What I would like you to do for this homework is to find some websites of a topic that interests you and that relates to behavior analysis.
1) Discuss in some detail how your topic relates to behavior analysis (it should be a topic in the text). Write a paragraph or two on what your text says about this topic.
2) Visit 3 sites that have information about your topic.
3) Organize your topic into a post that integrates the three sites and what else your text might have to say. Please try to incorporate the behavioral terms and concepts we are learning into your writing.
4) Make a list of course related terms you used in this post (this is to help get you focused on using behavioral terms in your regular writings).
5) Provide the 3 URLs
I decided to take things in a bit of a new direction this week. I was flipping through the index looking for something that would catch my eye. I found cultural norms and evolution. I find it interesting how things come to be law and the one true way of doing things. The book gave two great reason, or examples, of how something becomes a norm. The first of these was out of fear of being negatively reinforced. The food preferences were being tested in monkeys at a zoo. Of course monkeys prefer bananas to other, less appetizing foods, but they were curious what would happen if you paired the banana with something aversive. For this study they chose spraying the monkeys with water. As one might expect, from a behavioral stand point, the monkeys began to avoid the banana and attack any individual that dared go near it. After so much time they quit pairing water with the banana, but this did not put an end to their avoidance behavior. Although they recieved no aversive response to their going towards the banana, it was still considered "taboo" to try and have it. In the words of those doing the study, it had become a norm for them to avoid the banana, and the preference for banans, at least within this group, was lost. This is an example of when norms may be established out of fear or even as an attempt to avoid negative consequences. The second example the book gave was necessity. For those that do not know cows are considered holy in India. Many do not know where or why this developed, but according to Pierce and Cheney it was due to social need. Cows were needed for things such as milk and transporting goods. By eating them those living in India were killing off a good resource. The best way to handle this was to declare them holy and it became wrong to eat them. I was looking at some video of our "social norms" and can't help but wonder where they come from or how they developed. Some schools had done, were doing, projects on violations of social norms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY-nw-79aQM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s76ezfUEBM0&feature=related
As far as the second like goes, it is a video about a girl that walks her friend outside and inside mall on a leash like a dog. Of course this goes against what we normally think is ok by society's standards, but surprisingly nobody really says or tries to do anything about it. I am not sure if this is simply because much of society is desensitized or if in reality individuals do not carry the same norms as the world they live in does. Either way I found the videos kind of shocking and amusing. I just wasn't expecting Americans to be so "ok" with what these people were doing. It seems to me that social norms just aren't held as highly as they once were, or maybe their reasons for being created are not longer needed. This is kind of like the monkeys and the bananas. They may have continued to avoid it for a while even after the punishment was removed, but this doesn't mean they would avoid it forever. I think this could be said about some of our norms. Once they no longer serve a purpose, I think some of them will fade.
On a more serious note I was doing some more information searching and found out more about norms in general. For example on one site I found that there are six different kinds of norms:
1.Injunctive-behaviors accepted by society
2.Descriptive-this is just the way people view one as behaving
3.Expicit-Norms actually written down or spoken
4.Implicit-not made aware of until you break one
5.Subjective-The way people expect or believe you should behave
6.Personal- The way WE feel WE should behave ourselves.
According to this site it is easy to administer norms within your own groups and many groups you see today have their own. By simply positively reinforcing the desired behavior and possibly negatively reinforcing the undesired ones, you can develop norms. In this sense norms are created in much the same way as any behavior is. If you want to learn more about the site I was on visit: http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/social_norms.htm
I guess before this little discovery I went on I always thought there was more to the creation of norms than this. I mean ther are of course standards on to an extent it takes more than one person to establish a "code", but overall it is quite simple. I guess the one thing that still gets me is indiviual differences. How does one decide what is okay and what is not. Like walking the girl as a dog. Where was anyone taught that it was ok? Or in the first video, where did anyone learn that it is ok to just walk away from someone who may be hurt? I suppose like most things dealing with behavior, there will always be more to study and more to learn.
I think this fits in well with a post I did not too long ago about avoidance. If we as people are punished for interacting a certain way, or offering certain behaviors we will be punished. This fear of punishment leads to great efforts of avoidance and behavior changes. In this respect, following norms isn't necessarily a deep, thoughtfelt thing, but just another operant behvavior.
Terms: norms, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, avoidance, pairing, punishment, operant behavior
1. This week I chose to look into self control and impulsive behaviors. I find it interesting how some people always act upon impulses and others maintain complete self control. Impulsive behavior and self control are both aspects of personal behavior. The text gives the example in chapter nine of a student having to choose between going to a party of staying home to study. When the person chooses the immediate payoff of going to the party they are playing on their impulse. They wanted to go to the party so they did and were rewarded. If the student stays home and studies they are selecting the delayed benefit or long-term payoff and are playing on self control. The text then goes on to discuss how to reverse your preference in order to receive the long term benefit rather than the impulsive short term. Preference reversal is when the person makes a commitment to themselves to skip the impulsive behavior and be rewarded after studying. In order for this to work there needs to be a long term reward and some planning. The student could go to a party the week before the test and study the week of the test. When the test is over they then would be rewarded in some way; by going out to dinner etc.
3. I visited two different sites that talked about impulsive behavior and self control and then found a video of impulsive behavior. The first site is a small article about impulsive behavior and how impulsivity is a sign of Bipolar Disorder. The article defines impulsivity as acting on your impulses. Some examples would be spending sprees, driving recklessly, binge eating, yelling, threatening others, shoplifting and getting into fights with others. The article also says that mindfulness is a main area that can be treated. If the person is more mindful of surroundings, consequences, and their actions they will be less likely to act on their impulses. This relates to the text in that having a plan with a delayed reward can help to be more mindful.
The second site I found is an article about a study that was done to a four year old girl. The researchers asked her to come into a game room. When she was there they told her she could have a marshmallow (her favorite) now or wait until the researcher came back and have two marshmallows. If she chose to wait she was able to ring a bell at any time and the researcher would come running back and she could have one marshmallow forfeiting the second. In this case the girl waited and got two marshmallows. (Honestly who only eats two marshmallows?) The next example in this article was about the girls’ five year old brother. He was asked to enter the same room but was offered toys instead of treats. He said he would wait and get two toys but the pressure of waiting made him crack and he broke into the desk and took all of the toys. Most children will behave like this little boy and act on their instincts or impulses. It kind of reminds me of the Breland article about animals and their instincts. The boy knew what he said he was going to do but he also knew he could get all of the toys out of the desk and acted on his instinct.
The video explains how children learn how to handle their emotions while in the developmental stage of growth. When they are at this young age they don’t have the ability to problem solve so they act on their instincts which might be to hit yell etc to get attention. The video gives the example of Alex who when entering preschool acted on his impulses and had a hard time making friends. He then started to understand how to use self control and tell others what he would like instead of acting on it. The video then describes triggers that parents can see to prevent an impulsive behavior. The first thing to do is to take the child away from the situation and talk about what happened and what could be different next time. This relates to punishment in that it the person or animal needs to be taken out of the situation and immediately punished or rewarded. Delayed rewards and punishments are less effective.
4. Impulsive behavior, self control, preference reversal, instincts, bipolar disorder, developmental stage, and punishment.
5. http://bpd.about.com/od/understandingbpd/a/impulseBPD.htm
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eynTsO_Dx48
After thinking about behavior analysis I decided to do some research on video modeling. Video modeling is a type of observational learning and it involves individuals learning by imitating the behavior they see on a television screen. This type of modeling is something that has become very popular in our society today. Many people learn dance routines, exercises for weight loss, even different languages by modeling what they see and hear from a video. It is quickly becoming a front runner in learning in today’s era. The book does not specifically discuss video modeling but it does put great detail into observational learning. The text gives a great example of correspondence relations (where an individual watches a performance and then replicates the performance later) between adults and teenagers. Often adults will watch their teenager’s dancing and then repeat various aspects of their performance when they are alone with other adults their own age. The text also mentions spontaneous imitation and delayed imitation, both of which are a form of observational learning. Spontaneous imitation involves an individual imitating others as a way of adapting to their environment and maintaining survival. Delayed imitation involves remembering the behavior they observed and performing it at a later time. This can directly relate to learning languages through videos with the fact that the individual often repeats what they learn when they speak to others.
The first site I found relating to video modeling is promoting a computer software that has been shown to help children with Autism Spectrum Disorder learn necessary social and communication skills. As the site says, the video modeling allows the children to observe appropriate behaviors on a monitor and, through repetition, learn to model those behaviors in day-to-day, real-life situations. Video modeling has been shown to be the most effective form of learning when it comes to children with this type of disorder.
http://www.socialskillbuilder.com/articles/video-modeling-research.html
The second site I found gives a brief overview of six different scientific articles that relate to video modeling. Each one discusses how video modeling has been shown to be a positive learning tool when it comes to teaching students various skills such as spelling, literacy, social skills, and verbal and motor responses. It shows how students of all ages, from elementary school to high school, are able to effectively use video modeling to learn to skills and new behaviors. What I found interesting is that 85 percent of teachers found that students were more engaged when a television was used as a hands-on teaching tool. Many teachers often refrain from using videos when teaching their students but the teachers that have used it seem to love it. Plus, there are many students that have been shown to learn better when the learning is hands-on rather than lecturing.
http://www.special-kids.com/VIDEOLEARNING.cfm
The last website I found was a video promoting Accelerations Educational Software. This software is used to teach autistic kids various life skills such as brushing their hair, tying shoes, and buttoning their pants. It also teaches fine motor skills, imaginative play and social interactive skills. It teaches the children having them imitate what is on the screen while allowing them to learn hands-on as well. It is one of the most well-known and effective programs for autistic children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjzc3ZYFIAk&feature=PlayList&p=D7A486071E290598&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3
Terminology: observational learning, modeling, video modeling, imitation, spontaneous imitation, delayed imitation, behavior analysis.
I was interested in a practical uses in behavioral analysis for children with autism. I found some information about treating it. The research found explained how trial procedures do not generalize from training situations to everyday situations. There were a few methods to help teach children with autism listed. The website listed “child-initiated instructional sequences, task analysis and chaining to teach skills involving sequences of actions or steps, and instructional trials embedded in ongoing activities.” http://www.behavior.org/autism/ . This website discusses how being positive with the children and making the learning environment more enjoyable were some of the key aspects of applied behavioral analysis. They ideas they use are reinforcers, instructions, different materials to develop each individual life skill. Each child is different, so each child is given a different curriculum. The website discusses how the behavior analyst trains everyone so throughout the child’s life is consistent. Also, the parents should be trained as well. The author talked about how they do not reinforce maladaptive behaviors, and they teach appropriate behaviors in its place. I assumed this would be one of the key aspects of applied behavior analysis treatment.
The website http://autism.healingthresholds.com/therapy/applied-behavior-analysis-aba says the goal of applied behavioral analysis is to find out what triggers a behavior and what reinforces that behavior. If it is a negative behavior, applied behavior analysis aims to remove the triggers. Some of the treatments are included here (copied and pasted from the website).
Discrete Trial Training: Training that focuses on a single cycle of a behaviorally-based instruction routine, or in other words, one round of trying a behavior.
Incidental Teaching: Uses concepts throughout a child’s day-to-day experience, rather than focusing on a specific behavior.
Pivotal Response Training: Type of training in which certain behaviors are assumed to be crucial for other behaviors. These pivotal behaviors are then targeted so that the behaviors that depend upon them can change as well.
Fluency Building: Building up complex behaviors by teaching each element of those behaviors until they require less effort.
Verbal Behavior: Use of ABA methods to help a child improve language skills.
Then next site I found had a very interesting paragraph. http://www.autismweb.com/aba.htm discussed how many applied behavior analysis programs use prompts in there trials. Prompts are physical examples of the behavior. Another part of these trials that I found interesting, and I thought was a really good idea that I never have come across before is making sure to pause in between commands so the child does not get the trials mixed up and confused. The interesting part of this website talks about a technique called “errorless learning.” In this technique, they teacher will never tell the child no. Rather than that, the child will be helped to figure out the correct response every time. Then, the prompts will be “gradually reduced” so the child will finally be able to get the behavior on their own.
Terminology: behavioral analysis, generalize, child-initiated instructional sequences, task analysis, chaining, instructional trials, applied behavioral analysis, reinforcers, maladaptive behaviors, treatment, triggers, behavior, negative behavior, discrete trial training, incidental training, pivotal response training, fluency building, verbal behavior, prompts, commands, errorless learning,
I was skimming the index and ran across teaching autistic children. Autistic children show an early lack of social interaction with parents, family members, and peers. When they get older they may be mistaken as deaf because they don;t talk or establish eye contact when being talked to. Ivar Lovaas has been working on the treatment of autism since the 1960s. Lovaas describes intense behavioral interventions that increase social behavior, teach the child to speak, and eliminate self-stimulation. When the treatment was applied to autistic children less than 30 months old, 50% of them were later indistinguishable from normal non-autistic children. There are no other improvements like this one that has had such an improvement in results.
http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage
What I really liked about this website is the section of Autism through the lifespan. A lot of information is how to help children with autism, what triggers it, its symptoms, etc., but they need help throughout their whole life. It describes the planning process that should be established:
1. Lifestyle
2. Legal
3. Financial
4. Government Benefits
Lifestyle planning is where the family records what they want for the future of their loved one. This information is recorded in a document called the "Letter of Intent." Although not a legal document, it is just as important as a Will and Special Needs Trust. These issues require decisions of where the person will live, continued education programs, employment, social activities, religious affiliation, medical care, behavior management, advocacy and/or guardianship, trustees, and final arrangements.
Legal planning provides for the family to state their wishes as to the distribution of their assets and appointing executors to settle their estate. In conjunction with this, a trust is usually executed to provide professional money management (trustees, guardians), maintain government benefits, and protect the assets left for the individual. The "Irrevocable" Special Needs Trust is the most commonly used document to provide supplemental funds for the exclusive benefit of the person with a disability (my special needs uncle has this trust as well, so I know many of the rules that go along with this account). The assets are not in the name of the person, so they will not cause the loss of SSI (Supplemental Security Income) health care benefits.
Financial planning is used to determine the supplemental needs of the person. First, a monthly budget is established based on "today's" needs while perparing for the future. The family then determines how much money is needed to fund the trust. The life expectancy of the person must be considered and then the need projected into the future using an inflation factor.
Government entitlements play a key role in the lives of many persons with special needs by providing cash and health care benefits under SSI (Supplemental Security Income), SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance), Medicaid, and Medicare. A basic understanding of federal and state entitlement programs is essential in order to be sure that the person gets all that they are qualified to receive and that assets received from family members through gifts, inheritance, and litigation do not result in the disqualification and termination of government benefits or the government claiming reimbursement for benefits provided from assets received by the person.
http://www.slc.sevier.org/autbehav.htm
I like the setup of this website. It was organized into categories: Obsession and ritual, stereotyped behavior, challenging behavior and tantrums, Education and Social Interaction, Education and Communication, Education and Language, and Daily Life Therapy. I did not find the daily life therapy in the other sites, so I will discuss this therapy. Daily life therapy and the Higashi school in Boston are often referred to in the media when discussing autism. Reports suggest it is an effective and productive method of supporting individuals with autism and there is a high demand for places and high costs. This therapy program combines physical exercise, structure and a bias towards the arts. The school aims to develop basic communication skills and apply them in a social context. Physical exercise improves the attention and interaction of children with autism and has few distractions where they can function more comfortably.
http://www.autism.com/
This website is the autism research institute. It provides many research articles related to autism for individuals, families, and providers. I chose to read "Choosing the Right Job for People with Autism or Asperger's Syndrome." Some job tips include:
-Jobs that have a well-defined goal or endpoint.
-Sell your work, not your personality. Make a portfolio of your work.
-The boss must recognize the social limitations.
It is important that Autistic/Asperger's people pick a college major in an area where they can get jobs. Computer science is a good choice because it is very likely that many of the best programmers have either Asperger's syndrome or some of its traits. Other good majors include: accounting, engineering, library science, and art (emphasis on commercial art and drafting). Majors in history, political science, business, English or pure math should be avoided.
behavioral analysis, self-stimulation, social behavior, treatment, triggers, symptoms, behavior, planning, Asperger's, communication.
1) I decided to look and Anorexia Nervosa. I am really interested in this disease and how it starts because working in the elementary school system I see it happening sooner and sooner. The book talks about it in relationship to taste aversion. It says that and increase in physical activity (exercising to lose weight) can lead to appetite suppression. Which can then lead to taste aversion learning in humans. In rats wheel running was causes nausea after eating and so they began to eat less and then the taste of the food became associated with the feeling of sickness.
3) The first site that I went to talked about what Anorexia nervosa was and what the causes of it were. It did not talk about taste aversion but about the control that people with this disorder desire. It says that most of the time people feel that thier life is out of control and they feel that thier body and weight or among the few things that they can control.
The second website is a discussion thread about college students and alcohol. It talks about a study that questioned them about drinking too much and getting sick and about having food poisoning. It found that most humans attributed the illness to something else rather than the food or the alcohol. So it seems like humans can manipulate thier taste aversion to benefit thier anorexic habits just like the text suggests.
The final article discusses the same thing the text did about the taste aversion in rats and how running on the wheel caused this aversion.
4) Anorexia Nervousa, Taste Aversion, Appetite Supression, Conditioned.
5)http://www.raderprograms.com/the-problem/causes
http://www.mail-archive.com/tips@fre.fsu.umd.edu/msg07414.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8778854
This week I am choosing to discuss the use of visual schedules in children, especially in autistic and problem children.
http://appliedbehavioranalysis.blogspot.com/
The first website I visited ended up being my favorite. It’s a blog created by Angela Mouzakitis. Angela is a professor in the early childhood special education program at CUNY Hunter College. She is also a certified school psychologist, a special education teacher and a behavior analyst. In this site she discusses current topics of interest in applied behavior analysis that relate to her day-to-day experience with children and families. One of her most recent blogs was on the benefits of visual schedules. She defines a visual schedule as an environmental modification that supports a child’s understanding of their day, week, month, etc. They can be incorporated into a child’s day using pictures, words, and symbols. Variable schedules can be used for any children but are especially helpful in children with disabilities. Angela used the example of her own 20 month old daughter. For her daughter to understand her day-to-day activities she made a visual flow checklist of what they had planned on a dry erase board. With each picture she would also say a few trigger words. It took a few days for her daughter to catch on, but once she did she remembered a lot more about their daily activities than she did prior to using the visual schedule. Angela measured this by asking questions and the end of the day and seeing how many she would get correct.
All of us need visual schedules and a lot of times we use them without realizing it. Children with autism or other similar disorders often get frustrated or confused when trying to understand simple tasks. This is when a visual schedule can come in handy. Seeing pictures or symbols that they understand relieves the frustration and helps them channel their energy toward something more productive. Also, visual systems do not need to map out every single aspect of the child’s day. Pictures and symbols can be used for just a portion of the day, holidays, the weekend, vacation, appointments, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO6dc7QSQb4
The second site is a link to a video. If you don’t quite understand the concept of visual schedules that Angela described, watch this. The video shows some examples of visual schedules that individuals with autism can use. It stresses that breaking basic living skills as well as academic skills down into small steps makes them easier to perform. This is similar to what Angela taught us.
One part of the video that I found very interesting was that it stressed using the computer as a learning tool for children with autism. Programs can be customized for each individual child helping them learn at their own pace. As Pryor mentioned in the final chapter of her text, the advancement of technology led to new methods of teaching and training. The example she used in her text was clicker training.
http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/articles/2009/jaba-42-02-0309.pdf
The final site I found is a research paper on the effects of visual schedules in problem children as well as the effects of extinction and differential reinforcement of other behavior. The researchers evaluated two 6 year old boys diagnosed with autism. They observed the problem behavior the children had when transitioning from preferred to nonpreferred activities. Both of the boys were taught to use visual schedules. However, after using them, the boys would continue to throw objects, push furniture over, etc. when transitioning activities. As originally hypothesized, the researchers found that the visual schedules alone were ineffective in reducing problem behavior. The research suggests that visual schedules might enhance the effects of extinction and differential reinforcement of other behaviors, but extinction must be present for the visual schedules to be successful.
When reading, I was unfamiliar with the term differential reinforcement of other behavior, or DRO. In the textbook, DRO refers to reinforcement for any behavior other than a target operant. By reinforcing a new and different behavior, the target behavior is on extinction.
Also, when treating children with autism, the textbook refers to the ABC school. The ABC school is a communication-based school for autistic children started by Joe Morrow and Brenda Terzich. Although they didn’t exactly suggest using ‘visual schedules’ for treatment, Level 1 of their school involves trials where the teacher will present the student with a stimulus (picture, symbol, etc.) and reinforce the correct response. This is very similar to the visual schedules described by Angela Mouzakitis and in the video as well.
Visual schedules, differential reinforcement of other behavior, extinction, stimulus
1) For this divergence I chose to do differences among cultures. There are several hundred different cultures, and all of them manage to have extremely different norms and ethos.
It is said that culture often begins with the individual. There is an innovator among these individuals. A culture forms around these innovations and they are gradually accepted as norms, thus making the culture. It is important to study culture because from this we can figure out programs and contingencies to enact to help aid our community.
What I was more focused on in this divergence were cultural practices. Mainly, while thinking about cultural practices I've come to think about a practice typical in the college world. That practice is binge drinking, or drinking just for the sake of getting drunk.
My book says cultural practices are very similar to operants. Both are selected by consequences. The pattern of these behaviors from the interlocking behaviors of all members of the culture reinforce the practice.
3) Firstly, I visted a site that was extremely against binge drinking. It provided a lot of useful facts about college drinking, dependencies, deaths, and so on. It very much goes against the cultural practice of binge drinking amongst college students. I think these facts that the gov. site presents are very relevant, even scary. However, it seems as if this won't revert many students from partaking in the highly anticipated weekly event.
College students don't wish to change their behaviors and stop binge drinking. In reference to operant conditioning, we don't much think about the consequences of what this amount of booze will do to a persons body. An operant, however, could be a hangover. Many college students will take this consequence in order to binge the night before.
As stated numerous times in SIRC.org (3rd reference) drinking amongst college students, and non college students, is a social gathering. Drinking defines many situations we're in. The mere thought of booze on a Friday afternoon sets the tone for the rest of the night, it's party time. The same can also be said about a bar, or a house party. All of these lead to an easy going, enjoyable, exciting time with friends. Which is what students really want after working and doing school work all week.
Binge drinking can get a little out of control, moderately checked however, it can be a fun tool that doesn't always lead to death, drunk driving, and unprotected sex.
4) operant conditioning, consequence, reward, cultural norms, cultural practices
5) http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/
A very large array of college drinking stats. Mainly, it is the basic "boo college drinkers" website. A government attempt to shape the behaviors and thoughts of the masses.
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/behsys/operant.html
A informative site about operant conditioning and its beginning practitioners. Also has really good information on reinforcement schedules.
http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking6.html
A really great, extremely informative website about the cultural aspects of drinking, it uses, symbolism, effects etc..
After discussing Skinner’s article in class and seeing superstitious behaviors in my own life and the people’s around me, I decided to look into the area a little more. In class, we discussed superstitious behavior and what makes a behavior a superstitious one. It was interesting hearing how far people were willing to stretch what could be a superstitious behavior. I’ve also watched myself and boyfriend exhibit superstitious behaviors. My favorite was the other day when he decided he couldn’t watch the basketball game anymore because they were only doing good when he wasn’t watching. It made me smile to watch him get anxious and know that he was just doing this to himself (of course I couldn’t tell him that…)
I found three outside sources that discussed superstitious behavior. The first was a Youtube video from Richard Dawkins Enemies of Reason. The second was an article describing superstitious behaviors, how they form and how to decide what makes a behavior a superstitious one. The last was another site explaining more examples of superstitious behaviors as well as older superstitious behaviors in history.
The video starts by discussing Skinner’s experiment that we read in our article for class. The experiment with the pigeons is shown and explained. Dawkins describes how the pigeons were rewarded at random and thus could wait for the reinforcement without doing anything; however no pigeon seemed to do this. His example uses a pigeon being reinforced after looking over its shoulder. After being reinforced a second time for the same behavior, the pigeon begins to frantically look over its shoulder. Dawkins then goes on to relate superstitious behaviors to humans. He explains that often the things we do for luck are superstitions. We use these beliefs and behaviors to create meaning in our lives and oftentimes help to create the sense that there is an organizing effect around us.
The article, starts with a few examples of superstitious behavior (like skipping cracks on the sidewalk, knocking on wood, reading your horoscope) and explains that a recent poll reports more than half of Americans admit to being a little superstitious. The part of the article that I enjoyed was the explanation that not all rituals are superstitions. I found this great to read because it felt in times during class that we were stretching some examples to be superstitious behavior. The author explained that rituals can comforting and relaxing rather than superstitions and performed to help one be lucky. Anxiety was referenced as the difference between a rituals and a superstitious behaviors, as superstitions can be very anxiety provoking. However, anxiety disorders like OCD are not linked with superstition, but with irrational thinking. Like in the Dawkins video, the article links superstitious behaviors and thoughts to a desire to be in control. Finally, the article describes how these behaviors can have a placebo effect and thus make one do well because they believe they will after performing the behavior.
Lastly, the site explains many examples of superstitions. Crossing your fingers for good luck, moving around when bowling in hopes it influences the ball, and the rain dance. I enjoyed reading about the rain dance and had never thought of that as an example of superstitious behavior. The author explains how one person dancing in hopes of rain and being rewarded with rain shortly after the dance can quickly become a superstitious behavior of an entire culture. Finally, the author talks a little about B.F. Skinner and his work with pigeons.
Superstition, reinforcement, placebo effect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XbH78wscGw
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=46749
http://www.essortment.com/all/superstitiousbe_rsqz.htm