is essentially telling someone to “shove it up your ***”. In Asia using the finger signal for come here is a rude gesture and in Singapore it even symbolizes death. In England holding up two fingers is the equivalent of giving someone the middle finger here in the US. These behaviors have different meanings to different cultures. So while topographically they might look the same, functionally they are different for different cultures.

3) At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://www.aacounty.org/Partnership/Resources/Cultural_Differences.pdf
http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/5-common-american-gestures-that-might-insult-the-locals/
http://specialed.about.com/od/glossary/g/Topography-Of-Behavior.htm