Week #16 Final Assignment (Due Day of Scheduled Class Final)

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For the Final assignment you will be asked to develop a product, service, etc. based on the behavioral science you have been learning in class this semester.

While we are interested in the product, we are mostly interested in the science behind it, and the depth you researched the science behind it and your command of the science.

Imagine we are potential investors and scientists, you have to really sell the product to us by selling the science. The more different areas you cover, the better.

Other than that this is a fairly open ended assignment as it is up to you to put this together, how you want to present it.

The final is worth 40 points. As such it should show twice the work as a topical blog. Let us know if you have any questions.

Make a list of the terms and concepts at the bottom of the post.

The assignment is worth up to 40 points. So make sure it has double the work required for a 20 point assignment. http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/grading.html

Please let us know if you have any questions.

--Dr. M

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For the behavior modification project, I selected for my target behavior to emit more cardiovascular exercise in my weekly workout routines. I will start with the ABC's of behavior modification, the antecedent would be the gym, and the behavior class is running, walking, jogging, doing gymnastics, walking to class, riding a bike, doing the elliptical, and rock climbing. The consequence is to lose weight, tone my muscles, increase my heart health, gain endurance and speed, and get my six pack abs back. Working out has been a huge part of my life since middle school when I could start sports and start weight lifting. My uncle and dad both did bodybuilding and it is expected of my sister and I to be fit as well.

To begin this process, I had to go through the need for self-directed behavior steps. Step one is to set the goal/target behavior which I have already stated what that goal is. Step two is to define/specify the goal as a set of target behaviors like the previously stated behavior classes. The third step is to keep a record, which I wrote it in a notebook and also took pictures of the times and for how long I elicited the behavior. Step four is to graph a baseline and the other weeks which I did on Microsoft Excel. For the baseline of week one, there was not reinforcement being used to elicit the target behavior. For week one, the baseline week, I emitted an average of 192 minutes a day of cardiovascular exercise. For the other weeks it was time to implement behavior intervention. That said, a reinforcer needed to be selected which I chose sweets, or extra weight lifting after I emitted cardio. I decided to use continuous reinforcement as my B.F. Skinner's schedule of reinforcement instead of fixed or variable, and ratio or interval intermittent reinforcement. I chose to use positive reinforcement instead of punishment since I want to increase my frequency of the behavior. Which adding in the reinforcers, this in step five which is determining contingencies. The average minutes for week two was 237.86, and for week three, 210 minutes. Step six is determine antecedents, which the environments were work, class, and the gym, which I decided to schedule more hours at work, go to the gym for longer, and take longer routes to walk to class. For the final step to implement and adjust the contingencies, I rewarded myself differently by either allowing myself to eat some sweets or dark chocolate, or by allowing myself to get to weight lift if I do the right amount of cardio beforehand.

To not give up on the process and to choose the right goal, one has to look at the importance of goals. It has to be realistic, a manageable time-frame, sub goals, is it achievable, is there the ability, is it manageable, is it disruptive, keeping maintenance, and very importantly is a support base. I believe that mine fit well with the criteria of all the specifics of the importance of goals. I made it realistic, knew I could do it in the right time frame, very achievable and manageable, and it was not disruptive except that I had to change some of my plans and regular behavior to focus more on making sure I could achieve my goal. I stuck with it, but did cheat a few times and did not do as many minutes as desired, and had a great support base since my friends would also emit the behavior with me and were positive reinforcements as well.

I did notice that week two was the best week I elicited the desired target behavior, and assumed that the baseline week would have the aversive average amount of minutes. The third week’s average’s frequency of the behavior did decrease on some days. This project was actually pleasurable rather than aversive, and I will get to use this outside of the classroom and apply it to my daily life the rest of my life whether it is to modify my family’s behavior, my own, my students that I coach, my friends, and my boyfriend.

Terms-Behavior modification, target behavior, emit, elicit, antecedent, behavior class, consequence, baseline, reinforcement, behavior intervention, reinforcer, continuous reinforcement, B.F. Skinner, schedule of reinforcement, fixed, variable, ratio, interval, need for self-directed behavior steps, determine contingencies, importance of goals, positive reinforcement, support base, maintenance, disruptive, manageable, achievable, ability, realistic, time frame, frequency, punishment, aversive, desired, decrease in frequency, pleasurable, modify

For my behavior modification project I decided that I wanted to start working out. I have been meaning to do so since I had my daughter 6 months ago and figured now is the time to do so. The Behavioral Goal I chose was to Exercise. Now to be more specific my Target Behavior was to run/lift for an hour and a half, 4 days out of the week. It didn’t matter how long I ran or how much I lifted, just as long as I was doing one of the two for that amount of time. To record my Baseline I needed something that I would always have on me and never forget, so I chose to use an app on my phone called notes. Since I kept track of my own progress using my phone, this was a Direct Assessment. For the graph of the Baseline, the Dependent Measure (y-axis) was the number of minutes I exercised and the X-Axis was the days of the week. For the following 2 weeks I started the Behavioral Intervention. The purpose of this project was to increase the amount of working out. So I decided to use Positive Reinforcement because I wanted to increase the behavior of working out. In order for me to get off my butt and workout I needed a continuous reinforcer. A friend and I decided to get the membership together and hanging out with her would be my reinforcement. I also had a second reinforcer, which would be tanning. I love tanning but I don’t like to tan for long periods of time. I plan to continue this project but don’t want to have tanning be a Continued Reinforcer. In two weeks I plan to lean out since it is not healthy for your skin. In the first week I ran into the issue of not being prepared to work out. I would plan on going on my way home from work, but forgot clothes, or I would go home to change and ended up in my pajamas. One of the steps is to determine Antecedents and from the previous week I knew I needed to change something. I started to put my workout clothes in my purse. Or I would put clothes out the night before (in front of the door) so that I would not forget it. Part of the way through my behavior modification I realized that with school, work, being a mom, and house-hunting, that going 4 days a week was Unrealistic. I brought it down to 3 days a week, so I did not have a lot of pressure on me to work out, and if I couldn’t go one day I had 4 other days to make up for it. After my second week with reinforcement I did a Functional Assessment. In this case I needed to perform an intervention and to do so I looked at the Topography and Functionality of working out. The Topography was exercising, however I found multiple functions of exercising such as: getting fit, be in shape, get out of the house, stress relief, to socialize, etc. I knew for myself it was a combination of things, but the main reason for me to work out was to be healthier, socializing and de-stressing was just icing on the cake. Instead of going with my friend I decided that I should stop going with her as to not get distracted and so that when I move I can go on my own. I found that taking out this reward I was more inclined to go. I think this helped because I did not have to work around her schedule.


Terms:
Behavioral goal, target behavior, Baseline, direct assessment, Dependent measure, X-axis, behavioral intervention, positive reinforcement, continuous reinforced, lean out, antecedent, unrealistic, functional assessment, topography, functionality

My behavioral change project was to EMIT more BEHAVIORS of exercise. Whether that was to run more each time I worked out or to do an extra ab work out. For the purpose of this project, I noted each time I went to the gym and if I went four times or more each week, I REINFORCED myself with a dessert on Fridays. For the purposes of the graph I have completed, I counted going to the gym one day a week, working out for one hour a week. The behavioral change project was really important for me and I took it very seriously- I really had a behavior I wanted to elicit- working out more often!

What we first learned in class were the ABC’s of a behavior. For my project, the ABC’s are as followed: The ANTECEDENT was going to the gym, the BEHAVIOR was working out, and the CONSEQUENCE was losing weight/being more toned and fit. We are usually unaware that every behavior we EMIT is always followed by a CONSEQUENCE, whether positive or negative. Something else we learned extensively in class was how each behavior we EMIT is governed by two basic behavioral principles; REINFORCEMENT and PUNISHMENT. In my case, since my CONSEQUENCE is positive for me, I am being REINFORCED for working out.

There are many different SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT. These schedules are based off of when you are REINFORCED for a behavior. For example, if you are get a piece of candy every single time you raise your hand in class, you are being CONTINUOUSLY REINFORCED. Obviously, I am not reinforced every day after I leave the gym. It takes a while to see results and see my weight loss / body toned and I do not get my REINFORCER unless I work out 4 times a week. Therefore, my behavioral change project fits into the category of FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE of REINFORCEMENT. If I work out 4 times each week, I get reinforced on Friday. This is an example of a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE.

SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR is when we decide on our own if we want to increase or decrease a certain behavior. We are able to choose our own goals and our own REINFORCERS. Self-directed behavior is, in my case, working out. Nobody is forcing me to work out and nobody picked my goal or REINFORCER for me. We use self-directed behavior to reach our goals. Many goals fail because they are too broad or they involve PUNSIHERS rather than reinforcers. We learned that it is best to redefine our behaviors so we are rather reinforced than punished. This is DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER(DRO). There are seven steps to achieve SELF-DIRECTED GOALS. I will briefly explain the first five steps and how it fits into my behavioral change project.

Step 1 is to set a goal. This cannot to too broad and should not involve PUNISHERS. My goal is to lose weight and become more fit/toned. Step 2 is to specify the goal. When you are specifying the goal, it must be "PRECISE, MANAGABLE, MEASUREABLE, AND FIT YOUR DAILY LIFESTYLE." My specified goal is to lose weight and become more fit/toned by going to the WRC four times each week and participating in any work out, whether it be cardio, abs, swimming, etc. For my lifestyle, working out 4 times a week is manageable, but I found out that work and studying usually overcomes my exercise time. Step 3 is to keep a record. For this class, it was easy to keep a record in a notebook or even just to remember. I wrote down each day whether I worked out at the gym or not and at the end of the week, if I worked out enough to get my REINFORCER, I was then reinforced. Step 4 is to graph a BASELINE. What this means is to record your behaviors when you are not being reinforced. I recorded my behaviors for not being reinforced for one week. Step 5 is to determine CONTINGENCIES. This follows the week after recording my BASELINE working out behavior. This is when I chose my reinforcer to be a dessert once a week and then I really began the project by working out and then being reinforced for it.

Overall, this behavioral change project opened my eyes in a few ways. This class has truly taught me so much about how it is possible to MODIYF a behavior and it makes it easy. Something I would like to point out about my specific behavioral change project was that I don’t think it “worked” the way it was supposed to. In general, I did work out more often because I was thinking about this class and this project frequently. But what I mean by it didn’t work out is that during the intervention when I was being reinforced, my hours/days worked out should have increased and they didn’t. I really don’t think that had anything to do with my reinforcer, (a dessert on Friday was still nice), but it depended more on my life schedule. I work frequently and if I work until midnight, I cannot go to the gym that late. On another point, I went back to my hometown for two out of the four weekends we were doing this project, where I don’t belong to a gym so I didn’t get time to go to a gym. Although I completely understand the point of this project and I know how to do it in the future with different TARGET BEHAVIORS, my project just didn’t turn out the way I wanted it. Another thing I wanted to point out was that during the project, I kept track of if I went to the gym or not, not a specific number of hours. Because when I work out I’m almost always there for 1 hour, I simply converted my “yes” to “1 hour” t make it easier to read on a graph.

Terms: emit, behaviors, reinforced, elicit, antecedent, consequence, punishment, continuous reinforcement, fixed interval, self-directed behavior, DRO, self-directed goals, “precise, manageable, fit our daily life, measureable” baseline, contingencies, modify, behavioral change project, target behavior

My behavioral goal for this assignment was overall to get my sleep schedule back on track since it has been so messed up for so long. I have never been very talented at keeping up with self-directed behavior, so this assignment was a challenge for me. The specific target behavior was to go to bed at a specified time and see how that would affect my overall sleep schedule. I feel as if the baseline was more successful than the end result. At first the goal was to go to bed no later than 2 am since my previous bedtime had been usually around 3-4am. The first couple of days I hadn't emitted this behavior very successfully. Only four times did I meet my self-directed goal. I can't say exactly what it was that kept me up, but I feel as if I didn't have the proper antecedent for heading to bed at the desired time. I didn't really try to get myself tired or use any sort of method that would help me fall asleep sooner. Plus I was online chatting with friends and watching Netflix, which can negatively influence my behavior. Once I applied the reinforcement, which was reading 10 pages of a book I really liked, it seemed to help elicit my behavioral goals for a short amount of time. The reinforcement didn't last very long and wasn't quite effective after the span of a few days when I started to fall behind on my reading, which meant I had less and less time to catch up. However, the lack of a fixed ratio reinforcement didn't hinder me from meeting my goals. I felt that the corrected sleep schedule I was receiving was reinforcement enough to encourage me to keep going. Despite having a failed reward, the consequences were not negatively affected. Once I had gone a full week of meeting my 2 am bedtime goal, I cut the time frame down a bit to 1:30 am. That didn't go as smoothly as before. I never did go a full week of meeting a 1:30 am bedtime; the closest I got was 4 consecutive days at two different times, then it was disrupted. It seemed realistic enough of a goal to keep, but having to work until midnight on some shifts and having to stay up and study or do homework for other classes made keeping these goals nearly impossible. Extinction of the reinforcer didn't affect hardly anything since the reinforcer was already difficult to continue. Near the end, it just spiraled out of control with the upcoming finals and the goal became harder and harder to meet. However, this project was not a complete failure. The functionality of getting a proper night's sleep in a determined time line had helped me get at least somewhat of a more controlled sleep schedule into my life. The topography of the experiment was simple enough that I could easily reenact this experiment again when classes start up next semester. This assignment taught me not only about my own behavior modification, but other-directed behavior as well. Based on what I've heard from other students in the project, some found it easy if they had a buddy with them doing the same task they were. Having a friend or a confidant can help not only encourage someone to stay on task but can also teach how to help others improve their lifestyles as well.

Terminology: behavioral goal, self-directed behavior, target behavior, baseline, emit, self-directed goal, antecedent, reinforcement, elicit, fixed ratio, consequence, time frame, disruption, realistic, extinction, functionality, topography, behavior modification, other-directed behavior

Erin Stonner
Behavior Modification
Otto MacLin
6 May, 2014

Behavioral Change Project Final

For my behavioral change project I wanted to increase the amount of time I spend meditating, making the act of meditating my target behavior. In order to do this, I had to conduct a functional assessment of behavior, which involved looking at the environment and antecedents that preceded my desired behavior. After taking time to observe what elicited my meditative behavior, I found that I was more likely to emit this behavior during small pockets of time (like the spare time during cooking or doing laundry), time spent outside on nice days, and at 3:30 in the afternoon. The consequences of meditating in these environments include feeling productive (if the behavior is done during the small pocket of time), feeling happy from spending more time simply enjoying the outdoors, and feeling like I was de-stressing/restarting my day (when emitted in the afternoon). Having a better idea of what situations could set the occasion for meditation to occur was beneficial.
In order to achieve behavioral control, I went the self-reinforcement route of behavior modification. First, I recorded how much time I typically meditated, prior to intervention, to collect a baseline on this behavior. My baseline for average time spent meditating per day was 13 minutes. Next, I had to come up with a reinforcer to use. From class I’ve learned that to effectively modify a behavior, punishment and other aversive aspects should be avoided. What I decided to use for reinforcement was money, which basically served as a token economy to buy myself things that I wouldn’t normally buy. I chose positive reinforcement because for my personality receiving something as a consequence of emitting the desired behavior would make a more salient reinforcer than possibly removing something aversive. The reinforcement of money would be contingent on meditating. I would pay myself $2.50 for every time I meditated, no matter how little time I spent. As it turns out, using money as a reinforcer had fairly broad value since I had a desirable response during the two weeks of reinforcement (increased time spent meditating). I gave myself permission to spend this money on things I wouldn’t normally buy, so being able to purchase things other than groceries served as an establishing operation because it made the money more reinforcing. The first week of reinforcement I meditated for an average of 24.28 minutes and the second week for an average of 16.86 minutes, which both are higher than my baseline (13 minutes).
The first week of reinforcement, I used continuous reinforcement to increase motivation to meditate and to strongly establish the intervention. According to the Law of Exercise, being continuously reinforced strengthened the association between receiving money and meditation, making the intervention more effective. The second week of reinforcement, I used intermittent reinforcement to lean out the reinforcer, so it wouldn’t always be necessary to reward myself. The type of ratio schedule I used during the week of intermittent reinforcement was variable ratio. I did this type by flipping a coin after meditating, heads meaning that I would receive the $2.50 reinforcer and tails meaning that I would not. I chose this type of ratio schedule so that the reinforcer would be unpredictable. However, if I would do this again I would probably use fixed ratio since having to meditate a set amount of times before receiving the $2.50 might encourage more frequent meditation than being able to randomly receive the same amount of money for only one session of meditation.
The last week that I recorded data, there were no reinforcements given. The average amount of time I spent meditating during this time was 13.85 minutes. This average shows a return to baseline, which indicates that I might have needed more time receiving the reinforcement before the lean out. While the meditation behavior isn’t extinct, I would argue that the elevated rates of meditation went through extinction through the return to baseline.
I found this experience very valuable. Without the rule-governed behavior of being given this assignment by a professor, I wouldn’t have recorded the rate of my behavior during the intervention. Without recording data, I wouldn’t have discovered that I needed more than two weeks of reinforcement to avoid extinction and to maintain the increase in time spent meditating. With this knowledge, I’ll be sure to record frequencies of behavior when created interventions in the future.

Terms: 1) Functional assessment of behavior, 2) antecedents, 3) behavior, 4) elicited, 5) emit, 6) consequences, 7) set the occasion for, 8) behavioral control, 9) intervention, 10) baseline, 11) target behavior, 12) reinforcer, 13) punishment, 14) aversive, 15) token economy, 16) positive reinforcement, 17) salient, 18) contingent, 19) broad value, 20) response, 21) continuous reinforcement, 22) intermittent reinforcement, 23) lean out, 24) ratio schedule, 25) variable ratio, 26) fixed ratio, 27) Law of Exercise, 28) extinction, 29) establishing operation, 30) rule-governed behavior

My behavioral project was to EMIT a TARGET BEHAVIOR that included eating less snacks and to stop binge eating during mealtimes. I wanted to decrease the BEHAVIOR of eating un-normal amounts of food while eating. For this project I focused on my snacking behavior and wanted to decrease the number of times I snack during a day. My OPERATIONAL DEFINITION for snacking behavior is eating any types of unhealthy food that isn’t during a mealtime or any food eaten after 8 p.m., this includes chips or sweets. I kept a journal and after the day was up and right before bedtime I would count how many snacking behaviors I had ELICITED throughout the day. My REINFORCEMENT was tracking my weight loss and every week when I would weight myself, how many pounds I had lost I got to put that many dollars away and at the end of the month I could buy myself something nice such as a new piece of clothing. My ultimate goal of this project was to learn to the proper times to eat and no eating because I was simply bored. My goal was to decrease the snacking/binge eating target behavior and reinforcing myself with a DESIRABLE STIMULUS. I was using POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT for my project.

The first thing we learned was the ABC’s of BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION. An ANTECEDENT is a setting the occasion for the behavior to happen, the UNDESIRBALE antecedent would be bored or having unhealthy food in the room. The behavior would be snacking or binge eating. The CONSEQUENCE can either be AVERSIVE or PLEASANT, such as eating the unhealthy snack and gaining weight for not eating the unhealthy snacking and losing weight along with receiving a reinforcement. Once I determined the antecedents and consequence I can begin using steps to help elicit my desirable behavior.

To start this process I went through all the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR steps to help me keep track during this project. The first step is to set a goal. My overall goal was to lose weight. The second step was to define and specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. The first target behavior was to decrease the amount of snacks I ate between meals and to control my eating habits during dinner by not binge eating. A side target behavior I also had was to stop drinking pop and drink more water because I counted pop as an unhealthy snack. The third step was to keep a record or a BEHAVIORAL DIARY; the first week would be the BASELINE PERFORMANCE in which we don’t REINFORCE ourselves and instead try to emit to the behavior without the reward. My dairy was a piece of paper in a notebook in which I recorded each day if I had elicited any snacking behavior. For the first week I found it hard to begin the routine or recording my data because I wasn’t use to thinking about the behavior in that context. The step four relied on graphing a baseline. For my first week, without reinforcement, I experienced an average of 2.2 snacking behaviors a day that week. After the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION the average snacking behaviors per week decreased because of the addition of reinforcement. The fifth step includes determining CONTINGENCIES. My reinforcement was for every pound I lost I would put the same amount of dollars away and at the end of the month I could treat myself to a new article of clothing. My reinforcement schedule was a weekly weigh-in followed by a monthly treat. My SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT was CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT and FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE because every week I would reinforce myself and then after a certain period of time, monthly in this case, I would use my reinforcement, the money, to buy a new article of clothing. Step six includes determining the ANTECEDENTS, which are the environments that we’re exposed to that elicit the behavior. I altered my environment by keeping my dorm room empty with snacking foods and I also started filling up more water bottles to keep in the fridge so I wouldn’t be tempted to make Biscotti’s runs when I got hungry. I tried to not expose myself to situations where I would be tempted to eat unhealthy food at an unrequired time. The final step included implement and adjust the contingencies. I found that the only tweaking my reinforcement needed was that I will need to adjust my fixed interval schedule to a longer period of time because shorts and jeans these days are quite expensive.

After my second week of behavioral intervention I noticed that there was a decrease in my snacking behavior. However, during the first week I didn’t use a reinforcement to establish a baseline, however, at the beginning of the second week I experienced an EXTINCTION, where I wasn’t losing weight so therefore I wasn’t getting my reinforcement. After the fifth or sixth day I began losing pounds, even though it was only a couple I was still able to reinforce myself and therefore my extinction ended. Since I was losing weight, which ended up being reinforcing itself, I found that by maintaining and reinforcing my desirable behavior I could get my reinforcement which helped me get closer to my bigger reinforcement or reward. In a way, I could also see how this could have been a TOKEN ECONOMY because for each pound I lost I would get a dollar and for forty dollars I could get a pair of jeans or any other type of clothing. Since I saw my reinforcement as a token economy I started shopping online for clothes and finding exact amounts, for example, I found a really cute summer dress online for $34.99, so for each pound I lost I would get a dollar, and for 36 dollars I could get this really cute dress.

Since this is a weight losing goal, it was important that I stress to myself that this process needed to be realistic, take time, achievable, maintained, and manageable. This process of losing weight had to be realistic for me, I didn’t expect to lose 100 pounds by not snacking, and however, my goal was to lose at least five to ten pounds in the first month. I kept this goal realistic and small because I know that losing weight takes time and doesn’t happen overnight. Adding less snacking behaviors and still working out daily helped me lose even more weight. My goal was maintained by eating healthier during designated mealtimes and drinking plenty of water. My goal to lose weight was manageable and achievable because I didn’t set the bar high enough I couldn’t reach.
I found this experience to be quite valuable in terms of understanding the correct ways to alter and modify a behavior. This class definitely opened my eyes to some important terms and helped me learn proper ways for behavior modification. Rule governed behavior is an important aspect of this class and I really don’t think I could have been taught any better, I loved that we could pick our own behaviors to modify and take everything we learned and apply it to find success in our own behavior modifications in the future. The only thing was I wish we had more time to prefect and really learn to change contingencies rather than as we’ve perfected it we have to return to baseline. This class was probably one of my favorite classes this year and I can’t wait to take what I’ve learned and apply it to my clients when I become a therapist.

emit, target behavior, behavior, operational definition, elicit, reinforcement, desirable, stimulus, positive reinforcement, behavior modification, antecedent, undesirable, consequence, aversive, pleasant, self-directed behavior, behavioral diary, behavioral intervention, baseline performance, reinforce, contingencies, schedule of reinforcement, continuous reinforcement, fixed interval schedule, extinction, token economy

In behavior modification we have learned about many concepts throughout the semester. Whether it was about reinforcing a target behavior with a positive or negative reinforcement or discussing different types of reinforcement schedules like continuous or fixed schedules. All of these concepts came together in the end to help me as student understand basic behavior modification in my daily life and why as a human we do certain things. Whether it is running to the door that is being held open for you or eating certain foods with specific utensils and not your hands. For the final in the class this semester we were asked to pick a target behavior you want to change or reinforce and keep records of your data with a behavioral diary for 3 weeks in either a notebook or record it with a text message on your phone. Then with all your data you I have collected I am supposed to make a line graph with an x and y-axis.
For my behavioral change experiment I decided to switch out any kind of snack I had with a healthier options. For me I don’t really snack all that often during the day but if I do it’s usually something unhealthy like some chips or a candy bar of some sort. For this to work I had to have a very good reinforce for me to eat a healthy snack and not an unhealthy snack so I had chosen for my reinforcer to be an extra episode of my favorite TV show on Netflix. So my target behavior is to eat healthy snacks. This is a positive reinforcement behavioral experiment that I will be doing. To me I think it would haven very hard to change a type of behavior like mine with a negative reinforcement. During my 3 weeks of recording date for my experiment it at first was very hard for me to remember if I want a snack it had to be something healthy like a apple or carrots or even some peanuts. But eventually by week 3 it had become so conditioned for me to just grab the healthier option instead of the unhealthy one hence I had made a conditioned reflex to eating a healthier snack by the end of week 3. By the end of week 3 it was conditioned for me to choose a healthier option. Then I took this experiment a step more and continued recording my target behavior for a week of baseline meaning after week 3 I no longer gave my self a positive reinforcement at the end of the week it just came natural for to pick easy healthy snacks. For most of this experiment it was centered on my kitchen cupboards or my fridge. For this behavioral change I would say my antecedent would be my kitchen if we wanted it to be a basic one but other wise a little bit more invasive antecedent would be my fridge or cupboard. My behavior would be choosing a healthy snack like an apple or carrots instead of leftovers or a bag of chips to snack on. Then for this behavioral change my consequence of my action of doing the target behavior would be get to watch another episode of my favorite TV at the end of the week. As you look at the graph I made you can some what see a pattern, for instance during the week I would eat a healthy snack if I was going to snack but when it came to the weekends my snacking became very unhealthy. The graph would show a ratio of 2 or 3 snacks per day during the week of healthy food then on the weekends it would just be unhealthy foods. I would say from this behavior I would have shaped my behavior into being healthier and therefore my unhealthy snack was extinguished,
This experiment for me was a great way to help me learn more about behavior mod with it being more hands on and actually trying to change one of my own behaviors instead of just talking in class and reading about them in our textbook.

Terms : reinforcing, target behavior, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, reinforcement schedule, continuous, fixed ratio, behavioral diary, line graph, x-axis, ,y-axis, conditioned reflex ,baseline, antecedent, behavior, consequence, ratio, shaped, extinction,

For the behavioral change project, I chose to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR of picking at my nails less often. I wanted to use DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF LOW RATE BEHAVIOR rather than PUNISHMENT. I noticed that two of the big ANTECEDENTS to this behavior was/is when I am bored and when I am stressed. The target behavior is picking unnecessarily at a nail that has broken or any behavior that results in my nail breaking, which then elicits me picking at my nails even more. The CONSEQUENCE of this nail picking behavior is more of a distraction technique rather than any sort of stress relief. In theory a consequence of this behavior would be that the behavior of me picking at my nails would SERVE THE FUNCTION to make it no longer necessary for me to get out my finger nail clippers and fix the nail. However, I have noticed that often the target behavior is EMITTED to the point that it necessitates me getting out my finger nail clippers or nail file to fix my nail and the further destruction that picking at them has caused.

For my REINFORCER I used getting a manicure at the end of the week if I had successfully gone a week without picking at my nails or picking at them at a low rate. I thought that this reinforcer would be effective because it serves the function that I thought applied to the target behavior. Getting a manicure both fixes my nails if they have broken and is a stress reliever for me. This reinforcer however was not as effective in REINFORCING my target behavior as I would have liked or expected. I think part of the failure of my behavioral modification project was that it was SELF-REINFORCEMENT. I found myself reinforcing myself for behaviors other than my target behavior or not reinforcing myself even when I met my goal. The reinforcer might have been more effective if I had engaged in DEPRIVATION, not allowing myself to get or give myself a manicure. This may have been an effective ESTABLISHING OPERATION to help the reinforcer function more successfully. If this preparation has occurred, the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR aspect of this project may have been a lot more successful.

The BASELINE for this behavior was a lot lower than I would have expected. I think that to some degree the fact that I was monitoring my own behavior was unintentional self-directed behavior in that each time I wrote down that I had picked at my nails, it was a small punishment, resulting in a lower baseline that might not be the case if there were some form of INTERRATER RELIABILITY. Therefore I believe that if someone else was both monitoring the behavior and administering the reinforcer, the behavioral change would be a lot more effective and result in lower rates of EMITTING the target behavior in the RETURN TO BASELINE.

I feel like this project would also be more effective if my reinforcer had a higher INTRINSIC VALUE. I wish I had planned out and thought more deeply about how to reinforce my behavior because I feel that there could be a lot better ways to reinforce my behavior. I would also change the SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT. In this project, I used a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT that resulted in me getting reinforced at the end of each week if I had successful met a low level of my target behavior. I could have changed that to a VARIABLE INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT where I would get reinforced after an average of 5 days rather than precisely every 7 days.

Another way in which I could improve my chances for success on this project could be to reinforce myself more consistently. I feel that after the first week that I forgot to reinforce myself I entered into EXTINCTION. However because my schedule had gotten so crazy with my other classes I had not paid as much attention as necessary to the fact that my target behavior was being EXTINGUISHED.

Terms used in this post: emit, target behavior, differential reinforcement of low rate behavior, punishment, antecedents, elicits, consequence, serve the function, emitted, reinforcer, reinforcing, self-reinforcement, deprivation, establishing operation, self-directed behavior, baseline, interrater reliability, emitting, return to baseline, intrinsic value, schedule of reinforcement, fixed interval schedule of reinforcement, variable interval schedule of reinforcement, extinction, extinguished

Rachael Vander Lugt
For my BEHAVIOR modification project I choose to INCREASE the TARGET BEHAVIOR of eating two healthy meals a day while DECREASING the amount of sweets I ate. I chose a behavior I EMIT because it would be easier to emit the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR change than picking a behavior that only happens when it is ELICITED, which made this GOAL easier to achieve. But in order to choose a target behavior I had to examine the ABCs of this project. The ANTECEDENT was that I had the DESIRED OUTCOME of getting healthier. The target behavior was that I was going to eat two healthy meals day. The CONCQUENCE was that I would feel healthier. But I discovered there were two SECONDARY REINFORCERS that happened: losing weight and feeling more comfortable in my own skin.
I chose the PRIMARY REINFORCER of eating a particular sweet treat I was craving all week, usually chocolate which I place a PLEASANT VALENCE on. I used a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE for how often I got the reinforcer, specifically every 7 days if I met my goal of two healthy meals a day. This was not all that effective as I found it easy way too to give into the temptation to eat the reinforcer more often than the fixed ration schedule allows for. I think the reinforcer would have been more effective if I had use another type of schedule, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO). I think I would have met the goal more successfully if I picked a smaller, but still sweet, reinforcer and flipped coin for during the first week of reinforcement then went to a fixed ratio schedule the third week to determine if I got a reinforcer that day.
I chose to use POSTIVIVE REINFORCEMENT because it is believed to work better than NEGITIVE REINFORCMENT. Since Negative Reinforcement uses PUNISMENT, I decided that would not be my best plan to since a secondary reinforcer that I hoped would happen was to feel better about myself and punishment doesn’t usually work if that is part of the goal. The fact that I didn’t have to REMOVE any particular type of food to meet my goal, just subsume healthier alternatives, also made Negative Reinforcement the worst of the two options.

When I was deciding on what behavior to do/change for this project I used the BEHAVIOR MODIFACTIONS PROCESS to examine how to best set myself up for success. I found using the 6 STEPS made it easier to create REALISTICE and ACHIVEABLE goal considering how the project was very much a short term one. Step 1 was easy enough once I understood the difference between a BEHAVIOR CLASS and a target behavior. During this step went from a GENERNAL goal of eating healthy to a SPECIFIC GOAL o of eating a wrap or salad for my healthy meal options by DEFINING what my target behavior looked like (TYPEOGRAPHY). Step 2 was easy and made the FUNCTIONALITY of the goal clear: feel healthier because losing weight as fast as the project ran was unrealistic. Step 3 clarified where I would find healthy food options; most often the Piazza but other restaurants had healthy options too. Step 4 was to make sure I understood exactly how this would most likely affect me (body and mentality) by doing a FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT. For step 5 I created a excel document and at the end of most days documented how many Healthy meals I had Eaten day. Step 6 is essentially this final essay; by EVALUATING THE OUTCOME I learned that I met this goal for the most part and looked at why I didn’t met the goal on the days I fell short to two healthy meals a day. There were a few days were only ate one healthy meal a day, but those were days where I only ate one meal that day. The four days where I ate no healthy meals were special occasions: a weekend trip to Des Moines and Easter weekend. Those are days I actively chose not to follow this project as it isn’t often I get to go to Des Moines and Easter had lots of really good food available. Plus it wouldn’t kill me if I missed four days of this project. Over all, I think I was successful at meeting this goal since my graph proves that I increased the number of days I ate two healthy meals by three days a week without using a reinforcer and that is a part of what I said my desired outcome was.
BEHAVIOR, INCREASE, TARGET BEHAVIOR, DECREASING , SELF-DIRECTED ,BEHAVIOR, ELICITED, GOAL, ABCs, ANTECEDENT, DESIRED OUTCOME , CONCQUENCE, SECONDARY REINFORCERS , PRIMARY REINFORCER , PLEASANT VALENCE , FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO) , POSTIVIVE REINFORCEMENT , PUNISMENT, BEHAVIOR MODIFACTIONS PROCESS, 6 STEPS , REALISTICE , ACHIVEABLE, BEHAVIOR CLASS , GENERNAL, SPECIFIC GOAL , DEFINING, TYPEOGRAPHY, FUNCTIONALITY, FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT.


Rachael Vander Lugt
For my BEHAVIOR modification project I choose to INCREASE the TARGET BEHAVIOR of eating two healthy meals a day while DECREASING the amount of sweets I ate. I chose a behavior I EMIT because it would be easier to emit the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR change than picking a behavior that only happens when it is ELICITED, which made this GOAL easier to achieve. But in order to choose a target behavior I had to examine the ABCs of this project. The ANTECEDENT was that I had the DESIRED OUTCOME of getting healthier. The target behavior was that I was going to eat two healthy meals day. The CONCQUENCE was that I would feel healthier. But I discovered there were two SECONDARY REINFORCERS that happened: losing weight and feeling more comfortable in my own skin.
I chose the PRIMARY REINFORCER of eating a particular sweet treat I was craving all week, usually chocolate which I place a PLEASANT VALENCE on. I used a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE for how often I got the reinforcer, specifically every 7 days if I met my goal of two healthy meals a day. This was not all that effective as I found it easy way too to give into the temptation to eat the reinforcer more often than the fixed ration schedule allows for. I think the reinforcer would have been more effective if I had use another type of schedule, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO). I think I would have met the goal more successfully if I picked a smaller, but still sweet, reinforcer and flipped coin for during the first week of reinforcement then went to a fixed ratio schedule the third week to determine if I got a reinforcer that day.
I chose to use POSTIVIVE REINFORCEMENT because it is believed to work better than NEGITIVE REINFORCMENT. Since Negative Reinforcement uses PUNISMENT, I decided that would not be my best plan to since a secondary reinforcer that I hoped would happen was to feel better about myself and punishment doesn’t usually work if that is part of the goal. The fact that I didn’t have to REMOVE any particular type of food to meet my goal, just subsume healthier alternatives, also made Negative Reinforcement the worst of the two options.

When I was deciding on what behavior to do/change for this project I used the BEHAVIOR MODIFACTIONS PROCESS to examine how to best set myself up for success. I found using the 6 STEPS made it easier to create REALISTICE and ACHIVEABLE goal considering how the project was very much a short term one. Step 1 was easy enough once I understood the difference between a BEHAVIOR CLASS and a target behavior. During this step went from a GENERNAL goal of eating healthy to a SPECIFIC GOAL o of eating a wrap or salad for my healthy meal options by DEFINING what my target behavior looked like (TYPEOGRAPHY). Step 2 was easy and made the FUNCTIONALITY of the goal clear: feel healthier because losing weight as fast as the project ran was unrealistic. Step 3 clarified where I would find healthy food options; most often the Piazza but other restaurants had healthy options too. Step 4 was to make sure I understood exactly how this would most likely affect me (body and mentality) by doing a FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT. For step 5 I created a excel document and at the end of most days documented how many Healthy meals I had Eaten day. Step 6 is essentially this final essay; by EVALUATING THE OUTCOME I learned that I met this goal for the most part and looked at why I didn’t met the goal on the days I fell short to two healthy meals a day. There were a few days were only ate one healthy meal a day, but those were days where I only ate one meal that day. The four days where I ate no healthy meals were special occasions: a weekend trip to Des Moines and Easter weekend. Those are days I actively chose not to follow this project as it isn’t often I get to go to Des Moines and Easter had lots of really good food available. Plus it wouldn’t kill me if I missed four days of this project. Over all, I think I was successful at meeting this goal since my graph proves that I increased the number of days I ate two healthy meals by three days a week without using a reinforcer and that is a part of what I said my desired outcome was.
BEHAVIOR, INCREASE, TARGET BEHAVIOR, DECREASING , SELF-DIRECTED ,BEHAVIOR, ELICITED, GOAL, ABCs, ANTECEDENT, DESIRED OUTCOME , CONCQUENCE, SECONDARY REINFORCERS , PRIMARY REINFORCER , PLEASANT VALENCE , FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO) , POSTIVIVE REINFORCEMENT , PUNISMENT, BEHAVIOR MODIFACTIONS PROCESS, 6 STEPS , REALISTICE , ACHIVEABLE, BEHAVIOR CLASS , GENERNAL, SPECIFIC GOAL , DEFINING, TYPEOGRAPHY, FUNCTIONALITY, FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT.


This semester we focused on behavior modification, and the use of reinforcement in place of punishment. We have been asked to try and change a target behavior and document our progress in the last few weeks. My target behavior was to run 2 miles every other day Monday-Friday.
I chose this target behavior because I use to run a lot more and this year I have really slacked and gained weight because of it. When I looked at my target behavior using the ABC’s, my antecedent was gaining weigh. My antecedent made me want to have a target behavior of running, so my consequence of running would be to lose the weight I have gained. This target behavior made me set a goal of running 6 miles a week and losing the weight I had gained since last year.
I decided to use reinforcement to help me reach my goal and reach my desired behavior of running 6 miles a week. I decided to use sleeping in as my reinforcer. If I woke up at 6:30 Monday and Wednesday to run two miles I would allow myself to sleep in on Friday’s. This would be an example of positive reinforcement because I added something in order to increase my behavior.
This was harder than expected because I am not a big morning person. I was hoping that by reinforcing myself for four weeks I will be able to extinct my behavior and not need to sleep in anymore. I also thought it would be easier if I tried shaping my roommates behavior into running three mornings a week. This was helpful in having someone to encourage me to get up in the mornings. We still struggled sometime especially with it being cold, but it was still helpful to have her has another reinforcer to run.
We used a ratio schedule because we were not allowed to sleep in on Fridays unless we got up two other days before Friday. This meant we had to run four miles before Friday before we were reinforced. We felt this was our best option because a fixed ratio schedule would require us to get up Monday and Wednesdays only but sometimes things would occur that wouldn’t allow us to get up one those days.\, so we made it any two days before Friday. This schedule of reinforcement worked pretty well and made things easier in changing our behavior.
This behavior change project made me start and set a goal for myself. This was super helpful and I decided to continue with this behavior change. I set the goal so it is realistic and specific. I now have the ability to achieve my goal and hopefully lose all my gained weight and start running again.

Behavior modification, reinforcement, punishment, target behavior, ABC’s, antecedent, behavior, consequence, reinforcer, extinct, positive reinforcement, ratio schedule, fixed ratio, goal, achievable, ability, realistic

This semester, we learned how using reinforcement is more effective in behavior modification rather than using punishment. This reinforcement project was meant to show us the truth behind that statement. However, my project swayed from that a bit. Totally unintentionally, this project became a representation of changing antecedents rather than one of reinforcement.
I chose to do my reinforcement project on face washing/acne treating every night before bed. Well, it ended up that close to right after I started the project I began showering at night before bed rather than in the mornings. This is where the switch between reinforcement and the antecedent change occurred. The project had already started though, so I couldn't really take back my data and fabricate almost an entire weeks worth of new data for something completely different.
I am horrible at making myself do things, especially if the expected reward is given to me by myself. Now, if the consequence of my behavior would have been my mother positively reinforcing it with a reward, it would have worked. This way I would not have been able to just give in and give myself the reward whether or not I emitted the behavior.
On the bright side, I successfully found a way to reach my goal and target behavior! By showering every night, I changed the antecedent and therefore made the target behavior easier to complete. Before, I used relaxation time as my reinforcer. This could be just laying around, playing video games or watching Netflix in bed. But that only worked for so long. It actually ended up that I would get done with my school work early and then just sit around for the rest of the evening. I would get done with my school work too early to wash my face, and I didn't have anything else to do. So I started to forget! Even with the post its that I tried to put on my mirror above the sink to help me remember.
By changing the antecedent, it made the behavior easier to emit, and the consequence of it was that I received my reward! I may not have proven that reinforcement is better than punishment, but I did prove the effectiveness of antecedent changes!

Terms: Behavior Modification, ABC's Positive reinforcement, reward, antecedent, behavior, target behavior, goal, consequence, reinforcer, reinforcement, changing antecedents, emit, punishment.

This semester we focused on behavior modification, and the use of reinforcement in place of punishment. We have been asked to try and change a target behavior and document our progress in the last few weeks. My target behavior was to run 2 miles every other day Monday-Friday.
I chose this target behavior because I use to run a lot more and this year I have really slacked and gained weight because of it. When I looked at my target behavior using the ABC’s, my antecedent was gaining weight. My antecedent made me want to have a target behavior of running, so my consequence of running would be to lose the weight I have gained. This target behavior made me set a goal of running 6 miles a week and losing the weight I had gained since last year.
I decided to use reinforcement to help me reach my goal and reach my desired behavior of running 6 miles a week. I decided to use sleeping in as my reinforcer. If I woke up at 6:30 Monday and Wednesday to run two miles I would allow myself to sleep in on Friday’s. This would be an example of positive reinforcement because I added something in order to increase my behavior.
This was harder than expected because I am not a big morning person. I was hoping that by reinforcing myself for four weeks I will be able to extinct my behavior and not need to sleep in anymore. I found through trial and error that shaping my roommates behavior into running three mornings a week with me was my best option in success. It was helpful in having someone to encourage me to get up in the mornings. We still struggled sometime especially with it being cold, but it was still helpful to have her has another reinforcer to run. We used successive approximation at times because it was hard to get up exactly at 6:30 every day. We would allow a thirty minutes to an hour of wiggle room.
We used a ratio schedule because we were not allowed to sleep in on Fridays unless we got up two other days before Friday. This meant we had to run four miles before Friday before we were reinforced. We felt this was our best option because a fixed ratio schedule would require us to get up Monday and Wednesdays only but sometimes things would occur that wouldn’t allow us to get up one those days. so we made it any two days before Friday. This schedule of reinforcement worked pretty well and made things easier in changing our behavior.
This behavior change project made me start and set a goal for myself. This was super helpful and I decided to continue with this behavior change. I set the goal so it is realistic and specific. I now have the ability to achieve my goal and hopefully lose all my gained weight and start running again.
Behavior modification, reinforcement, punishment, target behavior, ABC’s, antecedent, behavior, consequence, reinforcer, extinct, positive reinforcement, ratio schedule, fixed ratio, goal, achievable, ability, realistic, successive approximation, trial and error

This semester, we learned about the ABC's and how using REINFORCEMENT is more effective in behavior modification rather than using PUNISHMENT. This reinforcement project was meant to show us the truth behind that statement. However, my project swayed from that a bit. Totally unintentionally, this project became a representation of CHANGING ANTECEDENTS rather than one of reinforcement.
I chose to do my reinforcement project on face washing/acne treating every night before bed. Well, it ended up that close to right after I started the project I began showering at night before bed rather than in the mornings. This is where the switch between reinforcement and the ANTECEDENT change occurred. The shower became a STIMULUS to me washing my face because I just automatically always do so while I am in there anyways. The project had already started though, so I couldn't really take back my data and fabricate almost an entire weeks worth of new data for something completely different.
I am horrible at making myself do things, especially if the expected REWARD is given to me by myself. Now, if the CONSEQUENCE of my BEHAVIOR would have been my mother POSITIVELY REINFORCING it with a reward, this example of ESTABLISHING AN OPERATION would have worked. This way I would not have been able to just give in and give myself the reward whether or not I EMITTED the behavior.
On the bright side, I successfully found a way to reach my GOAL and target behavior! By showering every night, I changed the antecedent and therefore made the TARGET BEHAVIOR easier to complete. Before, I used relaxation time as my REINFORCER. This could be just laying around, playing video games or watching Netflix in bed. But that only worked for so long. It actually ended up that I would get done with my school work early and then just sit around for the rest of the evening. I would get done with my school work too early to wash my face, and I didn't have anything else to do. So I started to forget! Even with the post its that I tried to put on my mirror above the sink to help me remember.
By changing the antecedent, it made the behavior easier to emit, and the consequence of it was that I received my reward! I may not have proven that reinforcement is better than punishment, but I did prove the effectiveness of antecedent changes!
POSITIVE PUNISHMENT actually occurred naturally in this project. If I don't wash my face daily or nightly, my acne breaks out. The breakouts would therefor become a DISCRIMINATE STIMULUS, in which case, the RESPONSE that I would have to that stimulus would be me ELICITING washing my face diligently for the next few days, and then it would begin to dissipate after a while when my face started to clear up.

Terms: Behavior Modification, ABC's, Positive reinforcement, positive punishment, reward, antecedent, behavior, target behavior, goal, consequence, reinforcer, reinforcement, changing antecedents, emit, elicit, punishment, stimulus, discriminate stimulus, establishing operations.

Please disregard the originally posted copy of my write up. This is my final draft. Thanks!

Throughout the semester we learned a lot about behaviors and how certain things can influence them. We were asked to complete a behavioral change project and to apply what we have learned through the course of the semester to this project. My project involves changing the nasty and annoying behavior of biting my nails.
To begin this project I had to identify a few things. First I had to identify my TARGET BEHAVIOR, in this project it is reducing nail biting per day. Then I had to identify the ABC'S of my behavior. The ANTECEDENT in this case was boredom, the BEHAVIOR is reducing biting of nails, and the CONSEQUENCE of this would be longer nails (instead of the nubby ones I would get). I choose to use NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT in this project to help change my behavior. The REINFORCER was painting my nails.This was an example of NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT because I took away something pleasurable, biting my nails. This caused me to not want to bite my nails.
Painting my nails was harder than I thought it would be because pretty much the entire month of November I was on the road for basketball and didn't always have my nail polish with me on hand. Somehow I did it though. I saw a reduction in the number of bites I did. My BASELINE data compared to my last week of the intervention is completely different. Not that the behavior has been EXTINCTED completely, but I feel I had a successful behavior change project. The use of NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT was successful for me.I just hope that the behavior doesn't return after we are done with the project and this class.

Terms:ABC's, Behavior Modification, Antecedent, Target Behavior, Consequence, Negative Reinforcement, Reinforcer, Extinct.

I just wanted to add at the end of this post that I really enjoyed the class and felt that compared to my past psychology classes, this was one class I truly learned a lot in and will actually remember a lot of the content. Thank you for a wonderful semester!

Over the course of the past 15 weeks we have learned a lot about PUNISHMENT, and REINFORCMENT. I learned that NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT isn't always a form of bad punishment. However, it sure can be if the person would like it to be. I choose to do my project on my study habits and learning different ways to not procrastinate as much. I wrote down everything for that day that I needed to get done and would cross things off my list as I would go, or make necessary changes if needed. When I first started the project 4ish weeks ago I was only studying maybe an extra hour or so outside of the classroom. However once the weeks went on I found myself keeping up with all of my assignements and actually getting them all finished days before the due date. This process has really came in handy with finals right around the corner.
So what exactly made me choose this as my topic?
This sort of thing happens every year once it gets passed midterm in the semester things just kind of hit a hault for me and I lose the drive to keep pushing onward. So when this project came about I thought what better way to ELICIT a lot of my NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS.I also wrote down what my ABC's were for this particular BEHAVIOR. The ANTECEDENT to this problem was my lack of study time. The BEHAVIOR was not allowing myself enough time to prepare for my homework assignments. Finally, the CONSEQUENCE was having to rush and stress about studying for exams and getting my homework assignments finished and turned in on time. So I decided I needed to make some realistic DISIRABLE changes to my study habits.
First I decided I wouldn't allow myself to have my cell phone around me while I was studying, that was a huge NEGATIVE distraction. Once I eliminated that distraction I found myself in the homework studying zone. When I study I do have the TV but only for background noise and its set on a very low volume so it's not a NEGATIVE DISTRACTION. After I removed all of my UNDESIRABLE distractions I found myself getting lost in my homework, actually studying and learning. It was a great feeling, and my grades showed, even my teachers made comments.
As for the spring semester in 2015 you can sure bet that I will continue on with this process and hopefully stick with it throughout the whole semester.
As we wrap up another semester here at UNI I think back to our first day of class, I didn't really know what to expect from this class. I figured it was going to be the same usual psychology class I was used to in the past, boy was I wrong. I learned so much about BEHAVIORS and how everything literally everything can become a BEHAVIOR. From all the videos we watched to all the articles you made us read everything was very informational. Even the dreaded Classical conditioning section, however for the first time in 5 years I actually understood the concept so for that I thank you!

Final Assignment #16
For my behavior modification project, I wanted to walk ten thousand steps each day of the week. I have a FitBit bracelet that counts my steps for me. The ABC’s were taken into account right away in this process. The antecedent was being unhealthy, the target behavior was walking ten thousand steps each day, and the consequence would be better health and stamina.
For my reinforcer, I chose a mini snickers bar. If I reached ten thousand steps, I rewarded myself with chocolate. Chocolate is one of my favorite sweets. This applied the Premack Principle, which made me behave a certain way to do something I like – eating.
Before I started the process, I knew I needed to know my steps. I needed to set a goal, define the goal in target behaviors, keep a record, graph a baseline with a line graph, determine contingencies, determine antecedents, and adjust contingencies. My goal was to walk more. I defined the goal as using the target behavior of walking ten thousand steps each day. I kept record of my goal by checking my FitBit at the end of each day to record the number of steps taken that day. This involved a frequency chart. At the beginning of my behavior change journey, I graphed my first week of my target behavior without reinforcement. I then decided on a mini snickers bar being my reinforcer since I love chocolate and I rarely let myself have it. This is positive reinforcement since I am adding a positive to the situation. I determined that getting myself into gym shoes and outside or into the gym was the antecedent I needed to succeed. I then made sure the reinforcer was still working after a couple of weeks and it still was so there was no need to adjust contingencies.
I realize that my goal would have been any sort of physical activity. I could have chose running or using the elliptical. All of these things have the same function, but they do not share topographies. Either way, I am using self-directed behavior. If I was not the one responsible for the reinforcement, it would have been other-directed behavior. I also used introspection throughout the process to see what I thought of the change in my body and mind.
A few laws are related to my behavior modification journey. The Law of Effect was involved, because my behavior brought with it many positive outcomes such as health and satisfaction. The Law of Recency was also involved which helped my behaviors keep going with the most recent responses of happiness. The Law of Exercise played a large part in my journey as well, because there was a lot of repetition involved.
Before I initially chose my new goal, there were a few things I needed to take into account. I needed to be realistic, have a set timeframe, use sub goals, know if my goal was achievable, know if I had the ability, know if it was manageable, know if it was super disruptive to my life and others around me, if it would be maintained, and if I had a good support base. My goal was realistic, because ten thousand steps is not that many if you take a long walk each day. My timeframe was good, because a whole day was enough time. I have the ability to accomplish my goal, because I am not too overweight and I have no injuries. It was manageable, because it could be easy measured with my FitBit. It could be maintained, because I have an hour or two to dedicate each day and that did not disrupt me or my family.
Throughout this process, direct assessment was used much more than indirect. I kept record and up to date on how I was coming along. I think it would be possible, however not necessary, to lean out my reinforcer of chocolate. I like the other benefits I get from walking other than chocolate. It all was about valence to me. I value good health and being able to make it up a flight of stairs without being winded. What I accomplished was much more desirable than aversive. There were a few days where I was tired, but that never overcame the positive aspect.
In order to start in with my goal, I needed to elicit the behavior directly. I needed to make a plan to throw on sweats and shoes each morning or after school and get walking. I eventually emitted the behavior with hardly any resistance from myself. Satiation could occur with my reinforcer, but I never get sick of chocolate!
I put my results into an excel spreadsheet and made a line graph to show my results visually. I definitely improved each week. I started out with my baseline and my numbers were pretty low overall. As I started to use reinforcement, my numbers went higher. I am not exactly consistent, but my averages were around ten thousand a week. Once I reached the week where I pulled the reinforcer, I was still holding high numbers. This showed that I definitely improved my behavior.
Overall, this whole process was a good way to learn about myself and what I am capable of. I am a regular walker now and I make sure to get my ten thousand steps in each day to the best of my ability to earn that snickers bar.
Terms: Behavior Modification, ABC’s, antecedent, target behavior, consequence, reinforcer, rewarded, Premack Principle, define the goal, record, baseline, line graph, contingencies, frequency chart, behavior change, reinforcement, positive reinforcement, function, topographies, self-directed behavior, other-directed behavior, introspection, Law of Effect, Law of Recency, Law of Exercise, realistic, timeframe, sub goals, achievable, ability, manageable, disruptive, maintained, support base, direct assessment, lean out, valence, desirable, aversive, elicit, emit, satiation

We learned from the very beginning the importance of understanding the ABC’s of behavioral modification. The ANTECEDENT occurs before the TARGET BEHAVIOR. The CONSEQUENCE occurs after the TARGET BEHAVIOR. These ABC’s occur naturally and automatically throughout our everyday lives. It was not until this class did I realize we can critically analyze and breakdown every behavior. We even are capable of manipulating our own BEHAVIORS. After we were introduced to the ABC’s, we learned about the differences between PUNISHMENT and REINFORCEMENT. PUNISHMENT decreases the likelihood the TARGET BEHAVIOR will occur again. REINFORCEMENT does the exact opposite, it increases the likelihood the TARGET BEHAVIOR will occur again. In relation to our behavioral change project, we needed to think critically about a target behavior we would like to increase or decrease. I chose to ELICIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR of increasing the amount of minutes I participated in cardio and weightlifting behaviors. In my behavioral change project, I used REINFORCEMENT because I wanted to increase the likelihood of myself EMITTING work out behaviors. Whether I made this project to be a form of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT or NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT was up to me. I chose to add on the opportunity for a Hydro massage if I successfully met my goal. This is an example of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT because I added on something positive or desirable, a massage. I knew using a GENERALIZED REINFORCER would not prove to be successful, I need something that held an INTRINSIC VALUE to myself. The fact that the massages are free with my membership made my reinforcer that much more accessible.
If we take a look at my graph you would probably notice my BASELINE is nearly at zero minutes of cardio and zero minutes of weightlifting. I knew I needed to make the possibility of myself EMITTING the TARGET BEHAVIOR so I decided to buy a gym membership. Buying a gym membership is a DISCRIMINATIVE STIMLUS. This affected the likelihood of myself emitting this particular target behavior. Next I needed to decide on a SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT. My options were FIXED INTERVAL, FIXED RATIO, VARIABLE INTERVAL, or VARIABLE RATIO. I decided to use a FIXED RATIO of FR1. This means I reinforced myself after every time I emitted the TARGET BEHAVIOR. If I was a little more lenient with myself I might have tried SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION. In relation to rats, this occurs when something close to the target behavior is emitted, the rat gets reinforced. Unfortunately, I do not think that SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION would prove to be very REINFORCING because 5 minutes of weightlifting is a big difference from 50 minutes. The behaviors are close, but definitely not the same. One thing I did notice during this behavioral change project is that I did not do as much stress eating. This could be considered a DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER BEHAVIOR (DRO) because as I increased my work out behaviors, my stress eating decreases. These two behaviors proved to be incompatible. Although it was not my original goal, it’s an added positive.
My first week into my performing behavior with reinforcement is slightly undesirable. At this point in time I came down in a triple whammy of sinus infection, ear infections, and bronchitis. The last place I wanted to be was EMITTING my TARGET BEHAVIOR at the gym. I also did not have access to my REINFORCER behavior because the message table is located at the gym. Luckily, I got a heavy dose of antibiotics and was able to EMIT my TARGET BEHAVIOR for the second week of performing behaviors while being reinforced. I also increased my overall work out BEHAVIORS even after the REINFORCEMENTS had discontinued. I will admit there have been aversive things in life that have made my behavioral change project to not be as successful as I had originally planned, but I am still happy with my result. Since I still have a gym membership in place, I plan on continuing to EMIT my TARGET BEHAVIOR and of course REINFORCING myself too.
Terms: antecedent, target behavior, consequence, punishment, reinforcement, elicit, emitting, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, goal, baseline, discriminative stimulus, generalized reinforcer, intrinsic value, schedule of reinforcement, fixed interval, fixed ratio, variable interval, variable ratio, successive approximation, differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO).

Throughout the semester we have been talking about all sorts of BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION techniques and tools. One important thing that I learned in this class is that almost anything can be classified as a BEHAVIOR as long as reasonable ANTECEDENTS and CONSEQUENCES can be determined. Behaviors can also be grouped into BEHAVIORAL CLASSES depending on what their function is, referred to as FUNCTIONALITY, or what they look like, referred to as TYPOGRAPHY. This all played a very important part in my conduction of my behavioral change project.

Each of us in the class was instructed to do some form of SELF-DRIECTED BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION. For my personal behavior change I tried to change my sleep patterns. I had previously been under the unhealthy pattern of staying up far too late and then having a hard time waking up the next morning. Even though I still struggle to get up in the morning, I have made improvement in the time when I attempt to go to sleep. The first step in any behavioral change is to determine a very specific TARGET BEHAVIOR. It was my TARGET BEHAVIOR to be in bed, without technology except for music, by one am. The only exception that I would make to this goal would have been the nights when it took me until after one am to finish my homework. That is, I wanted to DECREASE the likelihood of me staying up too late on school nights and INCREASE the likelihood of sleeping at the appropriate times.

It is important to recognize and acknowledge the potential ANTECEDENTS of the TARGET BEHAVIOR that you want to be changed. In my case, there were several ANTECEDENTS. Every aspect of my before bed routine, which includes changing into pajamas, brushing my teeth, and taking out my contacts, can be considered ANTECEDENTS. Each one of these ANTECEDENTS also has a CONSEQUENCE: when I change into pajamas, I am colder and in need of coverage by blankets; when I brush my teeth, I am not allowed to eat or drink anything other than water or I will have to brush them again; when I take out my contacts, I am forced to put my glasses on or be blind. If all of these things are done, then they have a tendency to ELICIT me to EMIT the BEHAVIOR of going to bed.

Since REINFORCEMENT is always better than PUNISHMENT, the next important thing that I had to do was to determine an effective REINFORCER. I decided that the most effective REINFORCER for the TARGET BEHAVIOR of going to sleep earlier would be to have one cheat day a week where I could stay up as late as I wanted. Since this REINFORCER would be received on a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT, one cheat day for every six days that the TARGET BEHAVIOR was performed, I wasn’t sure if it would be REINFORCING enough since it was not immediate. Therefore, I created a BACKUP REINFORCER for myself. If I successfully accomplished my GOAL the night before, then I could watch one episode of a show that I had been meaning to start but didn’t have time the following day. If the only time I got to watch this show was when I fulfilled My TARGET BEHAVIOR, then I was more likely to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR since watching this show became very DESIRABLE after the first few episodes. This SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT is called CONTINUOUS, because I received a REINFORCER for every EMITTANCE of the TARGET BEHAVIOR.

The first week of data recorded was the BASELINE; it was the week where I continued on with my life as it was previously but I wrote down what my sleep schedule was like. This week’s data were all over the place because my sleep schedule was not regular. After the BASELINE week, I used the next two weeks to implement the reinforcement of my target behavior. These two weeks are referred to as the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION stage. During this time, I tried very hard to stick to my GOAL, but there were of course some days where that was not the case. The next week was a RETURN TO BASELINE, where I stopped using my REINFORCER to see if this new behavior had become habit. This week, my data were similar to what had been happening during the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION but was not exactly the same. This is the idea in any behavior change: to make it so that you continue EMITTING the TARGET BEHAVIOR even when REINFORCEMENT is not being delivered. If this becomes the case, then the BEHAVIORAL CHANGE was successful. As of right now, I think that my BEHAVIORAL CHANGE was moderately successful, of course with finals this week nothing is a sure bet as I am sure most students will be up strange hours to study and do homework. I feel as though the true test to the successfulness of my BEHAVIORAL CHANGE will be if I can keep it up when I go home for the holidays and at the start of next semester.

Terms: behavioral modification, behavior, consequence, antecedent, behavioral classes, functionality, typography, self-directed behavioral modification, target behavior, decrease, increase, elicit, emit, reinforcement, punishment, reinforcer, fixed ratio, schedule of reinforcement, backup reinforcer, goal, desirable, continuous, baseline, behavioral intervention, return to baseline

I decided to make a behavioral change when it came to my foul mouth. I know how annoying it is when I hear someone swear too much, and it makes you sound less educated. Once I had decided that I would focus on limiting myself from saying the f word, I knew I must follow the steps you provided in the text to get the best results. First I got a baseline to find out out many f words I emitted throughout each day of the week. I found through that week I averaged a ridiculous 21 f words a day. The first step in the goal setting process is to make sure you are setting out to do something realistic, and so I knew stopping the cursing altogether was probably not realistic. I then decided just to try and trim down how often I say it.
We were to add a reinforcer to aid in our behavior modification. In the assignment stating what we were planning to use as a reinforcer I said I would use candy, but after I thought about it more it would be so tough to reinforce not saying something with candy. I decided to change the game plan to positive punishment instead. I used a simple snap of a rubber band around my wrist when I would swear as the punisher.
I figured the best way to achieve success in this modification was to set a sub goal, so I set one to cut my average down by 25% after the first week of adding the punishment. This worked out almost exactly as my first week's data was 20.8/day and I turned that into exactly 15/day the next week.
I wanted to see if I could use any establishing operations on a form of punishment, so I decided to get a more elastic rubber band which did in fact inflict a little more sting. There also is tremendous importance of discriminative stimuli with swearing. Most people and myself included don't swear around their grandparents, in church, or in class very often. So I found that the more I am in these settings the less I swore that day. I work construction though, and a miss of the hammer or getting scolded by your boss can elicit some f words getting said. So antecedents to me saying the f word was being in a less formal situation, being around friends, and playing video games online. The consequence of the behavior then depends on where I said it, I can get scolded or feel embarrassed if I said it when I shouldn't have or it could be very normal if it was around other people who swear.
After the second week we were to add extinction of the reinforcer (punishment in my case), so we weren't able to lean off first. Although I did not have to worry about extinction burst with my modification because I wasn't reinforcing my behavior. I did however find in my results there were instances of spontaneous recovery. My average however did drop in the final week of recording data. It may have been because the rubber band snaps were aversive (especially over time) but it wasn't excruciating pain plus I was just simply being aware of not swearing.
Overall my target behavior did change for the better. It is far more desirable not swearing so much in my speech. I wish I would have chose the entire behavioral class of swearing because I may have just been swearing other cuss words the exact same amount, which would be not as productive as I could have been.

terms: Baseline, emit, realistic goal setting, reinforcer, behavior modification, positive punishment, punisher, sub goal, establishing operations, discriminative stimuli, elicit, antecedent, consequence, extinction, lean off, extinction burst, spontaneous recovery, aversive, target behavior, desirable, behavioral class

For my behavioral modification project this semester I selected working out for 30 minutes a day for my target behavior. Since I do not work out it was a little difficult reaching this goal, although I never quite reached 30 minutes I did manage to increase my work out time. For my reinforcer I used shopping every week. It was originally chocolate, but I changed it after the first week. Chocolate did not seem to help increase the frequency of my desired behavior. I will start off by talking about the ABC’s of behavior. The antecedent in my project was the wellness center. The behavior was lifting, running, walking, swimming. The consequence for me was to get more toned and feel better about myself. Every behavior we emit is always followed by a consequence, whether it is a positive or negative one, although we never really think about this consciously. For example, when you go to the grocery store you do not usually think that the consequence of going to the grocery store is having food. We have talked about this a tremendous amount in class so I am always aware of the consequence of a behavior. Another important thing we discussed in class is that for each behavior we emit has two basic principles: reinforcement & punishment. Based upon my behavioral project, my consequence was positive so I was being reinforced to work out daily.

To start my behavioral process I went through all the self-directed behavior steps to keep me focused and on track during my project. The first step was to set a goal. This step was probably the easiest for me because I have been meaning to work out for the past year…(embarrassing I know) My overall goal was to be healthy. The second step was to define and specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. The first target behavior was to work out for thirty minutes a day. Another behavior I tried to stop was eating too much junk food because it went along with my final goal of being healthy. I cut out a lot of things and replaced them with fruits and vegetables to give me enough energy to work out daily. The third step was to keep a record or behavioral diary. I used my school planner to keep track of how much I worked out each day. It was very easy for me to keep track of because I use my planner anyway on a regular basis. Our first week of our project was the baseline behavior where we do not reinforce ourselves with anything and try to emit our desired behavior with no reward. My first week was pretty rough. I did not really have any motivation to work out. I would always find other things to do instead like Netflix! Next, is step four. It relied on graphing our baseline. For my baseline period I experienced an average of working out 5 minutes per day. It was a rough start to say the least! After behavioral intervention occurred, the average of working out daily increased significantly because I added a reinforcer. The fifth step is to determine contingencies. My reinforcement schedule was initially was chocolate every week, but I changed it to shopping every week which worked out a lot better! My schedule of reinforcement was a fixed interval schedule because I would reinforce myself weekly. For step six, it included determining the antecedent. I changed my environment a little bit. A lot of the times in the past I would use the excuse of having to take a shower after I worked out. I figured the best time for me to work out would be mornings because I shower anyways in the mornings. This worked out quite well. I also would drink more water to give me more energy and eat more fruits and vegetables. The final step was to implement and adjust the contingencies. I found that my initial reinforcer of chocolate was not as effective as shopping which I chose to change it to. This whole process was a good way to know what reinforcers work for me and how to get myself motivated and on track to do a specific behavior. I still continue to work out daily. Although I did not reach my goal of 30 minutes daily I definitely improved tremendously from where my baseline was at.
*Just going to add this was probably one of my favorite classes and I learned so much in it too! I will actually use this information in my daily life!

Terms:
Target behavior, antecedent, behavior, consequence, desired behavior, reinforcer, emit, reinforcement, punishment, self-directed behavior, goal, baseline, behavioral intervention, schedule of reinforcement, contingencies, behavior modification, increase, decrease, desirable, aversive, positive reinforcement, elicit, return to baseline.

I underlines my terms but it did not show up!

underlined*

For my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION I wanted to start waking up earlier. Before this project I was going to bed late and waking up at 10 or 11 every day. The BEHAVIOR I wanted to EMIT was waking up at 9AM. I decided that POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, introducing a DESIRABLE STIMULUS. would be best to help me to achieve this behavior. I originally was going to REINFORCE myself by allowing myself to take a nap if I woke up at 9, but deciding that allowing myself to watch an episode of Netflix if I woke up at 9 was a stronger reinforcer. I knew that there were different CONDITIONING PROCEDURES, but I did not choose NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT because I knew that it would not be as beneficial as positive reinforcement in changing my behavior. In addition, I knew that using SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION or SHAPING would not be beneficial since I am trying to change a behavior.

The ANTECEDENT for my behavioral intervention is sleeping. The antecedent of sleeping ELICITS the behavior of waking up. The behavior is waking up at 9. The CONSEQUENCE watching an episode of Netflix right when I wake up.

My behavioral change is SELF-DIRECTED since I am changing my own behavior. There are seven steps in self-directed behavior. The first is setting a GOAL. My goal is waking up earlier each morning. The second is defining a TARGET BEHAVIOR. My target behavior is waking up at 9AM. Then I needed to RECORD my behavior (I used DIRECT ASSESSMENT), which I did each morning on a notecard on my nightstand. Then I needed to graph a baseline for my behavior which I did for one week. The fifth step was determining CONTINGENCIES, I chose to reinforce myself with Netflix. The sixth step is to determine antecedents, mine was sleeping. The last step is to implement and adjust contingencies. I had to change the DELIVERY of my reinforcer because I wanted immediate gratification (watching Netflix), rather than having to wait hours to take a nap. Additionally, watching an episode of Netflix when I woke up was a relaxing start to my morning rather than rushing to get ready.

In my BASELINE data week I found that I woke up usually anywhere between 9:30 and 11, never before 9:30. I wanted to CONDITION myself to wake up by 9 and found in my first week of PERFORMING BEHAVIOR my conditioning was working pretty well. There was a couple of days where I did not wake up at 9, but I always at least was up before 10.

In my 2 weeks of performing behavior I was waking up most days by 9, and never after 10. The days that I did not wake up at 9 were days where I did not have class until the afternoon, or on weekends. On days I did not wake up at 9 I did not allow myself to watch Netflix at all as a sort of PUNISHMENT for not emitting by desired behavior. In my return to baseline, I continued to wake up most days between 9 and 9:30 and only once at 10:30 so I do feel that I started to change my habits even though I was not reinforcing myself. I think that I will continue to reinforce myself with Netflix if I wake up earlier now that winter break is coming and I will not have any reason to wake up and get my day started since I work nights, not mornings. I do not want waking up early to EXTINGUISH because I noticed that it puts me in a better mood and makes me less drowsy when I wake up earlier.

Terms: behavioral intervention, behavior, emit, positive reinforcement, reinforce, antecedent, consequence, elicit, negative reinforcement, baseline, conditioning, performing behavior, conditioning procedures, systematic desensitization, shaping, self-directed, goal, target behavior, record, contingencies, delivery, direct assessment, desirable stimulus, punishment, extinguish

I decided that I wanted to take the change in my life seriously for this behavioral change project. I preferred not to talk about the project because of the scenarios it insinuated and how our culture has stigmas and unpreferable schemas about these situations. I decided I wanted to make my TARGET BEHAVIOR be to get more fiber into my diet because I was looking up what would make one's digestion go more smoothly. I found that fiber could do that and potentially make you feel better as a whole. I was having digestion issues at the time which is why this was an ESTABLISHING OPPERATION for me. The benefits associated are just natural REINFORCERS however, and were really more of a CONSEQUENCE of the fiber and the SALIENT force that drove the SELF DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. This made the finer the more general target behavior since it held the FUNCTION of making myself feel better. To truly get a REINFORCEMENT property I would need to implement a REINFORCER of my own. I decided to utilize the PREMACK PRINCIPLE by using a HIGH FREQUENCY BEHAVIOR, or netflix, for every time I EMITTED the TARGET BEHAVIOR of eating a snack that was labeled a “good source of fiber” which means it must contain at least 2.5 grams of fiber. I thought this form of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT would be best due to Thorndike's LAW OF RECENCY in which I had used this reinforcer successfully for the very last BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project we did with the water. I also tried to incorporate Thorndike's LAW OF EFFECT because there were so many BEHAVIORAL CLASSES, different ways to eat different kinds of fiber, that I slowly began to piece together what would work for me. Some fiber treats tasted better and were more PLEASURABLE than others, and some treats tasted bad, or tasted good and had AVERSIVE side effects. It turned out that there are more natural fibers that make your system work and feel better versus fibers that came from grains. I decided to follow another of Thorndike's laws, the LAW OF EXERCISE, in order to strongly establish the behavior; by this I used CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT and reinforced myself after every one fiber snack eaten or 2.5 grains consumed. I kept a BEHAVIORAL DIARY from BASELINE so that I could monitor my behaviors and keep myself accountable for them. I am glad I did because it helped me realize a few issues. The first was that I would need to tone the REINFORCER down to one of the ten minute shows otherwise I wouldn't have enough time to watch with all of the fiber foods I would be eating. The second was that I couldn't simply count grams of fiber because the scale would be off since I have a fruit shake that would give me a lot of fiber and if I didn't drink it one day the data would fluctuate too much. I later realized that I would have to divide the 2.5 good fiber amount into the fiber content of the drink to get an accurate reading. Then I realized that I could possibly become SATIATED, or to full of fiber foods or netflix; but since I scaled back the fiber foods, I rarely reached the actual recommended fiber intake per day which helped with satiation of fiber. Lastly, it arose that I didn't have a specific enough target behavior since my goal was simply to increase the amount I ate, which I did, but didn't really know what I was working for. I changed also decided to change my ANTECEDENTS to see to my success. I would wake up earlier when I knew I had class in order to have time to make shakes. I would also freeze all of the ingredients in a plastic bag the night before to make it as easy as possible for me to make my shakes. I avoided PUNISHMENTS even when I went home over break and didn't have access to my reinforcer; although it didn't really affect my scale since my target behavior was ELICITED through the fiber-filled foods that I would eat at home.

1)Emit 2)antecedent 3)aversive 4)pleasurable 5)salient 6)punishment 7)reinforcement 8)satiation 9)behavioral classes 10)baseline 11)positive reinforcement 12)continuous reinforcement 13)premack principle 14)law of effect 15)law of recency 16)self directed behavior 17)behavioral intervention 18)law of exercise 19)target behavior 20)consequence 21)reinforcer 22)elicit 23)behavioral diary 24)Function 25)establishing operation 26)High frequency behavior

For my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project, I racked my brain for things that were bothering me about myself that I could change. When looking at SELF DIRECTED BEHAVIORS we want something that we control by ourselves due to our own wishes. The first thing that popped into my head was showering. I always am credited by my friends as “the one who takes forever to shower”. This was honestly a really AVERSIVE problem. I hated having my roommates make fun of me and I don’t like people thinking I can’t control myself. I had done a little bit of EXTINCTION BURSTING to get some REINFORCEMENT from my roommates by trying desperately to lower my showering time at the beginning of the year. But, I just couldn’t get my shower time under 20 minutes and that was way too much time. And frankly, it bothered me too because I knew I was the one racking up our water bills. There were quite a few CONDITIONING PROCEDURES I could have used, but it had been made clear in my readings over B.F. SKINNER that PUNISHMENT and NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT would be best if I was under someone else’s control with OTHER DIRECTED BEHAVIOR.
I started with a BASELINE and found out that my average showering time was around 30 minutes, with my most lengthy showers reaching up to about 38 minutes. From there I took some time to think about steps I needed to take when setting up this project that were vital for success. First off, I had to set a GOAL. My goal was to take showers that were significantly shorter in length. I wanted to take showers 15 minutes in length on days that I didn’t have to wash my hair. On days I did have to wash my hair, I wanted to take 20 minute showers. This was the TARGET BEHAVIOR. I had already RECORDED my behavior. I have a watch that I wear for running, so I just used that. Determining the CONTINGENCIES was the most exciting part for me. I’m interested in what is reinforcing for me. I decided to first look at the ANTECEDENT. For my behavioral intervention it’s needing to shower. I’m usually just getting done with track practice when it’s time for me to shower. The antecedent of needing a shower ELICITS my behavior to take a shower. The CONSEQUENCE is taking too long in the shower, racking up our water bill. I finally decided that I should REINFORCE myself using a long shower after 6 days of following the 15 minute-20 minute pattern. I wanted to do this because after looking a little at the antecedent, I noticed I was usually cold and wanted to unwind after a long day. So, taking a long shower is definitely a reward for me. So, I used POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, the addition of a long shower to increase the likelihood that I would take shorter showers throughout the week.
For PERFORMING BEHAVIOR, it was a pretty quick and easy change. The idea that I could have as long of a shower as I wanted at the end of the week was very SALIENT for me. There were a couple days where I did end up going over and I still feel like I have to think about being quick when I get in, but I guess it’s all part of the process. Maybe someday I won’t even think about it. I was a little bit concerned that when I went home for thanksgiving break, I would experience some EXTINCTION or that I would be overcome by the DISCRIMINANT STIMULUS. But, I did, in fact, carry over the behavior. I did not extinguish the behavior and even though the environment was not the same, I was the one providing myself with the reinforcement, so I did not lose my reinforcing stimulus. I honestly don’t think I will ever be completely SATIATED by my reinforcer to the point that it no longer works as a reinforcer because I only receive it once a week. I think showering will forever and ever be really rewarding for me. Oh, the power of expectancies. Overall I’m pretty pleased with the intervention and I think it will aid me in future behavioral changes for me or anyone else in my life.

TERMS: Behavioral intervention, self directed behaviors, aversive, extinction burst, reinforcement, conditioning procedures, B.F. Skinner, punishment, negative reinforcement, other directed behavior, baseline, goal, target behavior, record, contingencies, antecedent, elicit, consequence, reinforce, positive reinforcement, performing behavior, salient, extinction, discriminant stimulus, satiated.

My project was to EMIT more BEHAVIORS of exercise. The way I went about this was to exercise for at least 45 minutes four different times during the week. My OPERATIONAL DEFINITION for exercise included things like running, lifting weights, playing basketball, etc. I tracked my progress using a BEHAVIOR DIARY. In this diary, I would write down how long I had performed my TARGET BEHAVIOR. At the end of the week, I would REINFORCE myself by adding something DESIRABLE, which, for me, would be playing video games on Sunday night if I reach my target goal. PUNISHMENT wasn’t involved in this project. If I didn’t reach my goal, I simply didn’t receive my REINFORCER.

One of the first things we learned in class was about the ABC’s. The A stands for ANTECEDENT. In my project, the antecedent was going to the gym. The B stands for BEHAVIOR. In my project, the behavior would be working out/exercising. Finally, the C stands for CONSEQUENCE. In my project, the consequence would be losing weight and simply becoming healthier.

Another thing we learned about during this class was SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT. These schedules involve when an individual is reinforced for a particular behavior. For example, if a dog is given a treat for each time it sits, this would be CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT. This is one schedule of reinforcement, but it doesn’t apply to my project. The schedule of reinforcement that applies to my project would be a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT. This includes getting reinforced at a certain time. In my case, I was reinforced on Sunday nights if I met my goal.

During this project, I used SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. There are seven steps in this process. The first step is to set a goal. My goal was to exercise more in order to lose weight and get healthier. The second step is to define and specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. The first target behavior was to exercise for 45 minutes at least four times per week. A target behavior on the side was to stop eating late at night. The third step was keeping my behavior diary, which was used to track my progress. The first and fourth week was the BASELINE performance. Reinforcement wasn’t used during these weeks. Week one was pretty easy to get started. I was probably motivated to try to do well for the project. However, my performance during week four was kind of poor. It was well below average. Weeks two and three were considered the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION. In these weeks, reinforcement was involved. The fourth step involved graphing a baseline. Like I previously said, my week one baseline behavior fell in line with the behavioral intervention numbers. However, my week four baseline performance wasn’t as good and decreased. The fifth step involves determining CONTINGENCIES. In my project, my reinforcement was that I would reward myself with video game time on Sunday nights if I met my goal. The sixth step involves determining the antecedents. These are the environments that we’re exposed to that ELICIT the behavior. My antecedent was mostly the gym. One other one would be the outdoors when I would rarely run outside. The seventh step involves implementing and adjusting the contingencies. I didn’t need to tweak my reinforcement.

For the graph, the X-AXIS represented the days. The Y-AXIS is the average amount of time that I exercised each week. The average I needed to meet my goal was 25.71. I was able to meet my goal in three of the four weeks.

I really enjoyed doing this project. It was a good way to help me understand the different terms and concepts we covered in class during the semester. To go along with that, it was a great way to better myself and overall health. I thought the information from this class was very interesting, and I really enjoyed reading the sections and learning more and more each week.

Terms: emit, behavior, operational definition, behavior diary, target behavior, reinforce, desirable, punishment, antecedent, consequence, schedule of reinforcement, continuous reinforcement, fixed interval schedule of reinforcement, self-directed behavior, baseline, behavioral intervention, contingencies, elicit, x-axis, y-axis

For my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, the behavior I wanted to work on increasing was spending more time on school work outside of class. I chose this to be the behavior I wanted to change because this semester I became more aware of where my GPA is at and it motivated me to push myself harder because it’s not an accurate reflection of me as a student. There are several factors that went into why I struggled academically since being in college, so I was worried it may be difficult to change considering there were so many factors that played a part in this. However, it turned out to be easier than I thought it would and overall, it was very beneficial for me because once I was able to get myself in more of a routine, it started to come natural.
The first thing I did was created a BASELINE. A baseline is the information obtained of how frequently the BEHAVIOR is occurring without starting the INTERVENTION. Creating my BASELINE was also helpful in the start of this process because it made me totally aware of how little amount of time I was spending on school work outside of classes. I think one thing that has always certainly served as an ANTECEDENT is the simple fact that I’ve lived off campus since my freshman year. Living off campus has it’s perks, but when it comes to applying myself to school, it’s proven to be more difficult because I’m not on campus or in environments that are conducive to studying as often as I need to be. I’d like to think I can study and do homework just fine at my house, but that’s unrealistic and there are too many distractions.
Another ANTECEDENT this semester has been that I have one roommate and she has already graduated from college. She is now working full-time, but when she has free time, she doesn’t have anything else she really has to worry about. So, there were a lot of times that we would do stuff with one another when she had days off or had time open in her schedule. These were times that I probably should have been working on school work, but it played a part in my procrastination. As I said before, there are too many distractions at my house. This among other obvious things such as my dog, having a television, surfing the internet, etc., were all ANTECEDENTS that ELICITED me to EMIT a BEHAVIOR of procrastinating. The obvious CONSEQUENCE of this is the fact that my GPA isn’t where I’d like it to be and I didn’t do as well on exams as I could have because I didn’t study enough.
I knew that all of these things I enjoyed doing in my free time were definitely distractions for me, but I also figured they could all be good POSITIVE REINFORCEMENTS for me. For my INTERVENTION, I decided that if spend a certain amount of time on schoolwork outside of classes, I would REINFORCE this behavior with being able to utilize free time to do any of these things I enjoy. Part of this meant that I needed to ask my roommate to stop asking me to do things as often, or to let her know that if I did tell her no, it wasn’t anything personal, but that I really needed to focus more on school. This being said, the PUNISHMENT for not working on homework was simply that I could not do any of these things I enjoy doing in my free time. One thing my roommate and I enjoy doing together is watching Criminal Minds on Netflix. We are often both home at night, so this is typically how we wind down together. This motivated me to do school work during the day, so I knew I could REINFORCE this behavior with being able to enjoy some Netflix with my roommate. If I didn’t do my school work during the day, I had to tell my roommate that I couldn’t hang out with her, go out to eat with her, or watch Netflix with her and instead had to be working on school work.
To carry out this INTERVENTION, I used SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. My ultimate goal was to spend time on school work five days a week. I started by setting a specific amount of time I wanted to spend on homework every day. It started with a half hour, up to an hour, to an hour and a half and so on. I told myself that I would give myself two days a week to not work on school work, and I could choose weekly which days I wanted that to be because I figured it would vary. On my graph, the X-AXIS would be the number of days, while the Y-AXIS would be the time spent on homework each of those days.
What I ended up finding, which is kind of the point of this project, was that it became second nature to work on school work. I was more motivated and spent more time throughout the week working on school work. I only regret not doing this sooner because I feel my academic performance would have been completely different. However, I plan to take what I’ve learned in this class and through this project and continue to apply it to my daily behaviors and hopefully will excel academically in the future.

TERMS: Behavioral intervention, baseline, antecedent, consequence, positive reinforcement, elicit, emit, X-axis, Y-axis, Self-directed behavior, punishment, behavior

The TARGET BEHAVIOR I focused on extinguishing was a yelling BEHAVIOR that I would EMIT after a DISCRIMINITIVE STIMULI would ELICIT anger from me. My goal was to reduce FREQUENCY of yelling, as well as to discover the FUNCTION of why I would EMIT a yelling BEHAVIOR every time that I was upset. What I discovered was that I was yelling all of the time, this may be in part due to many outside factors that ELICIT stress, but yelling was an AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR that I wished to curb.
In my efforts at BEHAVIORAL EXTINCTION I quickly realized that EXTINCTION BURSTS happen frequently. My main goal of SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION was to specifically not yell at my son when he acted out, or refused to comply with instruction. As a single mother I have learned that my child can be a STIMULUS for AVERSIVE BEHAVIOR on my part.
First I needed to conclude a FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT for my behavior to discover why it was that I would respond to my son so aggressively. I did this through describing the TARGET BEHAVIOR, what its CONSEQUENCES were, and what ANTECEDENTS influenced my BEHAVIOR. From their I followed the steps, and examined my ABC’s and allowed myself to hypothesize what actions I could take in DISRUPTION OF THE OPERANT BEHAVIOR of yelling while I was angry.
Once I discovered why I was EMITTING AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR I was better equipped to create a BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION plan. My goal was to stop immediately responding to my son with anger when I would get upset. To accomplish this I first had to OBSERVE my behaviors and record them without INTERVENTION which was my BASELINE PERFORMANCE. This data allowed me to observe myself, and also to note under which circumstances I was most volatile.
After a week of collecting BASELINE DATA, I was then able to enforce my INTERVENTION. My REINFORCER was time spent alone at the end of the week, with the CONTINGENCY being that I did not yell over 4 times per day in a given week. I chose “alone time” as a REINFORCER because I do not often get to spend time by myself doing things I enjoy. This allotted time was on Friday nights where my Dad would watch my son for me. Seeing as DEPRIVATION of time to myself was a governing factor in my stress levels, this would be an appropriate REINFORCEMENT. Another REINFORCER was the NATURAL CONTINGENCY of feeling great about not yelling at my son. I don’t enjoy being angry but it feels as if it is more common for me to be upset than not upset, and I felt I must change my BEHAVIOR so as not to teach my son through modeling or OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING.
The ANTECEDENTS that elicited the most executions of the target behavior were before school and before bedtime. I noticed that I either felt rushed to get out the door, or rushed to get homework done. Noting the hurriedness in my day to day life, may also inspire an intervention on that as well.
As seen in the provided graph, my DEPENDENT MEASURE was the TARGET BEHAVIOR of yelling, which is was I wanted to lessen or eradicate completely. Although my third week of data during the INTERVENTION shows regressed progress, I was still able to maintain six or less episodes per day. By the fourth week when the intervention period had concluded, I had fully returned to exhibiting my original baseline behaviors. Although I was not as successful as I planned to be during this intervention of behaviors, I have been made aware of other behaviors or ways of thinking that need to change in order to modify the amount of my yelling behaviors. I do not particularly hold yelling within a HIGH VALENCE, but I do see that other areas of my life take precedence in behavior modification.

Terms: target behavior, behavior, emit, discriminative stimuli, elicit, frequency, function, aggressive behavior, behavioral extinction, extinction bursts, self-directed behavior modification, stimulus, aversive behavior, functional assessment, consequences, antecedents, disruption of operant behavior, behavioral intervention, observe, baseline performance, baseline data, reinforcer, deprivation, natural contingency, observational learning, dependent measure, valence

For my BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION, I chose to focus on was my daily walking. My reasoning for choosing this behavior is that I have a larger goal of losing weight and living a healthier lifestyle. This is a goal that I have for myself and is purely set through my own SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR; I have exerted my own free will to increase my walking or exercise and decrease my weight. Being that my overall GOAL to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle is too vague and would be difficult to accomplish, I choose break it down into smaller more attainable goals or SUBGOALS such as the TARGET BEHAVIOR I chose for my project: walking 8,000 steps a day.

To track my behavior throughout my project and to chart my progress, I maintained a BEHAVIOR DIARY through a fitness application I have my phone. This application allowed me to track my walking (steps per day), other exercise behaviors I emitted throughout the day, and a place for me to input the food I consumed/meals I ate. This application helped me to be accountable for my fitness.

In class one of the first things we learned was the ABC’S OF BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION The ABC’s help us to breakdown the components involved in behaviors. The component of the ABC’s is the ANTECEDENT. The antecedent is the situation, environment or action that occurs immediate prior to a behavior occurring. The antecedent in my project is increasing my walking. The B in the ABC’s stands for behavior. The BEHAVIOR in my project was walking 8,000 steps daily. The C in the ABC’s stands for the CONSEQUENCES of the behavior occurring. The consequence of me EMITTING the behavior is that I was getting in my daily exercise. Although, getting in my daily exercise was not the only consequence of emitting this behavior. By emitting this behavior I was receiving REINFORCEMENT in many different forms.

To start my project I began by tracking my walking without SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT in place, I did this so that I could establish a BASELINE. A baseline is a starting point for a behavior change in which no reinforcement or PUNISHMENT of the behavior has occurred; it is helpful in seeing how the behavior is when it happens naturally. The first week I charted my daily steps, I made my target behavior twice during that week. In preparation for the second week of my project, I established a schedule of reinforcement. Within this schedule, I decided that I should be reinforced once a week on Fridays with being able to purchase a new song on iTunes to add to my iPhone. I chose a FIXED RATIO as my schedule of reinforcement because I would have purchased a song everyday, that would have become too expensive and the reinforcement may have be become AVERSIVE to me instead of a DESIRABLE STIMULUS as I intended it to be. After the using this schedule of reinforcement for a week, I noticed that increase in my target behavior was not as I desired it to be, so I maintain it as fixed ratio I just altered the REINFORCER to be given daily instead of weekly to see if that would ELICIT a more DESIRABLE RESPONSE in my walking behavior. In the third week of my BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION, I noticed a increase in my target behavior since the I made the change in my schedule of reinforcement. Being reinforced daily has increased my MOTIVATION for changing my behavior.

The final week of my behavior modification that I tracked for class, I expected that my walking behavior would decrease because I was no longer receiving reinforcement for my behavior. To my surprise, my behavior not only maintained but also increased where it was. I was no longer reinforcing myself using my SECONDARY REINFORCERS of adding new music to my iPhone every day, but I was still reinforcing myself through my PRIMARY REINFORCERS of feeling better about myself and my boy and the stress relief I got from having some alone time when I was walking. Primary reinforcers are the biologically relevant reinforcers that are untrained or instinctual; thankfully for me, these are the reinforcers I will always have to use at my advantage when I am trying to modify or change my behavior. Even with the use of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, through the addition of new music to my iPhone each day I was able to still see an increase in my walking behavior. Positive reinforcement is when the frequency of a behavior is increased through the addition of a desirable stimulus.

To show progress through my project, I decided to create a line graph that would showcase the changes that I was able to make in my walking patterns through my daily steps. The X-AXIS is represented by the week and day. The Y-AXIS is represented by the number in thousand of steps I took each day. The number of steps I needed to take each day to meet my goal was 8,000 steps.

I really enjoyed completing this project. I feel that it truly helped to see what I am capable of changing my life. This is one of the first times that I have been able to make a fitness related goal and stick to it for more than a month. I am still going strong on this goal and I plan to continue with it even though the semester has ended. This project was a great way to connect what I was learning in the classroom to a real life change I wanted to make in my life.

Terms: behavior modification, self-directed behavior, goals, subgoals, target behavior, behavior diary, ABC’s of behavior modification, antecedent, behavior, consequences, emitting, reinforcement, schedule of reinforcement, baseline, punishment, fixed ratio, desirable stimulus, aversive, reinforcer, elicit, desirable response, behavior intervention, motivation, secondary reinforcer, primary reinforcer, positive reinforcement, x-axis, y-axis

I also sent this to you in an email with my graph! :)

For my behavioral change project, I decided to work on something that I have been continuously trying to change for the past seven years or so. Eating. Previously I have tried all sorts of SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT, PUNISHMENTS, REINFORCEMENTS, DEPRIVATION of various foods (desserts and bread), SATIATION of others such as all fruits and vegetables, the list goes on and on! Through TRIAL AND ERROR I have come to find that certain BEHAVIORS have stuck, such as eating healthy for the most part, but I still wanted to change aspects of my behavior that have been the biggest struggle. I have always wanted to eat less in general and to cut down on the sweets. Although I generally eat quite healthy, naturally my portions are much too big, I eat when I am not always hungry, and I have/(had) a problem with eating desserts until I was satiated or depriving myself so much of sweets that I would INTERMITTENTLY binge.

When talking about behavior changes I first had to realize what type of behavior I was changing-who was going to effect the outcome of my behavior most? I realized that this was definitely a SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR change. If wanted to change me eating habits, it had to be done by me with motivation from myself. The next step was trying to distinguish the exact behaviors I wanted to change-what was my TARGET BEHAVIOR going to be? I decided to narrow it down to eating less and cutting out desserts. I quickly found out through FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT that this had to be more specific to be obtainable and I needed to make aspects of it more realistic to ensure lasting effects of the behavior change (otherwise it was not going to be functional in my life). I decided to change my behavior to eating only one plate of food at every meal (maximum of 3 meals per day), I had to drink a full glass of water at every meal, and I was only allowed to have 1 dessert a day. My REINFORCER for these changes was going to be allowing myself to eat an extra dessert on the weekend if I followed the program I had created. This was on a VARIABLE INTERVAL SCHEDULE-I received my reward at the same time-every weekend if following through. It was variable, because the reinforcer depended on my behavior and it was interval because it depended on the passage of time. After talking to my dad about this reinforcer he laughed and said, why would you REINFORCE yourself with a behavior you are trying to change? So I changed it to rewarding myself with a mango at the end of the week. This worked for the first week of recording my behaviors, but then it was no longer reinforcing...especially because they started serving mangos in the dinning center on a daily basis. I then tried to reinforce myself using DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER, so substituting rock climbing in place of food or an extra food item on the weekend if I had followed through with my other behaviors. I eventually found myself not really being reinforced except by my own will to change my behaviors and follow through with this program, it had INTRINSIC VALUE to me. I felt like I was strong and could overcome obstacles if it was at my own free will. I came to find at that small things along the way are much more reinforcing than a large goal off in the distance, I need constant motivation and reminders. I also came to discover that NATURALLY OCCURRING PUNISHMENT is enough in itself to stop my poor eating habits. Naturally when I eat a lot and when I eat many desserts, I gain weight, which is extremely AVERSIVE to me.

As I started to go through the BASELINE week, I was so excited to start my behavioral change program that my behaviors were somewhat affected and were not as bad as they usually were. The baseline was not as low as normal. After the first week I was very excited to use my reinforcers to ELICIT the desired behaviors. For the first week, my reinforcers had somewhat of an impact on my behavior change, and then they lost some of their impact. Changes in my eating had been a longtime GOAL, so changing some of these behaviors had begun to continue to SHAPE my eating habits. I took some aspects and left others. If I accidentally slipped up on a dessert here and there-my FREE WILL came out, it wasn't the end of the world, but after a while I got use to only eating one a day-I had been CONDITIONED and my behavior had be shaped.

Although I did not keep an actual BEHAVIORAL DIARY, I definitely evaluated my behaviors along the way. I discovered that I eat too much because I am usually with my staff when I eat and it is a socializing time with them. I associated food with social time, especially when I was stressed out. Once I discovered this, I began to use ESCAPE and AVOIDANCE LEARNING. If a escaped situations where there was food, or avoided them, it would help significantly with eating too much. This was true. When I stopped going to lunch all of the time with my staff or making sure I went to every dinner with them, I found my project going very smoothly. I started only having one plate of food, was much more calm about eating, and was not tempted to have desserts because my staff wasn't there to encourage this UNDESIRABLE behavior.

Overall I would say I started out with a great plan that was attainable, and would ensure some lasting effects. I set a great target behavior that I could manage and learned a lot along the way. During the baseline period I was very excited about changing my behavior, during the two weeks of solid data recording I went through many reinforcer changes (EXPERIMENTING with various reinforcers)-none of which truly worked. I learned a great deal about my behaviors and what makes me tick. What works and what doesn't. I discovered that eating with my staff was an ANTECEDENT to EMITTING the undesirable behaviors of eating to much and too many desserts. The CONSEQUENCE was gaining weight and feeling bad about my actions. After the two weeks of solid data collection, I discovered that some behaviors stuck and proved to be truly REWARDING, while others will still need to be worked on. I have continued to eat only one plate of food for the most part. If I add a second plate of food it usually consists of fruit which is good. The part I still struggle with somewhat is desserts, usually having from 1-3 per day. This really needs to change-hopefully I can find a way to make this behavior become EXTINCT or drastically diminished.

The outcome of my behavior project can be seen in the LINE GRAPH I created. After recording my behaviors and finding a system to graph it the results were pretty accurate with how I thought the behavioral project went. Although I was a bit disappointed with my return to baseline because I had quite a big dip on one of the days, day 25. I named my line graph "Eating Behavior Chart," labeling the 'Y' axis or DEPENDENT MEASURE: Check Marks (max of 7 per day) and the 'X' axis: Days. The 'Y' axis kept track of the number of check marks I received each day. The total amount of check marks I could receive was 7.
1 check-full glass of water at breakfast
1 check-only 1 plate of food at breakfast

1 check-full glass of water at lunch
1 check-only 1 plate of food at lunch

1 check-full glass of water at dinner
1 check-only 1 plate of food at dinner

1 check-only 1 dessert all day

equalling a total of 7 checks.

I recorded checks every day for a total of 4 weeks or 28 days. These days were each listed on the line graph-each day is represented.

During the baseline my check mark numbers were all over the place. The second week when I started recording my performing behavior, the numbers rose, but were still pretty variable. About mid second week to mid third week I hit a steady number of my target number of seven checks per day. This was when mangos was my reinforcer and I was highly self motivated as well. After mangos were not reinforcing any more my performance decreased but not to the level it was during my original baseline. In my return to baseline, I leveled off a bit, had a big dip in the middle of the week (day 25) and then my behaviors rose back to my target behavior or 7 check marks and started to level out and stay consistent. Overall I am pretty pleased with my results even though they are not completely consistent. I rather see constant baby steps toward my ultimate goal than leaps and bound of improved only to have them fail when the behavioral project is finished. (This is much of what happened in previous attempts to change my behavior.) I considered this highly successful and I learned a lot!


Terms: Schedules of reinforcement, punishment, reinforcement, deprivation, satiation, trial and error, behavior, intermittently, self-directed behavior, target behavior, functional assessment, reinforcer, variable interval schedule, reinforce, differential reinforcement of other, intrinsic value, naturally occurring punishment, aversive, baseline, elicit, goal, shape, conditioned, behavioral diary, escape learning, avoidance learning, undesirable, experimenting, antecedent, emitting, consequence, rewarding, extinct, line graph, dependent measure

For the behavior modification project I chose getting the selected homework done for each day as me TARGET BEHAVIOR. This included EMITTING time to set aside to work on my homework. This was set up for a FIXED INTERVAL of six weeks. I started on November third and ended on December fifthteenth. The thing I liked most about this project was that it was a SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIORAL PROJECT. The fact that I got to choose my behavior was REWARDING in itself to me. In writing up my behavior modification project, I decided to start with the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIORAL STEPS. First, in setting up my project I made a goal. This goal was to get all of the homework done that I could within that day. This would consist of three to five assignments each day. Step two consist of defining the goal as a set of TARGET BEHAVIORS. This would include to EMIT finishing the assignments I had in my planner each day. Also finishing one project at a time. As well as finding a good location to focus at. The third step is keeping a record. I kept a record in my planner for every day. I had each assignment written down as well as the RATIO of what I accomplished. Fourth, is graph a BASELINE. The first week from November third to November ninth I set up the BASELINE and recorded it. Fifth is to determine CONTINGENCIES. I implemented the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTIONS which included watching an episode of Once Upon a Time. This worked for a while until watching an episode of this TV show became SATIATED. Then I changed to spending time with friends afterwards. This caused DEPRIVATION at first then slowly died because homework time turned into friend time. The next BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION that I used was just the satisfaction of feeling relieved at night knowing that I got all of my homework done. This worked sometimes but not all the time. The sixth step is to determine the ANTECEDENTS. One ANTECEDENT included doing homework in my room. Another one included doing homework right after work. A third ANTECEDENT included going to the library. And lastly, implementing and adjusting the contingencies. This is where I followed out my project for six weeks. I tried using watching an episode of Once Upon a Time as a form of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT. It lasted for the first week but then I started watching the episodes even when I didn’t finish my assignments I had chosen to do. As a RESPONSE, I started to not get homework done. I then started using hanging with friends afterwards as a REINFORCEMENT. This ended up becoming SATIATED. The more I told myself that I could hang out with friends, the more it fell farther away from being a REINFORCEMENT. I thought that the time with friends and the episodes would be a highly INTRINSIC value to me, but it slowly fell. The CONSEQUENCE was not getting the homework done that I had assigned myself. My location for finishing these assignments started out in my room but then moved to the library. This was an ESTABLISHING OPERATION. Overall I have learned that doing the assignments that I have assigned myself is going to take a lot of work. All the different ways I tried during this project didn’t work out the way I wanted them too. Hopefully, I can find a REINFORCEMENT that will work.

TERMS: establishing operation, consequence, contingencies, intrinsic, reinforcement, satiated, response, positive reinforcement, antecedent, baseline, behavioral intervention, deprivation, satiated, ratio, emit, target behaviors, self-directed behavior steps, rewarding, self-directed behavior, fixed interval, emitting, target behavior.
My graph is in an email i sent you.

A large section of the textbook that we discussed this semester was about self-directed behavior. This behavioral change project is all about self-directed behavior. The idea behind self-directed behavior is decided by you, yourself, if you need to increase or decrease a certain behavior that you are emitting. The reason why self-directed behavior is more successful at changing behaviors is because you don’t have the pressure of an outside source telling you what to do, therefore, it provides a feeling of free will.
For my behavioral change project, I decided that I wanted to change my target behavior of eating out at sit-down restaurants and getting food from fast food restaurants. I focused on this behavioral change in order to reduce the amount of money that I spend on these behaviors each week. The first step in my behavioral change project was to narrow down the behavioral class I was focusing on, such as spending money, and turn it into a more specified target behavior. It is important when trying to change a behavior that you are specific with what you want to change and narrow down what that behavior looks like by defining your operational definition, because, as we talked about at the beginning of the class, behaviors can look the same topographically or from the outside, but they may mean different things, or have different functions. For example, someone raising their voice. Raising someone’s voice may all look and sound the same, but they may be doing it for many different reasons, because it is loud around them, because they are angry, or because the person they are talking to is hard of hearing.
It is very important when you are trying to change a behavior that you set realistic goals. One of the last sections of the textbook talked about how there are a few key factors that you need to take into account when setting up a goal. I made sure to take all of these factors into account before I went much further in my behavior modification. The first thing I needed to do was make sure that my goal was realistic. Reducing the amount of money I spent each week by ten dollars wasn’t a huge decrease, so in my eyes, it was definitely realistic. Next, I looked at my resources that I had to make this goal achievable. I knew that I could save money by buying groceries and benefiting from left overs, so this could help me reduce spending money. Last, looking at the time frame I had was important as well. We had about a month of this behavioral change project which was the perfect amount of time to conduct both our baseline and out intervention. Some people don’t give themselves enough time when setting up goals, which can lead to failure in changing their behavior.
My next step, was to find a reinforcement that I could use to reward myself with if I limited myself to the amount of times a week I emitted my behavior of eating out. There are many different types of schedules of reinforcement that we learned about throughout the semester, but the one that I thought would be most effective for my behavioral change project would be fixed interval. Fixed interval as we learned in class, is reinforcing a behavior after a fixed amount of time. For the first two weeks I measured my behavior using a baseline recording of my behavior. Collecting baseline date is extremely important in order for you to see if your behavior was actually reduced at the end of your intervention. During the time when you are collecting your baseline data, you are NOT implanting a reward. Based off my baseline graph, I wanted to reduce the amount of money I spent by ten dollars each week, for 3 weeks. The first week after my baseline, I would try and keep the amount under 30 dollars, then 20 dollars, and the final week, 10 dollars. The reinforcement that I chose was being able to go out for ice-cream without any penalty to my dollar amount spent that week. IF I didn’t stay under my amount, I wouldn’t not punish myself using aversive techniques, I just simply wouldn’t get the ice-cream treat at the end of the week.
Now, In order to change my behavior, I needed to figure out what types of antecedents or environments led me most to eat out and spend money. Antecedents are what sets up the behavior to happen. During my baseline period, not only did I record the money I spent and what I spent it on, I also recorded who I was with or what time of the day it was when I spent that money going out to eat. The biggest factor that I noticed was, I usually was with my friends or boyfriend when I went out to eat. Imagine that, I didn’t spend money on food when I was just by myself. Having this knowledge of what antecedents set me up for my spending behavior was helpful during the second stage of my intervention, when I was trying to reduce the money I spent.
Although I thought about using differential reinforcement, as a busy college student I didn’t quite remember to do this. However, if I would have I would have used differential reinforcement of other to reinforce other behaviors that I emitted instead of spending money going out to eat. However, my initial plan was to reward myself with a small reward such as a piece of chocolate every time that I either cooked a meal at my house, or found something to eat at home that wouldn’t require me to eat out. DRO is used a lot in behavior modification in order to reward behaviors that are not the unpleasant behavior, in order for that unpleasant behavior to eventually become extinct.
For my results, I definitely saw a decrease in the amount of money that I spent throughout the weeks of my intervention. The consequence of eating out now isn’t breaking my bank account quite as much as it did before. My graph does a good job of showing how I successfully reduced the amount of money that I spent each week. Although I wasn’t perfect throughout this whole intervention, I definitely believe that reducing the money I spent each week by increments of ten dollars was much more helpful because I wasn’t completely deprived of eating out. If I were to go straight from spending thirty dollars a week to ten dollars the next, I definitely would have gotten frustrated and my behavior would have relapsed back into my old habits very quickly. Overall, I believe this behavioral change project was very good for me (and my bank account), and I definitely will be trying it with other behaviors that I want to increase or reduce in the future!

Terms: Self-directed behavior, emitting, target behavior, behavioral class, behavioral change, behaviors, operational definition, topographical, reinforcement, reward, schedules of reinforcement, fixed interval schedule, measured, baseline, reduce, punish, antecedents, differential reinforcement, differential reinforcement of other, behavior modification, unpleasant, extinct, aversive, emitted, define, function , goal setting, realistic, time frame, achievable


The email I sent you include both the graph and a copy of my writing portion.

My terms were underlined in my word document but it doesn't look like they transferred to my blog. If you refer to the email I sent you with my word doc attachment that may be helpful!

Thanks

Cassidy Monaco
Final Blog: Behavioral Change Project
For this project, I wanted to change my unhealthy behavior of lack of exercise, and instead EMIT more BEHAVIORS of exercise. I decided this would consist of a TARGET BEHAVIOR of exercise 5 days per week. For the purpose of this project, I noted each time I exercised. If I EMITTED the target behavior (exercise five times or more each week), I REINFORCED myself with something desirable, which was different each week. The behavioral change project was really important for me because I had been wanting to change this behavior for a long time, however now that I learned the best way to modify my own behavior, I could change my behavior effectively.
For my project, I thought about the ABC’s OF BEHAVIOR that we learned at the very beginning of the semester. The ANTECEDENT was going to the gym, the BEHAVIOR was exercise 5 days per week, and the CONSEQUENCE was losing weight and being more fit. We are usually unaware that every behavior we EMIT is always followed by a CONSEQUENCE, whether positive or negative, because we EMIT so many BEHAVIORS each day that we do not even realize it. In class we learned that in order to change or modify a behavior, one should use REINFORCEMENT and PUNISHMENT. In my project, I REINFORCED myself for exercising 5 times per week because I added something desirable in order to increase a behavior. In other words, I wanted to receive my reward, or REINFORCER at the end of each week because I made my reward be something I really wanted. This caused me to want to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR so I could receive the REINFORCER. For example, one week I exercised 5 times, so at the end of the week, I bought myself a new pair of workout pants that I had been wanting. I wanted these pants really badly, so on Thursday of this week when I wanted to skip my workout, I reminded myself of my REINFORCER, and went to the gym so that I could reward myself by buying the pants at the end of the week.
In behavior modification psychology, there are multiple different SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT. These schedules vary, based on when the individual is REINFORCED for EMITTING the TARGET BEHAVIOR. For example, if a child gets a piece of candy every single time he EMITS the TARGET BEHAVIOR of raising his hand in class, he is being CONTINUOUSLY REINFORCED. For my project, I did not have a SCHEDULE OF CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT because I was not REINFORCED each day after I exercised. Instead, I was REINFORCED at the end of each week, but only if I EMIITTED the TARGET BEHAVIOR 5 times. This is a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE. This type of schedule can be written as FR5, because I had to exercise 5 times in order to receive the REINFORCER.
SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR is when we MODIFY a BEHAVIOR of our own. This means that we rely on ourselves to manage the BEHAVIOR and administer the CONSEQUENCES of the behavior, which often includes administering the REINFORCERS. My behavior change project of exercising more is a SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR because I am managing the BEHAVIORS and their CONSEQUENCES myself. I also am in charge of determining the REINFORCERS to be used and administering them when I EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR. We use self-directed behavior to change or modify our own behaviors in order to reach our goals. Many goals fail because they are too broad (they might be a BEHAVIOR CLASS instead of a specific behavior) or they involve PUNSIHERS rather than REINFORCERS. We learned that it is best to redefine our behaviors to use REIFORCEMENT rather than PUNISHMENT, as this is the most effective way to modify a behavior.
When completing the behavioral change project, I followed 7 steps of achieving SELF-DIRECTED GOALS. Step 1 is to set a goal. This cannot to too broad, meaning that it cannot be a BEHAVIOR CLASS, but needs to be a SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR. My goal is to emit 45 minutes of exercising behavior 5 or more times per week. Exercising is a behavior class, so I specified my goal in step 2. Step 2 is to specify the goal. A specific goal must be "PRECISE, MANAGABLE, MEASUREABLE, AND FIT YOUR DAILY LIFESTYLE." On Monday and Wednesdays, I will complete 45 minute of weight lifting activity. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I will run on the treadmill for 15 minutes, use the elliptical for 15 minutes, and use the stationary bike for 15 minutes. On Friday mornings I will complete a pre-determined 45 minute abdominal workout in my dorm room. For my lifestyle, working out 5 times a week is manageable, but also challenging, which is why I chose this goal. Step 3 is to keep a record. For this project, it was easy to keep a record of which days I worked out by marking a green X on my calendar for each day that I worked out. This felt a little bit like a reward after each workout to mark it on my calendar and see the amount of green X’s increase. I also wrote down in a notebook what type of exercise I did and for how long and at the end of the week, if I worked out enough to get my REINFORCER, I was then reinforced. Step 4 is to graph a BASELINE. This means to record your behaviors when you are not being reinforced, to see your “normal” frequency of emitting this behavior. I recorded my behaviors for not being reinforced for one week. The next week, I did step 5, which is to determine CONTINGENCIES. This means to determine all of the details about your behavior change. During this step, I made a list of my weekly REINFORCERS. For example, week 1 was my new yoga pants, week 2 was a dinner out with friends, and week 3 was a night of drinking on the weekend. I changed up my reinforcers so that I do not get SATIATED, which would make the reinforcer less reinforcing. I also decided that I would reinforce myself at the end of each week (on Saturday or Sunday), since my goal consisted of working out on the five weekdays. Step 6 is to determine ANTECEDENTS. Antecedents are important because they ELICIT behaviors. In order to increase the frequency of emitting my target behavior, I laid out my workout clothes and shoes each night so that I would workout the next day. Step 7 is to implement and adjust the contingencies. This is when I began my behavior change project. I did not really need to make any adjustments.
This class has truly taught me so much about how it is possible to MODIFY a behavior. Overall, this behavioral change project was successful during the implementation, however, when I stopped REINFORCING myself for EMITTING the TARGET BEHAVIOR, the frequency of the behavior decreased. Although I completely understand the point of this project and I know how to do it in the future with different TARGET BEHAVIORS, my project just didn’t turn out the way I wanted it. Another thing I wanted to point out was that during the project, I kept track of if I went to the gym or not, not a specific number of hours. Because when I work out my goal was to exercise for 45 min-1 hour, I converted my “yes” to “1 hour” to make it easier to graph.

TERMS: emit, behaviors, modify target behavior, reinforced, ABCs of behavior, antecedent, consequence, punishment, reinforcement, reinforcer, continuous reinforcement, schedules of reinforcement, fixed ratio, self-directed behavior, behavior class, punishers, self-directed goals, specific behavior, elicit, baseline, contingencies, satiated

Behavior Modification Final

For my BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project I decided to become a weekday vegetarian. I was prompted to do this project in order to lessen my environmental footprint, thus acting more eco-friendly, and I figured I would also become healthier by cutting out red meat, fish, and chicken, thus it was SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. In this scenario, weekday vegetarian is considered to be a BEHAVIOR CLASS since it can have many different BEHAVIOR TOPOGRAPHIES or BEHAVIORAL FUNCTIONS to different people. It can have different behavior topographies because it might look different to different people; some people might only cutout red meat from their diet, others might cutout red meat, chicken, fish, eggs, or even dairy. It has different functions depending on why people are cutting these foods out of their diet; I am cutting them out in order to be eco-friendly, but others might cut them out because they are concerned with harming animals. It is important to understand the behavior topography and function because that will influence how behavior is reinforced.

I decided that my TARGET BEHAVIOR would be strictly eating red meat, chicken, and fish; I decided that eggs and dairy are acceptable to eat. After I established my target behavior, I started monitoring my BEHAVIOR in order to create a BASELINE of my current meat-eating habits and what I discovered was that I ate meat about 2-3 times a day. I considered an instance of meat-eating behavior to be any time that I consumed one chunk of meat or something with meat as a topping. For example, if I ate two slices of pepperoni pizza, I considered that to be 2 instances of meat-eating behavior.

As we have learned over the course of the semester, individuals respond more efficiently to REWARDS rather than PUNISHMENTS, so I decided to REINFORCE the absence of behavior using a method called DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF THE OTHER (DRO). So instead of PUNISHING myself every time that I ate meat over the course of the INTERVENTION, I REINFORCED myself on the days that I did not EMIT meat-eating behavior. I had two SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT implemented in order to properly REINFORCE myself in a way that would actually decrease meat-eating behavior. I was CONTINUOUSLY REINFORCED whenever I did not eat meat because I would think of the reasons why I decided not to eat meat, which was to be more eco-friendly and healthier. This was a type of RULE-GOVERNED BEHAVIOR that I implemented on myself since I told myself that not eating meat would result in certain CONSEQUENCES that I found desirable. Another SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT that I used was a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE since I would REINFORCE myself every two days that I did not eat meat. I would buy myself a Raspberry Black Chai Iced Tea from the Book Bistro in the library and then watch Netflix, which are examples of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT since I am adding things that I find pleasurable to my daily schedule. Since I love that drink and do not usually have time to watch very much Netflix, I used things that I already found rewarding and used them as my reinforcers. Another reinforcer was that I was able to eat meat on Saturdays and Sundays, which was highly reinforcing during the week. It was more reinforcing to know that I was able to eat meat at some point in the week and not cut it out of my diet entirely! This was also on a fixed interval schedule since I knew I could eat meat on the weekend if I made it Monday – Friday without eating any meat.

Throughout my behavior intervention I kept a BEHAVIOR JOURNAL, which helped me create a FUNCITONAL ANALYSIS of my behavior and I found that there were a lot of ANTECEDENTS that ELICITED my meat-eating behavior. Before I began the intervention, I noticed that when I was eating places in which there were pre-set food options (such as at the dining center and one instance at a restaurant), that is when it was really hard for me to remain vegetarian. In the dining center, the food is already prepared and sitting out, so that acted as an antecedent because I would look at the meat options, they would look enticing, and then I would want to eat them. When I began the intervention, I learned to check the dining center menu before I went to meals so that I could avoid the stations that had the tasty meat so that I wouldn’t see it and want to eat it. And there was one instance during the intervention in which I went out to dinner with a church group to a restaurant where they had two entrée selections, both of which contained meat. In that situation I was forced to eat something with meat, so I did.

Once I terminated the intervention, I found that my meat eating behavior increased. I think this was because the meat acted as an ESTABLISHING OPERATION in which I had used meat to reinforce my non-meat-eating behaviors during the week, so when I stopped the intervention, I found eating meat in general was more desirable (and reinforcing) than it was before I began the intervention. And now that it has been almost two weeks without the intervention, thus two weeks of increased meat-eating behavior, I find myself SATIATED on meat. It was a sort of POST-REINFORCEMENT PAUSE in my schedule of reinforcement in that I stopped the intervention and stopped reinforcing my non-meat-eating behavior, so I had a break to eat meat in which I actually increased the amount of meat I was eating, thus decreasing the FREQUENCY of the target behavior.

The variation in my behavior before the intervention, during the intervention, and after the intervention can all be seen on my BEHAVIOR GRAPH. The first week was my behavior before the intervention, which is how I determined by behavior baseline. I then implemented the intervention on the second Monday, and as we can see, I was fairly successful except for one day in which I was at the previously mentioned restaurant in which there were no vegetarian entrée options. During the third week of the intervention I found myself craving meat, so that is when I ate it once, two days in a row because the thought of the Starbuck’s drink and Netflix were not a strong enough reinforcer at that point in time to stop me from eating the meat. When I finally stopped the intervention after the third week, as I already discussed, my meat consumption increased to more than my original baseline. And what is not on the graph is my past week’s behavior in which I feel that I have returned back to my original baseline after the post-reinforcement pause. Overall I thought that this was a great learning experience, even if the behavior modification was not quite successful since I did not maintain my weekday vegetarian habits. Now I have a better understanding of what reinforcers will and will not work for me and that I must vary my schedules of reinforcement and types of reinforcement in order to make the intervention effective.

Terms: behavior modification, self-directed behavior, behavior class, behavior topographies, behavioral function, target behavior, behavior, baseline, rewards, punishments, reinforce, differential reinforcement of the other (DRO), punishing, intervention, reinforced, emit, schedules of reinforcement, continually reinforced, rule-governed behavior, consequences, fixed interval schedule, positive reinforcement, behavior journal, functional analysis, antecedents, elicited, establishing operation, satiated, post-reinforcement pause, frequency, behavior graph

For my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project I chose to change my BEHAVIOR of biting my nails. Biting my nails is a very bad habit that I EMIT so I thought it would be a good BEHAVIOR to decrease. I tracked the number of times that I caught myself biting my nails for the first week of this project, which is known as BASELINE. The TARGET BEHAVIOR I was tracking was every time I bit my nails. I also tried to keep track of the ANTECEDENTS and DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULUS that often set the occasion for me to catch myself biting my nails. ANTECENTS included situations where I was nervous or bored. The CONSEQUENCE of biting my nails is that my nails are really short and don’t look very nice.
In order to use BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION techniques to change my BEHAVIOR I decided to use PUNISHMENT to EXTINGUISH my nail biting habit. NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT involves the addition of some AVERSIVE in order to decrease the likelihood of a BEHAVIOR being EMITTED in the future; in this case I used repainting my nails as NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT every time I caught myself biting my nails. My nails biting average during BASELINE week, involved no intervention, was 4.7 times. When I did use NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT the number of times I bit my nails decreased. The PUNISHER that I chose was very time consuming so every time I bit a nail, I didn’t actually end up repainting all of my nails I just took the polish off of that nail and repainted it. My intervention turned out to be a VARIABLE RATIO SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT, involving me not SELF-REINFORCING every time I EMITTED the AVERSIVE BEHAVIOR. Since being to keep track of the number of times I bite my nails, I have seen a huge decrease in the amount of times I catch myself, my BEHAVIOR of biting my nails is almost EXTINGUISHED! (Graph sent in an email)
Terms: antecedent, behavior, consequence, behavior modification, emit, emitted, aversive, negative punishment, punisher, punishment, self-reinforcing, extinction, extinguished, target behavior, schedule of reinforcement, variable ratio, discriminative stimulus, behavioral intervention, baseline


For our SELF-DIRECTED behavior modification project, I chose to increase the frequency the BEHAVIORAL CLASS of cardio in my workout routine. For me, lifting has a POSITIVE VALENCE while cardio has a NEGATIVE VALENCE. For a while, I saw cardio as an AVERSIVE activity but now I see it as something necessary to keep me healthy.I needed to use POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT in order to ELICIT my self to EMIT the behavior of doing more cardio. My BASELINE data collection shows that I do cardio about one time per week, which is typically on an exercise bike or a treadmill. My schedule is the main ANTECEDENT to my cardio activity, because if I have a large break between classes and meetings or other obligations, I will stay at the union and do cardio at the HealthBeat.

I know that there are a lot of positive CONSEQUENCES to cardio activities, such as increase heart health and accelerated calorie burn. However, these results are not apparent immediately. The NATURAL CONTINGENCIES from doing more cardio include feeling better about oneself and being healthier, and these can only be achieved by patiently waiting for DELAYED GRATIFICATION while pursuing a goal.
For this particular assignment, I chose to change the specific TARGET BEHAVIOR of doing cardio for at least twenty minutes, three times each week. My definition of cardio is either running outdoors or on a treadmill, using an exercise bike, or using an elliptical. These are all from the same FUNCTIONAL CLASS but are from different TOPOGRAPHICAL CLASSES because all three of them SERVE THE FUNCTION of emitting cardio behaviors, while none of them physically appear the same. Walking to class does not count as cardio for me! For my REINFORCEMENT, I would get to watch one episode of White Collar on Netflix each day that I participated in my 20 minutes of Cardio. This is an example of a CONTINUOUS SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT. In addition to this, but the end of each week if I was able to do accomplish my GOAL I let myself purchase an item from the Target jewelry section (which is my favorite) for approximately $10. The jewelry is an example of a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT because I get the jewelry if I did cardio three times. I chose to use Netflix and Jewelry as my POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT because those are two things that I could never get enough of, thus they won’t get SATIATED. For the sake of this assignment, I decided that I would not LEAN OUT any of my schedules of reinforcement because the timeframe for my behavior to change wasn’t long enough for me to do so effectively. If I hadn’t allowed myself access to enough Netflix, I probably would have failed to reach my goals. In this instance, I would have to adjust my POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE CONTINGENCY.
I recorded my minutes of cardio each day in my planner, which SERVED THE FUNCTION of my BEHAVIORAL DIARY. This is an example of DIRECT ASSESSMENT because I directly observed my own behaviors. It would have been an example of INDIRECT ASSESSMENT if I was filling out my minutes/FREQUENCY of cardio in a questionnaire.

The hardest part of this assignment for me was in the fourth week of data collection, when we were asked to return to the BASELINE and stop all reinforcement. I still wanted my POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT of watching Netflix, and I did so anyway but it was not tied to my frequency of cardio. For this week, my cardio had become extinct because it was a behavior that had once been reinforced but was no longer reinforced. I didn’t experience an extinction burst because cardio is an activity that I’m not fond of, so I wouldn’t want to increase the frequency of it if I know that I will not receive any CONSEQUENCE.

Looking back on this assignment, I feel that for my particular TARGET BEHAVIOR, use of the PREMACK PRINCIPLE would have been a more effective way to increase the amount of cardio that I do. If I had told myself, “First, you must do 20 minutes of cardio, then you can watch as much Netflix as you would like,” I think I may have been more likely to do cardio each day because I was really invested in the show White Collar. Overall I feel as though this assignment was an okay way to modify the frequency of my cardio behavior, and I hope that the FREQUENCY of this behavior remains constent.

Terms Used:
Self directed, behavioral class, positive valence, negative valence, aversive, positive reinforcement, elicit, emit, baseline performance, antecedent, consequence, natural contingency, delayed gratification, target behavior, functional class, topographical class, serve the function, reinforcement, continuous schedule of reinforcement, goal, fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, satiated, lean out, positive contingency, negative contingency, behavioral diary, direct assessment, indirect assessment, frequency, target behavior, premack principle (32 terms)

For the BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project I decided to select a TARGET BEHAVIOR of trying to get to bed at a better time (10:30pm). I have a very bad habit of staying up too late and then just taking long naps throughout the day or when I am not able to nap I spend most of my day exhausted. It is hard for me to get to bed at a reasonable time due to being a college bar bartender, which work hours are usually from 7pm-3am. During this project I mainly focused on fixing my TARGET BEHAVIOR for the week days because the weekends are too difficult to get to bed at the time I wanted to EMIT.

Once beginning my project I decided that I had to go through the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR steps. The first step is to set the goal and/or target behavior which I have already stated what that goal is above. The second step is to define or specify the goal as a set of target behaviors like the previously stated behavior classes. The third step is to keep a record, which I wrote it in a notebook that was sitting next to my bed or if I was at my boyfriend’s house I would use my phone. Step four is to graph a BASELINE and the other weeks which I did on Microsoft Excel. For the baseline of week one, there was no REINFORCEMENT being used to ELICIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR. For week one, the baseline week, I emitted an average time of 10:45pm on weekdays and 3:15am on the weekends. For the other weeks it was time to implement behavior intervention. That said, a REINFORCER needed to be selected which I chose ice cream. I chose to use POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT instead of PUNISHMENT since I want to increase my frequency of the behavior. This in step five which is DETERMINIG CONTINGENCIES. The average time for week two was around 2:00am, and for week three, 2:15am. After week two I realized that I might have to MODIFY the TARGET BEHAVIOR to a later time that would be more achievable then the one I selected. I moved my TARGET BEHAVIOR back to being in bed by 11:30pm so that I could be more likely to EMIT my BEHAVIOR and actually be able to get to use my REINFORCER. Step six is determine antecedents, which the environments were my house and my boyfriend’s house. The final step is to implement and adjust the contingencies, I rewarded myself differently by either allowing myself to eat ice cream or go and get Starbucks.

I realized after doing this project that even though I wanted to change my BEHAVIOR of my terrible sleep schedule. It wasn’t something that I was 100% into changing because from Wednesday until Sunday I am at work any time until 10pm or 2pm, which made my TARGET BEHAVIOR almost unachievable. I think if I was to redo this assignment I would choose a different BEHAIOR that would be more beneficial and that I would be more willing to change and maybe select a REINFORCEMENT that would be more rewarding; or if I wasn’t able to hit my TARGET BEHAVIOR I would get a PUNISHMENT for not being able to change my BEHAVIOR. I think if I was going to redo this assignment I would select my TARGET BEHAVIOR of not eating out at restaurants as much to help save money.

Terms: behavior modification, target behavior, emit, self-directed behavior, baseline, reinforcement, elicit, reinforcer, positive reinforcement, punishment, determining contingencies

I decided to use my phone less for this project. I use my phone a lot, but who does not nowadays? I thought about switching to a simpler phone to decrease my phone use, but I refused to give up social media. Sure, I could use social media on my computer, but I really love the instant accessibility of social media that I can have when using a touch screen smartphone. I realized that a lot of the time I am using my phone just out of boredom, or just to procrastinate. I also spend a lot of money when using my phone, since I have a lot of shopping applications that I can have access to in one touch. I believe that by reducing my phone use, I can spend less money and I can be more productive with my days.

I installed an application on my phone to track my phone use, and it is called Quality Time. It will tell me by the end of the day how many times I unlock my screen, and which application I use the most that day. The Application is really helpful because I do not have to bring around a little notepad with me to mark down tallies whenever I unlock my phone. This application ensured that my data is absolutely one hundred percent accurate. Although I am having a third party to record my data for me, I am still facilitating direct functional analysis, since I am not administering questionnaires or surveys for data collection.

While recording my baseline, I became more aware of my phone use. I consciously reminded myself to use my phone less, and created antecedents where phone use is not possible, leaving my phone at home for example. However, this plan did not go so well when I encountered an emergency where the lack of my phone was troubling; so I only stopped bringing my phone with me to class. I also realized that as long as I keep myself busy, I will use my phone less. Thus, although I was not reinforcing myself with doughnuts by the end of the day, I believed I was using my phone less than average.
Then, I started reinforcing myself by the end of the day when the data showed that I unlocked the screen five times less than the day before. It was rather successful at first, but there are some days I spiked my phone use up for no apparent reason (at least not the one I could think of). Then there was one day where I finally finished my two big papers for final weeks, and my phone use spiked higher than ever – because I did not leave my bed that day.

Half way through the project, doughnuts lost their reinforcing magic – I was satiated, and could no longer be reinforced by doughnuts because I stopped finding doughnuts reinforcing. I decided to add some surprising factor into my project, by flipping a coin by the end of the day to decide whether I should be reinforced with a doughnut. But I really did not like doughnut anymore. I scouted around and decided that eating out is very reinforcing. Thus, I stopped myself from eating out and only eat out when I unlock my screen five times less than the day before. To make sure I eat out less at the same time to save money, I combine the consequence with the surprise factor: I would only eat out on days when I unlocked my phone five times less than the day before, and only when I get a head after flipping a coin. I was using my phone less and eating out less at the same time.

Then, I stopped reinforcements all together. It was not as successful as I initially hoped it to be. As soon as I stopped reinforcements, my phone use went back to the rate of my baseline week. I was aware of my phone use, but since I stopped reinforcing myself, there was no longer a reason to use my phone less. I think the problem roots in the fact that I did not want to use my phone less anyways. Using my phone less or more did not really benefit myself much. I believe for self-directed behavioural modification project to be successful, there must be a clear motivation. I was emitting a lot of phone use, and it did not bother me enough for me to keep the phone usage off. However, I will stick to the antecedents that elicit less phone use, since it is nice to disconnect with social media once in a while.

Throughout this project, I followed the seven steps of self-directed behaviours: my goal was to use my phone less, and my target behaviour was also using my phone less. I kept a record using the application called Quality Time, which was also used for my baseline. I modified my contingencies throughout the project without modifying my target behaviours much. It was nice modifying the project as I went, since it allowed me to feel more control over my own behaviours.

TERMS: elicit, emit, self-directed behaviour, motivation, behaviour, reinforcement, reinforcing, reinforced, satiated, antecedent, consequence, baseline, direct functional analysis, contingencies, modify, target behaviour, goal

For this behavioral change project, I decided to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR of running for an hour in a week. Since I have always been a couch potato, I wanted to increase my running behavior to live a healthier lifestyle even though running has always seemed AVERSIVE to me. In this project, I decided to use the concept of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT to increase my TARGET BEHAVIOR. I chose chocolate as my REINFORCER because chocolate has been my favorite dessert and so it would be very DESIRABLE to me, and I thought it would be very REINFORCING too. The thought of being DEPRIVED from chocolate became an ESTABLISHING OPERATION for me. Therefore, this made me motivate myself to run more. Also, my project proved a point in the textbook, on the part where it says “we could conclude that food deprivation is an effective ESTABLISHING OPERATION”. I think this is very true because it worked for me. I also think that this is true because according to MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS, it says that food is a PRIMARY REINFORCER. Because of this, I feel that it was a strong choice as my REINFORCER. Apart from that, I think that chocolate has a high INTRINSIC VALUE even if its EXTRINSIC VALUE is fairly low (it does not cost much).

Using the basics of BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION, I found that apart from REINFORCEMENT, ANTECEDENTS were also really strong influences on my TARGET BEHAVIOR. Some ANTECEDENTS that I noticed were helpful for this behavioral change project were having my sport shoes laying in front of the door, seeing people running when it was nice outside, and being motivated by my boyfriend. Whenever one of these ANTECEDENTS occurred I noticed I was more likely to EMIT my TARGET BEHAVIOR. In other words, certain ANTECEDENTS would ELICIT the BEHAVIOR more than others.

This was also an example of a SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR change project because I was responsible for modifying my own BEHAVIOR. It could also be said that I used the concept of DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHERS (DRO) in order to decrease the frequency of any behavior that was incompatible with my running. Instead of PUNISHING myself for not running for an hour in a week, I rewarded and reinforced myself for running.

Looking at my graph, it fluctuates a lot. Instead of staying at the same level, the slope of the graph went down after the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION ended. I think one of the reasons was because finals was around the corner and I did not really have the time to go anywhere besides the library. I did however made myself run for 10 minutes everyday before I went to the library. The BASELINE itself was not perfect, and I think that was due to the weather. It was raining a lot that week and that messed with my running schedule. Overall, the slope of the graph shifted upwards during the second week of BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION and I think that is good. I had a BEHAVIORAL DIARY but I also timed myself every time I ran. I would record my data on the diary as soon as I got back from running.

In the beginning, I wanted my BEHAVIOR to be getting into shape. However I realized that this was a BEHAVIOR CLASS and that there were too many FUNCTIONALLY and TOPOGRAPHICALLY similar behaviors within it to record. Because of this I changed my TARGET BEHAVIOR to running for an hour in a week. I also limited the amount of REINFORCER for this project by only rewarding myself with one chocolate truffle for every hour I run in a week. Not only does this prevent myself from being SATIATED with chocolate, it also made it so that my REINFORCER does not defy the goal and purpose of my project (to live a healthier lifestyle). The SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT I used for this project is a FIXED RATIO. I think this could also be an example of CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT because I was being reinforced every time I run an hour within a week.

TERMS: Emit, target behavior, aversive, positive reinforcement, reinforcer, desirable, reinforcing, deprived, establishing operation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, primary reinforcer, intrinsic value, extrinsic value, behavior modification, reinforcement, antecedents, elicit, behavior, self-directed behavior, differential reinforcement of others (DRO), punishing, behavioral intervention, baseline, behavioral diary, behavior class, functional, topography, satiated, schedule of reinforcement, fixed ratio, continuous reinforcement.

My behavior change project was designed in order to help me increase the frequency with which I emitted behaviors from the behavior class of studying for my classes. Specifically the target behaviors that I counted as 'studying' were reading assigned materials or doing an assignment. I chose to use positive reinforcement and what turned out to be a token economy to alter the frequency of my behavior. I actually had to change the design of my project slightly in order to remember to do it, and to keep track of my study time in a way that made sense to me. I ended up putting four sticky notes on my wall labeled Weeks 1 to 4. I made 7 rows (M, T, W, Th, F, S, Sun) where I recorded my data. Every hour of study time I put a red checkmark (token/secondary reinforcer) in that day of the weeks slot, meaning that the consequence of getting a token was on a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement. I could then exchange 4 red checkmarks for an hour of video game time (backup/primary reinforcer) over the weekend. I chose to only allow the exchange on the weekend to make sure I didn't become satiated, and as an establishing operation (by the time I could turn in my tokens I hadn't played that video game in a 5 to 7 days, so specifically it was deprivation). If I reached at least 4 checkmarks every day for 7 consecutive days I would gain access to another reinforcer: Cold Stone ice cream. Sadly I never managed 4 hours 7 days in a row during this project. I felt that using these schedules of reinforcement I could have a more successful project. That is all for the changes I had to make to keep the project going. Without them I would have lost track of things or simply forgotten most likely. I also kept a detailed behavioral diary of my study time on the computer. It was organized by week and noted if it was baseline data or data from during the project.

I chose the reinforcer of video game time on the weekends because to me, video game time has high intrinsic and extrinsic values to me. Playing them means having the fun of playing them, the challenge, coordination tests, and enjoying the story. It also means I get to chat with my friends who play it, and play with them on my team. For me all of these things are very desirable, and not having access to them is actually fairly aversive (specifically falling out of contact with my friends). Those are the things that give my reinforcer the reinforcing effect that it has. It should also be noted that increased study time has some natural reinforcement that follow from it such as better grades.

Another thing that must be said is that the data for my behavior intervention may have been skewed by the fact that finals was approaching during the end of it. This would mostly be reflected in the final week of data. I'd like to think that I was able to improve myself so much, but due to this confounding variable I am unsure.

During my project I noticed that some antecedents were more likely to elicit my desired target behavior from me than others. For example I was much more likely to study if I went to the library than if I went back to my own room. Due to this I spent more time in the library hoping to increase my study time. I also noticed the effect of certain discriminative stimuli- stimuli that indicate if you will or will not be reinforced for emitting a behavior- on my behavior. For instance, my study time on Sunday would always be higher if I had a test on Monday.

The results that I got from my project look promising. I never met my ultimate goal of 4 hours per day, but my average time studied per week did increase almost 150%! It is my hope that my chosen target behaviors never experience extinction, but if I should ever feel that I am slipping up I can always reinstate this behavior intervention since it seemed to work very well. Doing so would be much more sensible than hoping for spontaneous recovery to occur.

TERMS: behavior change project, emitted, behavior class, target behaviors, positive reinforcement, token economy, token, secondary reinforcer, fixed ratio, schedule of reinforcement, backup reinforcer, primary reinforcer, satiated, establishing operation, deprivation, reinforcer, behavioral diary, baseline, intrinsic, extrinsic, desirable, aversive, reinforcing, natural reinforcement, behavior intervention, antecedents, elicit, discriminative stimuli, extinction, spontaneous recovery

This BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project originally ELICITED me to chose the TARGET BEHAVIOR of MODIFYING my swearing BEHAVIOR. It fit the criterion of why people choose to MODIFY a BEHAVIOR; it bothered me and it is AVERSIVE other people as well. I had not imagined that it would be so difficult to implement BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION techniques having learned how to use them in this class. However, when it came time to actually EMITTING the BEHAVIORS needed in a BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, I found that they did not fit well into my everyday life. The first few steps of SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION, such as setting a GOAL and precisely defining that GOAL by breaking it down into multiple TARGET BEHAVIORS, were easy enough. However, the step that really caught me up was keeping a record to define a BASELINE. I work a lot of hours throughout the week and I am very comfortable talking with my co workers so this was an area that I really needed to be able to record when I EMITTED a swearing BEHAVIOR. However, it proved to not be realistic because when I am at work I am busy and I cannot carry around a little notebook and pen. It was also difficult for me because I have been EMITTING the BEHAVIOR for so long that neither I nor my friends would notice every time I swore so my record would not have been accurate anyway.

After discovering that my initial TARGET BEHAVIOR was not going to work out well I switched it to going to bed earlier. Because this is more of a BEHAVIORAL CLASS, I made my TARGET BEHAVIOR more precise by specifying that I wanted to go to sleep by midnight. I often find myself exhausted throughout the day because I had been going to sleep at an average of 2 in the morning. So, again it fit into the criteria because it is something that bothered me. When I was coming up with a new TARGET BEHAVIOR for my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project I considered whether I would use REINFORCEMENT or PUNISHMENT in my BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION. Through this class I have learned that implementing REINFORCEMENT is much more likely to yield results than PUNISHMENT so that is what I decided to go with. I used Netflix as a REINFORCER because I knew that it would work for me as it did when we did the water drinking intervention. This is an example of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT because it involved the addition of something REINFORCING that would increase the likelihood that I would EMIT the BEHAVIOR again in the future. I also decided to go with a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT because I knew that I would need to know when I would be reinforced and at what time to be successful. For the first week of BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, I allowed myself to watch one episode of Netflix the next day after going to sleep by one in the morning. My BASELINE was around two in the morning so I thought that it would be more realistic for me to gradually change my sleeping habits by an hour rather than trying to go from two to midnight in a day.

Because I changed my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project after a week I was not able to implement my SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT for two weeks like everyone else. Because of this I was not able to completely see the results that I had originally set my in my GOAL. I was able to MODIFY my TARGET BEHAVIOR by one hour but I believe that if I had started with my TARGET BEHAVIOR of going to sleep by midnight from the beginning I would have achieved it. I was also able to stick with it to some extent with my RETURN TO BASELINE which I found to be very surprising. If I were able to do this project over again I would have recognized that even though MODIFYING my swearing BEHAVIOR was something that I wanted to change, it was just not realistic at the time. I would have been much more successful in my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project if I had started with the TARGET BEHAVIOR of going to sleep by midnight from the beginning.

Terms:Behavioral intervention, elicited, target behavior, behavior modification, emitting, self-directed behavior modification, goal, baseline, reinforcement, punishment, behavioral class, aversive, reinforcer, fixed interval schedule of reinforcement, schedule of reinforcement, return to baseline, modify, positive reinforcement, reinforcing

For our final BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION project, I did mine to try and increase the amount of exercise I did per week. My BEHAVIORAL CLASS would be to exercise. I wanted to increase my BEHAVIOR to doing a certain amount of miles per week. Before I started doing this project I wasn’t exercising at all so my BASELINE was zero. I wanted to INCREASE my behavior so that in the future, I’d have to do with without a REINFORCER. I wanted to use this behavior to go through the FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF BEHAVIOR.

First, you have to describe your TARGET BEHAVIOR. The target behavior that I wanted to elicit to get to my GOAL was to exercise at least 6 miles per week. After going through the weeks, I did meet my goal by emitting the appropriate behavior. The next step in the assessment is to describe the CONSEQUENCES for your behavior. My consequence of this would be that I start to work out more, eventually toning up my body. I wanted to get to the point where eventually I would run around ten or fifteen miles per week. But I wanted to start out with a reasonable goal, something that I could reach. The third step of the assessment is to describe the ANTECEDENTS. This is the things that will influence you to reach your goals. Some antecedents that would help me emit the goal is if it’s a nice day out I’d be more likely to go for a run, if I have my homework done, or a big problem that I was trying to fix a long with this is if I go to bed early then I would get up in the morning to run. These are the things that will allow me to reach my goal more successfully. I needed to change these types of things so that I could better myself to reach the goal.

When ever someone is doing a behavior, it will be followed by a PUNISHER or a REINFORCER. This will influence the behavior to either continue to happen or to try to eliminate the behavior. REINFORCEMENT will influence the likeliness that the appropriate behavior will continue to happen. PUNISHMENT will decrease the likeliness that the AVERSIVE behavior will continue. There is also POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT and NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT. There is the same for punishment too but I’m only going to describe the reinforcement because it goes along with my assignment. Positive reinforcement adds something desirable to increase the behavior while negative reinforcement adds something aversive to still get the behavior to continue. My target behavior is positive reinforcement because I was using dessert or sweets to influence my behavior. I was REINFORCING myself with that so that if I work out more than six miles per week, I could get a treat at the end of the week.

This INTERVENTION took awhile for me to get used to but now I have been doing it without a reinforcer. I am now reaching my goal and even going beyond it with my miles per week. The first and second week of this I ran 8 miles. The third week I ran 10.4 miles and the last week I ran 9.5 miles. At the end of week I REWARDED myself with my reinforcer of 4-queens. My roommate was also an example of a good antecedent or INFLUENCER within this project. She helped me succeed and push myself by MODIFYING my behavior. My SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT is called FIX INTERVAL. I knew every time when I was going to be reinforced. I found that this projected helped me a lot though. I have no increased the number of miles I have done. My behavior has been MODIFIED by this. This projected is an example of SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. You can influence yourself if you try. You choose the behavior, control the antecedents, and watch the consequences.

For this project, we also had to make a GRAPH of our success. The title of mine was Miles per Week. I made a table of the progress day by day. The Y-AXIS was labeled as miles per week while the X-AXIS was labeled as day of the week.

Terminology: behavioral modification, behavioral class, behavior, baseline, increase, reinforcer, functional assessment of behavior, target behavior, goal, consequences, antecedents, punisher, reinforcer, reinforcement, punishment, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, reinforcing, aversive, intervention, rewarded, influencer, modifying, schedule of reinforcement, fixed interval, modified, self-directed behavior, graph, y-axis, x-axis (30)

For my SELF-DIRECTED, BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project, I chose to reduce my TARGET BEHAVIOR of drinking excessive amounts of coffee to cutting back to only 3 cups per week. You would think that after drinking about 10 cups of coffee per week that I would become SATIATED with it, but that was not the case. Coffee is a POSITIVE VALENCE to me because I love drinking it. In order to change my BEHAVIOR, I decided to look to the ABC’S of BEHAVIOR. The ANTECEDENT for me was being tired or going to class. The BEHAVIOR was drinking coffee. The CONSEQUENCE was being more alert. Coffee is a form of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT to me because I am adding something pleasurable to my day aka coffee and being awake. As much as I liked the BEHAVIOR, I knew that I needed to change it. To go about this, I decided to use DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER BEHAVIOR (DRO) because I needed to REINFORCE myself for not drinking the coffee rather than PUNISHING myself and decrease the behavior. In order to change the behavior that I have been EMITTING, I knew that I had to follow the 6 sets to change the behavior. The first step that I followed was to set a GOAL. I had to make sure that my goal was not too broad because it is less likely for me to complete my goal if it is too broad. Drinking is a BEHAVIORAL CLASS. Drinking less coffee was the target behavior I was looking for. The next step was to specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. Here, I had to make sure that the target behavior was precise, manageable, measurable, and fit to my lifestyle. The specific target behavior that I came up with that fit into all of the categories above was to drink only 3 cups of coffee per week. I believed that this would be a reasonable GOAL for me because I figured I could cut back to only 3 cups a week. The next thing I had to do was keep a BASELINE to track my progress. How many cups of coffee was I drinking each day? I decided to write down in a BEHAVIORAL DIARY every time I had a cup of coffee immediately after I drank one because it is common for people to forget and not keep an accurate record. Keeping the diary made it possible for me to go back and see my progress. The next step was to graph the baseline (turning in copy on Wednesday). I decided that a line graph would be the easiest to follow. The Y-AXIS is for the DEPENDENT MEASURE or number of cups of coffee I had consumed throughout the week, and the X-AXIS was labeled for the days of the week. This made the target behavior visible and easier for me to see my progress with this project. The next step was to determine the CONTINGENCIES. What will be my REINFORCER, and how many times will I allow it? I decided that if I could manage to only have 3 cups of coffee for the week, I would reinforce myself with a scratch cupcake at the end of the week. I chose a scratch cupcake because I needed someone PLEASURBALE to me rather than AVERSIVE so I would want to accomplish my goal. The next step was to determine the antecedents. Antecedents have a lot of power because they ELICIT the behavior. I decided that instead of taking a cup of coffee to class, I would take a water bottle with me instead. Water isn’t exactly coffee, but drinking the water helped keep me occupied. Following these steps made it easier to accomplish my goal. It was a small goal with a short TIMEFRAME, so I did not have to break it down into SUB GOALS. It took me a little bit to get the hang of it, but in the end, I was successful and able to cut down to only 3 cups of coffee per week.

Self-directed, behavior modification, target behavior, satiated, positive valence, behavior, abc’s of behavior, antecedent, consequence, positive reinforcement, DRO, reinforce, punishing, emitting, goal, behavioral class, baseline, behavioral diary, y-axis, dependent measure, x-axis, contingencies, reinforcer, pleasurable, aversive, elicit, timeframe, sub goals

For the behavioral modification project, the TARGET BEHAVIOR that I chose to EMIT was to drink less than 18 beers (~Heineken bottles) over the weekend, from Thursday night to early Sunday morning. This BEHAVIORAL CLASS of beer drinking was easy to MODIFY the FREQUENCY OF THE BEHAVIOR once I determined the environments that are associated with the TARGET BEHAVIOR. The ANTECEDENT, which often led to the BEHAVIOR, was going out to the bars to drink with my friends as well as the pregame drinking before the bars and parties. Previously, my opinion was that just about the only way to have a PLEASURABLE and fun time at some of these small bars was to drink lots during the pregame and then to drink even more once you arrive at the bars. This ANTECEDENT ELICITS the BEHAVIOR of me drinking to many beers and the CONSEQUENCE of me drinking too many beers is feeling disappointed with my self and my irresponsible and sometimes AVERSIVE actions.
I set up SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR STEPS to help DISRUPT the UNDESIRABLE BEHAVIOR. I chose to implement POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT of cans of Mountain Dew at the end of every week that I was able to stay below the 18-beer limit…I’m totally addicted to sugar so Mt. becomes a very strong incentive to stay below my goal. I figured POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT was the best way to keep MAINTENANCE of my plan; the addition of the DESIRABLE STIMULUS of Mt. Dew beat and was better than any NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT that I could come up with. This would be considered by B.F. SKINNER to be a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT. I decided to go with the FIXED INTERVAL instead of the VARIABLE INTERVAL because I would know for sure at the end of the weekend that if I was still under that limit that I’d be rewarded with a Mt. Dew. INTERVAL also worked more effective than RATIO would because I wasn’t, for example, trying to workout a set amount of hours every week, I was just trying to make it to the end of the time period while staying under my limit.
As with all BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION, it is always wise to use DESIRABLE REINFORCEMENT rather than AVERSIVE PUNISHMENTS. Involved in the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION plan that I established was the BASELINE from the first week that gave a glimpse of what the frequency of the behavior looked like before the plan was implemented (my first week was an odd low frequency week). I’d carry a piece of paper to record each time I ELICITED the BEHAVIOR of finishing a beer. I’ve always been good at keeping track of how much I drink so that was easy and reliable. After I had set my GOAL, I rechecked it to make sure that it was SPECIFIC enough, as well as being ACHIEVABLE in a REALISTIC TIME FRAME, and MANAGEABLE in the future. The first week, which wasn’t REINFORCED, I had the baseline set at the amount of 26 beers. For the next week after implementing POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT and determining some CONTINGENCIES, I had EMITTED the behavior of drinking 16 beers – which is below my goal of 18 beers. The next several weeks had a frequency emitted of 13,4, and 15 respectively.
After this week, I had gone through, by observation, and figured out what the ANTECEDENTS were that led to me drinking immense amounts of beer. As stated before, I noticed that I drank much more when I went to the bars. To fix this, I changed the ENVIRONMENTs that I put myself in as well as weeded out the friends of mine that were associated with binge drinking. Changing my weekend hobbies, even just one night, made a massive difference. This made it very easy to stay below my goal by simply avoiding those UNDESIRABLE environments. The last step of my SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION involved me MODIFYING my CONTINGENCIES. I REINFORCED myself a bit more by having a few more Mt. Dews at the end of every week that I was able to stay below 18 beers.
Once I explained the IMPORTANCE OF MY GOAL, I developed a strong SUPPORT BASE and spent more time with a few friends that were totally down to assist me and find better things to do rather than blow money at the bars. This helped me keep MAINTENANCE and achieve my DESIRABLE GOAL.
I found this project to actually be very PLEASURABLE. MODIFYING my own BEHAVIOR helped to even MANIPULATE the FREQUENCY of my friend’s UNDESIRABLE BEHAVIORS as well. Applying this simple project to my life had numerous PLEASURABLE outcomes. At first I thought that DECREASING THE FREQUENCY might lead to AVERSIVE CONSEQUENCES of missing out on parties, but it actually lead to very PLEASURABLE CONSEQUENCES which involved numerous different and memorable experiences.

Terms: Emit, Elicit, Positive, Negative, Reinforcement, Punishment, Pleasurable, Desirable, Aversive, Modifying, Behavioral Intervention, Consequence, Behavior, Antecedent, Target Behavior, Goal, Baseline, Support System, Contingencies, Environment, Behavior change project, Fixed, Ratio, Variable, Interval, Self-Directed Behavioral Steps, Specifying Steps, Behavioral Class, Schedule of Reinforcements, Frequency of Behavior, Realistic Time Frame, Maintenance, Disrupt, Manageable, Achievable, Manipulate, Stimulus, B.F. Skinner.

For the BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project, I chose to reduce the EMITTING of cracking my back. I chose this TARGET BEHAVIOR because it is not healthy for me, nor is it appealing to the people who are around me when I ELICIT the behavior. During this time of monitoring my own behavior, I have come to find the ANTECEDENTS to my behavior, as well as the CONSEQUENCES of the behavior. This project was an example of SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR because there wasn’t anyone else forcing me to not crack my back or PUNISHING me when I did. The PUNISHMENT I chose to use to reduce this AVERSIVE behavior was a variant of a REINFORCER. This may sound like it makes no sense, but the REINFORCER I would’ve used to increase the TARGET BEHAVIOR would’ve been something I enjoy, so my PUNISHMENT was taking away something that I enjoy. Because I was taking away something DESIRABLE, this was NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT.
When this project first started, we needed to find a BASELINE. This is essentially the starting point for the project that tells us where we’re at in terms of EMITTING the behavior. After finding the BASELINE, we figure out how to reduce (or increase, depending on the BEHAVIOR) the TARGET BEHAVIOR and apply that REINFORCER or PUNISHMENT for the next 2 weeks. During this BASELINE week, I determined that the ANTECEDENT to my back cracking was when I was sitting in class completely still. This helped me catch myself throughout the whole project.
Week two of the project was when we added in the REINFORCER or PUNISHMENT. As stated above, my PUNISHMENT was NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT, and I would take away one episode of “Netflix time” every time I cracked my back during the day. As shown by the data on the graph, this CONTINUOUS PUNISHMENT SCHEDULE helped me stay on track, as I was PUNISHING myself after every time I cracked my back instead of after every few.
During week three of the project, we were instructed to no longer REINFORCE or PUNISH our target behaviors. As you can tell in my graph, by not PUNISHING my behavior anymore, almost everything stayed the same, except for one big spike right after I took away the PUNISHMENT. This could be considered partial SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY, because although the BEHAVIOR was not yet EXTINCT, there was only zero or one occurrence of the behavior per day before the big spike. Throughout this project, although I was punishing myself so I knew what was coming, I figured out that the CONSEQUENCE of disallowing myself Netflix time, was worth not EMITTING the TARGET BEHAVIOR any longer.
If I were to change anything about this project, I would’ve changed my behavior to something that I wanted to INCREASE, and therefore would’ve used the FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT to increase my TARGET BEHAVIOR. I would’ve done this because I believe that this SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT is the most effective, and it would’ve increased my behavior with no problems.
At the end of this project, based on my DATA, my TARGET BEHAVIOR of cracking my back has reduced drastically from the BASELINE week in the beginning. I do believe that applying the NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT really did help me reduce the behavior, and I find myself not EMITTING the behavior as much anymore either.

TERMS: Behavior modification, emit, target behavior, elicit, antecedent, consequences, self-directed behavior, punishment, aversive, reinforcer, desirable, baseline, continuous punishment, spontaneous recovery, extinct, fixed ratio, schedule of reinforcement, data

For my BEHAVIOR modification project I chose to INCREASE the TARGET BEHAVIOR of working out 150 minutes per week while DECREASING the amount of time sitting idle. I chose a behavior I EMIT because it would be easier to emit the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR change than picking a behavior that only happens when it is ELICITED, which made this GOAL easier to achieve. But in order to choose a target behavior I had to examine the ABCs of this project. The ANTECEDENT was that I had the DESIRED OUTCOME of being healthier and preventing diseases caused by obesity. The TARGET BEHAVIOR was that I was going to workout 150 minutes per week. The CONSEQUENCE was that I would be healthier. But I discovered there were two SECONDARY REINFORCERS that happened: losing weight and feeling more comfortable in my own skin.
I chose the PRIMARY REINFORCER of one sweet treat per week, mostly chocolate of some sort, which I place a PLEASANT VALENCE on. I used a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE for how often I got the reinforcer, specifically every 7 days if I met my goal of 150 minutes per week. This was not all that effective as I found it easy to give in to the temptation to eat the reinforcer more often than the fixed ration schedule allows for. I think the reinforcer would have been more effective if I had used another type of schedule, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO). I think I would have met the goal more successfully if I picked a smaller, but still sweet, reinforcer and flipped coin for during the first week of reinforcement then went to a fixed ratio schedule the third week to determine if I got a reinforcer that day.
I chose to use POSTIVE REINFORCEMENT because it is believed to work better than NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT. Since Negative Reinforcement uses PUNISHMENT, I decided that would not be my best plan since a secondary reinforcer that I hoped would happen was to feel better about myself and punishment doesn’t usually work if that is part of the goal.
When I was deciding on what behavior to do/change for this project I used the BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PROCESS to examine how to best set myself up for success. I found using the 6 STEPS made it easier to create a REALISTIC and ACHIEVABLE goal considering how the project was very much a short term one. Step 1 was easy enough once I understood the difference between a BEHAVIOR CLASS and a target behavior. During this step I went from a GENERAL goal of exercising to a SPECIFIC GOAL of exercising 150 minutes per week by DEFINING what my target behavior looked like (TYPEOGRAPHY). Step 2 was easy and made the FUNCTIONALITY of the goal clear: feel healthier because losing weight as fast as the project ran was unrealistic. Step 3 clarified where I would find resources to work out, such as the gym or just running outside. Step 4 was to make sure I understood exactly how this would most likely affect me (body and mentality) by doing a FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT. For step 5 I created an Excel document and at the end of most days documented how many minutes I had exercised that day. Step 6 is essentially this final essay; by EVALUATING THE OUTCOME I learned that I met this goal for the most part and looked at why I didn’t met the goal on the days I fell short on active minutes. The four days where I didn’t exercise were special occasions: going out of town and Easter weekend when my parents visited. Overall, I think I was successful at meeting this goal because since the end of this project I continue to reach my goal of 150 minutes of exercise per week.
BEHAVIOR, INCREASE, TARGET BEHAVIOR, DECREASING, SELF-DIRECTED, BEHAVIOR, ELICITED, GOAL, ABCs, ANTECEDENT, DESIRED OUTCOME, CONSEQUENCE, SECONDARY REINFORCERS, PRIMARY REINFORCER, PLEASANT VALENCE, FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO), POSTIVE REINFORCEMENT, PUNISMENT, BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PROCESS, 6 STEPS, REALISTIC, ACHIEVABLE, BEHAVIOR CLASS, GENERAL, SPECIFIC GOAL, DEFINING, TYPEOGRAPHY, FUNCTIONALITY, FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT.

For my BEHAVIORAL CHANGE project, my TARGET BEHAVIOR was to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables I consume. A lot of people every year choose loosing weight or eating more healthy as a new years resolution. Most of them find AVERSIVE to keep this behavior up everyday for a year. Therefore, since I really enjoy working out but my nutrition was not the best, I decided that I wanted to take the opportunity of eating healthy to improve my health and not only loose weight. ELICITING the behavior of always choosing the super healthy choices to eat is hard. Some people take eating fruits and vegetables as a PUNISHMENT, but instead eating them, brings so many positive CONSEQUENCES to our lives. To start this project a set the steps to change the BEHAVIOR. 



1) Eat healthier 

2) Eat more fruits and vegetables 

3) Have an app on my phone keeping track of what I am eating 

4) Have a BASELINE of the at least amount I should be consuming of fruits and vegetables
5) If I ate healthy for a week I deserve a small dessert 

6) ANTECEDENTS in this case will be pictures of my goals

7) Keep REINFORCING myself every week but also getting to the point that is only my own choice and that i do not need junk food.



Since I live in the towers, rialto is my dining center. I started to deciding what I was going to use as a REINFORCER and how often. I decided that as a POSITIVE REINFORCER, addition of something pleasurable, I would get a dessert after eating healthy 4 days in a row. I will buy a piece of clothe or makeup if I ate healthy for a week. I consider these as good REINFORCERS because it will definitely help me to get into better eating habits. This will not only improve my health, but also will make me feel good by self esteem. Also since some of the reinforcers are makeup or clothes, when I achieve my goal, I will be able to feel way good with clothes and makeup as well. REINFORCER will help my BEHAVIORAL CHANGE to not become EXTINCT and keep it up. As I stated at the beginning of the project, my project might be a FIXED INTERVAL REINFORCER because some weeks I might eat more healthy than others or other weeks I might not achieve my goal. Desserts, as stated might be consider a REINFORCEMENT but at the same time it could be an INTERVENTION because some days I might get a dessert before I reach the 4 days without eating them, therefore this will DISRUPT the behavior. The ANTECEDENT for this behavior is getting or choosing healthy fruits and vegetables in larger portions, the behavior would be to eat them and the CONSEQUENCE would be improve my health and my life style. 


The project is going good. If we observed at the graph, I tend to increase this behavior starting stronger on week two. Since I started seeing more results, feeling better so I wanted to stick to it. However, my first and third week had big ups and downs because I felt I needed to get use to it. My first week was pretty much the BASELINE, there were some INTERVENTIONS like ice cream, or cookies which tended to occur because I was feeling that I was not a having an immediate REINFORCER and this in my mind was seen as DEPRIVATION because it was something I wanted to have and it was there, but I was basically PROHIBITED of having it. On third week I lasted a little longer but not as greatly as on the second week. I tried to INCREASE the amount of consumption greatly but what I did notice is that I tend to DECREASE the consumption especially during the weekend. So my weeks were stronger than my weekends. I found this interesting because during the week I am with friends and we eat at the dining center. However, during the weekends I am also with friends but we tend to go out for lunch or dinner because there is usually more time or for a friend birthday. Another reason was that the dining center hours. During the weekends the dining center are not open all day at all and I usually EMIT the behavior of sleeping till late because I need some good rest. Overall I kept trying to keep it up with the portions, and their increase. 



Another reason I noticed why I tend to eat more junky food at lunch and dinner, which I found AVERSIVE, was not eating breakfast. I love to sleep, therefore breakfast was very uncommon. I tried to wake up earlier to be able to eat breakfast and therefore by the time of lunch or dinnerI wouldn’t be that hungry. Even thought the REINFORCERS definitely helped with changing the behavior, I end up spending more money than usual so my money spending needed to decrease and used desserts as a better reinforcement. At the end I decided to apply on this project OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING. I have some friend who were all into fitness and healthy eating so I decided to take a look on what were their top choices and which fruits and vegetable are more beneficial than others. This increased my desired to eat more healthy as long with the behavior of keep working out. Overall my TARGET BEHAVIOR became more POSITIVE than I expected, now I measure better what I am eating and I try to pick the best healthy options when eating at the dining center. My SPECIFIC GOAL of making healthier choices definitely increase and my next goal is going to be to increase it as well during the weekends. I have been feeling better and more positive now compared to when i started.

Terms: Emit, elicit, behavior, antecedent, consequence, punishment, reinforcer, positive reinforcement, target behavior, fixed ratio, observational learning, aversive, behavioral intervention, positive, baseline, depravation, extinction, specific goal.

Behavioral Change Project
Throughout this course of behavior modification we learned about how people go about emitting averse behaviors while they would rather elicit a more goal oriented behavior that they had decided to target. The project that we had to do was complete a behavioral intervention.

During this project, I used self- directed behavior, there are seven steps in this process. The first step that I had to do for myself was to set a behavioral goal. So, I set my goal to try to increase how many steps and active minutes taken within a day. These are what are to be considered my target behaviors. When deciding your goal you need to make sure that you don’t do something to specific. The reason that it isn’t a specific is because this first step is supposed to be in a form of a behavioral class. Now that I have my non-specific goal I need to specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. This way I will actually be able to measure the target behavior without any confusion.

The second step is to define and specify the goal as a set of target behaviors I set this specific goal to go to take a minimum of ten thousand steps and thirty active minutes five out of the seven days. During this time you need to keep your goal realistic; normally I would want to say I want to take twenty thousand steps and an hour and a half every single day of the week..

The third step was keeping track of your goal oriented behavior. I would have typically had trouble making sure to record how many steps and active minutes I took within a day. But, thankfully I went and purchased the fitbit flex with tracks that for me and on the app you can go back and look at all of the days of the week. The first and fourth week was the baseline performance. This means that reinforcement wasn’t used during these weeks. Week one was pretty easy to get started. I was probably motivated to try to do well for the project. Weeks two and three were considered the behavioral intervention. During these weeks, reinforcement was involved.

The fourth step involved graphing a baseline. I had to do two separate graphs for my two goals. My first graph was for my steps during the day. This graphs x-axis represented the days. So it was labeled M T W TH F S S. The y-axis is was had the number of steps take. Then for the active minutes graph the x-axis again measured the days of the week and this time the y-axis held the minutes active.

The fifth step involves determining contingencies. My behavioral modification program used a fixed interval reinforcement schedule. At the end of the week if I reached ten thousand steps and 30 active minutes at least 5 out of the seven days then I would allow myself to go out to eat. I know that with my schedule that wouldn’t be possible and some days you just need to not get out of bed and distress. At this step you need to factor in your current everyday life; school, work, doctors’ appointments, social life, and then think logically about how much time you could honestly devote to your goal. This way with your goal you can factor in some wiggle room.

The sixth step involves determining the antecedents. These are the environments that we’re exposed to that elicit the behavior. My antecedents are the fact that I have the reminder every time that I look at my wrist that my steps and active minutes are being counted. Another one is that I am at work at a daycare, on campus, or chasing after my boyfriend’s two year old. I think that those different environments don’t really give you time to sit down. The biggest antecedent that I have though is that a lot of the people I surround myself with went and got the fitbit band too. So, we have weekly and weekend competitions that track who gets the most steps. I’m naturally a very competitive person so this defiantly works in my favor when considering my targeted behavioral goal.

Finally, the seventh step involves implementing and adjusting the contingencies. I didn’t need to tweak my reinforcement. All in all the program has worked really well. Because I allowed myself some wiggle room so when I finally do get a moment to myself I can sit down and slow down. Also when things get extra busy and having me run all over it only helped me to reach my goal sooner. To an extent, when I am really busy there are priorities that take over working out. It was really convenient having my tracker and phone keep everything logged for me though.

The behavior modification intervention is a program that can work for someone if they are really dedicated to wanting to change a target behavior. For me my goal will continue just because I’ll still have the watch, my environment is still going to be busy, and I’m always going to be competitive. One of the most important steps that I think you need to know is what you are going to do to reinforce the behavior because if your reinforcer isn’t strong enough then your motivation may not be strong enough either. Also, the antecedents that you have set in place need to be something that really grabs your attention and says hey listen here, because if they are something you can easily ignore then most likely you will.

Graph is being sent via email.

Terms: behavior modification, behavioral goal, target behavior, specific goal, fixed interval reinforcement, reinforcer, reinforcement, antecedent, eliciting, behavior modification, emitting, self-directed behavior, averse behaviors, behavioral class, realistic, baseline, contingencies, positive reinforcement, reward, motivation, increase, decrease, behavioral intervention, x-axis, y-axis

For my behavioral intervention, I decided that I wanted to read more. By read more, I mean read more of the things I personally choose to read, not books or articles I needed to read for my classes. I knew this was going to be difficult, however. My schedule is very busy, but I have always had the philosophy that we all have the same twenty-four hours in a day. But this is a lot easier said than done, is it not?

I knew I was going to need a good reinforcer, as my goal was to read for an average of thirty minutes each day throughout the week. My logic was that I spend at least that much time watching television each day, and replacing that with reading could have a lot of benefits over mindlessly watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit reruns. Knowing this, I knew that I was perfectly capable of reading for an average of thirty minutes a day. Still, reading requires much more brain activation than watching television, and when I spend most of my day with my brain activated studying, sometimes I feel that my brain needs a break. Fortunately for me, I knew of a reinforcer that would work.

Our first behavioral change project required us to drink more water, something else I needed improvement on. For this, too, I knew I was going to need an effective reinforcer. The first thing that popped into my head (to no surprise to me) was food. I do not often eat out because I am on a traditional college kid's budget, so I thought maybe I could use going out to eat if I met my goal each week might work. This year I discovered all that Panchero's has to offer. I knew that this is what I wanted my reinforcer to be. So I decided to give it a shot.

As it turns out, at the end of the water drinking project, I found that I had definitely found a good reinforcer. Knowing this, I had no hesitation on what my reinforcer would be when I created my own behavior modification program. The oddest part about self-implementing a behavioral modification program is that you are in total control. This is what made me skeptical that a burrito would be enough of an incentive to read thirty minutes a day, especially when this was much more time consuming and required much more effort than sipping on water all day.

Before actually starting the project, I went through the beginning of the scientific method of how I thought this project might go. I made several hypotheses, including the prediction that my baseline would be astronomically low because I was not going to be reinforced for it. I also hypothesized that this project would not be quite as effective as the water drinking project was. So the next thing I had to do was put these hypotheses to the test. My first week, as I predicted, I read only just over twenty minutes a day, and one day I did not read at all. I remember quite clearly thinking “I am not gaining anything from this and I am tired, I am not going to read today.” After this, I became even more worried that my reinforcer would not be enough to actually change my behavior. There was honestly only one way to find out, however.
I knew the real tell-tail sign of effectiveness would be the next week, where I actually implemented my reinforcer. This week, I averaged just under twenty-nine and one half minutes a day. This second week taught me a few things. First, I now realize that the same reinforcer will not work every time. Finding a variety of effective reinforcers would be much better. It also taught me that there are a number of existential variables that may have affected my outcome. As a student, I cannot control if I have a test a certain day, mostly. I cannot control having homework to do. Even though we have these programs in place, they are not always cut and dry like other times. This, to me, shows how difficult some behavior modification programs can be. Many times we have to change our entire lives.
The next week of the behavior modification program was actually worse that the second week. I read for about one minute less on average. I would like to attribute this to the fact that the end of the semester was near, and nearly everyone becomes much busier during these times. This could be a misattribution of arousal, but I do not think this is the case. I have to put doing well in school above everything else, because it determines the rest of my life. From this moment, I had a feeling what the next week would look like, as I began to see a trend. And, as predicted, the number of minutes I spent reading the next week fell drastically. Again, I would me more inclined to attribute this to the fact that final exams were even closer. I hardly read, averaging only ten minutes that week.
I learned a lot about behavior modification through lecture and the book, but I learned much more about the application and its difficulties through designing and implementing my own project. I also realize how much more effective it is to reinforce a behavior rather than punish it, especially when it comes to designing one’s own program. To elicit target behaviors and putting myself on a schedule of reinforcement was much more beneficial to me. I also minimized any aversive that could have happened, other than things I had honestly no control over when returning to baseline.

Terms - aversive, behavior modification, elicit, schedule of reinforcement, punishment, antecedent, baseline, target behavior, reinforcer, behavioral intervention.

For my Behavioral Change Final Project I wanted to increase the amount of reading for classes, making reading a chapter a day my TARGET BEHAVIOR. I wanted to MODIFY MY BEHAVIOR so I would be able to participate more in class. In order to do this, I set the text books on my pillow and before I could go to bed and had to read the chapter before going to bed. To achieve my BEHAVIOR GOAL I needed to be able to go to bed earlier so I could get my chapter done on time and get to bed. After completing this project I REINFORCED myself with a soda pop at lunch if I read a chapter the night before was very SALIENT to me. The BASELINE was to be able to read a chapter a day because before i never read. I found out the ANTECEDENT was reading a chapter a day. The BEHAVIOR was reading, and the CONSEQUENCE was being able to participate in class. The X-AXIS for my graph was days of the week and the Y-AXIS is if I read the chapter or not. At first it was difficult for me to read a chapter a day but once I threw in my REINFORCER I was able to read more. After the first week of using the reinforcer I had to EXTINCTION drinking a pop at lunch so I was able to read a chapter without needing a REINFORCEMENT. Or not be overcome by the DISCRIMINANT STIMULUS Once I was able to read without an reinforcer I was able to ELICIT reading a chapter whenever without needing to having to do it at night.

Another thing we learned about during this class was SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT. These schedules involve when an individual is reinforced for a particular behavior.For example, if a dog is given a treat for each time it sits, this would be CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT. This is one schedule of reinforcement, but it doesn’t apply to my project. The schedule of reinforcement that applies to my project would be a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT. This includes getting reinforced at a certain time. In my case, I was reinforced my lunch with soda pop if I met my goal.

GRAPH E-MAILED TO DR. OTTO.

Terms: Target Behavior, Modify Behavior, Target Behavior, Behavior Goal, Reinforced, Baseline, Antecedent, Behavior, Consequences, Y-Axis, X-Axis, Reinforcer, Extinction, Reinforcement, Elicit, Salient, Discriminant Stimulus, Schedules of Reinforcement, Continuous Reinforcement, Fixed Interval Schedule of Reinforcement,Self-Directed Behavior,

For the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project, my TARGET BEHAVIOR was to get at least eight hours of sleep per night, which is under the BEHAVIORAL CLASS of sleep. The reason I chose to EMIT the behavior of getting at least eight hours of sleep per night is because I am always tired during the day and rarely get enough sleep (usually about five or six hours a night), which isn’t healthy for me. I knew this would be a hard BEHAVIOR for me to change because I always stay up too late, but I wanted to try. Before I started this project, I reviewed the steps to SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. These steps are: 1) set a GOAL, 2) define your goal as a set of specific TARGET BEHAVIORS, 3) keep a record in a BEHAVIORAL DIARY, 4) graph your BASELINE, 5) determine the CONTINGENCIES, which are just the REINFORCEMENT strategies you will use, 6) determine the ANTECEDENTS, and 7) implement and adjust your CONTINGENCIES as needed.
I set a GOAL by saying I wanted to get more sleep each night (at least eight hours). This is too broad because it is just a BEHAVIORAL CLASS, so I then defined my goal as a set of specific TARGET BEHAVIORS: get into bed before midnight each night, put distractions away as soon as I get into bed, keep the television off when I am in bed, and do homework early so I do not stay up late to finish it. I kept a record of: the first week without REINFORCEMENT (BASELINE), the second week with REINFORCEMENT (INTERVENTION), the third week with INTERVENTION, and the fourth week without INTERVENTION, or a return to BASELINE to see if I still EMITTED the TARGET BEHAVIOR. I graphed these four weeks. The REINFORCER I chose to use for my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION was to watch Netflix for a couple hours the next day if I got at least eight hours of sleep the previous night. This SCHEDULE OF REINFORCMENT is a CONTINUOUS SCHEDULE because I was reinforced every time I EMITTED the TARGET BEHAVIOR. It is also considered POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT because something DESIRABLE (Netflix) is added as a CONSEQUENCE to the TARGET BEHAVIOR being EMITTED, and it increases the frequency of the TARGET BEHAVIOR in the future. The REINFORCER of Netflix was a good reinforcer because I love Netflix and it helped my target behavior to not become EXTINCT. An ANTECEDENT I used in my project was to set an alarm sometime before midnight to act as DISCRIMINATE STIMULUS and to ELICIT the behavior of going to bed. I did not need to adjust my REINFORCER when I implemented it.
My graph is a good representation of how my BEHAVIOR change project went. My graph has four lines: one line for the first week where we recorded BASELINE information, one line for the second week where we recorded INTERVENTION information, one line for the third week where we recorded INTERVENTION information again, and one line for the final week of the project where we went back to BASELINE and recorded that information. The X-AXIS of the graph shows the days of the week, and the Y-AXIS shows the hours of sleep. My data for the first week, the BASELINE week, was this: on Monday I got six hours of sleep, on Tuesday I got seven and a half hours of sleep, on Wednesday I got seven and a half hours of sleep, on Thursday I got six and a half hours of sleep, on Friday I got seven hours of sleep, on Saturday I got eight and a half hours of sleep, and on Sunday I got eight hours of sleep. My data for the second week, the first INTERVENTION week, was (in order from Monday to Sunday): seven and a half hours, eight and a half hours, eight hours, nine hours, eight and a half hours, eight hours, and nine hours. The third week’s data was the second INTERVENTION week, and it was as follows: eight and a half hours, seven and a half hours, eight hours, nine hours, seven hours, eight hours, and seven and a half hours. The data for the last week, the return to BASELINE, was: eight hours, eight and a half hours, eight hours, nine hours, seven and a half hours, seven hours, and seven hours.
The first BASELINE week only had two days that I got at least eight hours of sleep, and those two days were on the weekend, when I have more time to get a good night of sleep. When I started my INTERVENTION, I did much better at EMITTING my TARGET BEHAVIOR of getting eight hours of sleep each night. In the two weeks of INTERVENTION, there were ten days that I got eight hours of sleep at least. The other four days I got at least seven hours of sleep, so that is still pretty good. When I returned to BASELINE, I still did well and got at least eight hours of sleep for four of the days and at least seven hours of sleep for the other days. Overall, I think my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION PROJECT was successful, because I am still going to bed early enough to get eight hours of sleep (or at least seven). My REINFORCER was successful.
I learned a lot about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION while taking this class. This project let me apply the concepts we learned in class to my actual life, which was extremely helpful. One thing I learned that was really helpful in the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project was that REINFORCEMENT is more beneficial than PUNISHMENT because REINFORCERS are DESIRABLE and PUNISHERS are AVERSIVE. Overall, I enjoyed this project because I got to use what I learned in class to change a behavior in my life that is beneficial to me.


My graph is being emailed.

Terms: behavioral intervention, target behavior, emit, behavioral class, behavior, self-directed behavior, goal, behavioral diary, baseline, reinforcement, contingencies, antecedents, intervention, emitted, reinforcer, continuous schedule, schedule of reinforcement, discriminate stimulus, elicit, x-axis, y-axis, extinct, behavior modification, punishment, aversive, desirable, positive reinforcement, consequence

For our BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION project, I decided to increase the amount of time I spent studying and doing homework.

But it didn't start off that way. In the beginning I decided I wanted to increase the frequency of the BEHAVIOR of working out. During the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, I recognized that this wasn't a REALISTIC GOAL. During my BASELINE week, I worked out 0 minutes every single day. This is because I was too busy doing homework/studying/preparing for tests. So I decided at that point that the BEHAVIOR of studying and doing homework more everyday was what I wanted to REINFORCE and increase. I had to refer back to the section on SELF DIRECTED BEHAVIOR, and follow the 6 steps crucial to changing the BEHAVIOR, so I could reach my GOAL.

Studying and doing homework became the TARGET BEHAVIOR I wanted to EMIT more frequently. I took some steps to make sure that DISCRIMINANT STIMULUS did not get in the way of doing so. I made sure that I changed the ANTECEDENT of where I was doing my homework/studying by moving myself from my bedroom to my kitchen. By not having the environment of by room around me it was less likely for it to ELICIT UNDESIRABLE BEHAVIORS like distraction. I also used DRO'S-DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHERS, to help myself. I would decrease the amount of time I spent on the BEHAVIOR of watching tv, so I could increase the BEHAVIOR of doing homework/studying.

For REINFORCEMENT, I decided I would allow myself one day off as a REWARD for by DESIRABLE BEHAVIOR. But to receive this reward I had to study/do homework at least three hours a day. This was a FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT, because I had to complete a number of hours each day to get my REINFORCER at the end of the week. This was usually a Friday or Saturday where I would allow myself time to go out or hang with friends, or simply relax all day, without any homework.

When the REINFORCER was EXTINGUISHED, I saw no difference in my BEHAVIOR CHANGE. Even without being REINFORCED, I continued to study at least three hours or more each day. I think this was partly because it became routine and also because without doing it the CONSEQUENCES were AVERSIVE; such as not doing well on an exam and getting a bad grade on an assignment because it wasn't done on time/done well.

GRAPH EMAILED TO OTTO.

TERMS: BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION, BEHAVIOR, BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, REALISTIC GOAL, BASELINE, REINFORCE, SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR, TARGET BEHAVIOR, EMIT, DISCRIMINANT STIMULUS, ANTECEDENT, ELICT, UNDESIRABLE BEHAVIORS, DRO'S-DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHERS, REINFORCEMENT, REWARD, DESIRABLE BEHAVIOR, FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT, REINFORCER, EXTINGUISHED, CONSEQUENCES, AVERSIVE.

For my behavioral change project I wanted to decrease or completely stop the amount of times I procrastinated. I wanted to emit doing my homework. The target behavior would have been me procrastinating, more specifically it would have been looking on facebook, hanging out with friends, or watching television. The antecedent would usually have been my room or a friend’s room. When I would be procrastinating I would have more of a negative consequence. When I would procrastinate I would have less time to do the assignments and I would not get as much sleep. When I started using the reinforcement and did not procrastinate as much I was more relaxed and had more time to finish the things that needed to get done.
To modify my behavior I wanted to use positive reinforcement because I thought that would give me more of a reason to elicit the behavior I wanted which would be doing my homework. During my behavioral change project I used two different types of schedules or reinforcement. First I tried using fixed interval reinforcement and every week that on average I did not procrastinate as much I set aside $10 out of my budget for anything that I wanted to spend it on. I found that that did not work very well for me. Next, I tried continuous reinforcement. While trying that every time that I finished an assignment I would allow myself to watch television or hang out with my friends.
My baseline showed that I on average did procrastinate. Four out of the seven days I did procrastinate. I did not see much of a change the second week once I started the behavioral intervention. The third week I did see that there was a change and I only procrastinated two days. I think that I did not show much of a change during the first week of the intervention because there was not much of a frequency of being reinforced and I did not find that as pleasurable. After I modified my reinforcement to continuous I did see more of a change.
In review I did see a change after changing my reinforcement. Before, I did procrastinate doing my homework, but after the intervention I did actually work on my homework while I had more time. The second reinforcement I used actually worked and I found it to be useful. I think it is important to keep using this and will be better for me and not make me stress out about my homework as much as I have in the past. When I did procrastinate there would be a negative consequence because I would be tired and stressed. When I do not procrastinate I have more of a chance to do my work with my full potential.
I will turn the graph with the x-axis, y-axis, baseline, and intervention period tomorrow in class.
Terms: behavioral change, emit, target behavior, antecedent, consequence, reinforcement, schedules of reinforcement, fixed interval reinforcement, continuous reinforcement, behavior modification, positive reinforcement, elicit, baseline, behavioral intervention, frequency, pleasurable, modified, x-axis, y-axis, intervention period.

Behavior modification is a language, over the past sixteen weeks we have been learning a different way of thinking to the behaviors that are emitted by individuals and ourselves. Behavior modification is the altering of behavior using empirically based techniques. Any behavior we can observe can be explained in three steps; antecedent, behavior, and consequence. It is possible to modify behaviors though reinforcement and punishment.
Over the last four weeks I have been attempting to modify the amount of times that I go out to eat, the reason for the need for change was that spending money bothered me. In order to modify this behavior I followed the self-directed behavior steps, the initial goal I set was to spend less money on going out to eat frequently. Specifically I was trying to reduce the amount of times I eat to around one to two times a week. During this behavior modification I kept a record of the antecedents that lead me to emit the behavior, most of the times I went out to eat was during social situations.
The first week that I recorded my baseline might not have been the most accurate portrayal of my eating habits, Thursday and Friday I was traveling so eating out was the most convenient behavior. The week of the baseline I recorded eating out eleven times, the antecedents that lead to me eating out were socializing and convenience. For my baseline I used the days of the week as a measure of time and for y-axis I used the amount of times I ate out that day.
The following week we recorded our behavior during behavioral intervention. For my behavioral intervention I decided that I would use one expensive meal at the end of the week as a positive reinforcer for eating out three or less times. This schedule of reinforcement is called fixed-ratio, where the reward is distributed at the end of a seven day period upon completion of the goal. A fixed-ratio schedule of reinforcement should elicit a steady rate of responding. The week that I began behavioral intervention my behavior dropped to three, down from the base line of eleven times. The meal on the Sunday of this week was also my reinforcer meal. The three occurrences of the behavior were spaced out with at least one day in between. The antecedents of these occurrences are mostly social but my reward is counter-productive to reducing the behavior, for the following week I changed my reinforcer.
Step seven of self-directed behavior calls for the individual to implement and adjust contingencies. In order to reduce the amount of times that I go out to eat I can’t have the reward be going out to eat. For the third week of my behavioral intervention to lessen the frequency that I go out to eat I had to change my positive reinforcer of one expensive meal after three or less occurrences in a week. For week three I used changed my positive reinforcer to allowing myself to buy an article of clothes after meeting the goal of eating out less than three times in a week.
With the change of positive reinforcer I changed one of the antecedents of the occurrence of negative behavior, also known as differential reinforcement of other (DRO). Over the course of this behavioral intervention I decreased the frequency of going out to eat from three occurrences in week two to two occurrences in week three. This decrease could be explained by myself being satiated from the meal I had last Sunday, my first time eating out was four days after reinforcer meal last Sunday. Another explanation is the removal of going out to eat as a reinforcer contributed to a lower frequency of the behavior overall. Behavior modification requires a lot of tweaking and self-management if I wanted to further modify my behavior to eat out even less I would have to continue following the steps of self-directed behavior until I am satisfied with the current state of the behavior.
This behavioral intervention project along with the class changed the way that I look at how people behave. Any behavior that is emitted and observable can be explained, and if you wanted to you could modify it. The modification would have to strive towards goals that are realistic, follow a time frame, and are not disruptive. The field of psychology that I would like to pursue a higher education in is industrial and organizational, a lot of the I/O psychology research looks to increase efficient behaviors in the work environment.

Terms: behavior modification, behaviors, emitted, antecedent, behavior, consequence, reinforcement, punishment, self-directed behavior, baseline, behavioral intervention, positive reinforcer, fixed-ratio, schedule of reinforcement, contingencies, frequency, differential reinforcement of other, satiated.

For my behavioral change project, I selected a behavior that I have developed throughout my time in college. I tend to procrastinate and I wanted a way to reduce distractions from the tasks at hand, so my TARGET BEHAVIOR became reducing the amount of time I spent on the internet.

This behavioral change project has become a simple FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS of my chosen target behavior. Looking back at this project, I think the best way to talk about it is to discuss the steps of a functional analysis as to how they pertain to my project. Of course, this is a DIRECT ASSESSMENT, because this is a first hand account of the behaviors. The first step in a functional analysis is to properly define the target behavior. It was difficult at first to clearly define my target behavior because the internet is so pervasive in our lives, and a lot of time I need it to do some of the work that I’m putting off. For me, the TOPOGRPHY of internet usage is sitting at my computer. It may always look the same when I’m on the internet, but the internet has many functions. I wanted to reduce the time wasting FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIORAL CLASS. The whole point of wanting to reduce my usage of the internet was so that I wouldn’t put things off until the very end. There were many websites that I visited frequently, but Netflix was by far the worst for me. After considering simply defining my target behavior as reducing the time on Netflix, I thought that wouldn’t be sufficient. If I was truly going to change and EMIT a desirable behavior, I was going to have to capture all wasteful internet usage. The OPERATIONAL DEFINITION that I ended up using was time spent on unproductive websites, including but not limited to the Chive, Cracked, and Netflix. My goal was to reduce this behavior.

I'm going to combine talking about the next two steps. I had to figure out why I did the behavior. The ANTECDENT of spending time on the internet was sitting in my apartment. My desk is a DISCTIMINATIVE STIMULUS that sets the stage for getting on the internet. It sounds very simple, but it didn’t take much to ELICIT the behavior of watching Netflix for me. Since we don’t have a TV in our apartment, I’m at my computer a lot and this just sets the occasion for unproductive internet usage. I had basically developed a habit of getting onto these websites when I sat at my desk. I thought that this led to the CONSEQUENCE of always scrambling to get work done. I wouldn’t start homework until late in the evenings and this made me feel rushed. But after examining the ABC’s the consequence leads back to form sort of a cyclical relationship with the antecedent, so I believe the consequence of my behavior was some sort of instant gratification from the internet. This is not a particularly SALIENT consequence, so I think that I felt the AVERSIVENESS of being rushed to do work far more. This wasn’t the direct consequence, but because of the behaviors I emitted, this is what I felt and is also what I wanted to reduce.

The ABC’s of my behavior were: A: sitting at my computer, B: visiting unproductive websites, C: instant gratification. While this instant gratification had some POSITIVE VALENCE, the unintended consequence, and the more salient one, was being rushed to do any work that I had and this has very NEGATIVE VALENCE. If I had done this functional assessment before I started the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, I would have simply changed the antecedents. Instead of sitting at my desk, I would have gone into the living room or outside. Sitting at my desk led to the undesirable behavior, so all I needed to do was stay away from my desk.

But I didn’t do this functional assessment until now, so it wasn’t that simple. Instead I implemented a behavioral intervention. I had to determine whether to REINFORCE or PUNISH myself. Of course I chose reinforcement, because lets be honest, I like that better and punishing myself for bad behavior seems masochistic. Even though punishment is designed to decrease unwanted behavior, I chose to do reinforcement. I looked at it as though I was increasing the time that I did not spend on the internet. Next I had to determine whether I wanted to use POSITIVE REINFORECEMNT or NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT. Negative punishment didn’t seem viable because I didn’t have anything undesirable that was tangent and could be taken away. So I ended up with positive reinforcement, the addition of something desirable when I reduce the target behavior. I racked my brain for something that I could use as REINFORCER, but I couldn’t think of anything that was tangent. I ended up deciding to use a form of DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT. My reward for not getting on the unproductive side of the internet for the day, was to allow myself to get on the unproductive side of the internet. This reinforcement could be phrased according to the PREMACK PRINCIPLE: If I don’t get on the internet for the day, then I could get on the internet for 30 minutes at the end of the day before bed. This SCHDULE OF REINFORCEMENT is not CONTINUOUS because every time I don’t get on the internet I’m not reinforced, the reinforcement comes at the end of the day. This makes it a FIXED INTERVAL schedule of reinforcement. I was reinforced at the end of each day. My GOAL was never to EXTINGUISH the target behavior. I just wanted to reduce the amount of time I spent on the internet so that I wouldn’t procrastinate as much. This is why I chose to use being on the internet as a reinforcer.

Here is where I will talk about my graph. The X-AXIS is days, so the amount of time across which I did this project. The Y-AXIS is time I spent on the internet on a given day. The BASELINE is the first seven data points (this is the first week). The INTERVENTION PERIOD is the next 14 data points (the two weeks of reinforcing my desired target behavior). The last seven data points are when I was off the behavioral intervention. The data points are very sporadic, and do not really flatten out. I had one relapse day late in the behavioral intervention. By the end of the entire project though, my numbers are on average lower than the baseline.

Now, even though I strayed for a bit, back to my functional assessment. The last step is to evaluate the outcomes. This was more difficult than I thought. The reason is that the time I spend on the internet depends on the day. I mentioned that I really only get on the internet when I am sitting at my desk. But my days are not all the same. This made getting a good BASELINE difficult and makes analysis of the intervention difficult as well. On any particular day I may not ever be in my apartment. One weekend I traveled to Colorado, so I was hardly on the internet at all. Was this because of the intervention? I don’t think so. I'm not sure the reinforcer or behavioral intervention itself worked particularly well. But I do think that since I was cognizant of this project and consciously thinking about the amount of time I spent on the internet, I reduced the amount of wasteful time I spent on the internet. By no means did my behavior become EXTINCT, but by simply doing this project I was made aware of my behavior, and thus helped to reduce it.

Terms: TARGET BEHAVIOR, FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS, DIRECT ASSESSMENT, TOPOGRPHY, FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIORAL CLASS, EMIT, OPERATIONAL DEFINITION, ANTECDENT, DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULUS, ELICIT, CONSEQUENCE, SALIENT, AVERSIVENESS, ABC’s, POSITVE VALENCE, NEGATIVE VALENCE, BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, REINFORCE, PUNISH, POSITIVE REINFORECEMNT, NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT, REINFORCER, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT, PREMACK PRINCIPLE, SCHDULE OF REINFORCEMENT, CONTINUOUS (schedule of reinforcement), FIXED INTERVAL, GOAL, EXTINGUISH, X-AXIS, Y-AXIS, BASELINE, INTERENTION PERIOD, EXTINCT.

For my behavioral change project, I wanted to ELICIT working out more throughout the week. I wanted to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR of exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. I wanted to ELICIT this because I know how healthy exercise is for you and I wanted to start to make a habit out of the BEHAVIOR. The X-AXIS of my graph shows the days while the Y-AXIS shows the number of minutes of exercise. The SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT that I used was a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE of reinforcement with this because I gave myself my REINFORCER once I accomplished my goal on the number of minutes that I exercised during the week.

My BASELINE week I did not emit very many minutes in exercising. After my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION though, I started to do better. The first week, my REINFORCER wasn't as successful as I had wanted it to be. I had said that if I accomplish my goal, I will let myself have ice cream. My first week I did not accomplish my goal and I felt okay about not getting ice cream because it wasn't something that I really wanted. So, after the first week I decided to change my REINFORCER to see if it would make my TARGET BEHAVIOR more likely to occur. I chose to use going out and hanging with friends on the weekend as a reinforcer. I also used it as PUNISHMENT in a way because I wasn't going to allow myself to do so if I didn't accomplish my goal. This INTERVENTION did a lot more for me than the first one that I tried and the week with this reinforcer helped me accomplish my goal. The week after stopping the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION, I still managed to accomplish my GOAL. I believe I was able to do so because of how my results from exercise was a POSITIVE CONSEQUENCE of this BEHAVIORAL challenge. I felt like it helped my stress levels and made me in a better mood throughout the week. This CONSEQUENCE never became EXTINCT and that also helped when wanting to exercise after my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION was over.

One thing that I was concerned about was that my BEHAVIOR wasn't very specific and exercise is a large BEHAVIORAL CLASS. It wasn't a problem though because I knew what kind of exercise I liked and I was okay with any exercise as long as I got the amount of minutes that I wanted to achieve in throughout the week. I also wanted to make sure that this goal of mine would be a REALISTIC GOAL. I have a very busy schedule and I didn't want to set my goal too high because I know that I wouldn't have time to complete it and eventually, my desire to workout would be SATIATED because I wouldn't think that I could accomplish it.

Overall, this BEHAVIORAL project was an eye opening experience. It was interesting and good to see that I can use the ABC's in my own life and MOTIVATE myself to change my own behavior. Before this class and project, I wasn't sure that I would be able to do so. After receiving the tools and information during this class though, I realized that it isn't as tricky as I once thought it was. If I use all of the aspects in BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION correctly, I will be able to achieve any REASONABLE GOAL that I set my mind to.

Terms: reasonable goal, behavior modification, abc's, motivate, behavioral, satiated, realistic goal, behavioral class, behavior, behavioral intervention, extinct, positive consequence, goal, intervention, punishment, target behavior, reinforcer, baseline, fixed ratio schedule, schedule of reinforcement, x-axis, y-axis, elicit, emit

For my behavioral change project, I realized that it is important to set a GOAL for my behavior change. Since goals have to be REALISTIC, which means something that can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time, I decided to modify my UNDESIRABLE behavior of not getting less than 8 hours of sleep every night. I wanted to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR of getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Getting sufficient sleep is essential for a healthy body and mind, as well as, it keeps one revived throughout the day. I wanted to INCREASE the likelihood of the target behavior through SELF DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. When I examined my target behavior using the ABC’s, I noticed the ANTECEDENTS that ELICIT the behavior of me getting enough sleep, as well as, the consequences of the target behavior. After performing a close observation of my behavior, I noticed that homework, assignments, and student organizations meetings were the antecedents. The CONSEQUENCES that resulted from me not getting 8 hours of sleep were, not being able to focus in class, feeling lethargic throughout the day, as well as, going to bed late and waking up early because I needed to get my homework, assignments, and studying done.
I decided to change my undesirable BEHAVIOR by using the REINFORCEMENT method. By reinforcement, I mean POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT because it involves the addition of a PLEASURABLE STIMULI which will make it easier to increase the likelihood of my target behavior. The REINFORCER that I used for my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION was I get to watch a movie that I like over the weekend. The movie served as an ESTABLISHING OPERATION because it is a condition of DEPRIVATION that increases the effectiveness of a particular reinforcer. In this case, waiting to watch a movie over the weekend made the movie more REINFORCING for me as I was not able to watch any movie at all that week if I did not sleep for 8 hours every night.
When I started recording my BASELINE, I noticed that I was only getting about 6 to 7 hours of sleep on average. My graph for that week fluctuated a lot because the reinforcer was not administered yet. Then, I started administering the reinforcer to my behavior change program. During the intervention period, I used a BEHAVIORAL DIARY to record the hours I slept every night and I always did immediately after I woke up the next morning. The reinforcer seemed to work well for me as the frequency of me getting close to 8 hours of sleep increased. During the intervention period, I was much better at managing my time with homework, assignments, and student organization meetings. As a result, I began to go to bed early and got close to 8 hours of sleep. There was one incident in which I had 8 hours of sleep consistently three days in a row and as a result, I felt energized and I was able to focus and study the whole day. Also, I was generally happy during the weekend because I was able to watch a movie that I like.
Just when I thought my behavior change was successful because the reinforcer was working effectively for me, I had to wean off my reinforcer, which was my primary motivator of getting eight hours of sleep daily. When transitioning from intervention period to baseline, my graph shows a gradual decline in the hours of sleep, which is from 8 hours to 7 hours (the first day of going back to baseline), and it dropped to 6 hours. I had to try really hard to get at least 7 hours of sleep but it only happened one day and it returned back to getting only 6 hours of sleep during the final days of baseline because I was aware that there was nothing this time to REINFORCE my behavior. I think this happened because I was not able to control the antecedents which led to my target behavior. I stayed up late working on homework and projects, as well as, studying for exams and neglected my behavior because I knew I will not get my reinforcer. My target behavior was EXTINGUISHING gradually.
As a whole, I did enjoy the behavior change program because it benefited me in many ways. Some of the benefits were I felt healthier, energized, and was able to focus in class without feeling tired. I also managed my time well and went to bed early. I thought that my reinforcer for this program, being able to watch a movie that I like, was an excellent reinforcer. The SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT that I applied was FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE because I only got to watch a movie over the weekend if I got close to 8 hours of sleep that week.

Terms: Undesirable, emit, target behavior, increase, antecedent, elicit, consequences, ABC’s, reinforcement, positive reinforcement, pleasurable, stimuli, reinforcer. behavioral intervention, establishing operation, reinforcing, deprivation, realistic, baseline, behavioral diary, reinforce, schedule of reinforcement, fixed ratio schedule, goal, realistic, behavior.

For my behavioral change project, I realized that it is important to set a GOAL for my behavior change. Since goals have to be REALISTIC, which means something that can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time, I decided to modify my UNDESIRABLE behavior of not getting less than 8 hours of sleep every night. I wanted to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR of getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Getting sufficient sleep is essential for a healthy body and mind, as well as, it keeps one revived throughout the day. I wanted to INCREASE the likelihood of the target behavior through SELF DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. When I examined my target behavior using the ABC’s, I noticed the ANTECEDENTS that ELICIT the behavior of me getting enough sleep, as well as, the consequences of the target behavior. After performing a close observation of my behavior, I noticed that homework, assignments, and student organizations meetings were the antecedents. The CONSEQUENCES that resulted from me not getting 8 hours of sleep were, not being able to focus in class, feeling lethargic throughout the day, as well as, going to bed late and waking up early because I needed to get my homework, assignments, and studying done.

I decided to change my undesirable BEHAVIOR by using the REINFORCEMENT method. By reinforcement, I mean POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT because it involves the addition of a PLEASURABLE STIMULI which will make it easier to increase the likelihood of my target behavior. The REINFORCER that I used for my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION was I get to watch a movie that I like over the weekend. The movie served as an ESTABLISHING OPERATION because it is a condition of DEPRIVATION that increases the effectiveness of a particular reinforcer. In this case, waiting to watch a movie over the weekend made the movie more REINFORCING for me as I was not able to watch any movie at all that week if I did not sleep for 8 hours every night.

When I started recording my BASELINE, I noticed that I was only getting about 6 to 7 hours of sleep on average. My graph for that week fluctuated a lot because the reinforcer was not administered yet. Then, I started administering the reinforcer to my behavior change program. During the intervention period, I used a BEHAVIORAL DIARY to record the hours I slept every night and I always did immediately after I woke up the next morning. The reinforcer seemed to work well for me as the frequency of me getting close to 8 hours of sleep increased. During the intervention period, I was much better at managing my time with homework, assignments, and student organization meetings. As a result, I began to go to bed early and got close to 8 hours of sleep. There was one incident in which I had 8 hours of sleep consistently three days in a row and as a result, I felt energized and I was able to focus and study the whole day. Also, I was generally happy during the weekend because I was able to watch a movie that I like.

Just when I thought my behavior change was successful because the reinforcer was working effectively for me, I had to wean off my reinforcer, which was my primary motivator of getting eight hours of sleep daily. When transitioning from intervention period to baseline, my graph shows a gradual decline in the hours of sleep, which is from 8 hours to 7 hours (the first day of going back to baseline), and it dropped to 6 hours. I had to try really hard to get at least 7 hours of sleep but it only happened one day and it returned back to getting only 6 hours of sleep during the final days of baseline because I was aware that there was nothing this time to REINFORCE my behavior. I think this happened because I was not able to control the antecedents which led to my target behavior. I stayed up late working on homework and projects, as well as, studying for exams and neglected my behavior because I knew I will not get my reinforcer. My target behavior was EXTINGUISHING gradually.

As a whole, I did enjoy the behavior change program because it benefited me in many ways. Some of the benefits were I felt healthier, energized, and was able to focus in class without feeling tired. I also managed my time well and went to bed early. I thought that my reinforcer for this program, being able to watch a movie that I like, was an excellent reinforcer. The SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT that I applied was FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE because I only got to watch a movie over the weekend if I got close to 8 hours of sleep that week.

Terms: Undesirable, emit, target behavior, increase, antecedent, elicit, consequences, ABC’s, reinforcement, positive reinforcement, pleasurable, stimuli, reinforcer. behavioral intervention, establishing operation, reinforcing, deprivation, realistic, baseline, behavioral diary, reinforce, schedule of reinforcement, fixed ratio schedule, goal, realistic, behavior.

For my behavioral change project I wanted to ELICIT myself to EMIT the BEHAVIOR of eating more vegetables. I was moderately successful in my attempts. I used POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT by presenting a DESIRABLE STIMULUS (a dessert) to myself once the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION itself actually began. Before I actually implemented my REINFORCEMENT, I had to start by recording a BASELINE week to see where I was at. I think my baseline may have been a little bit higher than a normal week would of been. I think that since the behavioral change project was on my mind that subconsciously I was eating more vegetables just so I did not look like I ate no vegetables (in case someone was sneeking into my computer and seeing my graphs for some reason). We know that there are for reasons to change a behavior and my reason was because it bothered me. I wanted to be healthier and it bothered me that I was not getting enough vegetables in my system. To start actually, my BEHAVIORAL CLASS was to eat healthy and I was not sure what TARGET BEHAVIOR I wanted to emit. I thought about trying to decrease the FREQUENCY of either soda or sweets in general. For that too work I probably would have had to PUNISH myself for emitting those target behaviors because I wanted to decrease them. The most effective way would have probably been to add something AVERISIVE and make it POSITIVE PUNISHMENT in order to decrease the behavior. Honestly I could have added certain vegetables to be aversive and decrease those behaviors (some vegetables I like and some I do not).
It may seem counterproductive to eat vegetables and then turn around and eat desert, which would make me unhealthier, but it was the best way to REINFORCE for myself. For my REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE I choose FIXED RATIO. For the first week after baseline I reinforced myself only when I emitted my target behavior. I should mention that my target behavior was eating three vegetables in a day. So if I ate two vegetables one day and one the next I would not reinforce either day. I actually would have to eat a full three in a day. I of course just started out with a schedule of FR1 meaning every time I ate three in a day I reinforced myself. After my first behavioral intervention week I decided to increase the number of times I need to emit the behavior from one to two so I had an FR2 schedule. My average number of vegetables for the week dropped although I still emitted the target behavior several times. For all weeks of the experiment (baseline, intervention weeks, and return to baseline) there were multiple days where I could not emit the target behavior due to extenuating circumstances. Most of the time was because I had a meal provided and the meal did not provide the amount of vegetables I thought it did. My return to baseline was rough. I did not do well at all. It was not like I had an EXTINCTION BURST and went crazy because I did not desire the sweets that much. In fact, the behavior did not become completely EXTINCT, I still emitted the target behavior a few times.
My overall goal was increase my vegetable eating too an average of three a day. I did not succeed but I made good strides. I think I had the ABILITY to achieve this goal most days, but like I mentioned before that there were some days that it did not work out. It was a REALISTIC goal, eating three is not eating to much. In fact, eating much more than that might actually not be good for you.
The X AXIS on my graph is the days 1-28. The Y AXIS is the number of veggies I ate on those days. I had trouble labeling both.


Terms: Elicit, emit, behavior, positive reinforcement, stimulus, behavioral intervention, reinforcement, baseline, reinforce, target behavior, realistic, ability, fixed ratio, schedule of reinforcement, behavioral class, frequency, punish, aversive, desirable, positive punishment, extinction burst, extinction, X axis, Y axis

During the semester we have learned about many different topics in relevance to BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION. These topics helped to modify my own behavior by using the ABC’s of BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION. In order for me to properly utilize the techniques that were learned in this class I had to first understand the ANTECEDENT of my BEHAVIOR. In order to do this I had to make not of all of the ANTECEDENTS or settings that laid the foundation for the behavior that I was EMITTING that I wanted to change.

My specific TARGET BEHAVIOR was to go to the gym and EMIT 60 to 75 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. Prior to initiating my BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION techniques I had to document the ANTECEDENTS that were ELICITING behaviors that would prohibit, or discourage me from going to the gym. I noticed that a lot of the ANTECEDANTS that prevented me from EMITTING my target behavior had to deal with class work. If I had too much class work I would rationalize the reason as to why I could not go to the gym that day to EMIT my target behavior of cardiovascular exercise. In order for me to be able to fully focus on working out I had to free my mind of all distractions; therefore, as a result I would work on my homework ahead of time so that I could be able to give my workout my full attention.

The next step to modifying my behavior with the techniques that I have learned involves looking at the behavior and whether I want to REINFORCE it or PUNISH it. During the semester we have learned that it is better to REINFORCE a DESIRABLE behavior in an effort to avoid AVERSIVE situations. Therefore, I would want to REINFORCE my TARGET BEHAVIOR of EMITTING cardiovascular exercise. For this project I wanted to POSTIVELY REINFORCE my TARGET BEHAVIOR.

Following the determination of whether to REINFORCE or PUNISH, we have to look at the CONSEQUENCE of the behavior that is being EMITTED. The CONSEQUENCE of cardiovascular exercise is an increase in lung capacity, burning calories, releasing hormones that make me feel good, increase of oxygen to the brain, and taking part in a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, since EMITTING a cardiovascular exercise behavior has DESIRABLE CONSEQUENCES I want to REINFORCE the behavior.

After considering the ABC’s BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION I must determine what I will use as a REINFORCER. It is imperative that I choose a REINFORCER that has HIGH POSITIVE VALENCE. By choosing a reinforcer that has a HIGH POSITIVE VALENCE it will become more DESIREABLE. However, while having a good REINFORCER is necessary to INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD OF THE BEHAVIOR OCCURING MORE FREQUENTLY IN THE FUTURE I must make sure that I do not become SATIATED with my REINFORCER.

So, in order to make sure that I do not become SATIATED with the REINFORCER I will have to work with a SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT. I started out using a CONSTANT SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT so that I could get my body used to going to the gym. My REINFORCER what that I would get to have an ice cream cone after my workout. However, using the ice cream as a REINFORCER was counterproductive to what I was trying to do with eating right along with my cardiovascular exercise, so as a result I changed my reinforcer from ice cream to watching Netflix. Netflix has a HIGH POSITIVE VALENCE because prior to the BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project I had started watching a new series that I had fallen in love with, therefore, had I gone to the gym and EMITTED my cardiovascular exercise for the FIXED INTERVAL I would POSITIVELY REINFORCE myself with an episode of Once Upon A Time.

At the beginning of the BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project we needed to record a BASELINE of our BEHAVIOR and record the data. In my first week of the project I recorded a baseline of going to the gym twice in one week and the first day I EMITTED my TARGET BEHAVIOR for 55 minutes, but on day two I EMITTED my TARGET BEHAVIOR for 75 minutes. The first week was not a very good week for the project it was the lowest week that I had EMITTED the TARGET BEHAVIOR for an average of 70 minutes. However, now that I had my BASELINE data I would be able to use a BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION so that I could begin POSITIVELY REINFORCING my TARGET BEHAVIOR.

As the weeks progress I began to increase that average time that I had spent EMITTING my TARGET BEHAVIOR. The increase in my EMITTED TARGET BEHAVIOR was evidence that my BEHVIOR INTERVENTION was working. However, as the last few weeks progressed in the semester we learned about something called the PREMACK PRINCIPLE. PREMACK’S PRINCIPLE looks at the HISTORY OF THE ORGANISM. By looking at the HISTORY OF THE ORGANISM we can find behaviors that the ORGANISM likes to EMIT and use those behaviors as reinforcement. The way that I applied the PREMACK PRINCIPLE is by reorganizing my DESIRED BEHAVIORS that I enjoyed EMITTING. For example, I really enjoy playing video games and taking naps, but I did those things before I went to the gym which often prevented me from going. Thus by applying PREMACK’S PRINCIPLE I was able to say to myself “I can only play video games, games or take a nap after I have gone to the gym.”

This project incorporated the different methods of OPERANT CONDITIONING. Recognizing the STIMULUS and using BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION to CONDITION RESPONSES to the UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS making it CONDITIONED STIMULUS. The UNCONDITIONED STIUMULUS in my project was my gym bag, but I made it become a CONDITIONED STIMULUS because by seeing my gym my CONDITIONED RESPONSE was to go to the gym and EMIT my TARGET BEHAVIOR of cardiovascular exercises.

Most of the cardiovascular exercise behaviors that I EMITTED were FUNCTIONALLY SIMILAR, but TOPOGRAPHICALLY DIFFERENT. This is important to note since someone outside of the BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION world may try to argue that I am doing the same thing, when in fact I am not doing the same thing. I am EMITTING FUNCIONALLY SIMILAR BEHAVIORS in an effort to gain the same CONSEQUENCE.

In the graph you will notice that my baseline was really low, but as the weeks progressed I was able to REINFORCE my DESIARBLE TARGET BEHAVIOR and INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD THAT IT WOULD OCCUR AGAIN IN THE FUTURE. However, when we were asked to stop our BEHAVIORAL CONTINGENCIES I experienced what we discussed in class as EXTINCTION. Without my BEHAVIORAL CONTINGENCIES I was unable to EMIT the DESIRED FIXED INTERVAL.

Terms: Behavior Modification, ABCs of Behavior Modification, Antecedent, Behavior, Emitting, Target Behavior, Eliciting, Reinforce, Punish, Desirable, Aversive, Consequence, High Positive Valence, Reinforcer, Increase the likelihood of the behavior occurring more frequently in the future, Satiated, Schedule of Reinforcement, Constant Schedule of Reinforcement, Fixed Interval, Positively Reinforce, Baseline, Premack Principle, History of the Organism, Organism, Operant Conditioning, Stimulus, Condition Responses, Unconditioned Stimulus, Conditioned Stimulus, Functionally Similar, Topographically Different, Behavioral Contingencies, Extinction

For my BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project, I selected for my TARGET BEHAVIOR is to EMIT less swear words in my daily and weekly life. First I will discuss my ABCs of BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION. The ANTECEDENT for my project would be the type of environment that I'm in. The BEHAVIOR CLASS would be the type of swear words I use, which include damn, hell, and the "F" bomb. I am concerned with reducing all of these BEHAVIORS from my vocabulary especially the "F" bomb. The CONSEQUENCE of my behavior would be to get REINFORCED with my favorite candy bar, a snickers. Swearing has been a problem for me in the last few years. Its also been a problem for my family too because every time swear I get yelled at. So hopefully by doing this project, I can reduce my swear words significantly.
In order for me to begin this project, I had to go through the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR STEPS. This is a six step process and the first step is to SET A GOAL. My goal is to reduce my swear words to five per day. Step two is to DEFINE/SPECIFY THE GOAL AS A SET OF TARGET BEHAVIORS. We also need to keep in mind that the target behavior needs to be precise, manageable, measurable, and fit within the practical score of our daily lives. This is stated earlier in the text with the behavior classes. The third step is to KEEP A RECORD. I kept a record in my phone. Every time I would say a swear word I would use the letter "I" as a check mark in my app known as notes. Then every night before I went to bed I would count how many check marks I had and write them in my notebook for the day. I continued to do this throughout the project. The fourth step is to GRAPH A BASELINE. I used Microsoft Excel to graph the baseline for this project. For week one, I emitted an estimated average of 12.86 of swear words. The fifth step is DETERMINING CONTINGENCIES, which involves the next two weeks and these weeks are the BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION. This is where I needed to choose a type of REINFORCEMENT. If I reduced my swear words to five per day with a total of thirty-five swear words at the end of the week I would reward myself with chocolate or candy. I chose POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT. The sixth step is to DETERMINE THE ANTECEDENTS. As stated earlier, the antecedent for my project would be the type of environment I was in. The final step is to IMPLEMENT AND ADJUST THE CONTINGENCIES. I adjusted my reinforcement by eating my favorite kind of chocolate or candy. If I reached my goal, I would be able to indulge myself with chocolate covered peanuts or a snickers candy bar and if I reached my goal a second time I would switch to whatever choice I didn't have previously.
In order to reach my goal, I needed to decide the IMPORTANCE OF THE GOAL. I needed to set some guidelines. When deciding what my goal is going to be, I needed to ask myself some questions. I needed to ask myself if my goal is reliable, is it in a good timeframe, is it achievable, do I have the ability, is it manageable, is it disruptive, does it have maintenance, and do I have a support base. Before beginning this project, I asked myself all those questions and every answer was yes.
For the results, Week one began with an increase followed a decrease on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the graph began to steadily increase until we got to Thursday where there was a significant increase. On Friday, the line decreased slightly then increased dramatically on Saturday. After the dramatic increase, we see the line drop again on Sunday. Thursday showed an increase because I was out with my friends. Saturday also showed an increase because that is the day I helped my dad put our dock in and I was getting hurt while doing it. For the second week, Monday was below five on the count, which was significantly better than week one. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all fluctuated, but it was also better than week one. As we look at Thursday, we see an increase in swear words. For Friday, the number dropped again then it dramatically increases again on Saturday. Week two's saturday was quite a bit higher than week one. Finally, on Sunday we see a decrease in swear words, but it is still not better than week one. Thursday increased again because I was hanging out with friends. Saturday also increased because I was hanging out with friends. After week two, I began to notice a pattern. I noticed that how many swear words I spoke was directly related to the type of environment I was in. During the school week, I swore, but not as much as the weekend including Thursday. I noticed that my swear words increased drastically on the days I would hang out with my friends. For week three, the results show that Monday decreases, but still isn't better than week two although it is better than week one. After Monday, we see a decrease with some fluctuations with a drop when we look at Thursday, which is significantly better than week one and week two. As we moved toward Friday, there is a slight increase and it still continues to fluctuate with a dramatic increase on Sunday. Week three is slightly better than week two. I was surprised to find that for week three, Thursday had dropped. I wasn't out with my friends that night and so I believe that is why the number of swear words dropped significantly. When we hit week four, Monday shows a significant decrease, which is better than week two and week one, but about the same for week three. This week seems to fluctuate a lot. There is a sudden increase on Tuesday, then a decrease on Wednesday with the line slightly increasing to Friday. After Friday, it begins decrease again followed by another increase toward Sunday. Tuesday was worse on week four compared to week three, while week two and week one were worst than week four's Tuesday. Wednesday improved on week four and was the best throughout all weeks. Thursday was good, but not as good as week three. Friday was slightly better than the weeks besides week one. Saturday improved greatly when compared to the other three weeks.
When looking at the results, I noticed a couple different things. I noticed that the environment does play a roll in how much I swear. Also, who I hang out does factor in too. I noticed when hanging some friends I swore more than when I hung out with a different group of friends. I also noticed that my swearing dramatically increases when I get hurt, especially when I put the dock in. This project was very interesting to see. It was great to see all the steps we needed to take to create a good project.

Terms: Behavior Modification, Target Behavior, Emit, ABCs of Behavior Modification, Antecedent, Behavior Class, Behavior, Consequence, reinforced, Self-directed Behavior Steps, Set a goal, Define/specify the Goal as a Set of Target Behaviors, Keep a Record, Graph a Baseline, Behavior Intervention, Reinforcement, Determining Contingencies, Determining the Antecedents, Implement and Adjust the Contingencies, Importance of the Goal, Positive Reinforcement, Reliable, Timeframe, Achievable, Ability, Manageable, Disruptive, Maintenance, support base.

For my behavioral modification project I chose to increase the amount of shots I shoot every day. I chose this behavior class instead of a target behavior because I wanted to increase the overall shots I took instead of specific shots. The difference between shooting 250 free throws and shooting 250 three point shots certainly are FUNCTIONALLY DIFFERENT but for the sake of my project I chose to ignore the TOPOGRAPHY of the behaviors. For my Overall purpose of shooting 500 shots a day the behaviors are FUNCTIONALLY SIMILAR in the means of making me a better basketball player. I chose to increase the amount of times I EMIT this BEHAVIOR because I want to get better at basketball. This behavior was pretty easy for me to change. To keep track of this behavior I would write down the number of shots I had taken when I went to the gym immediately after I finished to keep track more effectively. The first week’s BASELINE was pretty bad, I had taken a total of zero shots all week. During this first week I had time to think of a good SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT and decide whether or not I would include a form of PUNISHMENT.
In order to modify a behavior I must identify the ABC’s of the behavior first. The ANTECEDENT is going to the WRC, the BEHAVIOR is shooting and the CONSEQUENCE is getting better at basketball. The antecedent is very important when trying to ELICIT a behavior. If the antecedent were to change and be “sitting in my dorm room” instead of “being at the WRC” the types of behaviors that I could emit would be very different. The consequence must also affect the behavior, this will either increase or decrease the likelihood of the behavior happening in the future. To increase the likelihood of the behavior occurring in the future the consequence must have an attractive VALENCE and to decrease the likelihood of the behavior the consequence must have an AVERSIVE VALENCE.
For my reinforcement/reward I chose to eat one or two pieces of Snyders Hot Buffalo Wing Pretzel Pieces. These pretzels are my new favorite snack, these pretzels have a very positive valence. At the start of this project I was worried I would become SATIATED to this delicious treat, to avoid SATIATION I changed my reward every other day with the Honey Mustard flavored pretzels.
To decide which schedule of reinforcement to use I looked at the graph on “Cumulative number of responses” in section 2.5. This graph showed four different options to choose from; VARIABLE RATIO, FIXED RATIO, VARIABLE INTERVAL, FIXED INTERVAL. Out of the four options we had discussed in class it was clear that variable ratio was the most effective form of reinforcement. For my behavior this form of reinforcement would be ineffective, since variable ratio would require the subject to have no idea when the reinforcer was coming and I would be the one to give myself the reinforcement. Even though I would have liked to follow a CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT schedule of reinforcement I realize that A different SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT that is proven to be very effective, fixed ratio, would be more appropriate. This would allow me to reward myself after a pre-determine amount of shots. When I shoot I tend to shoot in sets of 25, five shots at five spots on the court, my plan would be to reward myself after every 25 shots I take. After I followed this schedule of reinforcement for a while I could either continue to follow this path and risk becoming satiated or I could change to an INTERMITTENT FIXED RATIO schedule of reinforcement.
Since I did this behavioral modification on my own this would be SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. My self-directed behavior is shooting shots, I can decide which form of consequence to use. Since reinforcement works better than punishment I decided to avoid punishment and use reinforcement. I have decided to use POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, adding something pleasant to increase the likelihood of the behavior occurring in the future. I was debating on using NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT, taking something away to increase the likelihood of a behavior occurring in the future, but decided against it because rewarding myself would feel a lot better than punishing myself. I could not use positive punishment or negative to modify my behavior because both would decrease the likelihood of me shooting instead of increasing the likelihood. There are six steps I tried to follow when trying to change this behavior. The first step is to SET MY GOAL, however I could not set a broad goal. I made my goal to get a certain number of shots per day instead of “getting better at basketball”. DEFINE/SPECIFY THE GOAL AS A SET OF TARGET BEHAVIORS, this involves identifying precise, manageable, measurable and possible target behaviors. I chose to simply focus on shooting shots, I did not specify specific shots I wanted to take. KEEPING A RECORD is very important, this lets us observe our data in a BEHAVIORAL DIARY. Without record we can’t know how we are doing in our behavioral modification. After we have our collected data we have to GRAPH A BASELINE to know where we started and to know where to go from there, whether we have to increase or decrease our behavior. Our fifth step is to determine our contingencies, this is deciding which rewards work best and when to be reinforced. The next step is to DETERMINE THE ANTECEDENTS. The antecedent plays a very big role in altering our behavior, the antecedent will determine which behavior we can ultimately emit. The last step is to IMPLEMENT ANS ADJUST THE CONTINGENCIES, this will allow us to keep our behavior modification on the right track.
When we look at my graph, we can see the X-axis is labeled “Day of the week” and the Y-axis is labeled “Number of shots”. When looking at my collected data you will see three blue vertical lines splitting the graph into four sections. The first section is the baseline. I only averaged about 105 shots a day but the majority of the time I was not consistently getting into the gym. The second section shows the BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION section. This is where I actively tried to change my behavior. As you can see my average rose significantly, I averaged 400 shots a day during this period. However much I increased this still did not reach my goal of 500 shots. The third section was the second week of behavioral intervention, third week overall. It is clear that I was far more consistent with emitting my behavior, I averaged 585 shots. 585 shots is well over my goal. The last and final section I would continue recording my behavior but without any reward. Fortunately for me I continued to emit my behavior, I averaged 528 shots in the fourth week. Looking at the graph my behavior continues to be consistent in coming in and shooting shots on a regular basis. My average number of shots had decreased but that is certainly ok with me as long as I don’t drop under my goal of 500.
Terms-
Behavior, functionally different, functionally similar, topography, emit, elicit, baseline, schedule of reinforcement, punishment, antecedent, behavior, consequence, ABC’s of behavior, valance, aversive, satiated/satiation, fixed interval, fixed ratio, intermittent fixed ratio, continuous reinforcement, variable interval, variable ratio, self-directed behavior, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, set goal, keeping record, behavioral diary, graph baseline, determine the antecedent, implement and adjust contingencies, behavioral intervention.

For my BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION project I decided to ELICIT a behavior of wearing my retainers on a nightly basis. I have gotten out of the habit of wearing my retainers every night like I am supposed to. I was motivated to do my project on this because I have noticed that my teeth have shifted and started changing. I used to take very good care of my teeth and care about them much more than I currently do, so I decided to start that again. This was a SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR because I decided that it was time for me to change my behavior. If my mother had the ability to manipulate my behavior, she would have done it already. The FUNCTION of wearing retainers varies, but wearing a retainer is TOPOGRAPHICALLY the same.
I decided that my TARGET BEHAVIOR would be whether I wore my retainers or not during the time that I slept. I thought about recording the amount of hours that I wore my retainers but I knew that that would depend on the amount of hours that I slept and that would be a bigger factor than wearing my retainers in the first place. After I picked my target behavior, I created a baseline by starting to monitor my behavior. I recorded when I wore my retainers throughout the week. I found that I only wore my retainers 2 out of the 7 nights.
In this class, I have learned that humans respond better to REINFORCEMENT than PUNISHMENT. On the water drinking project, I used netflix as a reinforcer and found that it was not successful in ELICITING the desired behavior. The reason that this was not successful is because I live at a pace that does not allow for the time to reinforce myself with watching Netflix. This time, after examining what went wrong last time, I decided to reinforce myself with ‘fun time’. This was carving out a chunk of time our of my day to do something that I enjoy instead of worrying about getting stuff done for work or homework. I consider this to be NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT because I removed AVERSIVE tasks that I felt like I had to do in order to do the things that I wanted. I didn’t know how this would work exactly but I was intent on trying this method of reinforcement. The SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT that I used was FIXED INTERVAL because every time that I went two nights in a row, I would reward myself.
Throughout my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION I kept a BEHAVIOR JOURNAL. Every morning when I got up I would mark whether or not I had worn my retainers the night before. Keeping a behavioral journal helped me to create a FUNCTION ANAYLSIS of my behavior so that I was able to understand the ANTECEDENTS and CONSEQUENCES to the behavior of wearing my retainers. I found one particular antecedent which was whether or not the retainers were clean. If I knew that I had cleaned them earlier that day I did not have trouble popping them in and going to bed. If I knew that I had been running late (which happens a lot) and did not have time to clean them, I did not often want to take the time to clean them before going to bed. Soon, I learned to clean them right along with brushing my teeth in the morning so that they were ready to wear that night.
After concluding the reinforcement for my intervention I continued to measure my behavior. I found that as the project went on and even after stopping reinforcement, my behavior did not return to the baseline but continued to increase the amount that I was wearing my retainers. I think this means that it was successful! The pattern of my behavior before the intervention, during the intervention, and after the intervention is shown on my BEHAVIORAL GRAPH. The first week that I recorded my behavior shows that there were only two days that I wore my retainers. The amount of times that I wore them began to increase and the days that I wore them in a row began to increase as well. After the intervention, I was in the routine of brushing them and cleaning them in the mornings and this led to me wanting to wear them at night. Another reinforcer was that I began to see results of my teeth going back to be pretty and this acted as a separate reinforcer after the intervention ended.

Terms: behavior modification, elicit, self- directed behaviors, function, topographically, target behavior, baseline, reinforcement, punishment, reinforcer, eliciting, negative reinforcement, aversive, schedule of reinforcement, fixed interval, behavior intervention, behavioral journal, functional analysis, antecedents, consequences, behavioral graph

For my behavioral change project, I wanted to increase the BEHAVIOR of exercising. The OPERATIONAL DEFINITION for the BEHAVIORAL CLASS that I have chosen would be to do a workout video and try to increase the amount of time I worked out. I would do this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. I tracked my progress in a BEHAVIORAL DIARY using time in minutes as a measurement to track how much of the TARGET BEHAVIOR I was performing. The reason I wanted to do a BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION to change this specific behavior was because the CONSEQUENCES of weight gain are AVERSIVE and were starting to affect me pretty badly. I knew that it would be something easy for me to change and the benefits have been rewarding.

The first thing I did was pick a behavior I wanted to change. I then came up with a FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS for why it happens. This included me looking at the ABC’s of this behavior. I found that the ANTECEDENT for this behavior had to be that I needed to wake up early in the morning because I usually would watch TV and do homework at night and I would sleep in the morning until I had class. So the FUNCTION of not exercising was to sleep and watch TV. There are both positive and negative consequences to not exercising. Some POSITIVE REWARDS would be that I get to sleep in and watch TV. A POSITIVE PUNISHMENT to this behavior is that I gained unhealthy weight.

Using this information, I planned a BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION that would ELICIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR out of me. I would change my sleep schedule so that I could wake up in the morning to exercise. Being up early worked as a DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULUS for me to exercise. My hypothesis was that this was going to be CLASSICALLY CONDITIONED and I would eventually wake up on my own to EMIT the TARGET BEHAVIOR. So I changed the antecedents to the behavior and I had to find something to reinforce myself with. To begin with, I chose a CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE and after a week, I changed to a FIXED RATIO REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE which meant that I would get REINFORCED for exercising every other day. I also decided to implement a DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER program where I would reinforce myself for taking the stairs or walking to school. I picked a POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT of a strawberry cream saver after every workout I did. I did not allow myself to eat cream savers any other time than after my workout. Not eating cream savers other than after the target behavior was EMITTED acted as an ESTABLISHING OPERATION and made the cream saver much more rewarding. In order to motivate me to exercise, I also had to use a NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT. I chose to punish myself if I did not exercise in the morning by taking away my TV time at night and only gave myself a cream saver if I did a workout that night.

I collected a BASELINE reading for a week on how much the behavior happened. Then the next week, I implemented the behavioral intervention and continued to collect the data. The week after that I stopped reinforcing the behavior. In the LINE GRAPH that I created, on the Y-AXIS, I put the amount of time in minutes that I exercised. On the X-AXIS I put the days of the week. You can see an EXTINCTION BURST happen after the reinforcement and punishment stopped. There is also a SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY for a day and then the behavior becomes completely EXTINCT. I think the reason this happened is because of the week before finals I had so much homework that it got in the way of the behavioral intervention.

Overall, this was a great way to learn how to change a behavior. During my intervention, I lost ten pounds and will continue the behavioral intervention over the summer. I was very motivated to do this because of my health and how I felt about myself. There were days when I wanted to stop, but since I had come up with a plan for when this would happen, I stuck to it. I believe that this will be a great way to change any behavior and now that I have the tools to change any behavior, I will work on my eating habits next. By doing this behavioral intervention, I have become aware of most of my bad habits and can work on changing them.

Terms: Behavior, operational definition, Behavioral class, Behavioral diary, target behavior, Behavioral intervention, consequences, aversive, functional analysis, ABC’s, antecedent, function, consequences, positive reward, positive punishment, behavioral intervention, elicit, discriminative stimulus, classically conditioned, emit, continuous reinforcement schedule, fixed ratio reinforcement schedule, reinforced, differential reinforcement of other, establishing operation, negative punishment, baseline, line graph, y-axis, x-axis, extinction burst, spontaneous recovery, extinct.

The easiest way for me to create this BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION project was to use the process of SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. This process contains seven different steps. First I needed to set a goal for myself. For my behavior intervention project I chose to increase the TARGET BEHAVIOR of eating more vegetables each day while also decreasing the amount of junk food that I would normally eat. I usually have a tough time eating the proper amount of vegetables during a given day and usually eat a lot of junk food instead. When I started out with this project I wanted to decrease the amount of junk food I was eating but after taking this course and realizing that REINFORCEMENT works a lot better than PUNISHMENT and I decided to use DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER. I would increase another target behavior and use POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT for that BEHAVIOR in hopes of also decreasing the original behavior of eating junk food. I knew it was important to be very specific when describing my target behavior so I chose my target behavior as eating vegetables each and every day. To measure the amount of vegetables I was eating I would use a dry measuring cup at home which also happened to be about the same size as how much my hand could hold in food. So when I was at school and didn't have a proper measuring cup I could just place the vegetables in my hand and get an approximation with how much I was consuming. The target behavior would include any type of vegetable with no specific restrictions on what vegetables to include and not include. The FUNCTION OF MY TARGET BEHAVIOR was to eat more vegetables replacing the junk food I normally consume so that I could begin eating healthier and feel much better physically and not so wore down as I usually am. The second step was to then define and specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. Before I attempted to define my target behavior I went onto a CDC website to find the recommended intake for vegetables per day for someone my age and weight. I found that three cups were the suggested amount to consume. I defined my target behavior as consuming at least 3 cups of vegetables each day. With my target behavior defined, the third step was to RECORD and keep track of the behavior in a journal. I would have my journal in my backpack at all times at school as well as at home next to the dinner table to make sure I recorded the behavior immediately after it occurs. The first week of this project was focused on creating a BASELINE for the amount of vegetables that I eat during a given week. After collecting data for an entire week for the number of cups of vegetables I consume during a week I found that I averaged about 1.5 cups of vegetables per day. While recording the behavior in my journal it was also important to find the ANTECEDENTS that set the occasion for the behavior to occur. Whenever I ate vegetables it was either at lunch or dinner so I knew that I was more likely to eat vegetables whether I was at lunch or dinner. I remembered while recording this data that the purpose of this project was also to decrease the amount of junk food I was eating so I also noticed the contexts of when I would eat junk food in hope of being able to manipulate those antecedents to instead eat vegetables. I usually only ate junk food in between meals as a snack whenever I was either bored or watching TV. Also I noticed that most of the junk food was readily available and always in plain sight. With this in mind I continued onto step four which was graphing my baseline data. Once I finished graphing my week 1 baseline data it was on to step five and determining my CONTINGENCIES. I wanted to find a reinforcer that I could reward myself with if I met my goal. I chose my reinforcer to be a 12oz. can of Coca Cola because that is my favorite soda that I routinely drink and I find it very enjoyable. I then chose a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT, I would be reinforced with a Coca Cola after two successive days of consuming at least three cups of vegetables or more. If I obtained two days in a row I would then reward myself with one 12oz. can of Coke on the second day. So for example if on Monday and Tuesday I ate three cups of vegetables on both of those days I could then reward myself with a Coke on that Tuesday night. If I however did not hit two days in a row I could not obtain my reward. The sixth step of the self-directed behavior process was to identify and determine the antecedents also known as the environmental setting that ELICITED the target behavior. My antecedent was dinner and lunch which is usually when vegetables were available to consume for me. The seventh step was to implement and adjust the contingencies. After recording my second week of data with it being the first week of implementing my reinforcement I was somewhat disappointed to only hit my goal once of eating 3 cups of vegetables for two successive days. I then thought back to what I had written in my journal about the antecedents for my junk eating behavior which was boredom, and just being around easily visible junk food. I decided for week three to continue with the reinforcement schedule but to change the environment by removing the junk food from my sight lines and to have vegetables more readily accessible and easier to see than junk food. The results for week three went much better with having reached my goal three times for the week which is the most I could get. By manipulating the antecedents and changing the environment I was able to consume more vegetables and less junk food. For the fourth week we were asked to return back to the baseline and not have any sort of reinforcement. For me the results did not change much because I keep the new antecedents in place and I felt so much better physically after eating healthier for two weeks so junk food wasn't as appealing as it once was because I was finally feeling more energized than I used to before this behavioral change.

For my graph, the X-AXIS represented the days and the Y-AXIS was the number of cups of vegetables that I consumed. The goal was to eat three cups of vegetables per day for at least two days in a row to get the reinforcement. My baseline had an average of 1.5 cups of vegetables per day when averaged for the week. For the second week with included reinforcement the average increased to 2.7 cups of vegetables per day when averaged for the second week. During the third week I continued with the same reinforcement schedule but changed the antecedents which helped increase the average to 3.6 cups of vegetables per day when averaged for the week.

I enjoyed this project it was really easy to do with learning everything we did in class as well as with the readings. It was fun to be able to change a behavior that I have been having a hard time trying to change. I had no idea what to do to change behaviors in the past but after taking this class I can be more in control of the behaviors I EMIT and to change the antecedents to elicit those behaviors.

Terms: Emit, Elicit, Baseline, X-axis, Y-axis, Fixed Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement, Antecedent, Record, Function of Behavior, Contingency, Positive Reinforcement, Behavior, Differential Reinforcement of Other, Punishment, Reinforcement, Behavioral Intervention, Target Behavior, Self-Directed Behavior

Chelsea Sandven
Behavior Modifications
Professor Otto MacLin
6 May, 2015
For my behavioral change project I decided to EMIT the behavior of waking up earlier. My target behavior was to begin waking up 2 hours earlier than I normally do. When I originally started this project I thought that my TARGET BEHAVIOR was to eat breakfast more regularly, but as I began my project I realized that I wasn’t eating breakfast regularly because I didn’t have time to in the morning. I realized that if I began to EMIT the BEHAVIOR of waking up earlier, my REINFORCEMENT was getting to have breakfast before class. Two things that I quickly learned about myself during this project was for one I am not a morning person and secondly self discipline and being able to do a self- directed behavior change was going to be harder than I had originally thought it was going to be.
One of the first things we learned in class was the ABC’s and every behavior has an ANTECEDENT, BEHAVIOR, and CONSEQUENCE. The ABC’s for my BEHAVIORAL CHANGE PROJECT are: Antecedent: going to bed early, Behavior: waking up earlier, Consequence: getting to eat breakfast. Every behavior that a person EMITS is followed by a CONSEQUENCE that can either be PUNISHMENT or REINFORCEMENT. In my project the consequence of being able to eat breakfast in the morning was a reinforcement. When I began my behavioral change project and recorded my BASELINE I was very rarely getting up any earlier than I needed to for class, but over the next couple of weeks I eased my way up to where I wanted to be. My TARGET BEHAVIOR of waking up 2 hours earlier than I have been was supposed to be met 4 out of the 7 days of the week. By the end of my project I reached my GOAL of 2 hours earlier every day in the final week. Waking up earlier became a HABIT for me and although breakfast started out as reinforcement it quickly just became part of my daily routine.
This project is an example of SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR. This is when a person chooses to change a behavior on their own, for sake of bettering themselves or to avoid bothering people around them. When you decide to use self- directed behavior you choose your own goals and REINFORCERS. In my case the goal was to wake up 2 hours earlier and my reinforcer was eating breakfast every morning. In order to make my reinforcer real I went to the grocery store to specifically get breakfast foods, so that I knew when going to bed there was breakfast for me in the morning if I get up earlier. Getting to eat breakfast was a reinforcement, but it also doubled kind of similar to a PUNISHMENT when I wouldn’t wake up early and didn’t have time to have breakfast before class. There are 6 steps that I had to follow in order to achieve your self- directed goals that I will go through and relate to my behavioral change project; by following these steps I was able to make sure that my behavioral change project was going to be successful by being PRECISE, MANAGABLE, FIT MY DAILY LIFE, and MEASURABLE. 1. Set a PRECISE goal. If the goal is too broad it will be easier for you to stray away from. This goal should also include punishers. My personal goal was to wake up 2 hours earlier than I normally do 4 out of the 7 days of the week. 2. SPECIFY your goal. In order to do this a goal must be: precise, manageable, measureable, and fit into your daily lifestyle. My precise goal was waking up 2 hours earlier 4 times a week. This is manageable because it’s not making me wake up at 5 am or anything to ridiculous, but it is making me ease into being more of a morning person, and since it’s only 4 times a week if I do need to stay up late for some reason I do have some already given cheat days. It was measureable because I could keep track of what time I woke up and compare it to what time I normally wake up and keep track of that every morning. This goal fit into my daily lifestyle because I just took away sleeping in by going to bed a little earlier and easing my way into waking up a little earlier, so it really didn’t take away any time from anything else. 3. This step is to keep a BEHAVIOR DIARY of your TARGET BEHAVIOR. It is important to keep an accurate record of your behavior to see the changes you’re making and the progress. It’s important to record it right away so that you don’t forget to track it. For me I kept a memo in my phone where I put down what time I woke up as soon as I woke up every morning. 4. This is when you GRAPH your BASELINE. This is done right away when you’re trying to change your behavior. This is when you keep track of how close you are to your target behavior before you start reinforcing the behavior. I kept track of this for one week before starting my reinforcement. 5. This is when you determine contingencies. This begins after you’ve recorded the baseline. This is when I determined that by reinforcing myself with breakfast when I wake up earlier is how I would reach my target behavior. 6. Is to ANALYZE the outcome, which I am doing with this final paper. I have made a graph which demonstrates that I reached my target behavior and even after the reinforcement stopped at the end I continued to emit the target behavior because it became a habit in my daily life. When looking at my graph you will see that the X-AXIS represents the days of the week and the Y- AXIS represents the number of hours earlier that I woke up that day.
This class taught me that even though at first I wasn’t really sure if I had the SELF DISCIPLINE to be able to MODIFY a behavior, by following the steps it is possible to modify any behavior and truly improve a part of your life. For me reaching my target behavior helped me to get more things done throughout the day, to spend less money on campus because I had a chance to eat before class, and it helped me to become a little more of a morning person. This project boosted my confidence that I am able to change other behaviors that I don’t like about myself. It also really showed me in perspective everything that we have been learning this semester in class. I plan on using this to reach other target behaviors that I have already started to put some thought into. I’m proud of myself for having this project turn out the way that I wanted to and since it has become a part of my daily routine it will help me be able to wake up ready for my summer classes since I have to be at Hawkeye Community College by 8 am every day and ready to learn.

Terms: emit, behaviors, reinforced, elicit, antecedent, consequence, punishment, continuous reinforcement, fixed interval, self-directed behavior, self-directed goals, precise, manageable, fit our daily life, measureable, baseline, contingencies, modify, behavioral change project, target behavior, x-axis, y-axis, analyze, self discipline, modify, baseline, graph, behavior diary, goal, habit

I emailed a hard copy of my paper and the graph

When it came to the behavioral modification project, I had some pretty good habits going for me. We had originally practiced on water intake. I had no problem with that as I had already consumed a lot of water throughout the day due to my very active lifestyle. The only thing I had to really do was take it down on a piece of paper. The real challenge would be with something that I truly needed to modify. I had thought about many possibilities of what target behavior I need to emit. But, nothing really came to mind until I looked in my bank account one day. I found that I was pretty low on money and a lot of it was due to recreational spending.

With that in mind, I decided that I would try to emit the behavior of saving money. This would be an important behavior to emit during my entire life as a lot of problems can be fixed by just being mindful of your bank account. In regards to that, I took a look in my bank account and did a baseline average of how much money I spent throughout the week. It was approximately one-hundred and fifty dollars. This didn’t even take into account rent nor utilities. I decided that I needed to start saving up more money. In order for me to do this I needed to find a reinforcer.

Thinking of a reinforcer took a while for me to think of. I realized that I didn’t really spend money on expensive items. It was mostly spent on going out for food and alcohol. I had thought about lists of things that I wanted to buy, but haven’t bought yet. I decided that if I had consistently saved up enough money, I would purchase something from my list. Granted, I would make sure that what I purchased was less than the amount that I had saved. That way I would still have saved and not just switched the amount of money spent from one item to another. Knowing that punishment isn’t as successful with modifying behavior as reinforcement is, I decided that this would be a good reinforcer to use. This way I would be able to purchase the items that I needed and still save money for the future.

For the next few weeks, with the help of online banking, I was able to track how much money I was spending per week. The next week with just knowing that I needed to spend less, I dropped my weekly spending from one-hundred and fifty dollars to one-hundred and thirty-four dollars. This is a pretty good drop considering that I still had to pay for groceries and other essentials. It was also positive as I didn’t have to elicit any sort of reinforcement yet. It was all just because I was paying attention to what I was spending.

Seeing that I had pretty much saved two meals worth of money, it motivated me to save even more and I only spent one-hundred and thirty dollars the next week. I was continuously hitting my target behavior. No matter what topography I was spending my money on, I was still finding small ways in order to save money. I continued that through the fourth week and brought it all the way down to one-hundred and fourteen dollars. In the matter of three weeks, I saved a total of seventy-two dollars. This made me extremely happy as I was starting to see my bank account raise quicker. The combination of getting a pay raise and spending less money helped me gain a lot more money quicker than I had ever before. For the fourth and final week, I decided that if I saved another thirty dollars, I would use my reinforcer and buy a new pair of shoes that I had on my list. It turned out that I saved thirty-five dollars, giving me a total savings of one-hundred and seven dollars. With the new money I had saved I went to the store and bought myself a pair of sixty dollar shoes. I was able to reward myself with a new pair of shoes and still saved forty-seven dollars in the process.

Upon review, I found that the money was a reinforcer in its own. It was similar to a token economy, where an item gets traded in for another more powerful reward. Instead of being a token economy, it was essentially real economy. In order for me to modify my behavior, I changed the antecedents. I decided to put myself into situations where I didn’t feel compelled or elicited to spend money. This helped me greatly in the last two weeks of the project as that was when I spend the least amount of money. This type of conditioning was similar to Operant Conditioning in that the target behavior was controlled by both the antecedents and consequences of the behavior.

With my target behavior, consequence, and antecedents in place, I now had the tools needed in order to change my behavior. My goal for each week was at least fifteen dollars. That goal was both measurable, attainable, and realistic based on my online banking history. After the first week, I tried to hit a goal of another ten dollars, I didn’t quite reach that, but I still saved some money after that. But, I made up for it in the last two weeks saving more than twenty dollars each week. The knowledge gained from this class gave me the understanding of how simple it is to change a behavior. I’m definitely going to be incorporating this into my life and career.

Terms: behavior modification, reinforcer, reinforcement, punishment, operant conditioning, topography, antecedent, target behavior, consequence, behavior, token economy, reward, emit, elicit, conditioning.

For my behavioral change project, the TARGET BEHAVIOR that I chose to EMIT was to exercise more each week, increasing my desired behavior. In order to do this, I had to conduct a FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT of behavior, which incorporated looking at the environment and antecedents. The ABC's of BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION that were used in my behavioral change project include the ANTECEDENT being the WRC gym, BEHAVIOR CLASS includes abdominal workouts, running, walking, lifting weights, and the CONSEQUENCE of my behavior would be a healthier mind and body and more toned muscle. Working out used to be a bigger part of my life, especially in high school, however, since college I have lost my great habit of working out every day.
After choosing the ABC’s that I would emit, I had to begin the process of the SELF-DIRECTED STEPS that I would follow throughout this procedure. The first step is to set a goal/target behavior. I have stated earlier that my GOAL is to exercise more every day. There are important criteria that I had to consider when choosing a goal. Some criteria I had to consider were to be realistic, TIMEFRAME, SUBGOALS, achievable, and ability. It is important to set a timeframe in order to complete your goal by and be realistic of how long it will take to complete the goal. Since my goal wasn’t a larger one there was no need for me to have sub goals (little goals). The second step is to define/specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. When going through this step it is important to keep the target behaviors: MEASURABLE, precise, MANAGEABLE, and practical in my daily life. I stated the second step with my behavior class earlier (walking, running, abdominal workouts, lifting weights, etc.). In the third step of self-directed behaviors is to keep a record. When keeping a record it is important to record the information immediately, otherwise I could record the incorrect information. During this step, I would record my information in my daily planner. This was an easy way for me to record accurate information, since I almost always have my planner on me. The following step is to graph a BASELINE and as well as the following weeks during my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION. I developed my baseline from using a graph that uses an X-AXIS and a Y-AXIS. The first week is known as the baseline; the baseline does not include REINFORCEMENT. With that being said, I did not reinforcement myself that week; however, I will need to choose my reinforcement next. After studying my graph, it was evident that the weeks that I reinforced myself were more effective than my baseline week.
There are two types of reinforcement that I was able to choose from. The two types are positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT involves the addition of a pleasurable STIMULUS, in order to increase the FREQUENCY of the BEHAVIOR. Where as, NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT involves the removal of an AVERSIVE stimulus to increase the frequency of a specific behavior. I chose to use positive reinforcement for my behavioral intervention. The REINFORCER that I chose to use was that on Sunday’s, if I had worked out everyday during the week, I would allow myself to have two scoops of ice cream. After choosing my reinforcer, I had to choose what SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT to use that B.F. SKINNER had developed. There are a two reinforcement schedules that I was able to choose from. These two types are continuous reinforcement or intermittent reinforcement. CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT is reinforcing every time after the behavior has been emitted. INTERMITTENT REINFORCEMENT is reinforcing every now and then. There are four different types of intermittent reinforcement that can be chosen from. The four categories of intermittent reinforcement include: fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, and variable interval. FIXED RATIO occurs after a fixed number of times that the behavior occurs. VARIABLE RATIO is when a behavior is reinforced after it occurs after it happens a variable number of times. Variable reinforcement has a set minimum times a behavior has to occur before it will be reinforced and a set maximum times that it can occur without being reinforced. FIXED INTERVAL schedules reinforce after a constant period of time passes. For example, someone can reinforce themselves after every ten seconds that a behavior occurs. Where as, VARIABLE INTERVAL schedules occur after a range of time passes. Just like with a variable ratio, variable interval schedules have a set minimum and maximum of the amount of time that passes. The reinforcement schedule that I chose to use for my behavioral intervention is intermittent reinforcement by using a fixed interval. I chose this schedule, because if I were to reinforce myself with ice cream every day that I went to the gym, it would defeat the purpose of working out.
The sixth step is to determine the antecedents. Antecedents are very important, because they ELICIT (cause behaviors to occur) behaviors. I chose only one antecedent because I thought it would be the most effective in allowing me to emit my behavior. The antecedent that I chose was the WRC gym. After this step, it is now time to implement and MODIFY the CONTINGENCIES. During my behavioral intervention, I had to adjust my reinforcer, as it no longer was effective. I changed my reinforcer to allowing myself to watch an hour of Netflix after two days of working out. I am glad that we did our own behavioral intervention during the second half of our semester. By doing the behavioral intervention, I will be able to start off my summer with a good workout schedule. I will definitely be using the information that I have received from this class throughout my life.

Terms- target behavior, emit, functional assessment, ABC’s of behavior modification, antecedent, behavior class, consequence, self-directed steps, goals, timeframe, sub goals, measurable, manageable, baseline, behavioral intervention, x-axis, y-axis, reinforcement, positive reinforcement, stimulus, frequency, behavior, negative reinforcement, aversive, reinforcer, schedule of reinforcement, B.F. Skinner, continuous reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement, fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, variable interval, elicit, modify, contingencies

Who would have knew that SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIORS could be so tough to administer? To make things worse, I was attempting to EXTINCT my rotten BEHAVIOR of sleeping in too late. I thought this behavior modification project went very well, not in the way of using BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION to disrupt my sleep schedule to better myself, but in a way of knowing how to set REALISTIC goals that is attainable in the future.

Heading into this project, fresh off reaching my previous goal and the TARGET BEHAVIOR of drinking 8 glasses of water per day. I thought this time would go about the same, to say the least, I was wrong. My GOAL was to get up earlier each morning before class, and in CONSEQUENCE, have time to study or finish homework before class. To begin, I focused on two target behaviors, going to bed by 12pm, and getting up two to three hours (depending on the day) before class. The BASELINE of my sleep schedule averaged out at going to bed around 1am and getting up an hour before class (8:30am or 12pm). Through DIRECT ASSESSMENT I wrote down on a notebook near my bed every time I jumped in bed and every time I rolled out. After the first couple of days I realized that focusing on bedtime and when I should get up was too AVERSIVE, too much. Knowing my own BEHAVIOR CHAIN of when I go to bed, compared to when I awake, I knew that focusing on reaching my bedtime goal would be enough and ELICT an earlier start to my day.

As much as I wished this assignment had gone better, I don’t think achieving my goal was possible. What I found to be the main problem in trying to go to bed on time was the way I REINFORCED my behavior through a blueberry muffin in the morning. We learned in this class that when a desired behavior is EMITTED, reinforcement should come instantaneously for it to be affective. Although a muffin in the morning was a bad type of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT, I couldn’t think of any other way. Developing a better REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE, rather than different times in the morning was in need to be made for better affect. Looking back, I am a little disturbed with myself, thinking that I, a college kid who juggles school, work, family, friends and a lot of drinking to do could actually fix a sleep schedule or even develop something remotely close. I was unable to get to bed at an earlier time, and was unable to get up at an earlier time. Although there was a few nights I behaved enough to receive a muffin the next morning, the consistency was just not there. What could have really helped, despite all of the many obstacles, having a SUPPORT GROUP would have made a significant difference. Overall, this project and this class has taught me many different ways of how to modify the way you live and the behaviors involved in life, I also learned that some things are inevitable to change. What I did not learn was how to use Excel, but that’s only somewhat besides the fact (tough stuff).

Terms: self-directed, behavior, extinct, behavior modification, realistic, target behavior, goal, consequence, baseline, direct assessment, aversive, elicit, behavior chain, reinforced, emitted, positive reinforcement, schedule of reinforcement, support group

For my BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION I chose a TARGET BEHAVIOR of getting my work done in the library. There are many ways to get reinforced for this behavior change which all belong to a BEHAVIOR CLASS. For example, I could be doing work on my computer or not and I could be sitting anywhere in the library. I chose to do my work in the library because the environment keeps me focused and I could get my work done more efficiently to achieve my BEHAVIOR GOAL. Being in the library helps to ELICIT me being on task. Therefor I can EMIT the behavior of getting my work done. I was already spending time in the library before I decided to increase the amount of time I was in there. Before I stared recording BASELINE, I reviewed the steps for SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR, which include, setting a GOAL, define your goals as specific TARGET BEHAVIORS, keep a record in a BEHAVIORAL DIARY, graph the BASELINE, determine any CONTINGENCIES, determine ANTECEDENTS, then implement and adjust any CONTINGENCIES as necessary.

When I was picking a GOAL it was important to pick something that is MANAGEABLE and MEASUREABLE. It doesn’t make sense to set a goal that’s impossible to reach. It is also important to set a precise goal so I know what I am reaching for. I also set up mini goals, which are SUBGOALS at the beginning of each week. The TIMEFRAME was just long enough to see improvements, 3 weeks.

I have already stated the GOAL I wanted to complete. The individual TARGET BEHAVIORS would be, being present in the library working on something and staying on task, this could be with or without my computer. For the first week I recorded in my planner how many hours I spend in the library. I noticed that I spend more time in the library on Mondays-Wednesdays. After looking at my baseline I was going to reinforce myself for every hour that was spent in the library I was going watch an hour of Neflix which is a POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT because I am ADDING a DESIRABLE STIMULUS I then late thought that, that would be too much reinforcement and also I don’t have that much time to watch that much Netflix so I decided that I would use my baseline and whatever that amount I got over on a specific day that would be how many hours of Netflix I would get to watch. For example, if I normally spend 3 hours in the library on Monday I would only get reinforced if I spent more than 3 hours in the library and if I didn’t spend over 3 hours I would use NEGETIVE REINFORCMENT which would be REMOVING something DESIRABLE. After the first week was over, without reinforcements, I noticed I spent more time in the library on Mondays-Wednesdays because of the way my classes were set up. I have a two-hour break between classes on MWF and on Tuesdays I didn’t have any classes so I was able to spend around 3 hours a day in the library. It was also a GOAL of mine to increase the amount of time I spent on Thursdays and Sundays. I decided my break from the library would be Friday and Saturday.

As you can see on my BASELINE on the graph they X-AXIS shows the day of the week and the Y-AXIS shows the amount of hours. As you can see I had days were I was able to spend more time in the library, which was typically at the beginning of the week. Once I started using my REINFORCER of Netflix my time spent in the library increases slightly. Since I was already spending time there it was sometimes harder to fit into my schedule. The REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULE I used was an VR or a VARIABLE INTERVAL. This means that I was reinforced for every extra hour I spent in the library that was more than my BASELINE. Therefore my variable changed day by day pertaining to my schedule. There are other REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES I could have used such as a FIXED RATIO, FIXED INTERVAL OR VARIABLE RATIO. I chose the VARIABL INTERVAL because I wanted to reinforce myself after a set minimum of hours that were on my baseline.

Once I determined the ANTECEDENTS I was able to use those to ELICIT the behavior I wanted. I found that the most effective ANTECEDENT was to already be on campus. If I had already left campus I was most likely not going back. After I noticed that being on campus was a great ANTECEDENT I was able to MODIFY the CONTINGENCIES. My REINFORCER at the beginning was too much and I found it less rewarding because I had accumulated so much time. Therefore I reevaluated and changed it so I would get less of the REINFORCER but I kept the REINFORCER itself consistent.

Now that the semester is over I won’t be at the library until next Fall but I will still be REINFORCING myself in the Fall. This summer I think I will use BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION to work out more or just be more active in general and eat better. I want to live a healthier life style. I have learned all the steps necessary to change a BEHAVIOR I just have to be honest with myself.


Terms: Behavior intervention, target behavior, behavior class, behavior goal, elicit, emit, reinforcing, reinforcer, reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement, desirable, stimulus, behavior, behavior modification, antecedent, contingencies, modify, variable interval, variable ratio, fixed interval, fixed ratio, baseline, x-axis, y-axis, reinforcement schedule, desirable, adding, removing, self-directed behavior, goal, behavioral diary, sub goals, timeframe, measurable, manageable,

For this Behavioral intervention project, the target behavior I decided to extinguish was my overspending more on amazon every month that I would emit due to the discriminative stimuli of having stress that would elicit shopping sprees out of me. My goal was to reduce the frequency of spending, as well as to discover the function of why I would emit a these undesirable habit of spending too much every time I get the urge caused by what I suspect is stress or cognitive dissonance within me. I discovered that I was spending in excess of $1000 every month and even $2000 on some months.

As I went with this behavioral extinction, I realized that I emit extinction bursts frequently. My main goal of self-directed behavior modification was specifically not spend more than $400 a month which I feel would be a great improvement and a successful behavior modification. Being a student who does earn a single cent, this behavior is very aversive towards my parents because they are the one supporting me. Although they have never complained because they are capable of giving me the amount of money I get, I still believe that reducing my spending on amazon would greatly benefit me because I would have more money to spend on more beneficial reasons.

But first, I needed to do functional assessment on my behavior to discover the root of why I spend that much on amazon. I did this by describing the target behavior, its consequences, and the antecedents that influenced my behavior. After that, I followed the steps of self-directed behavior, and examined my ABC’s which allowed me to come up with a hypothesis and decide what actions should I take in disrupting the operant behavior of why I spend in excess of $1000 on amazon.

After discovering why I was emitting such behavior, I was more prepared to create a behavioral intervention plan. My goal was to reduce my spending to below $400 a month which would a reasonable and manageable goal. To accomplish this I first did an observational analysis of my behavior and recorded it down without an intervention and that was my baseline performance. This data allowed me to observe myself, and also to note what the antecedents to my spending habit are.

After a week of collecting baseline data, I was then able to continue with my behavior intervention. My reinforcer was playing my favorite online game which DOTA 2, with the contingency being that I can only play this game each day I don’t spend on amazon. I chose playing DOTA 2 as a reinforcer because I am slightly addicted to this game but not in a way that it affecting my daily life. Seeing as this reward was also another way for me to reduce my stress levels, it would be an appropriate reinforcement. Another reinforcer was the natural contingency of having more money and feeling accomplished because by playing more DOTA 2 I can increase my skill in it.

The antecedents that elicited the most executions of the target behavior were before school work and on week nights. I realized that these are the times I felt the most stress because I am a huge procrastinator and having work piled up increased the likelihood of me spending on amazon.

As seen in the provided graph, my dependent measure was the target behavior of spending on amazon, which is what I wanted to reduce to less than $400. Immediately after applying the reinforcer I saw a huge difference in spending. The next week I decided to change the antecedent and unsubscribe from amazon prime which would remove my privilege of having 2 day shipping for free and I would have to spend 14.99 instead. This encouraged me to not spend even more. By the fourth week when the intervention period had concluded, I had reduce my spending significantly and I would definitely call my behavior intervention project a success. I am quite surprised at how successful it was being that I did not have much on hope it succeeding. Finally, I would also like to point out that one more factor that affected the results was a supportive group of friends that believed in me succeeding in altering this behavior even when I had little hope.

Terms: target behavior, behavior, emit, discriminative stimuli, elicit, frequency, function, reasonable, manageable, behavioral extinction, extinction bursts, self-directed behavior modification, stimulus, aversive behavior, functional assessment, consequences, antecedents, disruption of operant behavior, behavioral intervention, observe, baseline performance, baseline data, reinforcer, natural contingency, observational learning, dependent measure, support, changing the antecedents,


For my BEHAVIOR modification project I chose to INCREASE the TARGET BEHAVIOR of working out 150 minutes per week while DECREASING the amount of time sitting idle. I chose a behavior I EMIT because it would be easier to emit the SELF-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR change than picking a behavior that only happens when it is ELICITED, which made this GOAL easier to achieve. But in order to choose a target behavior I had to examine the ABCs of this project. The ANTECEDENT was that I had the DESIRED OUTCOME of being healthier and preventing diseases caused by obesity. The TARGET BEHAVIOR was that I was going to workout 150 minutes per week. The CONSEQUENCE was that I would be healthier. But I discovered there were two SECONDARY REINFORCERS that happened: losing weight and feeling more comfortable in my own skin.
I chose the PRIMARY REINFORCER of one sweet treat per week, mostly chocolate of some sort, which I place a PLEASANT VALENCE on. I used a FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE for how often I got the reinforcer, specifically every 7 days if I met my goal of 150 minutes per week. This was not all that effective as I found it easy to give in to the temptation to eat the reinforcer more often than the fixed ration schedule allows for. I think the reinforcer would have been more effective if I had used another type of schedule, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO). I think I would have met the goal more successfully if I picked a smaller, but still sweet, reinforcer and flipped coin for during the first week of reinforcement then went to a fixed ratio schedule the third week to determine if I got a reinforcer that day.
I chose to use POSTIVE REINFORCEMENT because it is believed to work better than NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT. Since Negative Reinforcement uses PUNISHMENT, I decided that would not be my best plan since a secondary reinforcer that I hoped would happen was to feel better about myself and punishment doesn’t usually work if that is part of the goal.
When I was deciding on what behavior to do/change for this project I used the BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PROCESS to examine how to best set myself up for success. I found using the 6 STEPS made it easier to create a REALISTIC and ACHIEVABLE goal considering how the project was very much a short term one. Step 1 was easy enough once I understood the difference between a BEHAVIOR CLASS and a target behavior. During this step I went from a GENERAL goal of exercising to a SPECIFIC GOAL of exercising 150 minutes per week by DEFINING what my target behavior looked like (TYPEOGRAPHY). Step 2 was easy and made the FUNCTIONALITY of the goal clear: feel healthier because losing weight as fast as the project ran was unrealistic. Step 3 clarified where I would find resources to work out, such as the gym or just running outside. Step 4 was to make sure I understood exactly how this would most likely affect me (body and mentality) by doing a FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT. For step 5 I created an Excel document and at the end of most days documented how many minutes I had exercised that day. Step 6 is essentially this final essay; by EVALUATING THE OUTCOME I learned that I met this goal for the most part and looked at why I didn’t met the goal on the days I fell short on active minutes. The four days where I didn’t exercise were special occasions: going out of town and Easter weekend when my parents visited. Overall, I think I was successful at meeting this goal because since the end of this project I continue to reach my goal of 150 minutes of exercise per week.
BEHAVIOR, INCREASE, TARGET BEHAVIOR, DECREASING, SELF-DIRECTED, BEHAVIOR, ELICITED, GOAL, ABCs, ANTECEDENT, DESIRED OUTCOME, CONSEQUENCE, SECONDARY REINFORCERS, PRIMARY REINFORCER, PLEASANT VALENCE, FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE, DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER (DRO), POSTIVE REINFORCEMENT, PUNISMENT, BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PROCESS, 6 STEPS, REALISTIC, ACHIEVABLE, BEHAVIOR CLASS, GENERAL, SPECIFIC GOAL, DEFINING, TYPEOGRAPHY, FUNCTIONALITY, FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT.

When I was thinking about this assignment I was having trouble applying behavior modification to a random product or service. I had to think a little closer to home to really be able to apply the greater good of behavior modification to a product or service. My parents own Big Creek Marina in Polk City, Iowa; my dad built the marina up from a one shack building with a couple fishing boats to a large building, newly renovated beach, and over 100 different types of boats from pontoons, sailboats, stand-up paddle boards, to kayaks and hydro bikes. Dr. Maclin always mentions how it is useful to be able to make something you believe in work even if you are not some savvy business man and that made me think of my dad and how with hard work and a good idea he became a successful business owner.
With every business there are flaws however, and with my parent’s business it comes from the employees mostly. Now I am definitely not bashing their employees because in fact my brother and I are two of them that have worked there the longest. I am sure you are wondering how a 21 year old would be one of the longest working employees but incidentally we usually hire teenagers in high school from the surrounding towns. The reason that we look for this age range in employees is because the main reason, we live in Iowa it gets cold and obviously not too many people are wanting to rent boats on a frozen lake. The marina is a seasonal job, it is perfect for high school and college age students because most do not work during the year because they are in school and our busiest months are from May to August so it gives them a summer job. Also if we hire them younger and they like their job then they will return the coming summers and we will not have to retrain new employees every summer. Young employees have many advantages but also their age comes at a disadvantages as well. We hire a lot more boys than we do girls because the girls work the front and there is only so many positions available and days to work, for an example we only need one girl to work the front during the week and we need 4-5 guys to work in the back so the ratio is not equal. We have different guys of all different ages in the back some that are starting so aging around 16 to guys that have worked there through college and now are 21-22. This does create some tension at times, such as last summer we had some of the older guys doing less work and distributing the work to the younger guys; which is a no-no. However, on the other side of that coin the younger guys do tend to slack off or get lazy. Their job is labor intensive they have to mow, pull boats, show boaters how to run their boats (very important), cleaning, etc. When I was thinking of what to do for this project I thought about what problems we run into at work and how using behavior modification could increase the target behaviors we are looking for employees to emit.
Our main problem is with the boys in the back not going over the checklist with those who rent the boats and then when something goes awry they end up yelling at myself and the other girls in the front because their boating experience was not what they wanted. Thinking about this in behavioral way I realized it is just like the ABC’s. The antecedent is the boys not emitting the behavior of going over the checklist correctly, the behavior is the boaters being displeased with their experience, and the consequence is the girls in the front getting yelled at. Thinking about all of this I thought what could be a way to get the desired response from our employees for them to do their jobs correctly. Punishment is just not how my dad would want his business run, it puts him in a bad mood when he has to punish the employee and puts the employee in a bad mood as well. One thing that I really took from our class was the fact that if it is positive punishment which is adding something aversive like extra work or harder jobs or negative punishment which is taking something desirable away like getting off work a little early or a raise; regardless this only momentarily decreases the frequency of the behaviors and does not really extinguish them. I think the only way for there to be an actual behavioral change is to use a form of reinforcement. Positive reinforcement would be effective in the sense that we could reinforce them with something desirable like verbal praise or a raise for emitting the target behavior of going over their checklist with the boater properly; we could also use negative reinforcement by removing something aversive like not having to do an undesirable job (cleaning porta-potties) or working the grill.
To get the employees specifically the boys to start having the boaters fill out and go over their checklist, I think that we should set up a token economy. A token economy is a system of reinforcement of target behaviors where tokens are administered and later accumulated and traded in for a reinforcer. The service I would like to provide for my dad’s business would be to set up a system specifically a token economy to improve employee performance. When I say that the boys go over a checklist with the boaters this is when they have filled out damage information previously with one of the girls in the front and are renting a pontoon boat. We only have boaters fill out certain information when they are renting a pontoon boat because they are, are most expensive boats that we have. If they damage or run one of these boats wrong they could potentially get charged for the damages or we would have to pay for the expenses to fix or replace these boats. This is why the checklist is so important that the boys get the potential boaters to understand and agree with when they are about to leave for their day on the water. The checklist includes things like making sure the boater understands how to put the boat into gear, making sure that the boat has enough gas, they know how to turn on and off the boat, boaters know the rules of the lake (including speed on the lake, swimming regulations, towing regulations), make sure that the anchor is intact and they know the location of it, make sure that the porta potties are clean (very gross if not checked), and making sure the grills work properly and have enough propane. As you can see these are all really important aspects to take into account when someone is about to spend a day on the lake. If one of the guys did not go over the checklist properly we have had a number of problems with the boaters calling in possibly because their boat ran out of gas which should have been checked to start with and that requires the guys to take a gas can out to wherever they are stuck and fill up their boat and then we have to give them a discount. Again this is follows the ABC’s of behavior modification where the consequences are directly related to the antecedent and if we could change the antecedent of the boys doing the checklist properly.
The first step in the process of implementing a token economy is defining a target behavior. The target behavior that we want the boys to emit is every time that they are checking out a boater they must go over their entire checklist with the boater, this means taking their time and not rushing through any of the checklist and making sure their signature and the boaters is on the papers and then returning the paper work to the front. This also includes no complaints from the customers or problems that could have been foreseen eliciting the proper checklist procedure. The second step is to build the token economy I think that the most useful token that could be used for this particular system would be to set up a chart with all of the workers names on it that go over the checklist with the boaters. Every time that the boys go over the checklist with the boaters and get both of the signatures they have to come to the front office and have a girl go over the checklist to make sure that they hit every check mark that they were supposed to and then when the boaters come in to pay and do not have any complaints or problems foreseen from the checklist than the worker who went over the checklist will get a coin to put into their slot under their name. We would use a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement so that the employees would know that they are going to be reinforced if they meet X amount of target behaviors. After they meet so many target behaviors of correctly going over the checklist without any complaints, at about 15 coins they will receive a reinforcement of something like PTO (paid time off) or getting to use a pontoon for a whole day with whomever they want for no cost. The “bank” would be controlled by the girls in the front of the office, who could keep the coins in a lock box and the chart would be just hung up in the front of the office with all of the employee’s names on it who check out boats.
Using the token economy would reinforce the employees to emit the target behaviors that would improve our family’s business. This would also improve employee satisfaction and overall satisfaction of the customers boating experience as well. I believe that if we implement these changes to the business and reinforce our employees instead of punishing them then we will be successful.
Behavior Modification, target behaviors, emit, ABC’s, antecedent, emitting, behavior, consequence, response, punishment, punish, positive punishment, aversive, negative punishment, extinguish, behavioral change, reinforcement, positive reinforcement, desirable, reinforce, negative reinforcement, token economy, reinforcer, eliciting, fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, punishing

Today’s society is dealing with the major issue of obesity. Many blame the food services for serving them that type of food. Another reason is that healthier food is more expensive than fast foods. People will come up with many reasons why other things or people made them obese instead of taking credit for their own decisions. I believe the main reason that people are choosing to make these decisions of eating poorly or healthy is based on behavior modification. A person chooses what type of food to put in their body. Those decisions are influenced on a person’s antecedents (environment), behaviors, and consequences. I am going to discuss the ABC’s, antecedents, behaviors, and consequences, in a person eating unhealthy food compared to a person who eats healthy.

Antecedents
The environments around us influence our behavior in deciding what we want to eat. Almost every place is either surrounded by food or supplies some sort of food. For people that eat unhealthy seem to be surrounded by fast food. It is hard for people to not be surrounded by food since it is important to fuel your body throughout the day. Unhealthy people are not as concerned with their surroundings. Whereas, healthy people avoid fast food by taking the time to go to the grocery store to pick out fresher foods. They also avoid school and work food by bringing their own meals. Healthy people are also surrounded by healthier people which makes it easy to go forward with their healthy eating habits.

From the research done with children and their preferences on food were influenced by the exposure they received to certain types of food. According to the research done in I don’t like it; I never tried it: Effects of exposure on two-year-old children’s food preference, with children trying 5 types of foods in the categories of cheese and fruit “These results indicate that preference is an increasing function of exposure frequency.” This is also mentioned in the results of the article Modifying children’s food preferences: the effects of exposure and reward on acceptance of an unfamiliar vegetable “The exposure-based intervention significantly increased both liking (P=0.006) and consumption (P=0.03) compared with the control group.”. Also, in the article Infants’ Consumption of a New Food Enhances Acceptance of Similar Foods, when the infant is exposed to more of the target food and similar foods “These rapid increases in intake contrast the slower changes seen in young children.” Showing that if an infant/ child is exposed in their environment to healthy foods and others like will increase the intake of it. Likewise if they are exposed to unhealthy foods. Not only is the influence of the environment have an effect, but so do parents. According to the research done in the article Increasing children’s acceptance of vegetables; a randomized trial of parent-led exposure “It can be concluded that a parent-led, exposure-based intervention involving daily tasting of a vegetable holds promise for improving children's acceptance of vegetables.” This means that parents are responsible for their child’s environment to help them make healthy choices.

With the research and results presented shows that our environment is influential in the choices of food that we consume every day. For unhealthy people if they continue down the path with their children by choosing poor choices of food obesity will just increase. When children are exposed to foods whether healthy or not there will be a preference in food they are used to, supported by the research. If a parent is obese from eating unhealthy based on the research their child will most likely be obese if they consume the same types of food their parents consume. On the other hand, healthy people are going to provide their child with the same types of food and even new types of foods. This will lead the child to make better decisions on food choices and widen their varieties of foods they like. Reducing the environments with unhealthy options and adding more healthy options to our environments could reduce obesity.

Behaviors
The behaviors between unhealthy people and healthy people are very different from each other. Some unhealthy people are not concerned with their weight because they have accepted that they will not lose their weight. Others are concerned about their weight, but are too depressed to try and lose the weight. They then have accepted if their child becomes obese that they also keep the weight or will see no hope in fixing the problem. However, this is the big issue of why obesity is climbing in numbers. According to the research done in the article Infants’ Consumption of a New Food Enhances Acceptance of Similar Foods “Results for the other foods suggest that infants may have difficulty discriminating among many foods.” This means that young children have a high chance of not being obese if the parents change their behavior and help their children. This is important for unhealthy people to change while their child is an infant before they are engrained with the habits. In the research Infants’ Consumption of a New Food Enhances Acceptance of Similar Foods when infants are exposed to foods to see their acceptance they concluded that rapid increases in intake contrast the slower changes seen in young children. As children become older they are more familiar with the unhealthy choices and will be more likely to choose those. This is also mentioned in the research done in Effects of peer models’ food choices and eating behaviors on preschoolers’ food preferences when given opportunities to change the preferred food eaten “In post influence assessment, 12 of 17 target children increased their preference for the non- preferred vegetable; less than half of the peers did so.” Parents behaviors of their obesity they might have accepted the fact or find it too depressing, but they are harming their children.

Healthy people have behaviors of wanting to be fit and healthy to live a longer and happier life. Parents are more likely than unhealthy parents to take the time to provide their children with the nutrients they need. In the research article Increasing children’s acceptance of vegetables; a randomized trial of parent-led exposure there were three groups one was exposure, information, and the control group. The parents in the exposure group got information about healthy eating and exposed their children. The information group just received information and the control received none. The only group that had a significant increase in their child eating vegetables was the exposure group. This shows that not only is exposure an important influence, but with information about food can change ones behavior. According to the research done in Modifying children’s food preferences: the effects of exposure and reward on acceptance of an unfamiliar vegetable they concluded that “Repeated exposure to the taste of unfamiliar foods is a promising strategy.” Exposure is important for a child to change their behavior, but they need to know why they should perform this behavior. In the research in I don’t like it; I never tried it: Effects of exposure on two-year-old children’s food preference done with children receiving 5 types of fruits and cheeses “A second analysis, employing subjects rather than stimuli as degrees of freedom, revealed that 13 of 14 subjects chose the more familiar stimulus in the sequence of ten choice trials at greater than the level expected by chance, providing evidence for effects within subjects as well as consistency across subjects.” The more chances the person has experience with different types of food they are likely to stick to certain foods.

Behaviors in unhealthy and healthy lives are not only influenced by their parents, but also peers at schools, sports, and other activities. Those peers could eat like your child does at home or could be the complete opposite. According to the research done in Effects of peer models’ food choices and eating behaviors on preschoolers’ food preferences when given opportunities to change the preferred food eaten “In post influence assessment, 12 of 17 target children increased their preference for the non- preferred vegetable; less than half of the peers did so.” Peers can have an influence on the type of food your child consumes. However the article shows that it decreases as age increases.

Consequences
Unhealthy and healthy people look at their weight and food consumption as positively. Most unhealthy people have acceptance for their weight and have no intentions of fixing the problem. They are rewarded from the taste of the fats and sugars. However, there are many consequences they will suffer from not feeling full which leads to more eating, gaining weight, only being able to experience so much, living a shorter life, and more. Schools are also providing punishments to children at schools due to not supplying enough fruits and vegetables. According to the article Increasing children’s acceptance of vegetables; a randomized trial of parent-led exposure “Despite considerable epidemiological evidence of the health benefits of a diet high in fruit and vegetables, consumption in pre-school children remains well below recommended levels.”

Healthy people though are actually rewarded for their behaviors. They are rewarding themselves in the ways of feeling healthy and motivated, being full after a well-proportioned meal, being able to participate in many activities especially active ones, living longer, and more. For healthy people eating the healthier food is their reward. According to the research done in the article Modifying children’s food preferences: the effects of exposure and reward on acceptance of an unfamiliar vegetable when children were exposed to unfamiliar vegetables “The outcome of the reward intervention was intermediate and did not differ significantly from the exposure or control conditions.” Since the people already enjoy healthy food rewarding others will not be as beneficial. People have to actually enjoy the food. Rewards and punishments can make a difference in emitting or eliciting a behavior, but will not be as beneficial as exposure in the environments.


Our society says we do not have control over what we eat and blame obesity on anyone, but themselves. The research and articles support the idea that behavior has an influence on the food choices we make every day. The environments we surround ourselves can change our behavior. People would think that consequences would have an impact, but it shows that just simple exposure to food has a larger impact on food choices. Also. behaviors of others can change ones behaviors in their food choices. If our society wants obesity to decrease we need to understand that our behaviors control that and then change the behavior. We need to surround everyone in a healthy lifestyle with motivating ways of doing it. It is possible that we can decrease obesity, but we need to take action where it is need which seems to be behavior modification of individuals.

I don’t like it; I never tried it: Effects of exposure on two-year-old children’s food preference.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666382800536
Effects of peer models’ food choices and eating behaviors on preschoolers’ food preferences.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1129283?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Preschool Children’s food preference and consumption
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022318279800254
Increasing children’s acceptance of vegetables; a randomized trial of parent-led exposure.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666302001356
Modifying children’s food preferences: the effects of exposure and reward on acceptance of an unfamiliar vegetable.
http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v57/n2/abs/1601541a.html
Infants’ Consumption of a New Food Enhances Acceptance of Similar Foods
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019566639790146X

Terms: reward, punishment, ABC’s, antecedents, behaviors, consequences, behavior modification, emitting, eliciting

The service that I have developed is a weight loss business that helps people lose weight through behavior changes. They offer to help a person change their emotional eating habits by first conducting a functional behavior assessment, which is a method used to determine the purpose or reason for a behavior(s) a person is displaying. Emotional eating behaviors are very complex, which is why it is important to look at the purpose behind those behaviors. Processes from operant conditioning will also be used to help change behaviors. Such processes include positive and negative reinforcement, behavior shaping, and schedules or reinforcement. The end goal is to help them change that emotional eating into a better, healthier, form of stress management and in turn be able to lose weight they have gained from that emotional eating. By using different behavioral sciences we are better able to identify the behaviors for change and help our clients take steps to be most successful in their behavior changes.

The first step of the service process is to use a functional behavior assessment to discover the purpose behind each person’s emotional eating, as it will vary for everyone. To begin the assessment a target behavior will be identified with the subject. A target behavior is the behavior that has been selected for change. One such example may be: To increase the use of desirable coping mechanisms to deal with life stressors and decrease the undesirable behavior of emotional eating that occurs on a daily basis. That is just a general target behavior example one might use, however target behaviors need to be specific, observable, and measureable, containing a lot of detail to help it be most successful. As specified, the target behavior will be a little different for each person, which we will identify as we work with them and fit it to their needs.

After defining the target behavior, the collection of data will begin. Data on when the person is most likely and least likely to engage in the behavior will be collected. Certain factors that seem to contribute to the problem behavior will be collected as well, as it is important to know what leads to the problem behavior before we can begin to make progress. Data will be collected through direct and indirect methods. Direct collection is the observation of the behavior by the subject and the antecedents and consequences that occur with that. It’s important to understand what the antecedents to the behavior are before we can begin to help the person change their behavior. Some common antecedents for emotional eating might be stress, boredom, feeling of emptiness, social influences, stuffing emotions they are currently feeling, or body hate. Those are all different factors that could lead to the emotional eating behavior. Understanding the consequences as a result of the behavior is also important because the person usually wants to change the outcome as well. We have the goal of helping people understand the behavior of their emotional eating so the consequence can be weight loss. Indirect assessment is another method that can be used to collect data. That type of assessment includes verbal or written interviews with the subject or those in direct contact with the subject. Those results are used in conjunction with the results from the direct data collection to allow us to be more specific in our

Next, a hypothesis will be developed about the function of the behavior. Factors affecting the behavior, certain physical environment variables, social interactions and individuals involved, emotional influences, and a few other varying factors will also be included in the developed hypothesis. We want to know what function the behavior is serving. With emotional eating, it often serves the function as an outlet for emotional or mental stressors that a person doesn’t otherwise know how to deal with. This could include school pressures, relationship tensions, work overloads, and more, as each individual handles their situations differently. That is why each evaluation and hypothesis formed will be so unique and specifically tailored. It is important for people to understand that this isn't a one-size-fits-all service. The topography of the behavior can also be mentioned; as different actions might comprise the same topography and recognition of those can be helpful. People may not realize how different things they are doing might make up the same topography of emotional eating behavior.

Once we have developed an individualized hypothesis for each person, the testing and experimentation begins. Experimentation is important because it allows us to see what, if any, revisions need to be made. The experimentation phase length will be different for everyone, as all aspects of this service are. We individualize and tailor everything to the patient to have the best results. During the testing of the hypothesis it’s critical to still collect data as accurately as possible because those notes will be useful for any possible revisions or reevaluations of the target behavior. If needed, a new hypothesis will be reformulated and tested again. That process will continue as needed to develop one that best suits each individual and gives the best results.

Within the functional behavior analysis we plan to use aspects of operant conditioning to help our subjects be more successful. Positive and negative reinforcement will be used throughout the data collection process. We want to see how certain reinforcements can affect the problem behavior, in either a desirable or undesirable way. For a positive reinforcement we might suggest the subject use a pair of shoes or outfit they’ve wanted for long time, or a trip they have wanted to go on for a while. It could also include going to the library and checking out a good book to read. Many different things can be used as a positive reinforcement; however food will not be one of the options that could be used since we are trying to change their relationship with it to a healthier one. We want them to pick something that can be rewarding and possibly help encourage them to not engage in emotional eating. Negative reinforcement is the removal of an aversive stimulus, which is something that will have to be more individualized for each person. Maybe an aversive stimulus is having baked goods around the house, and so removing those baked goods could help one avoid eating them as a way to deal with a stressor.

A schedule of reinforcement will be used to deliver the positive reinforcement. It will be a fixed ratio, which will be determined, again, based on each person’s own needs. At first the reinforcement will be delivered after a shorter amount of time between sessions of emotional eating, and eventually increased as the person becomes better at using other coping mechanisms instead of emotionally eating. The reinforcement will be delivered after a set amount of times each time, but over time we’ll be able to increase the amount of times between reinforcement. Slowly increasing the time between will help with the extinction of the emotional eating behavior, which is important because if the amount of times of reinforcement is increased too much extinction burst could occur.

The use of punishment will be avoided in this service. Many subjects already experience enough feelings of guilt over their emotional eating behaviors. We do not want to encourage or increase any of those negative feelings by punishing them for engaging in the eating behavior. We are trying to encourage a healthy relationship with food that in the long run could help them loose unwanted weight they’ve gained from the emotional eating.

In certain cases the use of behavior shaping may be necessary. With someone who has extreme emotional eating behaviors, say several times a day of engaging in the problem behavior, slow changes may need to be made. It may be easier to break down the behavior into sub-steps that progressively get more demanding. At first it might be necessary to simply get the subject to identify they are engaging in the behavior and make that mental connection. And then eventually get them to reduce the times a day they are emotionally eating, down to once a day, every other day, and so on. After each sub step in the process is completed the person will need to have a positive reinforcement administered to increase the likelihood of continuing in the desirable direction.

The end goal is helping them change that emotional eating into a better, healthier, form of stress management as a weight loss strategy. As mentioned above, emotional eating behaviors are very complex. Being able to determine the cause and reason behind those behaviors can help a person achieve a long term healthier weight. As the individual makes the healthy life changes, we will continue to be available in case of the appearance of new stressors or another factor causing possible relapse into the old behavior. As time goes on we will help clients return to their daily life/work routine more and more while exhibiting the changed behavior and dealing with new, possibly stressing environments. With the guidance they have received from us, we hope they will be able to implement what they have learned and use the new behavior in those environments. Appointments and check-ins will become less frequent, unless a new stressor needs to be addressed. Support lines will be available for clients to use to at anytime they are experiencing feelings of relapse. We want to help them be the most successful they can be. Behavior modification happens over time and most people aren't completely immune to life changes. The service won't be successful unless it remains supportive and available to the individual after they've returned to their normal life routine.

http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inside-out/201309/emotional-eating-5-reasons-you-can-t-stop
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/diet-weight-loss/emotional-eating.htm
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/raising-fit-kids/mood/change-emotional-eating?page=3
http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/DocServer/EmotionalEating2011PPT.pdf

Terms: Behavior modification, behavior shaping, punishment, extinction burst, extinction, schedule of reinforcement, fixed ratio, aversive stimulus, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, experimentation, hypothesis, topography, function, consequence, antecedent, direct assessment, indirect assessment, collection of data, undesirable, desirable, target behavior, operant conditioning, functional behavior assessment

Welcome investors and fellow scientists! Before I begin the presentation I just want to start off by saying thank you for being here; your support means a lot; as you know we are here today to discuss the product that I have been developing.
This product is called the HydroWatch. This product that I have come up with is a watch that you can use to set reminders to drink water. Not only would this watch be able to tell time but it would have the added benefit of helping people reduce the amount of food that they eat, which in turn would reduce the weight of the individuals who use it because being thirsty is often mistaken for being hungry, not only that, but it would also help keep them hydrated (Butler). There are many benefits to staying well hydrated including: helping an individual feel more alert, reducing the severity of a headache, and preventing constipation (Butler). Not only that, but drinking enough water also helps to reduce the risk of heart and kidney disease, bladder cancer, stroke, type two diabetes, improves circulation, and increases your metabolism (Lane). Water also has the capability to reduce acne and prevent an individual’s face from breaking out (Schwecherl). Drinking a lot of water also has the added benefit of giving individuals who drink it a youthful appearance and glowing skin (Fetters). It is a wonder that with all of these benefits and many more, that more people do not ensure that they are drinking enough water. This lack of water consumption is most likely due to the fact that in our society today we are very busy, we are constantly on the go, and sometimes we forget to drink enough water, but with the help of the HydroWatch that would never happen again!
Not only would an individual benefit from all of the previously mentioned reasons, but this product would also help curb obesity because an individual can set the times at which they would normally eat their meals, then, ten minutes before their meal a reminder would go off to drink a full glass of water. As a result of this reminder, the individual would realize they are full ten minutes sooner than they otherwise would have, typically an individual might not realize they are hungry for at least 2o minutes, but not with the HydroWatch (Styles). The watch would also vibrate throughout the day to make sure that the individual is getting the recommended goal intake of sixty four ounces of water a day because seventy five percent of all people in the United States are dehydrated (Lane). The frequency of the vibrations would be able to be set and determined by the individual so that there is some variability. This variability is good because individuals should be drinking water before they feel thirsty to prevent dehydration (Lockwood). If the individual also takes any sort of prescription pills they can also set reminders to go off for those situations as well, not only is this watch versatile, but it is also discreet and has a digital display that allows the individual to set up messages to go along with each vibration or alert so that the individual using the watch can differentiate between the different vibrations that are emitted.
This watch would help modify behavior by the stimulus eliciting a vibration and eventually, after diligently following the prompts and following what they are supposed to do, people would be positively reinforced by the results that they will see and feel. The ABC’s of behavior modification can be applied to this invention as well. The antecedent would be the watch emitting the vibration, the behavior would be drinking the water, and the consequence would be looking and feeling better. I would not choose to punish individuals in order to obtain the same results because I think that they respond more positively to reinforcement than to punishment. Individuals may not necessarily be continuously reinforced, but more than likely will be intermittently reinforced. The reason for this is because people might not realize right away how much better they look and feel after drinking the recommended amount of water each day, but eventually they will notice the enormous difference that it makes, and when they do they will be reinforced by how much better they look and feel. Eventually drinking the water when the unconditioned stimulus (vibration) occurs will become a conditioned response to drink water. This conditioning will occur over time as the individual consistently follows the prompts of the watch.
After you have finished all of your water, when your reminder goes off you are prompted to log how much water you consumed, at the end of the day after you have logged all of your water your water intake is graphed so that you can see how well you are doing and compare different days or even months or years. It also has the capability to track your weight so that you can see the progress as it occurs and this will be reinforcing to the individual who wears the watch. This will help the individual with their self directed behavior. With this watch you can set your goal, record your progress, and graph your progress that you make. This can help the people who wear the watch to make healthy choices and think consciously about their health. Having the watch on their wrist is also a great reminder of the healthy choices that they are trying to stick to and obtain the healthy lifestyle that they are seeking. Simply wearing the watch can have benefits such as reminding the individuals who wear it exactly why they are trying to consume enough water to keep them well hydrated each and every day.
As I have already addressed, a large portion of people in the United States do not drink enough water; as a result these people can experience kidney stones, increased appetite, older looking appearance, mood swings, and dehydration (Romito). Another reason we should be worried about drinking enough water is that without enough water we experience dehydration. The individuals that experience dehydration are the same individuals who could experience kidney failure, if both of a person’s kidneys fail, without life saving treatment death would occur within a few days (McIntosh). This possibility affects all of us because we are all constantly losing water throughout the day by doing simple everyday behaviors such as: breathing, sweating, and going to the bathroom (Romito). We need to make sure that we are replenishing the water that we are losing in order to be as healthy as possible because over two thirds of our body is made up of water (Lockwood). Luckily, it is very easy to determine whether we are getting enough water. You can check the color of your urine in order to determine if you are getting enough water; if the urine is pale yellow or clear, congratulations, you are drinking enough water, but if it is darker that is a sign that you should be drinking more water (Romito). Studies also suggest that not drinking enough water can lead to car accidents, and may be as dangerous as being drunk and getting behind the wheel (Mercola). Personally, I would feel safer knowing that people are using a HydroWatch and are well hydrated because people are more likely to make better and safer decisions if they are actively trying to stay hydrated compared to it they are impaired in any way, and I think that most people would agree with that as well.
I think that this product will not only help improve the physical health of individuals who wear it but I think it could also improve their mental health as a result of increased water consumption because consuming enough water helps reduce the risk of headaches and migraines (Leech). With the help of investors like you, I would like to make this product relatively inexpensive so that it is accessible to people of all incomes, this way I will be able to allow more people to benefit from my product and learn through observational learning. I think that this watch has the capability to do some amazing things, and a small investment toward an individual’s health is more likely to influence them to commit to taking care of themselves and their overall health.
Thank you for your time, I hope each one of you will consider investing in this great product and in the health and wellness of people all over the globe.
Terms: elicit, emit, behavior modification, positive reinforcement, antecedent, consequence, behavior, punishment, reinforcement, frequency, target behavior, variability, goal, continuous reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement, observational learning, stimulus, unconditioned, conditioned, conditioning, self directed behavior.
References
Butler, A. (2015, September 23). How to Persuade People to Drink More Water. Retrieved December 8, 2015, from http://www.livestrong.com/article/352597-how-to-persuade-people-to-drink-more-water/
Fetters, A. (n.d.). Does Drinking Water Really Give You Glowing Skin? Retrieved December 9, 2015, from http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/drinking-water-for-better-skin
Lane, L. (2014, March 16). Healthy Weight: 10 reasons you should drink more water. Retrieved December 8, 2015, from http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2014/mar/17/healthy-weight-10-reasons-you-should-drink-more-wa/
Leech, J. (2015, February 16). 7 Science-Based Health Benefits of Drinking Enough Water. Retrieved December 9, 2015, from http://authoritynutrition.com/7-health-benefits-of-water/
Lockwood, K. (2012, July 2). How Do I Know If I'm Dehydrated? Retrieved December 9, 2015, from http://greatist.com/health/how-do-i-know-if-im-dehydrated
McIntosh, J. (2015, March 12). Why is Drinking Water Important? How Much Water Should You Drink? Retrieved December 9, 2015, from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/290814.php
Mercola, D. (2015, June 29). Recent Study Reveals the Effects of Not Drinking Enough Water. Retrieved December 9, 2015, from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/06/29/kids-not-drinking-enough-water.aspx
Romito, K. (2013, January 25). Drinking Enough Water - Related Information: Healthwise Medical Information on eMedicineHealth. Retrieved December 9, 2015, from http://www.emedicinehealth.com/drinking_enough_water-health/page2_em.htm
Schwecherl, L. (n.d.). 12 Unexpected Reasons to Drink More Water. Retrieved December 9, 2015, from http://greatist.com/health/reasons-to-drink-water
Styles, S. (n.d.). How to Know When Your Stomach Is Full & to Stop Eating? Retrieved December 8, 2015, from http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/stomach-full-stop-eating-3080.html

The product that I have decided to create is a nation-wide program that would help people learn how to use reinforcement in their daily lives to create a pleasurable way of living. This program would be ran by Psychologist that are hired to work in the company as representatives that answer calls, chats online, or even show up to meetings and conferences for different companies or businesses. This program would help people in a different settings depending on the place where an aversive behavior is emitted. For example, the program can help those find reinforcement tactics in the classroom, at work, at home, at a day care, etc. This program would also ask in depth questions to understand certain situations and create solutions for the people using the program. The reason I have decided to create this program is because I believe that we should be using reinforcement to modify behaviors or reward those for doing positive things. I think it is harder for individuals to learn when they are being punished and are less likely to listen to others when they are being corrected. There are a lot of companies and businesses that may be interested in using this reinforcement program because it may be a great motivator for their employees to do well in the place of work and increase the reputation of the business. This program would be offered on the internet where you have to pay for the service at a reasonable cost. The program will be spread around the U.S where company management and owners are able to meet with the psychologist and answer questions regarding their work environment and the behaviors they would like to change in their work environment and in their own employees. We learned in this class that reinforcement occurs when a consequence following the behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will occur in the future under similar circumstances. So we would want to find a desirable stimulus that would help increase the frequency of a response of a target behavior. The psychologist would interview the management and owners of the company (or individuals using it for personal use) a series of questions to understand what the individuals or companies are looking for, what changes they are wanting to implement and what kind of behaviors they are currently doing. Once the psychologist have a hold of each situation, they will educate people the most effective way to use reinforcement in their environment to receive the outcome they are looking for. They will offer training services for their company to come in when people are being hired to be able to learn the way the company uses reinforcement and learn the behaviors that are expected from them. They will also have to come up with different ways to reinforce their employees once the target behavior and goals have been reached. The psychologist are pretty much the support that the company and individuals are seeking. The psychologist that work in the program will be split up regarding each company that they are working for. It would pretty much be like each individual/company will have their own psychologists at hand. Depending on the size of the company (not regarding individuals) there may be more than just on psychologist for the company. The psychologist would send a machine (kind of like a tablet), with management, team leaders and individuals where they can record their goals and what their subgoals are going to be to work towards. The managers/individuals then are liable for implementing the goals to their co-workers on the target behaviors they are wanting to see and train them on what their expectations are from the company. With the machine that they were given, they are in charge of tracking target behaviors of the people they are in charge of. They are trained to document the behaviors of their co-workers and have one-on-ones when they are not reaching their goals. Then the psychologist would provide feedback to the management and the worker to be able to modify their behaviors to receive the result that they are looking for. The owners and management would also be liable for coming up with rewards or different ways to reinforce their employees when they reach the target behavior consistently. The psychologist would help them find different ways or come up with ideas for the company to reward their employees at a reasonable costs to be able to get the results they are working towards. Once the company believes that their business is reaching their overall goal, they are able to switch their goals to something different to be able to work on other things. When the target behaviors changes, the psychologist is in charge to set up additional meeting to understand the new target behavior that the company wants their employees to emit. Then they would come up with a new plan to reach their new goals for the company and go from there. In my last assignment, we came up with a token economy that would be used as a form or reinforcement. I used a financial institution that implement a program that would pop up when they are helping their customers face to face or over the phone. Once the customer types in their account number into the system, a box would pop up with referral cues for the employee to have conversations with their customers about things that we offer that they don't have. For example, if we are helping a customer that does not have a credit card, when we type in their account number, the box would pop up saying that the person does not have a credit card and that we need to have a conversation with the customer to let them know our credit card rates and the benefits of a credit card. This would help the customer know that they may be benefitting in applying for a credit card and then they decide to apply for one. This would count as a referral and then this would help apply their points in the token economy of their company. The more referrals they have, the more “tokens” they receive which determines employees yearly bonus. The more you contribute to the company, the bigger the bonus. I use this as an example of one of the goals that the company may have that would be able to have a reinforcement for the target behavior that they are trying to implement. The company may say that their target goal is to reach 30% of referrals per month from every department and employee. So the psychologist may be able to help the managers implement different plans how they can motivate their employees to reach that goal and implement rewards and reinforcement when they reach that target behavior. This program can be known as a bigger reinforcement plan than the ones that they are using for their token economy. This reinforcement program may be able to have smaller reinforcements or really big ones like sending an employee and a plus one to a trip to Florida or getting a higher change for a promotion, etc. I believe that this program could be effective by helping a company learn how to reinforce their employees rather than punishing them or by helping them learn how to implement plans while goal setting. They would have employees that are more engaged in to their work place and more passionate about being there and able to succeed more often. Also, it would help them learn how to reach their goals step by step and get the results that were first wanted. I also believe that this program could also have different things that could go wrong with it. Psychologist may have a lot of responsibility to keep up with each company or employees may not be interested in actually performing well enough for the company to reach the goals they are needing. The cost of the program may weight out some companies not to use the program because they may believe that they are able to survive with out psychologist at their hands all the time. The company might be investing in the program and wanting it to work out but the employees are the main reason whether the program will actually be effective for their company. I do believe that if a lot more companies and work places had more reinforcement and rewards, then more people would be more excited and willing to go to work. I know how powerful rewards and reinforcement can be on modifying behaviors of people. And sometimes modifying behaviors can be really difficult so this is why I decided to have professional psychologist in charge of each company so they can do more research on behaviors and solutions to those behaviors. I also believe that if this was a successful program that it would be very beneficial to that company and they can earn a positive growing reputation. More people would hear about how great it is to work there and how positive the environment is by using reinforcement rather than punishment. This would be a motivator for people to apply to your company, grow your company, get more people to use their selling strategies (while being reinforced) and then the more money that the company will make on each employee.

Terminology: reinforcement, psychologist, pleasurable, aversive, emitted, modify, reward, punished, environment, motivator, behaviors, consequence, desirable, stimulus, goals, subgoals, rewards, reinforce, emit, tokens, token economy

http://www.trainingindustry.com/leadership/articles/positive-reinforcement-in-the-workplace.aspx
http://quickbase.intuit.com/blog/2014/02/12/the-importance-of-positive-reinforcement-in-the-workplace/
http://study.com/academy/lesson/positive-reinforcement-in-the-workplace-definition-examples-effects.htmlhttp://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2013/09/using-positive-reinforcement-employee-motivationhttp://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/positive.html

*This is presented in future time as a speech for restaurant training program investors.

“I have been disappointed and this lead to my inspiration. I have worked in the service industry as a restaurant server for four years. In these four years of serving, I have been disappointed. I haven’t been disappointed in the job or how I’ve advanced in the job, but how I was taught the job, how others have been taught the job, and how I’ve even had to teach the job. Training can be complex, but really, how hard can it be? I have worked at four different restaurants: two being locally owned steakhouses and the other two being higher-end franchises. When I started at my first restaurant job, I didn’t sit down and watch movies about serving, I didn’t get lectured, I didn’t role play… I followed another server and observed what she did and then I was thrown onto the floor, “Just relax and act like you are speaking to your family.” That is seriously the training I received. Although I had an idea of what I was doing by the time I started at the other locally owned restaurant, I didn’t get any training at all. None. Zip. I started to think this was just how restaurants did their thing: observation and thrown out on the floor. When I started at the franchises, I was a little surprised by the difference of training, but they still didn’t have that great of a training program. This inspired me to become a trainer and find a different way to teach new employees about the work and what they would be doing and how they would be doing it.

One of my college professors stated, “Training is the systematic process of altering the behavior of employees in a direction to increase organizational goals.” This really spoke to me… Altering the behaviors of the employees, huh? That is kind of manipulating, don’t you think? It kind of is, but it is beneficial to not only the organization, but the employee as well. That is when I decided to create my own training program, the KT-Combination Training Program. This program includes a combination of information presentation techniques, simulation methods, and on-the-job training methods. This program is specific for restaurant serving positions. I would say this could work for other businesses, but a common mistake that most businesses make is choosing the wrong training program.

I thought a lot about the ABCs of behavior and how they relate so well to creating a new training program. There could be two ABC approaches: the before and after the new training program. Before the new training program, the antecedent would be ‘unnecessary training program’ while the behavior would be ‘trainee/new employee not knowing exactly what to do’ leaving the consequence as ‘little to no benefit to the organization or the new employee.’ After the new training program the antecedent will be ‘implementation of KT-Combination Training Program’ while the behavior will be ‘trainee/new employee knowing what to expect from job’ having the consequence be ‘increasing organizational and employee goals.’ This is an important aspect to creating the training program, because you need a hypothesis and goals for the new training program.

To have not just a good training program, but an exceptional training program, you should do several things. The first thing: define what is to be learned to the trainee. This is important because if the server trainee doesn’t know what the job entails, then they will be unprepared when actually doing the job. If the trainee already knows what the job entails, that is great, but every restaurant has different approaches in serving. The trainee should be informed about the restaurant itself and its products, such as the food and drinks being served. Specific job skills are important as well, such as time management skills, multi-tasking skills, and most importantly, people skills. The second thing to do: make sure the training program is consistent with the mission and philosophy of the organization. Since most restaurants focus on people first and food second, it is important to make sure the training program teaches that people skills are incredibly important and it is especially important to the company. The third thing: keep the trainee interested and excited about the company. This has a lot to do with the methods you use. Since the KT-Combination Training Program is not limited to one single method, this is often pretty easily done.
Since training is based off of behavior modification, it is necessary to find target behaviors in the existing employees, implement the training program, increase the behaviors needed, decrease behaviors unneeded, and use those data found for the new employees. To do this, the training program would be the stimulus presented in the employees’ environment, more than likely the restaurant. This usually results in a stimulus response, which is, in hope, better-elicited behaviors within the restaurant. Reinforcement and punishment is incredibly important as well. Reinforcing not only the trainee, but also the existing employees is significant in that it will keep them motivated along with showing them they are being recognized for the work they are doing. Punishment isn’t as important in this setting. I don’t feel implementing punishment is necessary for servers unless they interact with the guest wrongly. If they mess up an order or do something else wrong, the guest usually punishes the server with a bad tip or even verbally or nonverbally letting them know what they did wrong.

Every good training program should conform to basic principles of learning. There are five main principles to go by when creating a new training program.
1. Trainee must be motivated to learn: this involved both awareness of the needs to learn and a clear understanding of what needs to be learned.
2. Learning must be reinforced: standards of performance should be set and the trainees should be rewarded for new behavior (pay, promotion, recognition, etc).
3. Training must allow practice of material.
4. Material presented must be communicated effectively.
5. Material taught must transfer to the job situation: the training should be as close to the job reality as possible.
Having a combination of methods helps increase the motivational drive for the trainee to learn what is expected of the company. In the KT-Combination Training Program, there will be information presentation techniques, simulation methods, and on-the-job training methods. The information presentation techniques include a video presentation and Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI). The simulation method included is roleplaying. This is essential because it will allow the trainee to verbally and nonverbally interact with people, the trainee will hold trays and learn to balance, the trainee will learn to take orders while listening (multi-tasking), etc. The on-the-job training methods will include mentoring, where the trainee will follow another server, observe, then they will switch, where the trainee will be doing the interaction for real, and the trainer will watch and make sure they are doing it correctly and intervene when needed.

There is no best training program out there, but a combination of methods is the best way to alter behavior to increase organizational and individual goals. With the KT-Combination Training Method, the combination of methods will cover most of the information needed for the training to affectively and successively serve in a restaurant. Don’t let the disappointments in your life bring you down, but inspire you to help others. Thank you!”

Terms: ABC’s of behavior, antecedent, consequence, behavior modification, target behaviors, stimulus, stimulus response, elicit, reinforcement, punishment

http://www.stuckserving.com/waiter-articles/the-top-three-waiter-and-waitress-skills

http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/structure/hiring-and-training/training-programs/main

http://www.explorance.com/5-steps-to-creating-effective-training-programs/

Organization Psychology Course; Michael Gasser; PowerPoint Slides from Lecture

The product that I have decided to create are a glasses that will let us see everything that surrounds the action that we are going to emit by making a three categories distinction that will be the antecedent, the behavior and the consequence in a complete and complex way in order to let us decide if the behavior that we are about o emit is a good idea or we should think of another thing. Everyone at some point of their lifetime has regret a decision because it has hurt someone’s feelings or it has ended something that we really like and desire. When I came up with the idea I told to myself what about if people would be able to see the impact of their actions before they emit them? We all know that we always make decisions based on how we feel or the mood in which we are make a decision and depending on the emotion that decision can have a broad variety of consequences that can be positive, negative and neutral.
When I decided to create these glasses I did it keeping in mind the importance of the whole process of the ABC’s of behavior modification and the impact that it has in our lives on a daily basis. Everything that happens in our life has as starting point a decision and that is what I picked as target behavior all those feelings, situations and emotions that elicit responses on us. We cannot change the environment or how we feel when we are going to make a decision or emit a behavior but with these glasses we can decide how to deal with the situation by knowing the consequences our action is going to have and by changing thanks to being aware of the antecedent so the likelihood that we are going to find ourselves on a specific situation will decrease and therefore it will make our life easier and better. These glasses work like normal glasses with no graduation so people who do not have eye problems they can also use them and they have a difference that it is hard to see that is that when you put them they have little electrodes that react with our brain activity controlling our behaviors. These glasses have something particular which is that they activate when an aversive consequence is going to take place so it is not overwhelming due to the fact that our life is based on an important amount of decisions that take place on a daily basis.

With this being said I also kept in mind the fact that when we are taking an exam our decisions can lead us to mark the wrong answer and therefore the glasses should activate and warn us. However, these glasses have a little device inside the little electrodes that react to our brain activity that lead them not to activate when our answer can lead to the undesirable consequence of having the answer wrong and therefore the possible punishment of failing the exam that we are taking. I still want to have a productive and full of hope future generations and that is the reason why the glasses do not work for exams. They also do not work for interviews letting us by ourselves and with the responsibility of decide what the right thing to do is.

The purpose of these glasses is to be an additional help but at the end of the day is a personal decision when you are about to emit a behavior. The main goal of these glasses is to help us when we are being driven by our emotions, especially the negative ones so we can in some way reduce the frequency of negative outcomes that are linked with negative feelings such as regret or sadness and that in some situations can lead us to commit crimes and undesired actions that can end up with punishment from the government and society such as jail or community service plus being judged and labeled on a category that we may not like. These glasses are designed to be a positive reinforcement that would lead us to an increase of positive outcomes when about to emit a behavior and therefore it will help us not to hurt other people’s feelings, especially when we truly care about the people we sometimes hurt. I am really confident about this product and its effectiveness and I hope you share my confidence on it and decide to sponsor it and promote it to the world and society in order to change their lives and problems when not knowing how to deal with a situation.

http://www.employmentcrossing.com/employers/article/900012103/The-ABCs-of-Behavior-Modification-Management/

http://hanofharmony.com/the-devastating-impact-of-choices/

http://eqi.org/emotions.htm

Terms and terminology used: Antecedent, behavior, consequences, ABC’s of behavior modification, desire, target behavior, emit, elicit, responses, aversive consequence, undesirable, punishment, negative outcomes, positive reinforcement, positive outcome.

One problem in America right now is the steep rate of youth that are living on the streets. Thirteen kids die on the street everyday. Although there are many programs available in big cities, we do not see programs like that here in Cedar Falls. I would like to give services to youth that are homeless due to many different circumstances. The program will be a no judgment zone, meaning that it does not matter where they came from, they can seek help at one of our shelters.

A large problem with homeless youth services is that often the youth will run away and go back to sleeping on the streets. At this point, their life is in danger and they have no one watching out for them. I would want to fix this problem by giving them a safe place to go, which teaches them real life skills.

The first step to developing this program would be to set a target goal. What do we want to accomplish with this program? What is our purpose? I would have to say that our target goal would be to better and enrich the lives of homeless youth in the Cedar Falls area. This goal would not be successful if the youth were not dedicated to the program. Because of this, we are going to set up smaller programs within our original program to ensure that everyone works together to make this work.

Every one of the youth that come to stay with us will have to help with chores, work at bettering themselves, and work with others. Based on this, we are going to use a token economy system. Specific behaviors would include helping with dishes after dinner, working together with one another, and developing better habits. An example of this would be that many youth on the streets at the very least get into smoking or drinking alcohol. They will be reinforced for every day that they are able to remain sober. They will also be reinforced for completing chores, and going to class regularly. For those that are too old to go back to school, they will need to show significant progress in a GED program.

The tokens that will be used will be stickers that are placed on a poster in one of the shared living spaces. I will be keeping track of every sticker that is earned, so that I will know if someone has messed with the poster. This system is somewhat based on the honor code, because trust is one of the life skills that we want to teach the youth. Because we want the youth to make decisions that are good for them, we will start small. Each one of the youth will be able to pick his or her own sticker sheet that will be used for the poster, so each and every person will have a different sticker.

The next step would be to set up reinforcers. Of course, the reinforcers will depend on the age. The youth will be able to trade in their tokens for reinforcers whenever they would like, as long as they have the right amount of tokens. We could use candy for a reinforcer. We could also use movie night packages (where they get to choose a movie for the group that night, popcorn and a pop), or slips that let them off the hook for chores for a night. All of these tokens are relatively cheap and easy to dispense. For each day that they complete their chores, they get a sticker. For each day that they go without drinking or smoking, they will receive a sticker. And for each week that they go to class without missing a day, they will get a sticker. So, some of these youth will have the potential to earn up to eight stickers a week.

Because the youth will be reinforced for quite a bit, the reinforcers will have to be more “expensive”. In other words, for a candy bar, they will need eight stickers stickers. For a movie night package, they will need fifty stickers. For a night off from chores, they will need thirty stickers. This means that for a movie night, they will have to have perfect behavior for a little over six weeks. For a candy bar, it will take one week. For a night off from chores, it will take about four weeks. This way, there is still a reinforcer available to them, but they are going to have to work hard to get the more desired back-up reinforcers. Eventually, we will take away the reinforcement, but this will not matter because we will continue to praise them. The way that we will slowly take away the reinforcers will be by changing the reinforcement schedule. At first, they will be on a fixed ratio schedule. This is known as continuous reinforcement. Eventually, the youth will be worked into a variable interval schedule. This is known as intermittent reinforcement, which is seen to be more effective.

There will only be certain times of the day that these will be available. I will have office hours every day from three in the afternoon until six in the evening. They will only be able to request an exchange during these times.

Everyone on the staff will be explained how this program is to work. If they have any questions, they will be able to ask me at any time. Also, all of the youth will need to be informed. So we will hold a group meeting where we will discuss how this program is going to work. We will also leave posters up in the main living spaces so that they can reference it at any time.

Of course, with a token economy set up, we are bound to run into the possibility of the youth becoming bored and giving up. At that point we will need to adjust our reinforcers, and those will be up for discussion as a group when the time comes. We want the youth to have sense of belonging, so we want them to help make as many decisions as possible.

A big part of this program would be focusing on positive outcomes, and the future. By working with the youth instead of against them, and gaining their trust, we will be able to get them to elicit the appropriate behaviors needed for their success. If they emit desired behaviors they will always be praised. If they emit aversive behaviors, we will not harshly punish them. Studies show that punishment does not work nearly as well as reinforcement. Punishment can drive them away from the program. They have had enough negativity in their life.

The reason I think that this program can work can be looked at from the potential change in the ABC’s of behavior. This stands for antecedent, behavior and consequence. Before the youth come to the program, and they are still living on the streets, their ABC’s would not be positive. The antecedent would be living on the streets, which would make the behavior engaging in dangerous behaviors, and the consequence would then potentially being in life or death situations. However, if we change the antecedent to having a safe place to live, we see that the behavior also changes to engaging in proactive choices, and the consequence therefore changes to having a successful life.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/youth.html
http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/national-recommended-best-practices-for-serving-lgbt-homeless-youth
http://www.standupforkids.org

Terms: target goal, token economy, reinforced, tokens, reinforcers, reinforced, back-up reinforcers, reinforcement schedule, fixed ratio schedule, continuous reinforcement, variable interval schedule, intermittent reinforcement, positive outcomes, elicit, behaviors, emit, desired behaviors, aversive behaviors, ABC’s of behavior, antecedent, consequence

There are millions of people out there with poor posture. Millions of Americans go to work every day and stare at a computer for 8 hours a day while sitting in a chair with poor ergonomics. If you slump down when you’re using this ErgoComputer, it will suggest that you sit up straighter. To help office workers avoid achy backs and tired eyes, the computers camera follows the position of your pupils to determine how you are sitting comprehending questions of whether your neck is tilted too much, if you’re too close to the screen, if you’re slouched, etc. It then tells you how to adjust your body to achieve ergonomic correctness. The monitor can also inform you that it’s time to stand up and take a break, and it will automatically go to sleep when you leave the vicinity.
Research today shows that seated posture, especially while using a computer needs to be shown more attention because it also affects a person’s posture when walking and standing upright. There are many posture problems that occur when sitting in front of a computer all day. One of the most common posture problems, called kyphosis, is a result of spending too much time in front of a computer. The shoulders hunch forward, the pectoral muscles in the chest tighten, the neck and head extend toward the computer screen, and the spine is no longer vertically aligned. This can cause pain the neck, shoulder, and back areas. Another complication that can occur from an extended period of sitting is the anterior pelvic tilt, which happens when a person’s pelvis tilt’s forward, pushing the torso forward and bending the back in an awkward way. The last problem that ErgoComputer will help prevent is having a hunchback where the back forms a C shape at the top of the spinal column causing pain in the neck, shoulders, and back.
Well, you are probably wondering why you would invest in getting all new computers and computer software for your employees when it seems that they are fine. However, do you just want fine from your employees? Do you just want them to be good enough? Or would you rather have them be there best and be healthy? ErgoComputer would be beneficial to both employees and companies.
First I will talk about the benefit that you will receive as an employer. There is research that shows an increasingly strong link between someone’s body position and their mood. Most of your employees probably have very poor body posture from sitting in front of the computer all day. Poor posture can also potentially elicit an undesirable mood and when your employee is in a bad mood, you probably do not want them interacting with clients because this could cause them to emit a rude or hostile behavior to their clients. If your employee does do this, it will probably cost you as a company a lot of time and money to try to keep that client or you might lose that client all together and lose a lot of money that way. They also might have pain in their back, neck, and shoulders while they’re sitting in the chair and might have to take paid sick days so that they are able to stay at home and rest, or they might be in pain at work and be constantly getting up from their seat taking breaks. Either way, this is causing your company to waste money all the time. The ErgoComputer will also tell people when they need to take breaks so there will be no more sleeping at the desk, and if they do still emit the behavior of falling asleep at their desk, the ErgoComputer won’t be able to read their retina’s and will send an automatic email to the supervisor so that the supervisor will check in with the employee to see what is going on and if the employee is sleeping than they will be reprimanded or punished. For this situation the antecedent would be sleeping at the desk, the behavior would be an email being sent to the supervisor, and the consequence would be getting punished for sleeping while working. For the previous situation about losing money the antecedent to the situation in regards to the ABC’s of behavior is losing money due to people taking sick days for their bad posture. With the ErgoComputer, your employee’s posture will be fixed so that your company isn’t wasting a large amount of money each year. The behavior is implementing the system of using the ErgoComputer. Employees will also be in better moods at work causing less conflict at work between employees. The consequence is that employees are in a better mood and the company saves money each year from not having to pay people for their sick days. There are a variety of different examples of the ABC’s from this one situation, but they all show an antecedent that eventually leads to a desirable consequence for the company.
For employees, the benefits of implementing the ErgoComputer will be very similar to that of the entire company. As I mentioned before, there is growing evidence that good posture contributes to a range of health benefits, from reducing back and joint pain to boosting mood. The main priority would be to improve people’s moods at work, but it would also help improve their mood at home as well after work is over. The implementation of this system could also potentially help your employees to try to exercise. For instance, with their back pain before, they couldn’t exercise because it simply hurt too much. However, now they can exercise and enjoy their life more. The ErgoComputer will also tell people when they need to take breaks so there will be no more trying to just keep your eyes awake at the desk. The ErgoComputer should make employees more enjoyable to be around. Even for people in good shape, bad posture habits can be so ingrained that it takes constant vigilance to improve them. This system will act as constant vigilance to try to improve posture in a world that is suffering from bad posture. Good posture can also help employees make a good first impression on potential clients, therefore helping themselves increase their sales commissions. For this situation the antecedent would be good posture, the behavior would be good first impression, the consequence would be gaining a client and earning money.
The system will use positive reinforcement to try to get people to sit straight up instead of slouched. Employees will be invited to a pizza lunch at the end of the week for the people that go the entire week with sitting slouched for less than one hour. This will help in improving people’s posture as well as making them have a specific reinforcement in mind for sitting up straight and not slouching in their chairs.
ErgoComputer will help manipulate your employee’s behaviors and help them emit more desirable behaviors. It will mostly be used to improve employee’s overall health and mood therefor increasing the amount of revenue that your company makes each year due to employee’s gaining more clients and taking less sick days off from work do to achy backs. The system will be able to punish behaviors such as sleeping at the desk, and also reinforce behaviors such as sitting correctly at the desk.
Terms: elicit, emit, punished, ABC’s of behavior, antecedent, behavior, consequence, desirable, manipulate, positive reinforcement
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-bad-sitting-posture-at-work-leads-to-bad-standing-posture-all-the-time-1403564767
http://www.thehealthsite.com/diseases-conditions/top-5-bad-postures-that-can-affect-your-health/
http://lifehacker.com/fix-your-computer-hunch-and-other-posture-problems-in-3-1476347921?trending_test_three_e&utm_expid=66866090-68.Rvuykf2qT9qOAx_axtw3_w.2&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Hello! ¡Hola! Olá! Bonjour! Kaixo!
This is a new learning program called Learn&Travel. We believe that learning new languages brings so many new experiences in people’s lives, and everyone should have fun doing it, so we designed this online program for people to easily learn and practice new languages. It focuses on reinforcing the learning behavior emitted by the students. Reinforcement is the procedure used in behavior modification to increase the likelihood of a behavior of being emitted; in this case, we want to increase the behavior of students learning a new language. The best way to describe this online program in behavioral terms is breaking it down to the components of the ABCs.
The antecedents of this target behavior (learning a new language) are the prior events that motivated the program to be created. Most public schools in the United States don’t offer the choice of learning a new language up until high schools. This is a really big difference between other countries: for example in Spain or Italy, English is another mandatory class since Kindergarden, and a third language is offered in high school. This motivated us into developing this program to help people that didn’t have the chance of learning a language from an early stage in life. Let’s see some examples. We took a survey within two hundred UNI students that had taken Spanish in high school for at least three years to see how much they remembered after being two years out of high school (they were all Juniors at UNI). Even though they were able to understand more concepts that they were able to speak, they had little knowledge of the language. When they were asked about how their own impression was of how much knowledge they had of the language, a 72% of the students mentioned the fact that “they only took it for three years in high schools so they didn’t remember much of it”. This answer shocked our program-developers because they weren’t native Spanish-speakers but they had a pretty good level of the language after two years of mastering the skill. Some research has found that it takes approximately a year and a half to learn Spanish; a year and a half of practicing the skill. We couldn’t understand why students weren’t able to learn a basic level from their high schools’ Spanish class after three years of taking it. So we thought that the problem should have been in the teaching-method instead of the language or the students. After this, we decided that it was time to build a new program that people would be able to follow and understand easily. This is how we figured it had to be an online program, because nowadays most Americans have access to Internet.
This was one the antecedents for this Learn&Travel program but there were more. It is proven that learning a new language is not only beneficial for your student/job life but it also helps develop people’s cognitive and creative abilities as well. We wanted to give the students the chance of learning a new language the right way, and this is how we started building this token-based online program. A token economy program is a system that is designed to reinforce a person’s behavior with tokens administered as backup reinforcers; in this case it means that when the person’s behavior is going towards the learning of a new language he/she will be reinforced with a token. There are different types of tokens but we figured it would be nice to have something related to being able to practice that language in their native country. This is why we decided to partner with the cheap-flights company named HereYouGo. There are a lot of activities, assignments and essays available online for students to do; all of them are based on a 100-points range, so every time the student gets 90 points or more in each individual activity they earn 5 tokens. These tokens are virtual coins that can be traded for discounts in flights. The more you have, the cheaper your flight will be: you’re right, it could be even free! These backup reinforcers are effective because they motivate students to learn and get good grades so they can earn points for travelling to another country, where they will actually continue learning the chosen language. Since we are aware that we may have students that aren’t interested in travelling, we also have food gift cards available after 100 tokens have been earned. As mentioned earlier, this is an online program, so the way of cashing their tokens is also online. The program is prepared to detect when certain amount of token have been reached (it sends you an email if you have 100 tokens points worth a gift card). The only thing clients have to do is print out the sheet with the gift card code the program generates. If the student prefers to save the points they have the possibility to do so.
We know the importance of setting goals so we would like to explain you how exactly our online program works. Since it is online, there are no classes to attend to, so you are going to be the one setting your own goals, and deciding how much time and work you want to put into it. We know from previous experiences that it is better to let people be responsible for their own learning, but don’t worry, this doesn’t mean we will leave you alone! There are online professors available to answer your questions 24 hours a day; we understand that not everybody has the same schedule. When you register for our course, you will have to take an online test so we know your level of the language. There is no need to lie in this test because that would only have aversive consequences for your own learning progress. The only purpose for this test is to have a baseline of your progress (we will talk about it later). We recommend you to start with a goal a little higher that your current level of the language so the program is not overwhelming since the beginning (the goal should be manageable and properly adjusted to a realistic timeframe). By setting your goal we mean that you will have to choose how many points you want to earn by the end of the month. There are multiple charts available in your profile that will keep you updated about your progress. This self-directed behavior will be more effective if you start a routine to do your assignments. The second step will be to specify the goal as a set of target behaviors; this means that at this point you can’t just say “I want to learn French” because it isn’t specific and therefore, harder to achieve. Following this previous example, a more specific goal would be “I want to learn the numbers in French during the first week”. The third step is keeping a record; the program does this for you. According to your notifications settings, we will email you weekly, every other week or monthly, letting you know how your progress is going. We think that this way of managing the information makes it easier for you to modify your behavior if needed. The fourth step consists of graphing a baseline; as we mentioned earlier, there are charts available in your profile with your data, and one of them will have the baseline of your language level at the beginning. The graphs will help you keeping track of much learning you’re accomplishing every week. The fifth step is determining contingencies; we have already done this by determining the antecedents and reinforcers of this behavioral modification process. The sixth step is determining the antecedents; when you register there are some questions that will ask you about why you decided to start this program. Please, keep in mind that this is meant to help you think about how you got here, and what you can do to change your learning-another-language behavior. The seventh and last step is implementing and adjusting the contingencies; this will remain active as the learning behavior is still occurring.
When setting your goal we ask our clients to be realistic about what brought them to start and online program (the most common reason is previous failures trying to learn a new language) and about the goals they want to accomplish. Learning a new language is a process that requires patience, hard work and desire for achieving it. We believe that everyone has the ability to learn a new language and that’s why we offer so many different ways of learning: videos, online chats, assignments, games, etc.
We are looking forward to work with you and we hope the final consequence of this learning program will be achieved. You will learn another language!
Reinforcing, learning behavior, emitted, reinforcement, behavior modification, ABCs, increase, antecedents, cognitive, mastering, skill, token, backup reinforcers, goals, goal-setting program, aversive, consequences, desired, progress, self-directed behavior, achieve, accomplish, specify the goal, determining contingencies, ability, baseline, manageable, timeframe.

There are millions of people out there doing aversive behavior. Many of those people are mostly locked up in a jail cell or some kind of mental institution. These people that i am referencing are young kids a lot the way up to great grand parents who display aversive behavior and out incarcerated for it. I had figured out a way that could change these peoples aversive behaviors and make them good again. This strategy can overall change a person life. The Strategy that i am speaking of is a writing paradigm blog. A writing paradigm will give all these individuals the opportunity to write down all of there deepest thoughts down in a blog that only they will see and also there therapist. if they don't want there therapist to see they wont see it then they they wont. To help troubled people this blog will be open to the individual twice a day for 15 minute spans of time. They will be instructed to write about their deepest darkest emotions that they have bottled up inside of themselves. While writing the blog they can also write about why they committed the aversive behavior that got them put into this situation. They could ask for forgiveness from their religious fathers. The writing paradigm blog is for the individuals use and they can write and do as they please with it. The people ill get this blog by the guards everyday. Everyday the guards will hand the individual a tablet with their information on it to write. The tablet will also have a clock on it that tells them how much time they have left to write. The tablet will also have all their previous blog post on there if they want to read back in time instead of writing that day.
Research today says that writing down your thoughts and emotions separate from the world will improve your behavior and attitude on life. Writing gets all of your thoughts down since you wont have anyone really to talk to if your locked up for a while. You are isolated by yourself with all thoughts running through your head. That can be stressful and cause be go crazy. Now with writing all these thoughts down you don't have built up emotions and thoughts, you are at peace with yourself everyday. research also says that writing about past situations will help you get over them faster. Writing about past behaviors will teach you that those behaviors are not good for society and that you should not have done them. Writing about past behaviors will let you forgive yourself for any wrong doing that you feel bad about. While writing these blogs daily you find yourself becoming less and less angry, and more appealing to others and the world. The last thing that writing paradigm blog can improve is your sanity. A lot of individuals do hurt themselves or others while locked up. If you are writing everyday i guarantee your attitude will be much improved towards yourself, and towards others.
Every person that agrees to start the writing paradigm program will get a letter to the courts or whatever facility that they are in that they are trying to improve their behavior. The individual can also receive reinforcements for doing this as well because they are trying to improve.
For this program i would say the target behavior would be to get individuals to write down there emotions and feelings in turn that it improves there behavior and attitudes. All of the individuals involved with this program would have to be all in. Those who are implementing the blog to the individuals will have to be on time and make sure all of those you want to write are writing. they have to keep track of those who are writing and how much they are writing. There will be a head psychologist at every facility to be in charge of the whole writing paradigm blog, so that is implemented properly and that the individuals using the program are getting what the results that we are looking for.
Now in order to show to show you guys how well this product works i have decided to put into the ABC's of behavior change. I have decided to do this because i am trying to change the individuals behaviors with writing paradigm blog. The antecedent for this behavioral change would have to be the individual doing an aversive behavior and being put into a facility. This is am my antecedent because this is occurring before the behavior that i am trying to get the people to do next. The b which stands for behavior is agreeing to do the writing paradigm blog, and doing the blog for a long time. The c which stands for consequences would be the individuals that are doing the blog will have better attitudes and better behavior after doing the blog for extensive amount of time.
Since there is a consequence of the behavior we are trying to get the people to do there will be a punishment or reinforcement that can be applied. In this program we will be using reinforcement because we want the individuals to continue doing the writing paradigm blogs. If we give the people reinforcements it will increase the likely hod that they will do the blogs everyday. Also other people who see those doing the blogs will want to join in. That can be a problem though, they could only want to do the behavior so they are reinforced. We will have to pay close attention to the blogs and their content so that does not happen. For those people who are doing the behavior correctly and for the right reasons will receive weekly reinforcements. The weekly reinforcements would be an extra snack at meal times or extra free time outside of the cell. Also you can offer the individual more time on the phone, or an extra phone per week. We will keep track of that by the guards. The guards will initial after every time a person does a blog. The counselors there will read them and will determine if they receive a reinforcer or not. The reinforcer will maintained by the head guardsmen on duty per shift. The head guardsmen will be the person that tells the individual that they have received a reinforcer for doing the blogs and will give the choice of which reinforcer they want to participate in. During this program we will be operating under continuous reinforcement. Continuous reinforcement is important for this program so that we get the behavior under stimulus control.
Once a person joins our program they will never experience extinction. Extinction would cause aversive behavior and would reverse all of the positive things that the paradigm blog has done. No extinction is one of the major keys to success for this program. We are well aware that some individuals may have a bad day where they dont want to write and are very aversive. We are prepared to handle that with meetings with the counselors in the facility. Once they met we expect spontaneous recovery from the individual. They will go back to doing the blogs daily and improving their behavior.
With this program the individuals that participate will also go through self directed behavior. I believe they will go through self directed behavior because once they start writing about the things that they have done they will realize that those things are not good, and that they have only hurt themselves and their families more than anything. Once they see see the negative behaviors and emotions on paper this will automatically help them acquire better more pleasant behaviors. They want that so that they write about the good things that they have done instead of negative things, and negative emotions.
Also in order for this program to be successful, we help the individuals come up with goals for themselves. These goals will keep them motivated on doing the writing blogs everyday. For example, a goal that an individual in the program may have would be to write a blog everyday for 2 weeks straight. This goal that they have set for themselves is very realistic. The goal can be achieved because it is realistic and can been be done. The next reason they can achieve this goal is because they set a time frame for it. The time frame they set was 2 weeks. The individual can also set sub goals. A sub goal they can set is finish the first week of blogs with good approval from the counselors. Sub goals makes the main goal much easier to achieve. The last important thing that the individuals needs is a good support base. Their support base could be the counselors or their families at home who they are trying to be good for. Without a support base with any goal a person will probably fail.
The writing paradigm blogs will manipulate anyone's behavior that buys into the program. It is most useful for those people that emit aversive behaviors and attitudes. The program will help people build on better character attitudes, and also better behaviors. The program will also reinforce so that all progress within the program is maintained.
terms: ABC's of behavior, reinforcement, antecedent, consequence, behavior, aversive, extinction, continuous reinforcement,

Hello Scientists and Investors! My program is called Back On Track and this is a new way to get back on track with health and fitness. Many Americans struggle with living a healthier lifestyle and getting that motivation to go and workout. It is so much easier to just go buy some fast food instead of cooking or just sit on the couch and watch Netflix instead of going to the gym. Until you know it, those decisions have caught up to you and you are in a place that you want to get out of. I was at that point where I was not taking care of my body and I didn’t feel confident at all. I found this group of online girls who were also trying to get healthier and lose weight. After hearing their stories and motivation, that gave me the boost I needed to change my life. After a year of working out mostly every day and eating healthy, I lost 34 pounds. Not only that, but I felt better about myself. This is why I created the face-to-face support group: Back on Track. Most Americans have these stigmas about getting healthier that requires going on these fad diets. 80% of these dieters try to lose weight on their own and nearly all dieters gain their weight back. The average adult makes 4 weight loss attempts a year without seeing much results. This is because dieting is not the way to go. Americans need to learn that eating healthy foods and exercising will get you to the goals you need. I am here to teach people in our country the right way to get into the shape you want to be in and feel comfortable in your skin.
Back on Track is a support group for those who have mentioned struggles with wanting to live a healthier lifestyle and to lose weight that meets twice a week. The behavioral class is health and fitness for this program. This is also for those who do not feel comfortable in their own skin and with their bodies. I created this program because I feel it is more likely that you will change your target behavior if those who are also trying to accomplish the same goals surround you. We found those who are interested by having guests at local gyms take a survey about if they would be interested in joining a health and fitness support group. This group would meet twice a week in person with a group of individuals trying to accomplish the same goal and joined by a psychologist, personal trainer, and dietician. The first week we would be talking about goal setting. The psychologist will explain the important of goal setting in modifying a behavior. They will be given time to think of a goal and then talk to the psychologist of what they want to change. This could be cutting out a certain junk food, exercising more, lose this many pounds, anything they want. Then they will think of a set of target behaviors that will help them reach that goal. These behaviors must be precise, manageable, measurable, and practical. After they all think about their goals and write them down. They will be given two journals. This will be their food journal where they write down what they eat everyday and their fitness journal to document their workout that day. This will hold them accountable for their actions. They will need to set up a baseline goal as well of how often they will work out or how much of the junk food they will allow themselves to have. They will also have a timeframe of one year for their starting goal since the program starts up again every year.
After the first meeting is over and they determine their goals, they will introduce themselves to the group, tell the group their goals, and a little bit about themselves and their relationship with health. This will help the group develop rapport with the leaders and their fellow groupies. After every sharing session with the psychologist, they also have a fitness class with our personal trainer, and a recipe showing from our dietician. The personal trainer will lead a 30 minute class for the two times the class meets and conduct a different workout each week. It could be a fun cardio workout such as zumba, HITT (High Intensity Interval Training), a run outside, etc. Or it could be strength based workout or even a yoga or Pilate’s workout. There will be mortifications available with those who are injured or cannot complete the exercises. They will be given those workouts on paper along with 3 other ones to complete that week. They will write down if they complete this in the fitness journal. After this fun workout with their peers, this will hopefully reinforce them to continue these workouts at home. After this exercise session, they will sit down and learn a new recipe from our dietician that is healthy and delicious. They will then have samples of the dish and hopefully this will also reinforce them to cook these dishes. They will be given those recipes along with 3 other ones peer week. Throughout these whole sessions we have to think of the ABCs of behavior and how this would work for those in the session. The Antecedent would be the individual trying to live a healthier lifestyle. The Behavior would be attending the sessions and getting motivation from peers. The consequence would be working out and eating healthier.
We also have a token economy system. There will be an award given out each week for Member of the week. Throughout the sessions, the leaders of the group will take notice on someone who is going above and beyond to improve their health. There can also be nominations from other members of the group. Each winning member will get a $20 Nike gift card to buy new fit gear and a free meal from Subway. They will also get a certificate that they will be able to take home. This is an example of positive reinforcement because they would be given rewards for going above and beyond. This is also used to help motivate others to go above and beyond. There would not be any sort of token just because it is not a point system or anything like that, it is just who is nominated. I would also like to talk about the ABCs with this token economy. The A would be the antecedent, which would be making the decision to make steps to reach toward their goal. The B would be behavior, which would be completing it to your best ability and talking about it in the sessions. The C would be Consequence and that would be receiving the certificate and the gift cards.
In conclusion, one of the biggest New Years’ Resolutions for someone has to do with trying to lose weight. Studies show that most people do not stick to their goal after around one to two months. With Back on Track, they will meet people just like them and realize that they are not alone. This will motivate them to get out there and make smarter decisions by eating healthier and exercising more and ultimately the consequence will be that they feel more confident and comfortable in their own skin. The personal training sessions will give them workouts from a professional about what will help them achieve their goals. The dietician will give them healthy recipes that you won’t have to think twice about and might even forget that it is healthy because it tastes so good. The psychologist will be there as their motivator when someone feels that they will never reach their goal and that they are not cut out for it. They will remind them that it takes time and not to give up and that everyone is going through the same thing. I went through this a year ago and because I found a motivational group, I am now happy and healthy. I want to bring this to everyone across the nation and show him or her that fitness can be fun and eating healthy can be delicious. There is no much stereotype surrounding living a healthy lifestyle that discourages people from engaging in it. I hope that you will invest on Back on Track so we can introduce those who struggle with living a healthy lifestyle to others who are struggling with the same thing. With them meeting others, they might encourage each other and push each other to meet their goals and that might push them as well. Let’s change that statistic of people not being successful with weight loss and healthy lifestyles and get people back on track! Thank you for listening to my presentation scientists and investors!


Terms: Motivation, target behavior, goal setting, psychologist, modifying, timeframe, baseline, specify the goal, rapport, reinforce, token economy system, behavioral class, positive reinforcement, rewards, token, antecedent, behavior, consequence.

http://chaarg.com/about/
http://www.fitness.gov/resource-center/facts-and-statistics/

In today’s society, most of us worry about the issues of weight loss during at least one point or another in our lives. Losing weight is actually the number one new years resolution for Americans today. We all know a variety of ways to help this. We could go to the gym, eat healthier, or even take diet pills. But what if none of these are working for you? Or if you just simply don’t have the time to do these things? For this reason we have now created a new product for you to apply to an area of the body you are trying to tone for one hour a day for two weeks. The product looks much like a sheet of paper. This is what we call “the wrap.” The wrap has a variety of different formulas infused in it that helps to tighten the skin around the applied area. The results are outstanding! Currently, this is a fairly new product that we have created but has infiltrated the homes of over five hundred thousand customers hoping to slim down and gain their confidence back.

This product was originally developed when trying to find a target behavior that many American’s could relate to their every day wants. We wanted to try to find a behavior class that almost everybody finds himself or herself in at one point or another, this is the reason we chose weight loss. It is estimated that forty five million American’s diet each year, yet seventy eight million adults in the United States are currently considered obese. With these statistics rising, we decided to come up with this new product. Today, many American’s go for the convenient thing (fast food, diet pills, remote control locks, etc). With this new product, we are going for convenience while also aiding to achieve the overall goal of loosing weight. The ABC’s of behavior modification can also be applied to this product. With following the ABC’s the antecedents that many come across are going to a party, being bored, and getting drunk. These antecedents lead to the behavior of over eating, which leads to the consequence of gaining weight. With this product, our antecedents would likely be similar, going to a party, being bored, or getting drunk. The behavior would change to applying the body wrap to your stomach (or any other area) and the consequence would be a toned stomach. The individuals who chose to use this product will eventually be reinforced after the two week process by feeling much better about their bodies. This product is largely based upon reinforcment and how fast a person using these wraps is able to see the changes. For this reason it will probably not be a continuous reinforcement, but rather more of an intermittent reinforcement. This is largely due to the fact that not every individual will see the results they are having at the same time. Depending on a person’s body style and how overweight they were to start with, it may take a little bit longer for some individuals to see the noticeable results they are having. We also have the overall goal that once individuals start to see these tremendous results they not only feel better about themselves, but it hopefully will elicit a response for them to start going to the gym or eating better so they will increase their results as well as keeping the weight off. Another part to this product is to have individuals track their results. Each night, after the individual takes their wrap off, they will be asked to weigh themselves as well as log the foods they have eaten throughout the day and also if they are taking any other measures to add to the weight loss. An example of this would be going to the gym or eating healthier. The goal of this part of the program is to go along the same guidelines of six basic steps of self directed behavior. We believe incuding this guide to self directed behavior is an important aspect of our program mostly due to the research and what we previously know about behavior modification techniques. Because this product is largely based upon a persons self directed behavior, much of the results a person will see largely depends on the work they are willing to put into seeing the results. Because not everybody is familiar with behavior modification techniques, we feel it is important to include the six steps of the self directed behavior. Step one consists of setting your goals. For many, the goal would be weight loss. Step two is deciding a target behavior. Here many individuals would have different target behaviors, but an example could be losing ten pounds. Step three is about keeping track of the behaviors a person is going to change. Here an example would be, using the wraps every night for two weeks. Step four is graphing the baseline data. Step five and step six are determining reinforcers and antecedents. Both of these steps will be determined by the customers. Step seven is adjusting the contingencies if needed. At this point you are probably wondering, why can I just not go to the gym? As I mentioned before, this is a product that gives you a quick reinforcement of weight loss yet it isn’t designed to keep the weight off long term. At our research lab there is currently a study being conducted looking at the results of those who use the wraps while also going to the gym versus those who only go to the gym and those who only use the wraps. So far the results have been astounding. Nearly seventy eight percent of those who are using the wraps in conjunction with going to the gym have seen significant results while the other twenty two percent of the participants in the study have seen moderate results with using either the wrap or the gym. For this reason we believe that an investment into our wraps will help your overall will and ability to lose weight or tone your body up.

This is a product that gives you the results that you put into it. Because of this, it is also a lot like losing weight. The difference between this product is that it is centered on the convenience of others. Lots of people try going to the gym or eating healthy for a while. The problem with this is that they expecting to receive a reinforcement over night, which just simply isn’t the case. Some individuals actually wont see the results from a gym for months yet they don’t understand why when they are working their butts off day in and day out. This is often the cause for many to stop going to the gym. The goal of this product is for individuals to be reinforced rather quickly, which helps them to get on the right track of going to the gym and eating healthier, so that they are able to increase their results. In today’s society, many Americans face issues of weight gain which results in a variety of health concerns, but also psychological issues. Many obese adults face issues with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mortality, cancer, and depression. Our hope with this product is that we can put an individual on the right path towards success.

Personably, I am a believer in this product. Since this first came out I have lost nearly thirty five pounds. When I first started I did the wraps every night for two weeks and stuck to the program very well. After about the fourth day I started to see slight results, which reinforced me to keep using this product. Nearly two years later I can say that this product not only helped me to start losing weight, but it also boosted my confidence and pushed me to try to see greater results. Today I go to the gym five days a week and now eat healthier than I ever had in the past. I can easily say that this product changed my life for the better by making me a healthier, more confident person while also putting me in the best shape of my life.
While we know that there is no best product for everybody, we believe this product can help others immensely. We at the company want to stress the fact that we do not believe that these wraps are the best strategy for all to lose weight. What we do believe is that is a product that is based upon the specific target goal of losing weight while also focusing one one thing that everybody seems to struggle with, sticking with the goal. We believe this product has seen such great results due to the fact that individuals are reinforced in a much more timely manor. With the quick reinforcement comes to want to keep working out. This is the part that provides the results for the years to come. Thank you all for listening to me talk about this great product! I hope you all will give it a try and see the same life changing results I saw.

References:
Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/guidelines/ob_gdlns.pdf

NHLBI. 2013. Managing Overweight and Obesity in Adults: Systematic Evidence Review from the Obesity Expert Panel. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sites/www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/obesity-evidence-review.pdf

Prospective association between obesity and depression: evidence from the Alameda County Study. http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/effects/

Terms used: target behavior, behavior class, desire, antecedents, goal, behavior, consequence, ABC’s, behavior modification, reinforced, continuous reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement, elicit, response, self directed behavior, contingencies, baseline data, and reinforcers.

In college, academics are a major focal point for not just students, but organizations and companies as well. Because of the high demand for the best possible academic standards, students will stress out about getting straight A’s rather than learning the skills that will aid them in the progression of a career field. Because of this major stressor to students, the product I have developed is a simple yet rigorous overhaul of study behaviors. This change will force the students to emit new study behaviors that, as tailored to themselves, will assist in the most practical method of homework and study completion. In the next few paragraphs the full details of this study program will be understood with information regarding how it works and potential variations, the effectiveness, and a real world example.

To begin with, how does this program work effectively in a university setting. There are a few things to note about the program, who is selected, who monitors, what the changes look like, and variations of the program.

To start with, this program is one that is dealing with struggling students, as this is the most effective method of criteria to examine, as the target population or demographic. The reasoning is that a “successful” student, more likely than not has already acquired productive study habits and will not need much more assistance. In the case of most companies, the students who are struggling, for the purposes of this example, are going to be identified as having a 2.4 Cumulative university GPA or lower.
Once the student is identified, then their predetermined academic adviser will be the one to overlook the changes in accordance with this program. The adviser will be responsible for checking in, monitoring, and administering any potential reinforcements. After the adviser has identified their struggling students the following process is administered.

The adviser will sit down with the student to get a multitude of baselines, these baselines could include, current GPA, Hours spent studying, and other factors such as locations studied in, hours per study session, etc. Once the adviser has figured out the students current habits, they will devise a plan that will assist in shaping the students new study behaviors. For example the student in question may have a 2.25 GPA, while studying in the dorm rooms among friends and loud noises, and study roughly six hours a week. Obviously this can be seen a problematic behavior and quite obvious as to why the student is struggling, however to them they may not be able to recognize this. To break it down for the student the professor could break it down into the behavioral ABC’s. They could identify the antecedent as hanging out with friends or a roommate, the behavior would be a studying as a group in a dormitory lounge, and the consequence is poor test results. The student may not be able to grasp the consequences of his studying behaviors, and this is where breaking it down can be helpful to move forward.

The behavior that is being targeted with this program is a successful study habit that facilitates an increase in GPA and students morale. Although at first this targeted behavior seems more like a behavioral class in that everything is a broad term, there are many methods to eliciting the behavior of studying or increasing morale. However this becomes a targeted behavior when the student sits down with their advisor and sets up a plan of action. The plan of actions are tailored to the individual students, so the target behavior may look something more like this: The student will study in the university library from the hours of 6:00pm to 8:00pm every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Again, studying is more of a behavioral class; however, without knowing specifics into the schedule and classwork the student is doing it will be difficult to officially pin down a targeted study behavior. This is the view of the service, the adviser meets with the student on a weekly, or as needed, basis, and the student will set up the specific times, locations, and in the meetings, the work for the study sessions. Because of this help, the habits will slowly be shaped into something much more desirable than previously held.

There are other ways to turn this program from strictly a contract-esque behavior to a method of operant conditioning. In order to change it to operant conditioning, more so than it already is, would require other reinforcements or punishments to be active on the individual within the program. For example, for every .5 increase in cumulative GPA, the person would be reinforced with a free university apparel of their choice. This type of reinforcer is done at a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement.

Although this is not the most effective method within the schedules or reinforcement and the variable ratio is considered the best, when it comes to school and grades, most things are easily monitored at two points in the semester, midterm and finals. With the apparel, this is also an example of positive reinforcement because it is the addition of something that is desired. An example of how a person is punished within this method is simple, as punishment the person who is doing poorly, or even maintaining the 2.4 GPA at midterm would require them to go to multiple study tips speakers or workshops that all universities host. The reason this is punishment is because the person is likely to view this as an aversive thing as most students would rather hang out with friends or go to a bar rather than go to a speaker for an hour or two. This method of punishment is a form of positive punishment because something is being added to the person’s schedule.

These additional reinforcers and punishers are an example of how to take this study overhaul program and base it on a method of operant conditioning. There are other forms of reinforcement or punishment that could be taken, but I simply stated two examples of each to show how the person would stay invested in their classwork while being reinforced not just by the increase in GPA and grade marks, but also tangible goods that can assist them in the here and now.

Other methods of behavior modification can be used; however the other two that we have discussed at lengths would not assist to the most optimal level in my opinion. These two other methods are classical conditioning and setting up a token economy. In classical conditioning, it would be hard to pair a stimulus to a desired behavior with studying being something that upon seeing a stimulus a person would want to do. Perhaps it could be done by pairing looking at a homework schedule to some form of stimulus, but it would be difficult to implement without constantly being around the student. And with a token economy, although this would be easiest for the adviser to set up for multiple struggling students, in the end it would not necessarily produce the desired effects as it can become impersonal quite easily.

This product or service may seem a bit unrealistic, but various methods of it have been done in the past and have been incredible successful. In a real world example a freshman came into the university with poor study habits and was able to maintain a 2.39 GPA his first semester and a 2.4 GPA his second semester. An organization he was in implemented a very similar service to him and altered his schedule and set him onto the path to success. He was met with once a week to discuss upcoming assignments and tests with his schedule which reminded him what to study for that week. During his meetings he was required to submit hours that he study that explained the where, time studied, and date each week and needed to hit a certain hour mark. Study locations were acceptable if they were not around people or in previous study locations of that student. Once these changes had been made he ended the following semester with a 3.2 cumulative GPA increasing it by .8. In this case, the student had no external reinforcements beyond simply achieving a quality GPA he was proud of and also staying in the organization that he cared about. There were no punishments to his schedule, whether positive or negative, and he was still able to alter his study behaviors moving forward. The only thing that is up in the air at this point is the future progression of these students, when your back is to the wall it is easy to dig down and succeed, however when everything is fairly lax, it is easy to revert to the previous study habits. The data for this person’s example is not present; however, with the behaviors being altered with reinforcement instead of punishment, it would be a safe and fair assumption to see this student continue on the path of academic success now that he figured out how to succeed academically.

Overall, this service is one that can be implemented easily, at no cost except for time and energy and one that has been proven to yield results. Even if it is just one person, succeeding this is something that all universities want, and every ground breaking idea started with one individual that was willing to take a leap. Once this is refined beyond this paper and in effect, it will be easy to assist all students who are able to help themselves first.

Terms Used: Emit, Behaviors, reinforcements, target population, baseline, shaping, habits, target behavior, behavioral class, antecedent, consequence, punishments, operant conditioning, reinforced, reinforcer, fixed ratio, schedule of reinforcement, variable ratio, punished, positive reinforcement, positive punishment, aversive, behavior modification, classical conditioning, token economy, stimulus,

Hello potential investors and scientists! Today I will be discussing The Next Step, a program focused on various aspects pertaining to those suffering from diagnosed mental illnesses. According to Newsweek and other sources, nearly 1 in 5 American adults will suffer from a mental illness each year – and that number does not include adolescents and children also suffering from mental illness. Across the world, there is an incredibly detrimental stigma surrounding mental illness. Often times, getting help or therapy can be seen as a sign of weakness, when in fact it’s about the strongest thing a person can do when in a crisis. This is where The Next Step comes in. The name The Next Step was chosen because it is for those who are willing to take “the next step” in their treatment plan. Our program is NOT a hospital, and emergent cases involving thoughts of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, or any acts upon these thoughts do require hospitalization. However, what happens after hospitalization? What if meeting with a therapist one-on-one is intimidating or something you’ve tried and strongly dislike? What if the traditional options for mental healthcare have either failed you, are too expensive, or simply are not an option for you? The Next Step may be the right choice for the individuals who fall in these categories.

So, what exactly is The Next Step program? Simply put, it’s a service that provides an individualized care plan for those seeking out services to improve or work on their mental health. We have a team of clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, developmental psychologists, and several counselors who are dedicated to providing services to those who may previously have fallen through the cracks of the healthcare system. Our goal is to reach those who may fall through the cracks of the current mental healthcare system, and to create more individualized and effective care plans to ensure recovery and the tools to provide self-help. As potential investors, you’re probably asking, what exact services do you provide? As we previously stated, this is to be an open-ended program devoted to finding a system that works best for the individual – however, we have several previous examples of what has been used and what we plan to continue to utilize.

Our care system focuses around the basics of Behavior Modification. Though are specific care plan will vary from individual to individual, the basis of each plan will stem from the same characteristics. We will be working on behavioral change, and while the target behavior will change from person to person, the process will still have similar tones. We will be examining the ABC’s of behavior, Antecedents, Behavior, and Consequences. The antecedents are what precedes the behavior and what causes or increases the likelihood of the behavior occurring. Identifying the antecedents will be a crucial part of each individualized program, as this is often where the prevention begins. We will then analyze the undesired behavior, this again will vary from person to person – whether it is social isolation, under-eating, over-eating, racing thoughts, etc. Finally, we will examine the consequences of the behavior. This will vary from person to person, but this will be viewed as a punishment of their behavior. To clarify, a punishment is not necessarily a negative occurrence; it can simply be the act of taking something away. The Next Step is not a program focused on punishment, but actually reinforcement. Therefore, we would like each individual’s desire to change the behavior and the consequences to come with that behavior are the only punishment.
This brings us to our next focus in the program. The ABC’s are the initial focus for those entering the program. However, once they have identified the antecedents, behavior, and the consequences and have accepted the idea of changing them – we move on to the next section!

The main focus in our program is goal making. In behavior modification, there are many various aspects to focus on when creating goals. A commonly used acronym is SMART goals. Each letter stands for a term that helps to create “smart” and effective goals. The first letter stands for Specific. This means the who, what, when, where, and why have been answered and the goal is very well laid out. The next letter stands for Measurable. This means the goal is quantifiable, how much, how many, etc. The next letter stands for Attainable. This simply means the goal is humanly possible and the individual making the goal has the chance of reaching the goal. The next letter stands for Realistic. This means that the individual is willing to put forth the work and can see themselves putting in the necessary work. The final letter stands for Time-Management. This means there is a certain time frame or miniature time frames for each goal the individual creates. Goal making is a very important process at The Next Step. While we tend to focus on smaller goals and work up to bigger goals, it is important that each individual see small success and build up the confidence to tackle larger issues.

This confidence can be considered a reinforcer. As previously stated, reinforcement is a huge part of The Next Step program. While each individual may have various reinforcements that pertain to their own specific care plan, reinforcement is still a crucial part of every plan made. Reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior to either continue. Therefore, reinforcement is used to promote new behaviors developed while in The Next Step program. An example of reinforcement could be the natural benefits that come from changing the behavior, (if someone would like to stop isolating themselves, and they accomplish this by hanging out with friends, the rekindling of their old friendships and social interaction would both be reinforcing this behavior). Another example would be more say and power in their personal care plan. Each individual has a team assigned to them and who creates and works on their personal care plan. The more that an individual accomplishes within their care plan, the more power and say they get when making future decisions within their care plan. Of course, if anyone is uncomfortable with certain aspects of their care plan, these are immediately addresses – however they get to have more said especially with the direction that their plan is going. This encourages observing how the behaviors we emit will elicit either desirable or undesirable results.

Another form of reinforcement we will have in the program is a form of a token economy. Since it would be highly unethical to compare one individual to another in a program such as this, the token economy would be formed around individual achievement. Therefore, no one would know anyone else’s progress and it would simply be a self-accomplishment program. The individual’s team of doctors and counselors would be responsible for distributing the tokens – yellow raffle tickets. These raffle tickets would be provided when the individual reaches a self-directed goal, acts on a positive self-directed behavior, modifies an unwanted behavior, extinguishes an unwanted behavior, or identifies behaviors they would like to change. Once the individual receives 10 yellow tickets, they may exchange them for 1 red raffle ticket. Every red raffle ticket earned may be placed in a monthly reward drawing. There are various prizes that will be advertised and offered up each month that the individuals may choose to participate in. While this is a novel part of the program, there have been studies that find these outside reinforcements and novel reinforcements to help lighten the situation, add to the success of the individual, and overall bring about a positive light to getting help and treatment.

While The Next Step program focuses on an individualized treatment that makes people not feel like patients, but simply people trying to work towards a better and healthier mental state and overall life, there are also group components. These group components are completely optional and are simply an option for those who may benefit from group activities. These group sessions can focus on many different aspects and there are 9 specific groups offered at The Next Step facility. The pre-existing groups are for those with Major Depression, Dysthymia, Postpartum Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Atypical Depression, Psychotic Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Eating Disorders, and Situational Depression. While there are 9 pre-existing sessions, these can be formed and adapted as need be. These group sessions are set to provide further positive reinforcement that naturally comes from a group setting. This is not considered negative reinforcement seeing as the group setting is adding a new element of reinforcement, not taking anything away.
As potential investors and scientists, I am inviting you to be a part of this project, this movement that has the potential to change many lives – lives that could have potentially slipped through the system previously. Obviously, a system such as this one does require significant funds. These funds would be used to set up various programs that would be implemented and various services that would be used to assist individuals achieve all they can with their care plan. It is also important to note that a majority of the clinicians are currently working pro-bono to accomplish this dream. However, there are some workers that will require to be on the payroll, such as full-time counselors, secretaries, on-call staff, etc. We are open to changes and advisement in this process. I have listed our various scientific sources and also our Behavior Modification professional. Thank you very much for your time and consideration!


Sources:
- http://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2015/04/02/the-low-down-on-mental-health-support-groups
- https://www.quora.com/After-a-very-long-period-of-depression-and-isolation-how-can-I-reintegrate-myself-back-into-society
- http://friendshospital.com/programs/adolescent-unit/
- http://www.postpartumprogress.com/postpartum-depression-hospitalization
- http://www.everydayhealth.com/depression-pictures/different-types-of-depression.aspx#06
- http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/anxiety-support-group
- http://www.mentalhealthintheuk.co.uk/Howtorebuildyourlifeafterbreakdown.pdf
- http://www.newsweek.com/nearly-1-5-americans-suffer-mental-illness-each-year-230608
- http://topachievement.com/smart.html
- Otto Maclin’s Behavior Modification Class at UNI

Terms: emit, behaviors, reinforced, elicit, antecedent, consequence, punishment, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time management, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, self-directed behavior, self-directed goals, modify, target behavior, extinguish, behavioral classes, token economy, behavior modification

The product I want to develop is an online rewards program aimed at gyms to reward members for showing up to the gym as well as exercising and working out. The system would work as when a gym member using their membership card to sign in through a scanner, the scanner would send the data indicating that the member signed in to our company's web page and/or app and we would using a point system would give them points for coming in and working out. The points then can be added up to redeem a prize for continuing effort in working out. The prizes could range to smaller end items such as t-shirt, water bottles, workout towels, and could even go to thing such on credit on shopping websites and gift cards to stores. I would try to arrange partnerships with places such as Amazon, Walmart, Bodybuilding.com, and GNC as a list of potential partners that could contribute to the prize pool. The gyms themselves would also have to be involved and we would have to develop a system where log ins would register from the gym to our program so points can be rewarded. An account would also have to be set up by the individual registering to the site and indicating themselves of a member of the gym they are at. Partners to look at would include the YMCA, Gold’s Gym, Lifetime Fitness, Curves, and 24 Hour Fitness.

This system I have set up would be based off of a fairly simple token economy. A token economy is a system in which tokens, or in this case points but they serve the same function, are used as a reinforcement of a particular behavior, in this case going to the gym and exercising. These tokens can then be used and redeemed for backup reinforcers. In the case of our product the tokens would be the points that are earned when coming to the gym and the backup reinforcers would be the prizes that they select from redeeming those points. When you develop a token economy you have to set a token value, in our case I think that is simplest and makes the most sense to assign one trip to the gym as one point. After you do that you have to determine how much the backup reinforcers are going to cost in terms of points. It would require much research to develop specific values but as a principle the costs would be variable with more costly rewards costing more and cheaper costing less. Also there might be situation where sponsored rewards can temporarily cost a lower than usual point value to encourage redemptions. A system that serves as a bank is also essential. In the case of this product the bank would be hosted on our website and/or app and the user can access the bank by logging into their account. Deciding when tokens can be exchanged can be important in token economies that are not online, but in our case you would be able to redeem tokens at anytime since you can use the app or website at anytime. When you implement a token economy you want to explain the program to people so they understand the process. Ours is fairly simple with it being go to the gym, get points, then redeem them for prises. We still would have a section of the website and app that would explain the program the people and what it entails. It helps the person who is in the program to use praise when you are giving them a token. In the app or website you can send a notification congratulating them for making it to the gym that day, this feature could be shut off for people who find notifications to be a nuisance. You could also use a medal system to reward achievements such as earning a point, earning a point three days in a row, or reaching goals such as 100 points.

There are also potential problems with token economies that we should try to have a solution for. One problem is the pricing of the backup reinforcers. If prices are too low then people will redeem their points too easily which means that they will be less motivated to go to the gym over time from our program and it will raise the company's costs in prizes. On the other hand, if prices for the prizes are too high people are not going to see the program as worthwhile and give up on our program. A common problem with some token economies are token misuse, where the person administered tokens would swallow, break, or lose tokens. Counterfeiting tokens has also been known to be a problem as well. Being online we will not have this problem as there is not a physical token to replicate to misuse. There will also be a system in place where you can only have one token redemption from 12:00am to 11:5 pm on a particular day so you avoid someone continuously signing in to gain points. Hoarding can be a problem as well in token economies. People might stack up points and not be willing to redeem them or coast since they have a large amount of tokens and not worry about making it to the gym. There are a few ways that could be considered to try and address this. One way to try to address it would to make tokens expire over time, if you do not use a token you have earned over a period time then you lose the point. I am not a fan of that solution but it does give an urgency to use points. We could have a max value of tokens you can have, this would be higher than our highest value prize and this would encourage someone to claim a prize so they can keep earning tokens. That solution might cause people to stop using the app since they are not making progress if they hit the cap however. The solution I think would to offer a wide variety of good prizes as I think it will get people to redeem tokens as well as people interested and using the program. It will also be important to listen to feedback from users and make modifications to the program if needed.

We should investigate some of the science and psychology of the idea of token economies and see if token economies can be successful on principle. Token economies come from using principles from operant conditioning. Operant conditioning was developed by B.F Skinner, with help from work based on Edward Thorndike’s law of effect. Thorndike's law of effect stated that behaviors that had a good consequence come from them would be repeated. He also stated that that inverse was true, and that behaviors with bad consequences would likely not be repeated. Thorndike tested this hypothesis using cats and a specially designed puzzle box. In his experiment he would place a cat into a box with no immediately obvious way to get out. There was a trap door in the box where when if the cat were to hit this lever the door would be opened and the cat would be able to get out of the box and there would be some food at the end of the trap door that the cat could eat. Thorndike noticed that the cats would get faster at opening the trapdoor with the lever in each trial. Showing a positive consequence coming from pulling the lever, the cat would repeat that action after making the association. This principle can be applied to humans.

Skinner expanded on Thorndike's research and developed it into his principle of operant conditioning. Skinner took the positive consequence from Thorndike's law of effect and called it reinforcement. Reinforcement was a consequence form an action that makes it more likely to have that action be repeated. An example of reinforcement would be if your parents gave your money for getting good grades, you would be reinforced to study more and do better on test. There are two separate types of reinforcers. The first are positive reinforcers which give you something good for doing a behavior such as the example with being paid to have good grades. There are also negative reinforcers which remove something unpleasant from the person. An example of negative reinforcement would be a parent the returns a favorite toy or game to their child for having good behavior. On the opposite end of reinforcers there are punishers which act as a negative consequence in order to reduce particular behaviors There are positive and negative punishments just like there is for reinforcement. For the program that we are developing it would be using positive reinforcement as we are giving a positive thing to the person in order to increase a behavior. When using reinforcement there are schedules of reinforcement. Schedules of reinforcement are when after a behavior is it reinforced. A continuous schedule of reinforcement would be that the behavior is reinforced each time the action you are trying to reinforce occurs. There are ratio schedules which reinforce after a certain number of actions, and those can be fixed meaning the number of actions required is constant or variable meaning the number of actions required fluctuates and is not always the same. There is also an interval schedule which means that reinforcement occurs after a certain amount of time and can also be fixed or ratio. Our product would be on a continuous schedule as you get a point every time you go to the Gym

Token economies have also have history of being effective with helping treat psychiatric patients. Schools have also used them to help modify behavior of their students. Now that you can see there are some scientific research and theory that backs up the principles this program is developed off of you can see this works. It also helps that there has been effective use of token economies in other areas, and we have come up with potential solutions to some of the problems that token economies can have you will see this can be not only a product that can succeed and make money, but also a product that will help people workout and be healthier.


Sources used

http://165.139.150.129/intervention/Token.pdf

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

http://www.educateautism.com/token-economy.html

http://webtrends.about.com/od/webapplications/a/web_application.htm

http://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html

http://theautismhelper.com/dos-donts-token-economy/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1310772/

https://www.universalclass.com/articles/special-education/using-a-token-economy-to-manage-behaviors.htm

Over the course of this semester, I tried to come up with products and inventions that I could use for this assignment, but I honestly got nowhere. So instead, I have decided to design a program for helping teens who suffer from eating disorders. There is more to this subject than just changing someone’s behavior, but also involves modifying the person’s thought process and cognition as well.
Eating disorders are a more serious condition than just people who have been hurt by and believe society’s standards that beauty is synonymous with skinny. But instead those with eating disorders are suffering from a mental illness that has taken over their mentality. The program that I am going to design for this project will deal with helping teenagers return to a healthy state, manage their eating habits, and help set the individual up for future success with dealing with and staying away from their past disorder.
When a teenager first begins the program, the first main goal is to help them return to a normal health. Some kids have been suffering with their eating disorder for so long that they have become at risk for health complications. Depending on how at risk they are, their bodies must be slowly adjusted back to consuming, or keeping food down. This stage is difficult because when teens begin this program, they all start off at their own different paces. Whether they are on fluids, liquids, or eating on their own they are all monitored by trained physicians until they have gotten out of the at risk phase. Once their health has returned to a safe level, they will be able to begin the next stage of the program.
With eating disorders, it is especially difficult for changing behaviors because the person doesn’t always want to change since they so badly want to get the figure they desire. However, by using a token economy, I hope my program can overcome the difficulty and successfully help out teens in need. The way the next stage is set up, the teens will be rewarded for sticking to a healthy eating schedule which in turn will help them learn how to manage their eating habits. During this stage, the teens will be staying at a facility that will help guide them in their behavior change. There will be 3 meals served daily, with snack options also available between lunch and dinner, and also between dinner and bedtime. This will help them learn to stick to a schedule of healthy eating and give them consistency. The teens will also visit with a counselor once a week to help them deal with their change and be able to talk with someone who understands.
The target behavior for this token economy is the teenager eating at least half of the amount of food on their plate at every single meal time. Before the kids leave the dining hall, a worker will check to see that they have emitted the desired behavior, or finished the majority of their food, and then if the teen has, the staff will reward them with a sticker on a big chart on the wall next to their name. This is a good token and banking system because the teens will be able to easily see the number of stickers that they have, and only the staff has access to the stickers. Since the kids are staying at the facility, they aren’t able to go buy more stickers to add to their name, and the dining hall is only open during meals, which means there will constantly be staff around to monitor the teens so they won’t be able to mess with the chart.
When the teens get 20 stickers, they are able to trade them in for one activity that they can participate in off grounds away from the facility. Each week they will have different options such as bowling, going to a movie, going to fun center, or just other activities that the teens would want to participate in. This will motivate them to get stickers because it is fun for them, and it gives them a chance to get away from the facility for a while. The kids eating at each meal will then be reinforced by these fun activities which will in turn increase the frequency of them eating. The token economy technique is shown to be effective because it uses reinforcement instead of punishment giving the teens a positive and encouraging attitude about good eating habits.
Also during this stage of the teenagers staying at the facility and learning good eating habits, there are other techniques at work to help the kids get away from their eating disorders. While at the facility, not only is getting the teens to eat important, but also keeping the kids from making their food come back up. With this problem, the facility will only have large shared restrooms that all the kids use so that the teens aren’t able have their own private bathroom. On top of this, the door will have a keypad lock on it, which the teens will have to enter in their individually assigned number in order to enter the bathroom. The number of times that person goes to the bathroom will be recorded, along with what time it is every time they enter. That way staff can monitor how often each teen goes to the restroom, along with if there’s any patterns to the teen’s bathroom habits.
The shared restrooms and the keypad door will help decrease the frequency, and hopefully help make the behavior of purging extinct. To ABCs surrounding this behavior can help show why. The antecedent is the person with bulimia eating food, and the behavior is puking it back up. However, with these techniques, the consequences of this behavior will be either someone hearing the person vomit and telling a staff member, or the staff realizing that the person’s restroom habits aren’t normal. If purging is found out by the staff, the teen will lose their privilege to go to the bathroom without accompaniment for a week. That means their number will no longer work to get them into the restroom and they will need to ask a staff member to escort them. This punishment is embarrassing for the teens, and will elicit a decrease in the purging behavior.
After the teens have spent three months straight in the facility without any setbacks, they will be allowed to leave and live with their parents again. While the parents were allowed to visit the teens in the facility, this is a huge step because they won’t have someone constantly monitoring them. For this step however, the parents are entrusted to help give their teen encouragement and help them keep up their good eating schedule and habits. The teen will continue to come back and go to their counseling sessions once a week, in order to help them transition to being back at home, and keep up the encouragement. Once their counselor gives the okay, the teen will be able to stop counseling sessions and they are on their own from there. We hope that with our help, and the continuing support and help from the parents at home will then keep them on the right track. And if they ever need it, they are always welcome to come back and talk with a counselor.

Terms: behavior, modify, token economy, target behavior, reward, token, banking system, emit, reinforced, increase, frequency, punishment, decrease, ABCs, antecedent, consequence, elicit

Hello guests! Welcome to the annual convention for the Delinquent Juvenile Mental Health Assessment (DJMHA) . I am so glad everyone could attend and learn more about the assessment test used to place adolescents into treatment groups that could potentially solve many of our problems we have had with the high incarceration rates as well as the money we have been spending on prison systems. We hear many people complain about the costs and how they are working to pay for delinquents in prison so we are here to find a solution (or one that could decrease incarceration). The assessment I am creating will be given to each adolescent after they have emitted any type of behavior that is not acceptable to our criminal justice system that could potentially be charged against them. Examples of this could be theft, underage drinking, simple assault, joyriding a car etc. The assessment will test for mental disorders in a questionnaire form to see which mental disorders are the most salient, if any are. Then after the results are back we would continue further testing for the adolescents done specifically on the mental disorders that had high scores. The results will then let us start a behavioral program with adolescents that will prevent them from just being incarcerated.
Many studies have shown that adolescents emit the crimes they do because underlying mental disorders (most common are post traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit disorder) impact their behaviors in everyday life. The mental disorders manipulate the adolescents’ behaviors and untreated the adolescent will continue undesirable behaviors to society until eventually the behavior is so salient that the consequence will be incarceration into the prison system as an adult. When mental disorders go untreated they are often times more likely to worsen and lead to even more troubles in the future. We as a society neither want adolescents to be incarcerated into a juvenile detention facility and then transferred onto the prison system nor have the child released and end back up in the lines of the criminal justice system. Therefore, the DJMHA would be beneficial to the adolescents as well as our society as a whole.
However, this program is not designed to blame all of the adolescents’ actions on the salient mental disorders but it is here to help us explain the why behind the behaviors and also how we can change these behaviors by treating the mental disorder. The DJMHA will better help us place adolescents into the behavioral treatment therapy needed to focus on the mental disorder.
The behavioral program after the DJMHA will start immediately after the crime has been emitted and will be a reinforcement/behavioral based program to look into the, antecedents in the adolescents lives that may be causing them to lash out. We will work with adolescents on how to set and achieve goals for their future and show them how they have the ability to change their future with the tools we can give them.
First there will be an informational meeting for parents to discuss the outcomes of our program and to sell them on the program. We will also explain to the parents that punishment and just increasing the level of punishment does not help their child and that we need to look at the motivation behind the adolescent's behaviors. Informational packets will be distributed to explain how punishment will only change the adolescents’ behavior in the moment or they will just try and become even more sneaky with their illegal behaviors. The parents will be informed that the adolescent may experience extinction bursts at home throughout the treatment as part of the behavior modification. With parent's approval we will go about the treatment based off of DJMHA results and break down the ABC's with the adolescent. We will first go over the reasons needed to change their behavior and decide whether it bothers them, bothers others, could lead to illegal behaviors or is already illegal. The adolescents may not come from the best homes or social classes and may have never had reinforcement based policies so we will also discuss with them the goals of the program and how it is all to prevent them from being incarcerated just because they may have mental disorders prevalent. For some adolescents it may be that they were sexually abused as a child (antecedent) which causes them to have PTSD and steal because it gives them some sense of control (behavior). This then leads them to where they are now or even worse, incarceration (consequence). We can then start with basic explanations on different antecedents we could have throughout our lives that will lead to different behaviors and consequences. The DJMHA results allows the therapist to see which mental disorders the adolescents so throughout the treatment there will be discussion on ways to deal with this.
Another antecedent that will be looked at throughout all of the adolescents are the friend groups they are associating with. Some of the adolescents may be being reinforced for these negative behaviors by encouragement and appraisal from friends. However during this treatment the adolescent may find extinction as well as extinction bursts when they no longer are getting the positive reinforcement from friends. The sessions we hold for the adolescent will serve as a discriminative extinction stimuli to remind the adolescent that the friend group is being removed for positive reasons and it will be informed to adolescents that there is room for spontaneous recovery and the adolescent is not perfect and can make mistakes. The adolescents like all of us, whether it be with our diet, workout or financial plans, have set backs and it is how we can come back from the setbacks that matters. Goals will be discussed and the proper ways to set goals will also be taught to the adolescents. The goals need to be realistic, achievable with a specific time frame in mind. Target behaviors have to be identifiable and specific so there can be no cheating or ways around the target behavior. These goal characteristics will be something that the adolescent can use throughout their whole life and it is encouraged for the adolescent to discuss goals and characteristics of goals with their family members to ensure that everyone is on the same page. These characteristics of good goal setting may also be useful for family members in their own goal setting struggles. As part of the goal setting the adolescents will also be given a journal to be able to keep record of the goals they are setting for themselves. The first goals that they set will include the therapist because self-directed behavior can sometimes be an easy way to cheat yourself out of actually achieving the goal. It will be the adolescents’ choice if they want to share the journal with family members but it will be shared with the therapist to make sure the proper steps are being taken to achieve the goal. In the journal there will also be notes on how the adolescent is finding new ways to cope with their mental disorder.
It will also be discussed with the adolescents that there are topographical behaviors that may be more acceptable to society and not come into line with the law. For example, say that an adolescent is stealing because they want to feel like they are in control, we could teach them other behaviors that would perform the same functions, however are legal and socially acceptable. The adolescent will find that they can get the same pleasurable or wanted feeling from just doing a different behavior that serves the same function. The consequences of choosing your behavior carefully can be extremely different if you do not choose wisely.
These are the overall concepts of the DJMHA and behavioral treatment which are to be used on delinquent adolescents. The effectiveness of this will be shown by the recidivism rates of these adolescents. By looking at the future behavior of adolescents through our program versus adolescents without these programs, we will be able to see that ours is much more effective in not just keeping the adolescents out of incarceration but they are changing their lives and themselves as individuals. There are other goals throughout the program that this will also change the style of living the family has as a household to learn that punishment is not the best way to teach troubled teens with mental disorders. If your court system and enforcement area would be interested in learning more about our assessment and treatments then we would be happy to send our employees and therapists to your institution and start implementing this program. Our employees are looking to train more individuals who like these goals and behavioral outcomes so if any employees already employed in your program would like to learn more on how to give the assessments and teach adolescents the behavioral treatment then we would be happy for them to come to our institution for an eight week training class. Individuals would be taught how to properly apply the ABC’s theory and implement it the best way with the adolescents. We also offer any sit in classes for parents who are interested in what their child is going to be doing throughout treatment.
We would like to thank you for your time and we hope to hear from anyone interested in implementing the Delinquent Juvenile Mental Health Assessment for a better future for our adolescents with mental disorders.

Terms:
emitted, behavior, salient, consequence, manipulate, reinforcement, antecedents, punishment, motivation, why we change behaviors: bothers us, bothers others, illegal, lead to illegal behaviors, topographical, negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement, discriminative extinction stimuli, spontaneous recovery, extinction, extinction burst, goal characteristics, target behaviors, self-directed behavior,

For my behavioral change project I wanted to increase the amount of time I spend meditating, making the act of meditating my target behavior. In order to do this, I had to conduct a functional assessment of behavior, which involved looking at the environment and antecedents that preceded my desired behavior. After taking time to observe what elicited my meditative behavior, I found that I was more likely to emit this behavior during small pockets of time (like the spare time during cooking or doing laundry), time spent outside on nice days, and at 3:30 in the afternoon. The consequences of meditating in these environments include feeling productive (if the behavior is done during the small pocket of time), feeling happy from spending more time simply enjoying the outdoors, and feeling like I was de-stressing/restarting my day (when emitted in the afternoon). Having a better idea of what situations could set the occasion for meditation to occur was beneficial.
In order to achieve behavioral control, I went the self-reinforcement route of behavior modification. First, I recorded how much time I typically meditated, prior to intervention, to collect a baseline on this behavior. My baseline for average time spent meditating per day was 13 minutes. Next, I had to come up with a reinforcer to use. From class I’ve learned that to effectively modify a behavior, punishment and other aversive aspects should be avoided. What I decided to use for reinforcement was money, which basically served as a token economy to buy myself things that I wouldn’t normally buy. I chose positive reinforcement because for my personality receiving something as a consequence of emitting the desired behavior would make a more salient reinforcer than possibly removing something aversive. The reinforcement of money would be contingent on meditating. I would pay myself $2.50 for every time I meditated, no matter how little time I spent. As it turns out, using money as a reinforcer had fairly broad value since I had a desirable response during the two weeks of reinforcement (increased time spent meditating). I gave myself permission to spend this money on things I wouldn’t normally buy, so being able to purchase things other than groceries served as an establishing operation because it made the money more reinforcing. The first week of reinforcement I meditated for an average of 24.28 minutes and the second week for an average of 16.86 minutes, which both are higher than my baseline (13 minutes).
The first week of reinforcement, I used continuous reinforcement to increase motivation to meditate and to strongly establish the intervention. According to the Law of Exercise, being continuously reinforced strengthened the association between receiving money and meditation, making the intervention more effective. The second week of reinforcement, I used intermittent reinforcement to lean out the reinforcer, so it wouldn’t always be necessary to reward myself. The type of ratio schedule I used during the week of intermittent reinforcement was variable ratio. I did this type by flipping a coin after meditating, heads meaning that I would receive the $2.50 reinforcer and tails meaning that I would not. I chose this type of ratio schedule so that the reinforcer would be unpredictable. However, if I would do this again I would probably use fixed ratio since having to meditate a set amount of times before receiving the $2.50 might encourage more frequent meditation than being able to randomly receive the same amount of money for only one session of meditation.
The last week that I recorded data, there were no reinforcements given. The average amount of time I spent meditating during this time was 13.85 minutes. This average shows a return to baseline, which indicates that I might have needed more time receiving the reinforcement before the lean out. While the meditation behavior isn’t extinct, I would argue that the elevated rates of meditation went through extinction through the return to baseline.
I found this experience very valuable. Without the rule-governed behavior of being given this assignment by a professor, I wouldn’t have recorded the rate of my behavior during the intervention. Without recording data, I wouldn’t have discovered that I needed more than two weeks of reinforcement to avoid extinction and to maintain the increase in time spent meditating. With this knowledge, I’ll be sure to record frequencies of behavior when created interventions in the future.
Terms: 1) Functional assessment of behavior, 2) antecedents, 3) behavior, 4) elicited, 5) emit, 6) consequences, 7) set the occasion for, 8) behavioral control, 9) intervention, 10) baseline, 11) target behavior, 12) reinforcer, 13) punishment, 14) aversive, 15) token economy, 16) positive reinforcement, 17) salient, 18) contingent, 19) broad value, 20) response, 21) continuous reinforcement, 22) intermittent reinforcement, 23) lean out, 24) ratio schedule, 25) variable ratio, 26) fixed ratio, 27) Law of Exercise, 28) extinction, 29) establishing operation, 30) rule-governed behavior

For my behavioral change product I wanted to develop a system to affect those adolescents who are in residential treatment programs. In order to do this, I had to conduct a functional assessment of behavior where I looked at certain parts of the environment I was in and how that affected the antecedents of the adolescent’s behaviors. After I was finished observing the behaviors the adolescents in the residential treatment homes and how the employees interacted with them, I realized that certain ways problems were handled in the homes were what essentially elicited that kind of behavior. I found that the adolescents were more likely to emit problematic behavior if they were doing something by themselves and were not also getting rewarded for the good behavior that they had. The consequence of not having enough staff to keep track of the adolescents affected them in the long run. Having a system where the adolescents are rewarded for their good behavior would help them know that their behavior affect others and that they are being looked at as good kids. That is why I developed a token economy for the employees and adolescents to use at residential treatment homes.
The goal with this token economy is to have each adolescent in the home meet the target behavior of behaving and not fighting with each other in different situations. The token economy I am going to use would be pretty easy to catch up on because of the individuals that are included in the system. There is going to be a board on the wall with all of the names of the adolescents in the residential home where we are going to put their token. The main reinforcer that is going to be used in this instance is going to be a sticker. The employees are going to have a detailed description of when the adolescents are supposed to be reinforced by a sticker and when they are not. While the adolescents earn stickers for their good behavior, we are also going to have a store for backup reinforcers. When stickers are earned, they can exchange those for different prizes. In this case prizes could include a lunch out of the home with an employee, extra television time, getting radio, going out to the local gym and playing games with an employee, and other prizes like that. Of course, the backup reinforcers are going to have a different number of stickers that can be traded in for them so that way they are not too easy or hard to obtain.
Even though token economies are used to create a better environment for certain situations, they can also have some downfalls. One of those downfalls that could possibly happen in this token economy would be the possibility of the backup reinforcers being too easy or too hard to obtain. If the backup reinforcers are too easy or too hard to obtain by the adolescents then they are going to get bored or frustrated at the concept of it and not want to participate anymore. Another issue with this token economy would be the possibility of the misuse of the main reinforcer, the stickers. There are usually some employees in this line of work that have a favorite or have someone that they really do not like. In this circumstance, there could be bias going on. For example, even though the individual is having good behavior and doing things that are usually reinforced to other kids, they don’t get reinforced because the employee says they didn’t see it. There is always going to be times where the child does something good that is not seen and does not get rewarded however.
Token economies are used from the operant conditioning principle from B.F. Skinner. Skinner was a well-known psychologist whose ideas have helped develop many different points of psychology that we use now. Skinner’s idea of operant conditioning along with Edward Thorndike’s law of effect help develop the token economy system. The token economy has positive and negative reinforcers that can be used to get to the target behavior. For the use at the residential treatment homes, positive reinforcement would be used. They are getting rewarded for something they are doing well so the behavior increases and the other bad behaviors decrease. The idea of continuous reinforcement would be present in this token economy. That means that each time the behavior is reinforced every time the right behavior or action is done by the adolescent. For example, every time the adolescent talks to solve a problem instead of yelling, throwing a tantrum, or hitting, they get a sticker.

Terms: functional assessment, environment, antecedents, emit, elicited, consequence, behavior, token economy, reinforced, backup reinforcers, goal, target behavior, reinforcer, operant conditioning, B.F. Skinner, Edward Thorndike, law of effect, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcer, continuous reinforcement

Compliment Counter
Good afternoon. Today I am here to present the Compliment Counter. This is a device that counter the number of genuine compliments you give in a day and it can be worn in the form of a watch or bracelet. There are two big questions that go along with this product: why would I want to count the number of compliments I give out in a day and how is this machine going to tell if I am being genuine or not. Let’s start with the question of why.
There are many reasons a company such as yourself might want to have each of your employees evaluate the amount of compliment that they are giving out. For a company to be its most productive the employees need to trust each other to not only do their own job but to also be there to pick up the slack if something extreme happens. They also need to know that the good work they are doing is appreciated and acknowledged so when they are critique they do not feel as though their need for appreciation and love is not being met. Studies have shown genuine compliment create trust, community, and deeper relationships. This is something that successful businesses contain.
The second reason you want your employees to give compliments to each other is because of the theory what goes around comes around. Although giving someone a compliment might not immediately get each employee satisfaction or gratification, in time it will. As trust starts to be built and people start to acknowledge the noteworthy things each other is doing eventually everyone will receive a compliment on something. This is important because there have been many studies that showed receiving genuine compliments is just as reinforcing as receiving a pile of money. These endorphins that are released help relaxation, creating bonds, increasing mental alertness, mood stabilization, and increase in general overall happiness.
The third reason compliments should be encouraged in the workplace is because studies have shown that compliments spark creativity. This goes back to compliments building trust. You might have an employee who is extremely creative but terrified to shared their ideas because of a fear of being judged.After they receive a few compliments on work they have done, they might start to build trust. This in turn will make them more likely to branch out and open up about their ideas. When one employee see that their fellow co-workers are not receiving aversive feedback or even being reinforced for being creative it will create an environment that encourages creativity. Creativity helps renovate and reconstruct current practices within the business to make them better.
The last reason compliments are important for your company is because encouraging employees to give each other compliments takes the focus off of that individual, even if it is only for split second. This makes your employees stop thinking about themselves and attempt to think about another individual or group and how they are accomplishing something successfully, thinking creatively, keeping the conversation going, or even things such as thinking creatively. If each employee starts to think of others than the company as a whole will benefit because they will get more accomplished. This might also open their eyes to beneficial practices other employees have, that they might want to adopt.
Now let's tackle the logistics of how the Compliment Counter will distinguish between a genuine compliment and one that is not. There are three components that need to be met for the Compliment Counter to decide if a compliment is genuine or not. These components are a slight raise in heart rate, a small release of endorphins, and the tone of voice that is used when the compliment is spoken. Studies have shown emitting the behavior of giving away a genuine compliment provides the same endophan release as receiving a compliment we perceive to be as genuine along with raising your heart rate slightly. The tone of voice will also be used as a marker because even if an employee says something and genuinely means it but says it is in bitter tone, then the compliment will not be recieve in the correct way. This could also be a warning to that person about how they are speaking to their co-worker. Since there is not one tone of voice that every single person uses to give a compliment, the Compliment Counter will take a baseline analysis of the person voice that is wearing it and will compare the changes in tone to this baseline data.
Now that a few of the potential benefits to the Compliment Counter, you might be asking yourselves well how would this work within our company and how do we get out employees to buy into this system but do not worry because the next step of this presentation is step by step breakdown to how to make this work as a token economy within your business.
The first step is to identity what behavioral class we want the employees to emit. This behavioral class is the act of verbally presenting a compliment to another employee. Within this behavioral class some specific target behaviors might be compliment someone on giving an excellent presentation, telling something they are dressed very well/appropriately, recognizing creativity and hardwork.
The next step is to talk about how this is going to affect the employees. The first thing that needs to be brought to attention is that this is going to be a system of reinforcement because we attempting to increase the amount of times the employees give each other genuine compliments. This system will be based on positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement because do still want all of the employees to continue to do their entire work load but we still want to reinforce them.
The tokens that will be used within this system are compliment cash. The delivery system for compliment cash will be that at the end of the work day each person will receive an email telling them how much compliment cash they have received that day. This is only hypothetical cash but it accumulates to toward larger reinforcers at the end of the period. The HR department will also receive a daily, weekly, and monthly breakdown of individual points.This will be the official bank of tokens. At the end of each week HR will post a leaderboard acknowledging the people of that week who have earned the most compliment cash and the cumulative leaders for the month. The perks of delivering the tokens like this is that they cannot be lost, stolen or copied. The people who are doing extremely well are being acknowledged while the people who are not doing as well are not being shamed.
There is one last step to making a token economy work and that is the backup reinforcers and how the employees gain access to them. I recommend that you have a cash in day once every three months for a year. This will become a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement because the employees will know that a certain amount of time has to pass before they are allowed to gain access to their reinforcers. An ideal backup reinforcers is that one that the employee desires and does not cost you a lot or any money. I recommend that you run your backup reinforcers on a tiered system. For example the person who has accumulated the most compliment cash at the end of the three months will receive the most desired reinforcer but will also have access to other reinforcers that might be group oriented. A great top price reinforcer is a good parking spot. This does not cost the company any money but it allows the person who was the most successful at their behavioral change to receive daily acknowledgement that they did so and also they do not have to walk as far. I recommend that reinforcers such as the example I have provided be given to at least the top five if not top ten employees with compliment cash. There can also be things done in a larger group setting for backup reinforcer. This could be events such as a lunch hour celebration, a dining party where they are allowed to bring their spouse, a golf outing with beverages provided. Although these larger group outing are more likely to cost the company money in the long run it will build moral, create bonds, and help facilitate a conducive working environment. Getting the employees away from their everyday work stations such as computers or machines is also a good way to encourage relaxation which in turn helps productivity.
Now that you have an understanding of how this program will work within your company, the consequence of how the product will increase productivity, and what psychological benefits there are not only for the employees but also the company as a whole will receive I would love to answer any questions or concerns there might be. I am also more than willing to and happy to sit down and look at the budget and discuss what might be options for backup reinforcements.

Sources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sapient-nature/201207/the-art-complimenting-and-criticizing
https://www.happier.com/blog/nice-things-to-say-100-compliments
http://www.zestdigital.com/happiness-by-design-20-ways-to-hack-your-hormones/
http://www.2knowmyself.com/Hormones_that_make_you_happy
http://naturalsociety.com/oxytocin-reduce-stress-peace-intimate-global-relationships/
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/7-reasons-why-you-should-pay-compliment-someone-every-day.html

Terms: Psychological,Consequence, Behavioral change, desire, fixed interval schedule, backup reinforcer, bank of tokens, delivery system, tokens, negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement, reinforcement, target behavior, behavioral class, token economy, baseline, base line data, behavior, emitting, aversive

Hello! Have you wanted to lose weight or just get into better shape? Like many Americans today I am sure you have! I know I have! Weight loss is one of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions in America. Losing weight is a self-directed behavior. Losing weight is hard and if you do not see the results you would like many people get discouraged. That is why I have created the program, Fitpal Pay. This program is going to change your life if you let it! Fitpal Pay is an app on your phone which encourages you to work out! How does it work you ask? Once you make a profile and tell your goals you can sync with friends to start the competition. You also must enter debit card information as well. This is the pay part of Fitpal Pay. When you make your profile, you can determine how important it is to you to go work out. Not very important, set it for a dollar or extremely important bet five dollars or anywhere in between. For every missed work out, you will be charged up to five dollars. If you are synced with your friends, they get a portion of the money from your missed work out, and if they miss you also get a portion of it! A question that has come up a lot is what if you are the only one in your friend groups using Fitpal Pay? We give you the opportunity to sync with a charitable organization, so if you miss a work out your money goes to the charity of your choice!
While I was in college at UNI, I took a class on Behavior Modification and it is here I learned the ABC’s of behavior. The ABC’s stands for antecedent, behavior and consequence. The antecedent is what happens before the behavior and the consequence is what happens after. This program though is all about punishment and the reinforcement of your behavior. So, you want to start working out, so you set your wager at two dollars a time for missing. This app makes sure you set a good target behavior by actually making sure you define how much you want to start working out twice a week or three times a week? We want to reinforce you to continue working out when your friend does not. This app also punishes you each time you miss a workout by fining you and then paying your friends. Now, while this app externally reinforces you, you may even start to self-reinforce yourself. Once you start to feel better and can start telling a difference in your figure, the money may not be as reinforcing as it is to feel more energized. If you have attempted to lose weight before, you may have noticed that the exercise you have done no longer is helping you lose weight and then you try doing the same thing longer or harder. This is an extinction burst, but you will not have that with my program! We have a group of ten trainers who upload new videos once a week, so you always have new workouts to do!
This app follows a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement. This means we pay off after a fixed amount of time. We take away or give out money every Wednesday morning at ten am central time. So, let us say that you have set your target behavior to be to work out three days a week and you waged three dollars. This week was super busy for you though and you only worked out once. You would have a withdrawal of six dollars.
As I said before, this program is based on self-directed behaviors. Self-directed behaviors have seven different steps. The first step it to set a goal. An example is get more exercise. The second step is to define the goal as a set of target behavior. Remember target behaviors need to be precise, manageable, measurable and fit within the practical scope of daily life. To make the goal precise you must make sure you have a distinct number. The goal I used earlier is not precise. What does get more exercise mean? Once a week or three times a week? You have to be able to manage it as well. Exercising while in a movie theater is not manageable. You also have to be able to measure your target behavior as well. So, you have to be able to physically measure when you exercise. The last thing target behaviors have to do is fit within the practical scope of daily life. It is not practical to exercise five hours a day or to believe you will lose fifty pounds within a month. The third step is to keep a record. Fitpal Pay does just this. It keeps track of how often you work out by tracking your movements if you have your phone on you, but if you do not you can always log your workouts, by what type—strength or cardio— and for how long. The forth step is to graph a base line. Luckily for you, the app also does this. Once you make your account all you have to do is keep it in your pocket for the first week and let us do the rest. We will measure how many steps you typically take, so you know to increase your activity level from the baseline. The fifth step is to determine contingencies. These are used when you start a behavioral intervention. These are questions you have to ask yourself before you start. Some of the questions you need to ask are what will you use to as a reinforcer? We are using the money you get from your friends missed workouts. When and how often will we reinforce? Every Wednesday at 10am. The last step is to implement and adjust the contingencies. So, once you elicit the contingencies they may not help to emit the behaviors. If that is the case, you should find something else to reinforce your target behavior.
This app also contains a message board so people can find more support with people who are doing the exact same thing you are. Changing your life is hard, but having the support will increase your success and it can also increase your reinforcer if they miss their workouts. So, once you have started it will be easier to determine what works for you. You may have to change the antecedents, this could be like joining a gym, or park farther away so you can get more steps which will increase your exercise of the day. When selecting the reinforcer I thought made sure it was something that could be rewarding in multiple ways. Money is a secondary reinforcer. While money is reinforcing on its own it can also be used to get something else which would also be reinforcing, such as a video game, or concert tickets.
So, I hope you liked listening to my presentation on the Fitpal Pay! If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me! Thanks and have a great day!
TERMS: Behavior Modification, ABC’s of behavior, antecedent, behavior, consequence, Punishment, Reinforcement, target behavior, reinforce, punishes, self-reinforce, extinction burst, fixed interval schedule of reinforcement, self-directed behavior, baseline, contingencies, behavioral intervention, reinforcer, elicit, emit, secondary reinforcer,

Good morning and thank you all for attending this meeting. I have asked you all to be here to reveal my new line of weight loss products and services. In our current society we have a major crisis on our hands: obesity. More than one third of our adult population here in America is dealing with obesity, that is 78.6 million people! These people are at a higher risk for heart disease, cancer, and type II diabetes. The risk of these diseases can be greatly reduced due to the proper diet and exercise which is why I have developed a Whole Body Wellness Program. The target audience for our product is for adults between the ages of 20 and 60 who are suffering from obesity or who are trying to lose some extra weight by altering their behavior.

To start everything off I should first explain what the Whole Body Wellness Program is about. This is a program that is dedicated to helping people lose weight and make productive changes in their behavior by adding proper diet and exercise into their daily routine. Our goal is to teach these individuals how to properly write and execute personal goals for weight loss. We are going to provide these people with the tools they need to succeed on their path to making changes in their behavior for the better. The Whole Body Wellness Program offers two main categories of programs that will focus on changing specific behaviors that lead to weight gain, such as the Wellness Diet Program or the Wellness Exercise and Fitness Program. Within these categories the Personal Wellness Advisors will work with each client to design a custom wellness program that specifically meets their needs. The main focus of this presentation will be on the Wellness Exercise and Fitness aspect of our program.

This program will begin once our clients walk in the door, they will be greeted and explained the process that will lead them to the road of successful weight loss. They will first meet with their own personal wellness advisor who will first conduct a functional behavior assessment in order to help determine the reasons behind why this individual is displaying certain behaviors that are leading to weight gain. A major factor in weight gain is emotional eating and lack of motivation to exercise. It is well known that the issue of being obese or overweight is very complex, and can be quite emotional at times for both the client and the advisor. It is to be understood that our advisor will have to ask some very personal questions that are optional for the client to answer but each truthful answer allows the advisor a better understanding of the needs of the client. The goal of this functional behavior assessment is to discover why this person is over indulging themselves and why they continue to exhibit this behavior if it is so bad for their health. Through this “interview” process so to speak we will be able to assess just what target behavior will be the focus of our program.

The target behavior will be a specific behavior that our advisor selects and using our program, decided the best wellness plan that will most effectively alter this behavior. An example that would fall under the Wellness Diet portion of the program would be better management of stressors in that individual’s daily life. A major factor that leads to an overconsumption of food is daily stress. Now, consumption of food in reaction to daily stress is a generalized target behavior but our advisors will work with the clients to be able to narrow down the target behavior to something that is more specific, something that can be observed throughout the process of our program and that can be measured through results. By isolating some areas of stress and finding ways to increase desirable coping mechanisms that assist with managing life stressors the individual can greatly reduce the amount of excess food being consumed. Now this was just an example for our presentation, because as we all know, each person who walks through our doors will have individual needs thus we will have to identify the different target behaviors for each client, and customize a program for them that will most greatly benefit them in their journey to a healthier life.

Once the advisor is able to define the target behavior in question then they will begin to devise a plan that works best for the individual. This stage of the program involves data collection where the advisor will see when the person is least likely to engage in the behavior and where the client is most likely to engage in the behavior. The data collected in the initial interview will help the advisor determine which specific factors lead to the problem behavior will assist in this portion of the interview. By having this information while developing the plan enable the advisor to provide the best possible service for the client. The data collection as mentioned will be collected using both direct and indirect methods, for example direct collection will be the actual observation of said behavior by the client themselves. This observation will also include the antecedents and the consequences that coincide with said behavior. It is an essential step to the process because both the advisor and the client need to be able to understand the antecedents that lead to certain behaviors as well as the resulting consequences. For example, a client whose focus is leaning more towards the Wellness Exercise and Fitness program may look at the antecedents that cause them to not work out or feel less desire to work out on a regular basis, if at all. Some of these factors may include lack of time, inability to get to a gym, lack of knowledge pertaining to physical fitness, tiredness, finding the concept of exercise to be boring or uninteresting, lack of motivation to exercise, etc. These are some of the most common excuses as to why individuals choose not to work out and these are primary factors that lead to an individual not wanting to work out. As a result these factors lead to weight gain which leads to mental health problems such as depression, lack of self esteem and reduced self image as well as physical health problems including lack of mobility and joint pain. By understanding that these consequences are a direct lack of exercise in one’s daily routine is essential to this process because the client is aware of these issues and is wanting to make a change. One of our primary goals here at Whole Body Wellness is to teach people how to understand the behavioral processes behind their weight gain and to understand that one of the main consequences for making this positive life change is weight loss.

As for other forms of assessments we will utilize indirect assessment in order to collect necessary data. This assessment will utilize interviews with the client through the weekly meetings that our client will set up with their personal wellness advisor. These meetings will occur three times per week and take place Monday through Friday and can be set up any time during office hours of 8 am until 6 pm. By providing this service the advisor will be able to collect direct data and monitor the progress. If there is a chance that the client is unable to meet during those times, there is a 24/7 hotline number to call and another advisor will be standing by to interview the client. They will need to provide their name and the name of their advisor at that time in order for the data to be collected. Lastly, as part of the indirect assessment, the advisor will conduct interviews with loved ones, nearby relatives, friends, or people who interact with the client on a regular basis. Any names and contact information provided to us by our client will be kept strictly confidential. All forms of indirect assessment will be written down as a way to record these verbal interviews. The results of these interviews will be used along with the results of direct data collection to assist the progress of the program.

The next step in the progress of the program will be to develop a hypothesis pertaining to the functionality of the behavior in question. Our advisors will have to look at the certain factors that affect the target behavior as well as the environmental variables, emotional variables, and social interactions affecting our client. These must all be apart of developing the hypothesis. Essentially what we are trying to figure out during this process is what purpose does the behavior serve or what is the function of said behavior. For example, say our client is looking towards the reason they are overweight is due to a lack of exercise. One of the functions of not working out could be that the person has not developed a habit or routine that includes working out. Another function could be that they find that exercise can be too overwhelming or it could be in association with a poor diet. However, the most common reason people have not chosen to work out is due to past failures. By not working out individuals do not run the risk of potentially failing to yield any results, which could be damaging to self esteem. It is because of these reasons that each initial assessment and hypothesis must be catered to each individual's specific needs. In a society where “one-size-fits-all” is a standard form of thinking, our program will stand out amongst the crowd because it will cater to the individual, and treat their needs accordingly. Another factor to keep in mind is actual topography of the behavior in question. These initial meetings are crucial to the process because there are many different actions that may have the same topography and evaluation as well as identification of these behaviors is what will set our program apart from other cookie cutter weight loss programs.

After a individual hypothesis (individualized wellness plan) has been created for the client, the process to developing Whole Body Wellness(i.e. experimentation) can begin! This is an important step in our process since it assists the wellness advisor to be able to identify any issues with the current wellness program that has been created and make any necessary changes. For the experimentation phase the length in which the client will be in this phase will be unique to that person. As we said before, we are not a cookie cutter program and our focus is on helping the client to learn ways to achieve whole body wellness by altering behavior. For some clients this may take more or less time than others but that is to be expected. Our advisors will attempt to collect accurate data to the best of their abilities. The client as part of the program will be given a handbook where they can record their progress, feelings towards the program, concerns, etc. An online version will be available to download onto mobile handheld devices as well as Ipad. The client will share these notes during face to face meetings and any necessary adjustments to the wellness plan will be made then. These meetings are crucial because the advisor will be able to see if the target behavior will need to be revised and possibly a new hypothesis (wellness plan) tested.

While the wellness plan is being tested, there will be certain aspects of operant conditioning being utilized. There will be forms of positive and negative reinforcement used to assist the progress of our clients. Data will be collected to see how these reinforcements will affect the targeted behavior by either having a desirable or undesirable effect on our clients. An example of positive reinforcement using the Wellness Exercise and Fitness track will be as follows: each week the individual will attend three or more scheduled workout sessions for thirty-forty five minutes in which they will be assisted by a personal trainer depending upon the client's individualized Wellness Exercise and Fitness plan. (The cost of the personal trainer will be factored into the monthly payment plan when clients sign up to use our program.) On the Saturday of each week there will be a group meeting open to all participants in the program to meet and check in with one another. This community of support is another service we wish to provide to our clients as it is essential to goal accomplishment. At these meetings individuals who attend and share their progress through the week (as monitored on their progress journal) and those who have accomplished their required three or more day workout sessions with their personal trainer will receive a small reward for their efforts. This in itself is a form of positive reinforcement as the clients will be rewarded for their efforts. More specifically it is a form of fixed ratio reinforcement. If the ratio is three times per week you workout, you achieve your goal of working out three times per week, you are reinforced with reward (FR3).

Now, as a sort of backup reinforcer for every week that individuals meet with at their regularly scheduled workout sessions, they will have their names entered into a drawing that will be held at the end of the month. These tokens will be distributed to the clients via the trainer and it will be up to the client to turn those tokens into their advisor at their meetings each week. At the end of the month a drawing will be held for prizes such as cookbooks, workout equipment such restriction bands, free weights, and the grand prize of half off your monthly program fee. This is a form of positive reinforcement because they are being reinforced for attending their workout sessions by having their names entered into a drawing for prizes. The goal of this is to encourage each of our clients to keep motivated as they push through their personalized programs. However, it will not be all fun and games. As punishment for not fulfilling the thirty minute workout routine with the personal trainer, the client be eligible for drawings or prizes given out on Saturday morning group sessions. The goal is to encourage clients to stick with their thirty minute workout routine and to discourage the behavior of skipping workout sessions. This should increase the likeliness that the client will emit the target behavior on a regular basis.

There will be some extreme cases where different methods of altering behavior may indeed be required. In the event that there is someone who is morbidly obese who walks through our doors with the hope of changing their life, we shall not turn them away but instead work with them to the best of our ability. If this person is morbidly obese they may have a workout routine that is at a much slower pace in an effort to prevent discouragement or potential injury. Our advisors may need to break down the goals for this target behavior into smaller steps or sub categories that gradually increase in difficulty. This is a nice way to ease them into the routine of altering their unhealthy behavior. For these extreme cases, a different form of reinforcement will be used where the individual will need positive reinforcement continuously administered after each completion of a workout in order to encourage further emission of desirable behavior.

Ultimately, the goal of Whole Body Wellness is to help each individual make a positive behavior change that will lead them to reducing their weight and living a happier and healthier life. As we have discussed previously, being able to achieve a healthier life begins once people walk through our doors and sit down with a wellness advisor. Our program is designed to target the goals of the individual and to create a personalized wellness program to fit these goals. Using the MR TAS format we are able to not only assist our clients with creating goals, but we are giving them the tools to be successful. Manageable, Realistic, Timeframe, Ability, and Subgoals are all factors that will be considered when creating and executing the client’s wellness plan. As part of the MR TAS format we will also offer assistance and emotional support to our participants as they go through this wonderful behavioral change. To join our community, members can attend Saturday meetings, or join our facebook community at Whole Body Wellness. Here members can offer support, share personal stories, and unit in their desire to learn healthier behaviors. As time wears on, individual appointments will become less mandated as the focus will shift to self directed behavior. This is where it will be up to the client to monitor their behavior and to continue to modify the behavior using the tools given to them throughout the process of the program. After the determined period of time, the individual will no longer be reinforced using the token program and it will be up to the individual to choose how to reinforce the target behavior. Our offices will always be open to those looking for guidance during this transitional time from the structured program into a normal working routine. In this program we see that utilizing different behavioral methods, we will be able to assist our clients more effectively than standard weight loss programs. At Whole Body Wellness we focus on the individual and make their wellness goals a top priority as we go about shaping and altering their behavior for the better.

The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/exercise-fitness/emotional-benefits-of-exercise.htm

Top 6 Exercise Excuses and How to Beat Them
http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/guide/the-top-6-exercise-excuses-and-how-to-beat-them?page=1

Exercise and Mental Health
http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/e/exercise-mental-health/

Putting on weight and psychological factors
file:///C:/Users/ander/Downloads/putting-on-weight-and-psychological-factors-345-mw7m3f.pdf

Goal Setting Theory of Motivation
http://www.managementstudyguide.com/goal-setting-theory-motivation.htm

Chapter 4: Section 3: Reinforcement and Reinforcement Schedules
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/reinforcement/

Steps for Successful Goal Setting and Achievement
http://topachievement.com/paulchristenbury.html

Adult Obesity Facts
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

Weight Watchers
http://shop.weightwatchers.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/en/wwaurorab2cus

Ten Reasons People Do Not Exercise
http://www.livestrong.com/article/370670-ten-reasons-people-do-not-exercise/


Terms: Exhibit, Antecedent, Consequence, Hypothesis, Positive Reinforcement, Punishment, Fixed Ratio Interval, Emit, Goals, Target Audience, Target Behaviors, Functional Behavior Analysis, Data Collection, Indirect, Direct, Variables, Experiment, Backup reinforcement, Tokens, Self Directed Behavior, Monitor

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Good Afternoon!
Attention to all Humane Societies! In result of the recent incline in euthanizations in the United States due to the lack of animals being adopted, we welcome you…2econdChance! Our goal is to raise the rates of adoption by using reinforcement training to both animals and staff to help create a more positive experience between potential families and pets.

According to a recent survey handed out at over 400 shelters nationwide, 86% of respondents rated the reason they didn’t choose one of the pets in the shelter was because they were too hyper and seemed overall less tame than one they could get from a pet store or breeder. As we all know this is very disheartening because in most cases, the dogs are just so excited to get any attention it can.

2econdChance provides the services to help staff learn how we can train dogs to show calmer, sweeter, and quieter behavior when interacting with potential adoptees while also teaching them basic tricks such as sit, lay down, shake, and stay along with how to walk on a leash. The reason these areas are our main focus is because they rated the highest on the survey when participants were asked “What are some important actions a pet must be able to do to make them a considerable part of your family?”

It is very important that the goals we set are realistic. If we feel that they are too hard to reach, we may end up giving up. It is also important that we see all progress as helpful. We have included many sub goals as well to ensure that there will be some improvements in multiple areas and taking steps to the ultimate goal. All of these goals are achievable. We do not expect every dog to suddenly become show dogs, but moving towards a well-behaved companion is what adoptees look for. It IS achievable and we have the ability and resources to save lives… which is the reason we all do what we do to begin with.

Our personal staff consists of 152 highly trained members with degrees in behavioral science along with a very large call center to answer any questions. Each society we are sent out to includes 13-17 team members depending on the size so that we can go to as many places as possible at once. We strongly believe that anyone, human or animal, can be broken of old aversive habits and could replace them with much more positive ones. By first breaking down the ABC components, we can better understand how to change the poor behavior into our target behaviors. As of right now, what happens is this:
Antecedent: Each dog is very excited to see guests
Behavior: Jumping, barking, and anxious movements are elicited
Consequence: Families move on because they assume the dog always shows this kind of behavior.

First, we need to alter the antecedent by desensitizing them to the anxious/exciting feeling when they meet new people. We do this because we can’t necessarily change the discriminative stimuli (the environment they are currently in causing the anxiety). In some cases, someone may use establishing operations such as food deprivation to make the treat more attractive…but this will not be the case in this training program. While doing this 4 week training we will be using continuous reinforcement for the first week that consists of giving treats and positive touch such as belly rubs. We will do this while they are in the dog room as new people are coming in and out to continuously show them how they need to relax and rewarding them with a treat. While people aren’t around we will also be teaching them simple tricks using the same form of reinforcement. We choose positive reinforcement instead of punishment because it tends to create a much more positive experience, environment, and an overall better response.

During the second week of training we will have a 2-hour meeting with the staff to educate them on the benefits of using reinforcement along with teaching them the basics so they can carry out the positive reinforcement as well. In this week, staff will not be using continuous reinforcement. They will be using a much less frequent pattern by walking through with guests, and when a dog promotes a positive behavior they are then rewarded. Guests will also be shown what tricks each dog has been taught and they will be able to reward them themselves.

The third week will be completely controlled by the shelter staff and monitored closely. At this point there will be very surprising changes in the dog room. It will overall be much calmer and quieter, and will be much easier when taking the dogs out on walks and to go outside. Reinforcement will still not be continuous to ensure that the actions are becoming a habit. In the fourth week we will be returning to the baseline. No reinforcements will be used to test how well the behavior is now a habit. After this, reinforcements should be used only when it is deserved to avoid satiation. If we always used constant reinforcement, at some point the dogs would have their fill and it will not help in modifying the behavior completely. To ensure that the staff is keeping up on the training, they will also be reinforced with a token economy as well.

Once our staff leaves, the society staff will be responsible for keeping up with the reinforcement for the same dogs and the new ones coming in. Their management will be keeping a close eye and will offer them a ticket whenever they see the training being used. Once the staff member holds 15 tickets they are allowed to choose between many rewards offered by the managers. We think this is a very helpful way to fulfill the full benefits of our training. It is also fun for the staff and will soon also become a habit to the staff too! Every 4 months we will send out a memo reminding the staff about the importance of training and reinforcing positive behavior to avoid any extinction. For a small extra fee we can also send out a representative once a year to watch over and correct any misunderstood information. We suggest to cover the costs of our services, raising the adoption price a little for the ones that have had time for training. With the numbers we show so far, within the first year our services should be paid off.

This may seem like only a quick fix, but when looking at the numbers of adoptions before our program and than after… rates went up by 46% and continued there. Which means half of the time when a family comes in and would normally leave empty handed, they end up adopting instead. We really hope you decide to invest in our services. As stated before, too many animals that would make great pets are put down each year. According to the ASPCA website, approximately 2.7 million are killed just because they weren’t adopted “in time”. With our services and the higher rate of adoption after, we could hopefully have that number cut in half. In just a 4 week timeframe we can offer a loving pet their 2econd chance.

We look forward to hearing from you.

URLS:
http://www.uni.edu/~maclino/bm/book/sec1.4.pdf
https://www.aspca.org/
http://www.packleadersdogtraining.com/

Terms: Goal, Reinforcement, Training, ABC’s, Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence, Token Economy, Reward, Punishment, Operant Behavior, Target Behavior, Response, Emitted, Elicited, Discriminate Stimulus, Satiation, Deprivation, Establishing Operation, Extinction, Aversive, Baseline, Goals, “Importance of Goals”, attainable, manageable, realistic

Hello! And welcome to the final meeting of our behavior management series with a focus on ADHD. Today we are going to discuss the new book called The ABC’s of ADHD. The book will be very helpful to parents, daycare providers, and school teachers. It will talk about the many way to help maintain and manage a child’s ADHD in almost any setting. Some of the most important guidelines to follow are to set the rules for the setting the child is in, give frequent feedback about the child’s behavior, give immediate rewards and consequences, be consistent, create routines, create a reward system, and always remember to focus on the positive more than the negative.

When a child has ADHD they need to have simple rules to follow. It is very important for the person in charge to make rules for the house, classroom, or daycare. If the child or children can read it may be easier to post them in a place that can easily be seen. If the children cannot read use pictures and drawing to help explain what the rules are. It is also very important that the person in charge takes time to clearly explain what will happen when the rules are obeyed and what with happen if they are broken. This brings us to the next guideline which is to give immediate rewards and consequences. Children who have ADHD need more feedback for their good behavior, as well as the bad behavior. The moment the target behavior you are looking for it is very important to reinforce the behavior by giving the child a reward. The same is true if the child emits a behavior that is not appropriate, it is very import than the child is punished in some way so they know not to behave that way again. It is also very important to give frequent feedback to children with ADHD. The best way to do this is to set a time for 20-30 mins . When the timer goes off, check on the child. If the are behaving well reward them, if they are misbehaving punish them, but make sure they understand why they are being punished. One of the best ways to get a child to have more positive than negative behaviors is to be consistent. This will take time. A child’s behavior is not going to change overnight. You need to be patient. Reacting the same way every time your child emits a positive behavior is a good way to be consistent. The same goes for when they misbehave. If you are being consistent routines will most likely be formed. Its is important that a child has a routine to follow because it will help keep them focused and there will be less of a chance that they will misbehave.

Another very important thing to do with kids who have ADHD is to set up some sort of reward system or token economy. The first step in this process is to determine which target behaviors you are going to work on. After you have established which behaviors you would like to change, the next step is to set up a home token economy to help implement this new behavior management plan. The agreement that is made between the child and the parents should be relatively simple. If it gets too complex, it is less likely to succeed. Each behavior that is being worked on needs to be worth a certain amount of tokens. And the behaviors that you want to eliminate will be worth negative tokens. It is best to be consistent on when you give out the tokens. In my past experience they best time to hand out the tokens ion right before bed. Once or twice a week let your child cash in their tokens for some sort of reward such as, being allowed to go see a movie with friends, going out for ice cream, being able to buy some new clothes, or getting extra time to play video games. There are some thing to do to make sure that the program stays relevant. These are things such as making sure the child is able to see there progress, modify the behavior plan if the child is no longer meeting the goals that have been set, make sure the whole family is aware of the program and how it works, have a backup plan if the first one fails, keep a positive attitude about the behavior plan.

As parents, childcare providers, or teachers it is important to avoid backsliding. This happens when you get is a long debate about the behavior that has been emitted and the rules that have been put in place. The number one thing you can do is just to accept that the child has ADHD. This does not mean that they are not capable of changing behavior, it just mean than you need to remain positive, persistent, and calm. Reach out to those around you for support, you are not alone. Join a support group in the community. It is here that you can learn useful tips and hear about other peoples’ experiences with ADHD. It is also important to not let the bad days get you down and discouraged. Always remember that tomorrow is a new day and stay positive. Do whatever you can to better understand what ADHD is and how it affects the children you are working with. Most importantly remember that it will take time before you see results, so give the plan time to actually start working before you change.

The plan for this book is to be on shelves in all the major bookstores within the next six months. The book will be able to be used by parents who have children with ADHD, teachers who have students with ADHD, and daycares that care for children with ADHD. This book will also come with a coupon for 50% off of a new token economy start up kit. The kit will come with different color tokens as well as a tracking sheet to fill out and keep track of the tokens that are earned each day.

Thank you for listening to my presentation for the book ABC’s of ADHD. I hope you will tell those in need about it. Have a great day!

TERMS: behavior, ABC’s, positive, negative, consequences, rewards, target behavior, reinforce, emit, punish, misbehave, token economy

For my final assignment, I decided to make my own token economy. To do this I needed to first decide what I wanted to focus on. As I am a mother, I could easily make one for my child, and as the grandparents have wanted to do the same thing, I felt I could make one for all of us to follow. This is to help aid in good behavior of my daughter. A behavior I would specifically like to change is for her to pick up her belongings on her own when she is done using them. Right now it is torture for her to put something away when she wants to play with something else.
The target behavior is going to be picking up toys and following directions set by adults. The best way she can respond to this is to set up a system based on colors. The token economy will be set up as follows
Purple= Behavior that goes above and beyond what is asked of the child.
Green= Child exhibits behavior that is asked an expected of them.
Pink= Child needs mild redirecting, but will do as asked of them.
Yellow= child is asked several times to follow directions
Red= child consistently/ intentionally exhibits not good behavior even after several warnings and timeouts.
For each day full of good behavior, the child will be assigned a color. With every 5 purple the child receives, the child will receive a sticker on the board. For every 10 greens, the child will receive another sticker. These are the only two colors the stickers will be rewarded. Once the child reaches 5 stickers on the board, they then get to pick an activity of their choosing that is special. My daughter likes to have sleep over with her friends or get pedicures and manicures with momma. These are normally the activities she will pick, as well as a baking day or going to an area such as the public library or the Phelps Youth Pavilion. The stickers are an example of tokens, and the activities are the backup reinforcers.
I actually have proof that my daughter responds well to a token economy. They have one set up at her preschool and everyday she comes home with high marks. When the individual child reaches a certain number of marks, they are able to get a prize from the classroom store. She has come home with several new small stuffed animals. When the whole class gets good marks, then they get to choose between a party in class and a pajama party. They have had 3 in the short time they have been in school this year.
Now, as time goes on and her behavior continues to improve, the reinforcers will not be enough to keep her behavior in check. This is where I will start the extinction process and slowly space out the reinforcers. Now I will make each sticker worth either 10 purples or 15 greens. After a couple more months of this, the increments will go up to 15 purples and 20 greens. This is an example of a fixed interval schedule.
As I had previously stated, my family would also like to use this system to ensure the behavior of my child. In order to coordinate to make sure that everyone is in the loop, I will need to pull everyone aside and explain the system. I will charge each grandparent with the task of presenting the colors and reporting back to me so that I can put a sticker on the board. They will need a clear set of guidelines for each color to abide by, and I will entrust good faith in them to tell me honestly how she is responding. I will make each set a calendar that they are able to mark the color on. I think this system will work very well, but there is a chance that the grandparents won’t always follow the system set in place. I think the way I have it set up will ensure that my daughter cannot forge the tokens or cheat her way around getting them. This could work out very well for her behavior. She could have a poor response though. Some simply do not care enough to follow the strict rules set in place to help modify their behaviors. I am of course talking about the stubborn naughty children that regardless of the teachers incessant attempts to change the behavior. My daughter can be naughty like a normal 5 year old, but she is more stubborn. At school though, she is extremely good.
To wrap up this token economy, I intend to use tokens in the form of stickers, and several different back up reinforcers to help modify my child’s behavior. As proven at her school, token economies work very well. This is going to be a very exciting project to set up after all my finals are over!
As I don’t feel that just an explanation of one token economy is enough for this final, I would like to delve into a token economy that I thought up last week, one where I made a system of reinforcers to help a real estate agency in attendance. This kind of goes along with the other theme that can be chosen for this final, which is that we should think of a product that can in some way help modify our behaviors. In a way this token economy that I thought up is a product to help change the behaviors of the real estate agents so that they better attend their weekly meetings.
I should start by saying that I am very interested in the inner workings of the real estate business and that I have been taking classes to get my license to sell property. I have attend a few seminars and job shadowing opportunities to gain insight on what it would be like in the day of an average real estate agent. In one particular firm, the agents could come and go as they pleased, and did not have to attend a certain amount of office time as long as properties were sold. This company had a weekly meeting on Tuesday mornings that went over new listings to the firm and toured the neighbor hood looking at them. This is where I got this idea.
For my second token economy, I am going to take a group of real estate agents with the target behavior of attending more weekly meetings. As a token, people will be given ticket vouchers. When they collect 10 tickets, it can get them a free pass for a meeting, a free lunch, or free coffee and pastry. For twenty tickets, one could get a 30 min massage, free movie tickets, hockey tickets (or any sporting activity). In order to get a ticket to begin with, one needs to attend two meetings in a row. The people who will be administering the tickets will be the executives and the senior agents who regularly attend the meetings. Everyone will need to be briefed on how the token economy will work and who is responsible for keeping attendance. They will also need to decide who will be in charge of exchanging the tickets for the reinforcers. Another back up reinforcer for the entire firm could be a big party night held by the firm, if everyone attends for 6 months straight and sales are boosted. Again the executives would be in charge of keeping attendance. Some cons to this system are that there are several agents and it may be very difficult to get all of them to attend on a regular basis. Also, this may be hard to use the extinction process on so that the agents are not reinforced until infinity. Agents need to learn that they need to have some sense of how to be accountable for their own action.
Both of the token economies are examples of positive reinforcement schedules. I chose this on purpose because I believe little is accomplished with constant punishment, especially in the beginnings of life. If a child is constantly told no or punished for bad instead of reinforced for good, then the child could start harboring negative feelings.
Overall, this class has taught me many things, all of them useful. The token economy was what stuck with me the most, and I am so glad that I learned everything that I did so that I have a good armory of tools to use in changing behaviors. When raising a child, one needs a good armory!

Terms:
Target Behaviors
Reinforcer
Token Economy
Fixed Interval Schedule
Punishment
Positive reinforcement
Extinction

The good or service that I would like to propose for the final assignment is a program aimed at professional businesses and offices to help reduce workplace stress, foster in-office communication, and promote constructive office behaviors. The program I suggest isn’t just another business fad; it is supported by various facets of behavioral psychology such as reinforcement schedules, punishment and extinction. So what is this program all about? Why would you want to spend the time, money, and effort to implement this in your place of employment? What makes this program unique compared to existing ones with similar objectives? These are all questions that I set out to answer in this assignment, and hopefully also demonstrate my understanding of the course material in the process.
The premise of this program is to create a work environment which is less stressful, increase communication, and bring staff together over a common goal; this goal being the creation and maintenance of a completely new work-community which I have titled ‘The Pawffice’. Now if the name hasn’t given too much away, this proposal centers on introducing a highly-trained, specially-chosen, service dog into a traditional work environment in order to elicit the positive effects previously mentioned. While this may seem initially far-fetched (excuse the pun) the concepts used in The Pawffice have been implemented by some of the most successful and pioneering companies when it comes to creating efficient and creative work-spaces. Google, the multi-billion dollar technology giant known for its innovative take on the traditional office, was one of the first companies to allow employees to bring their animals to work with them. Unlike Google however, the dogs in The Pawffice are not just pets; they are trained service-animals whose job is to provide emotional support to employees and bring those involved with the program closer together to foster a work environment which is closer to a second home.
The Pawffice is extremely flexible when it comes to the unique needs of your office. Each dog that enters the training to become a canine ambassador for The Pawffice is a one-of-a-kind animal. These dogs are chosen initially for their temperament and trainability, undergo extensive training with an expert animal behaviorist, and finally are matched to your office through an in-depth screening process. We try to rescue as many dogs as possible from local shelters and other rescue organizations, but if a company has a specific breed or would simply prefer a dog from a breeder instead, accommodations can be made. Our dogs do include a wide variety of breeds, ages, and backstories, but if you already have a specific canine-friend in mind we also feature training programs and animal behavior experts that can prepare your pup to be a functioning member of your professional team!
One of the most important benefits of The Pawffice’s specially-trained service animals is their ability to reduce the amount of work-induced stress which employees experience on a daily basis. Numerous studies suggest that contact with animals lowers high blood pressure, a known and deadly symptom of chronic stress in the workplace. This suggests that with regular access to and interaction with the service dog, employees will be able to more effectively reduce their stress levels, thus decreasing the amount of chronic stress felt at work. This in itself has been shown to produce a variety of benefits including how employees perceive their workplace as a positive space, decreases in absenteeism, and a reduction in health-insurance claims made by employees. These will eventually save a company that employs The Pawffice more than enough to cover the costs of implementing the program.
Training for Pawffice dogs begins with basic obedience taught by our team of trained behavioral experts, and then expands to training similar to service animals used in veteran-rehabilitation programs or for individuals with anxiety disorders. After the animals undergo this introductory gamut, they then begin their specialized training based on the needs of your office; this can range from anything to additional noise or environment desensitization, to advanced retrieval techniques, even to handicap-assistance training. Once the dog arrives on-site at your office there is an introductory meeting for management where our team of behavioral-training consultants offers an in-depth session to train supervisors about the do’s and don’ts of training both your animal for The Pawffice, and the employees that are going to interacting with the dog. After the introductory session with management, all employees are introduced to the dog in small groups to get a better opportunity for personal connection and individualized training with the consultants present. After this the behavior experts leave the management and employees with supplementary training materials and instructions for follow-up in the program.
The training in The Pawffice is unique in that it does not only focus on the specialized training of the animals which it provides to organizations, but also on training the employees of the organization to maximize their benefits from their animal companion. This is accomplished by first teaching the employees how to train and command the dog using behavioral psychology techniques, then using this as a context to construct a better understanding of the principles of behavioral psychology and how they relate to workplace interactions. Employees are taught about positive and negative punishment and reinforcement, how to successfully implement schedules of reinforcement, and how to look critically at situations using the ABC method.
Having employees think critically about the antecedents which facilitate behaviors, and then how these behaviors result in consequences, along with all of the other behavioral techniques taught by the program, are Behavioral research suggests that positive reinforcement is the strongest, most effective method of ensuring the continuance or cessation of a target behavior. The Pawffice uses positive reinforcement in all of its animal-training techniques, as well as its human-centered training, because of this. For example, the opportunity for extra time with the service dog can used as positive reinforcement for a job well-done or successful business transaction. Although it is not advised by The Pawffice training program, classes on how to implement positive and negative punishment are offered as well. Some examples of these would be instead of allowing an employee to spend extra time with the dog for a successful action, or they would be denied their allotted time with the animal or have to attend to clean-up duties for a failed action.
Another significant aspect of the human-animal training component is teaching the employees to recognize different behavioral classes, and what this means for training. Employees are instructed about the difference between specific behaviors and general behavior classes, how trying to punish a behavior class instead of a behavior could confuse the dog and make the training ineffective, and how this relates to training humans. Along with this employees are also put on a schedule of reinforcement, with the reinforcement being time spent with the animal, and asked to critically evaluate how this has affected their performance. The preferred schedule of reinforcement is continuous; where an employee receives extra time with the dog after every desired behavior is exhibited, but this is up to the discretion of the company of the employee. A facet of the program which is not always implemented, but in certain cases is necessary, is the instruction on extinction. This usually only occurs when it is directly applicable to the company, for example if many employees were engaging in inappropriate break-time behavior, but it can be taught for general knowledge purposes as well. Extinction occurs when a behavior that was once reinforced is no longer reinforced and is eventually eliminated; this is typically taught by using the dog as a hypothetical example and then introducing the extinction process rationally using the behavior the employees are being instructed to not take part in.
To help foster employee participation in The Pawffice initiative we also offer additional consulting and aid with construction of a token economy for your work environment. This is done to help encourage participation, but also to promote positive interactions and behavior when it comes to your office animal. Upon the request of the company which has been successfully using The Pawffice system for at least 6 months, another team of consultants is deployed to assist in the implementation and creation of the token economy. The specific behaviors which the company wishes to reinforce, be it constructive interactions with the dog, other people, or any matter of successful business happenings, is decided upon by the management with the aid of the consultants. The consultants then work alongside management and with input from employees as to what the tokens should be, but these are typically kept track of via computer by the supervisors. In the same way The Pawffice animal was used to provide positive reinforcement on a more general scale mentioned previously, this can again be used as a backup reinforcer. It is ultimately up to the company, but typically the backup reinforcer involves spending time with the animal.
A contract must be drawn between the organization which plans to employ the program and the distributor of The Pawffice service animal and training. This is done to ensure the protection of the copyrighted material in the program, but mainly to ensure that those who subscribe to the program do so without the ability to harm the animals entrusted to them. The other reason for the contract is to ensure that the company completes all human and animal behavioral training sessions, which are pivotal to the successful initiation and longevity of the program.

Terms: positive reinforcement, reinforcement, punishment, ABC’s, antecedent , behavior, consequence, schedules of reinforcement, token economy, extinction, target behavior, elicit, behavioral class, backup reinforcers

Stress and anxiety get the best of everyone. No matter how hard we try not to let it get to us it always does. Not only is it mentally draining but physically is takes a huge toll as well. The best thing that we can do is plan on how to prevent or at least reduce the effects that it has on ourselves. The service that my company will be providing is stress and anxiety management course. It will be a success because it can be applied in all situations with a variety of companies and businesses.
The service’s goal will be to teach the clients the ABC’s of behavior. My employees will show people how to recognize what causes their stress, the antecedent, and how to stop the behavior of stress or anxiety from ensuing or how to manage it in a healthier way. If they client is not able to stop the target behavior, then they will have to deal with the consequences. The staff will also teach them what to do at this step as well. Being able to identify the ABC’s of one’s behavior will ultimately help with the reduction of stress and anxiety in our personal lives.
This service will first be taught from me to my employees. We will have tangible locations where individuals can come in and sign up to take the class from my employees right then and there and we will also be traveling to companies by request to give lessons to their staff. Many companies and businesses are not aware just how much their workers are under stress and anxiety without the proper needs to deal with it. When we visit the different companies the lessons will be taught in a seminar form, all the employees will come at once and view the lesson. If any of them feel that they would like extra help or treatment, we would be more than accommodating by providing our information and hours for them. Our goal is to help decrease stress and anxiety for individuals by using behavior modification because it can have such a negative impact on their lives and we want people to live a healthier life.
The first step that will be taught identifying the person’s antecedents. What elicits the stressful thoughts and or feelings? Is it other people, stimuli, certain environments? Once these have been determined then the next step can take place. Identifying antecedents takes a lot of work, the individual has to think about their days and try to figure out what brings out their stress. In this step the client will use a method called introspection, which is the individual documenting their experiences. This is very helpful in determining causation. For example if the person knows that if they don’t get a certain amount of time to meet a deadline they will be stressed then they’ll need to plan out a schedule so that they can get the amount of time they think they’ll need. If the person is able to identify their antecedents to stress and anxiety, then it will greatly help them stop the behavior from occurring or lessening the effect of it, they can do this by altering the behaviors or stopping certain ones from occurring.
The second step is identifying the behavior that the person emits once they become stressed or anxious. These behaviors more often have negative consequences than positive ones. The behaviors that are emitted after becoming stressed need to either be reinforced or extinguished depending on if they are helpful or not. Research and many studies have found that the use of positive reinforcement is the most effective strategy to modify behavior, especially when compared with any sort of punishment. Negative reinforcement is effective in some cases but definitely not as much as positive reinforcement is. We will provide examples of different behaviors one could emit instead of negative ones when stressed, like meditation, breathing, exercise and even journaling or venting thoughts to others. All are a much healthier way of dealing with stress.
The least favorite part of any poor action we take is having to deal with the consequences. In some cases, the consequence will not be bad but other times it will. If we can help people identify what causes their stress and provide them with better behaviors or outlets to deal with the stress, then they will no longer have to deal with the negative consequences of their actions. They might even do something to help out themselves in the long run.
Behavior modification takes a lot of planning and reflecting on ourselves but if a person is willing and really wants to change their behavior they can do it. Anxiety and stress have such a negative impact on people daily and if it’s possible to decrease the chances or effects who wouldn’t want to learn how?

Terms: behavior, antecedent, positive, target behavior, consequence, behavior modification, stimuli, emit, reinforce, extinguish, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, negative, consequence, ABC’s

For my final project, I wanted to offer a service that feels very personal to me, but also applies the principles we have learned in class. I will be offering the service of drug counseling and rehabilitation. My sister has had issues with addiction for a long time, so it is something I care about a lot. My facility will have an inpatient treatments program. The focus of the center I will be running is to offer a second chance at life for those who have fallen into substance abuse, substance dependency, and/or addiction using. We accomplish this by teaching them the ABC’s of behavior. We will then teach them how to use these ABC’s to modify their behavior so that they emit more desirable behaviors and experience more desirable consequences in return.
The first part of our program involves learning about the A in the ABC’s of behavior. The A stands for antecedent. An antecedent is something that precedes a certain event. This means that the antecedent precedes the behavior. We will then teach them why this is an important concept to understand for their recovery. All behavior has an antecedent, including the behaviors involved in drug addiction. If this antecedent is changed or eliminated, that means that the behavior is less likely to be elicited. We will then teach them how to change the antecedent. Mostly, this involves changing your environment, especially in the cases of most of our clients. Part of addiction is the physical dependency or cravings for the substance. But there is another, very important aspect to addiction, the environment of the addict. They begin to associate the substance with certain places, certain friends, certain environments. Even once they go through the physical detox of the substance, the environment can send them spiraling back into old behaviors very quickly. We help them to change the antecedents by first learning what they are for that specific person. We do this through group and one-on-one counseling. We talk about their substance problem. When did it start? What started it? Where did you go to get the substance? Did your friends also use this or other similar substances? Did you use these substances together at certain places? When you used or went on binges of the substance, what had happened/what were you doing/where were you/etc when that moment occurred/right before that moment occurred. Once we figure out the biggest problem antecedents for the aversive behavior, we help them see that without these antecedents they will be much less likely to exhibit the aversive behaviors. We help them understand that they need a change in environment.
The next step is learning about the B of the ABC’s. The B stands for behavior. In order to change something we do, we need to pinpoint what it is we want to change. For this reason, at this stage we first talk about the behavior class that we are focusing on. In this case, the behavioral class will be substance abuses, dependence, or addiction. However, these things can be different for different people. So in order to help the individual being treated, we need to focus in on target behaviors. This is done mainly in one-on-one counseling with the individual, however there are sometimes benefits to discussing this in group counseling as well.
Next is the C of the ABC’s. The C stands for consequences. This means, that there will always be a result after our behavior. Sometimes the consequences (results) are desirable and sometimes they are aversive, and sometimes there are some of each. The aversive consequences cover a ride range of things in this behavior class: overdosing, withdrawals when the substance is unattainable, the dismay and sometimes disownment from family members, guilt, skin and health issues, legal repercussions, loss of employment, unable to get different employment, loss of friends, etc. There are of course consequences that are specific to the individual, and those are discussed in one-on-one counseling as well as in group counseling.
In general, the desirable consequences that our clients report are the euphoric feelings and sensations that accompany the use of the substance, the happiness and fun they have when they use it. This is mostly do to the release of the dopamine that is caused by most drugs. This triggers the survival enhancement instinct in the brain. Essentially this is the brain receiving the message of “oh that felt good, you must do that again” and it tricks itself into thinking it needs it. Helping our clients to understand this helps them to better understand what is going on inside their own brains, which in result helps them understand why they want to keep doing it. This actually helps with our process of rehabilitation and recovery. Because substance use can cause aversive feelings (such as guilt) but also bring this happiness, it can be a cycle effect. The use gets rid of the aversive feelings, but also causes them, so then to use it to get rid of them again, and so on. Understanding why their body craves the substance, can help eliminate the aversive feelings of guilt and the like, which eliminates the need to use the substance again to get rid of the aversive feelings. At least the ones that are a result of the drug use.
Once the ABC’s are taught and understood, they can be applied. We know the target behavior, and we know that we don’t want to have the aversive consequences that cause it. We also know the certain environments that are more likely to elicit the behavior. With this knowledge we can now begin to modify the behavior.
At this facility, it is our belief that reinforcement creates a better environment, results in a better relationship between our staff and our clients, and overall has the best results in the long term. This is because it is viewing the change as something desirable. It makes us want to change in a good way. They view it as a change for the better.
In order to do this, we must find out through discussions with the clients what the most affective reinforcers would be for each individual client. Both positive and negative reinforcement is used, depending on what is most affective for that client. Once this is discovered, a reinforcement schedule is set up that will (if followed correctly) effectively extinguish the target behavior. It is also our goal to make sure the clients know that one of the most common steps in recovery is relapse. We don’t want them to feel like they have failed or are bad people if this happens. We feel that if it is presented in that type of sense, then they will be less likely to reach out for help because they will be ashamed. This is one of the biggest reasons that we use reinforcement over punishment.
We also as a facility have a token economy. We find that focus on overall desirable behavior that will benefit the clients in society, assist as well in motivation and success for the specific target behaviors they have concerning their substance problem. For this purpose we provide tokens for honesty (sharing difficult things in counseling), if you are seen helping others, keeping your living space in the facility clean and organized, volunteering to help others clean their space, volunteering to help in others, and so on. These tokens are Plastic chips, similar to poker chips, that are received from the counselors and stored by the clients, which can be turned in for various backup reinforcers that include snacks (10 tokens), movies (15 tokens), books (15 tokens), extra rec. time(10 tokens), and time to leave (with a counselor) and go to a place of your choosing for one hour (35 tokens) two hours (45 tokens) or three hours (55 tokens). The chips have the facilities trademark on them, making them difficult to recreate which helps avoid fraud.
Just because you have made mistakes and emitted bad behavior, that does not make you a bad person. Our goal is to help you understand why you emit that behavior, and change it to be the best you that you can possibly be.

Terms: behavior, antecedent, consequence, desirable, aversive, elicit, emit, target behavior, reinforce, reinforcer, reinforcement, reinforcement schedule, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, backup reinforcer, punishment, token economy, behavioral class, modify, ABC’s, extinguish, environment, eliminated, exhibit

http://www.rehabs.com/about/the-addiction-rehabilitation-process/

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment/evidence-based-approaches-to-drug-addiction-treatment/behavioral-therapies

http://www.behavioradvisor.com/Tokens.html

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/understanding-drug-abuse-addiction

Hello, I'd like to present to you a new specialized service specifically for college students who struggle with stress and anxiety from school related issues. Almost everyone deals with stress and anxiety in their lives at some point in time, but for most college students, it is an unavoidable part of everyday life. But with this service, I will help to reduce all three of these issues that plague the college campus through seminars, interactive classes, and an activities center. Through this service, we will help to educate the students about stress, anxiety, and depression, how important it is to manage them, and how they can do so.
The focus of the seminars will be to inform the students of what these issues truly are and how serious they are to their mental and physical health. We want students to know that it is not a simple "brush-off-the-shoulder" matter. It can become as serious as developing a varying amount of brain damage as a result of a large amount of brain overuse or even developing a heart condition.
Along with informing them of the dangers of continued stress and anxiety, we will cover the ABC's of behavior and how they apply to managing these issues. We will concentrate how to identify the antecedents of the unwanted stress. We will focus on the antecedents of what appear to elicit stress in college students the most by considering the varying stimuli each student experiences throughout their day and in specified environments. If needed, a survey can be conducted throughout the campus of the university to verify exactly what the antecedents are that need to be focused on through the seminars.
After identifying the antecedents, we will correlate our findings with what behaviors are emitted pertaining to the students stress. In the interactive classes, we will survey and identify what behaviors are present within the class and then focus on what behaviors needs to be either reinforced or extinguished. This will depend upon the responses of the students in the class and whether the behaviors are beneficial or not.
Once this is established, the students must go out on their own and observe for themselves what the consequences are of their behaviors and if they are beneficial to their health. If they can identify that the behaviors are not desirable, then they will have to reevaluate what is needed in order to reduce their stress and anxiety.
Because of the difficulty of being able to identify the ABC's of behavior, we will also make it a point to explore other ways of managing stress and anxiety through things such as activity. This will be incorporated through interactive classes and an activity area. The interactive classes presented will help to identify and show how behaviors can be managed through the use of the ABC's of behavior.
In the activity area provided, it will be a year-round area set up specifically for de-stressing. It will include healthy snacks, specific areas to relax or talk to someone about your stress, and provide de-stressing activities such as coloring, crafts, yoga, or write in a public journal provided to be able to experience and see that the students are not alone and learn new ways of reducing and managing their stress.
With this service, anxiety and stress will not necessarily go away, but instead be reduced and provide students with the knowledge to manage it.

Terms: ABC's of behavior, antecedents, elicit, stimuli, environment, emitted, reinforce , extinguish, consequences, desirable

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-management.htm
https://experiencelife.com/article/the-science-of-stress/
http://www.adaa.org/tips-manage-anxiety-and-stress

Hart Academy and Behavioral Treatment Center and Services
Service Provided: Residential program which offers three programs designed to serve youth with a variety of specific treatment needs. These include a 90-day highly comprehensive program that targets youth new to the criminal justice system and are in need of a short term intervention, a community residential program for youth who are in need of a longer duration of stay, counseling services for troubled youths that are capable of providing Behavioral and Cognitive therapy, delinquent detention, and transportation services. Part of this service will include a day school for both residents and none residents. The school services will be made available to those who have experienced strife in regular public school systems.

Community Residential Treatment Program
The Community Residential Program serves male students 12-17 years of age. There is flexibility in the duration of stay. A typical stay will last 4-6 months and can be extended to 9-12 months. The program includes teaching students to learn responsibility for their actions and develop the ability to confront and manage negative behaviors. To successfully complete the program residents must advance through each of the four program phases, apply cognitive abilities learned from participation in the program, and be involved in the Patriot Club (Patriot= Mascot. Similar to a school spirit and promotion of participation of a student body). The four phases of the program include victim empathy, taking responsibility for their actions, learning alternatives to their behaviors, and relapse prevention.

Token Economy
A token economy is in place that uses a point card to record points earned, points spent, and penalties. This card will be used to establish a baseline for the frequency target behaviors. If there is misbehavior, or lack a desired behavior consequences may be necessary. Partial points can be awarded to a youth when his/her behavior is approximately the desired behavior. A youths behavior will be permanently logged and will be kept for analysis of progression of target behavior management and to note improvements in behavior.

Levels: 1-4
Each level will have an increase in privileges, access to certain desirable parts of the building, more freedom of choices, and a later bedtime.
Certain behaviors will set you back levels.
Low point totals will be consequenced (set back)
Serious rule violations can result in confinement (for protection reasons), and return to the first level. Quickly moving through levels can be rewarded by basics interests of the juvenile, recommendations to the courts based on this good behavior, and acceleration of the program (other appropriate rewards are also possible).

Rewards: Adequate resources for rewards and programming that appeal to the population are provided. These rewards provide reinforcement for desired behavior.
Level 1: 1 reward per week
Level 2: 3 rewards
Level 3: 5
Level 4: 9

• Morning participation and wake up activities 0 – 3 points
Room Cleanliness: 0 – 3 points
Hygiene: 0-3 points
• Breakfast Behavior: 0 – 3 points
• School Behavior: 0 – 5 points (per class hour)
Recreation/Leisure Time: 0 – 5 points
• Lunch Behavior: 0 – 3 points
• Dinner Behavior: 0 – 3 points
• Bedtime Behavior: 0 – 3 points
• Compliance and cooperation of day: 0 – 3 points
Extra Duties: 0 – 5 points per hour
Participation in treatments (if applicable): 0-5 points (other consequences must also be considered)

Behavior, Cognitive, Rewards, Reinforcement, Target Behavior, Desired Behavior, confront, manage, privileges, token economy, negative behaviors, consequences

For this assignment I will tell you all about my product that I made to help people that want to get healthy. I will also define all of the information I learned from this class to help people that weren’t in the class understand what I am saying. One of the biggest problems that everyone is talking about is losing weight or getting healthy. Many of them just talk about it and never actually do anything. They just don’t have any positive reinforcement to motivate them to do something that is aversive to them. Aversive means where a behavior is unpleasant. Reinforcement and punishment is a huge part of what people need in order to reach their goals. I am going to explain what this is exactly so you can understand what I am talking about. To start things off I would like to talk about BF Skinner and his Operant Conditioning. What is the difference between reinforcement and punishment? Reinforcers are responses from the environment that make that behavior to happen more often. Punishment is the exact opposite which mean they are responses from the environment that make that behavior less likely to happen. Now don’t get punishment confused with it only being negative. Both reinforcers and punishments can be either positive or negative. Positive means you are giving or putting in a stimuli and negative means taking away a stimuli. An example of a positive reinforcement would be if a mom wanted to motivate her kids to do the dishes more often, then after the kids do the dishes she give them some money for it. Because the kids like this, then they felt more motivated to the dished more often. The positive stimulus was the mom giving her kids the money. An example of a negative punishment would be if a kid stays out past there curfew so then there parents deiced to take away her technology. The negative stimuli is taking away that technology and the punishment is the child to most likely to not stay out later than their curfew. Punishment only displaces the behaviors. For this program, I will be using positive reinforcement because that seems to work the best, which I will explain later on why that is.
For my product, I plan to make a system that helps stop letting people have excuses for not starting that diet (diet of eating healthy). I will have a business where we make all the healthy food required to be called healthy for each day of the week for you. This means we will make your food for a week in advance and put them in tuba ware where you come and pick it up before your week starts up. I chose to do it this way because it cuts down a couple reasons why people wouldn’t start being healthy. First of all most people (including me right now) don’t understand what healthy is. What kind a meal can taste good but also be good for you? Then after finding out what is healthy, they get lazy and don’t want to go out to get all the ingredients and then also cook it when they get home. Staying healthy is probably at the bottom of the list of things you have to do each day. So why worry about work, kids, and also try to stay healthy when you can sign up for this program instead. Before you say that you don’t have enough money for it, stop. This is a very inexpensive program that even a college student would be able to pay without feeling bad about it.
The specific target behavior that we want the customers to emit is eating healthy with this system. We are trying to change their behavior from eating unhealthy to eating healthy every day. My question is, why do people want to change their behavior in the first place? There are four options to why someone one is wanting to change a behavior, if none of these apply to you, then don’t start this program because it won’t help you out. The first reason to change a behavior is that behavior is bothering us (you as an individual). Next is that the behavior is bothering others that are around you. Third is the behavior could lead to getting into trouble. Lastly the behaviors are illegal in the first place.
Not only will you get a natural contingency which is the feel good feeling with eating healthy, but you will also get tokens to reinforce you even more. The token of economy that I will use for this system is a punch card. Each day that you only eat the healthy food that we provide you, we will give you a punch in your card. In order that we know you aren’t cheating we have you on the honor system with picking a partner to know what you are eating. This punch cards is positive reinforcement to you because you will want to get as many punches as you can get. The reason why that is, is because of the reward you will get after 14 punches. This means you will get that reward every two weeks if you don’t cheat! How can the reward be so awesome? Well, most of us are filled with the many things we have to do in life so we need to have realize time too. The reward you will get is a free spa day at our own company. To get out of the way, the problem of the people that don’t like massages, you can also get a mud bath, hot rocks, and many more relaxing exercises you can choose from. If you really don’t like any of the exercises we provide then we allow a reward of twenty five dollars for you to spend wherever you would like. But going to the spa is a better choice. To know that the system is working we will provide a chart of how many punches each person gets. First we will start with a baseline which is the first week. The baseline is determined by asking the people before starting this program to record how many days where all their meals they ate that day were healthy. After that we should see a steady incline in the amount of days people eat healthy, which one punch equals one healthy day.
The punch card is called a certain type of intermittent scheduled reinforcement. There are four different schedule reinforcements. First is variable ratio which is after a certain amount of response is variably reinforced. This means even when you give a response with the right amount of time, you may or may not get a reinforcement. You may think “why would you try that response again if you don’t know for sure if you are going to get a reinforcement”. The reason why they still do it is because the reinforcement has happed before you they want to take that chance of it happening again. An example of a variable ratio would be a vending machine that could be broken. Say you put the right amount of money of $2.50 for a pop. If the vending machine is broken somewhat, then you may or may not get that reinforcement of a pop. But If do get a pop one of those times, then you will try it again. On a chart for Variable ratio it will go up straight but the reinforcement marks are intermittent. For fixed ratio, it is when you give a certain amount of responses then you will get a reinforcement each time. One example of this would be a Pancheros punch card. Each time you get 10 burritos you get a reinforcement of the 11th burrito being free. This punch card is always available so you for sure will get a free burrito each time you get ten of them. On the chart for fixed ratio it would go up the chart in a staircase fashion and the reinforcement marks would be consistent. This is the type of reinforcement we use for the punch card for eating healthy. Now for variable interval would be you get reinforcement after a varied amount of time. This would mean that even though you waited a certain time then gave a response, you may or may not get a reinforcement. A good example of this would be checking your email. You may get mail at 8, none at 12, a few at 4 and none again at 9. But you keep on checking because you know you could get a reinforcement of mail. In the chart for this you would go up straight but the reinforcement markers are intermittent. Lastly we have fixed interval. This is where the response is only reinforced after a certain amount of time. An example would be if you get paid every month. You give a response of working and after waiting an interval of one month, then you always get paid each month if you work. What the chart would look like for fixed interval would be as it goes up it will go in a scalloped fashion which the reinforcement markers being consistent.
Now I would like to go through the ABC’s of this behaviors I would like to change in my customers. First of all what are the ABC’s of behavior modification? A stands for antecedent which is a thing or event that existed before the behavior. B stand for behavior. C stands for consequence. Consequence isn’t what you think it means though. It means the result after emitting that behavior. This means it can either be aversive or pleasing. For this system, the antecedent is why you want to change this behavior. An example of this would be that you are overweight and you want yourselves to look better. Another would be that your family are saying that you are eating too unhealthy and that’s bad for you. The behavior that you then emit is starting this program where you eat healthy food every day. The consequences to this would then be pleasing. You will have that natural contingency and added on to that, you will get free spa days through the program.
Terms: Motivation, aversive, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative reinforcement, Reinforcement, BF Skinner, Operant Conditioning, Target behavior, Emit, natural contingencies, scheduled reinforcement, Behavior, baseline, Token economy, Abc’s, Antecedent, Consequence, variable ratio, fixed ratio, variable interval, fixed interval, intermittent, stimuli,

Have you ever wanted more out of your life but can’t seem to find a way? We make thousands of choices each day. But are you aware of why you make the choices you do? Have you even thought about it? Take a second to think about the last meal you just had, why did you chose that meal? Was it because that’s what you had lying around? Because it would help build your muscles after a workout? Maybe it just simply tasted good? Because it was cheap? The choices we make on a daily basis always have a ‘why’ behind it. Let’s take a look at the ABC’s of behavior to better understand where the ‘why’ stems from. A is the Antecedent, this is the environment the setting of the choice, B is Behavior this is the actual choice that you made and C is the consequence this is what happened because of the choice you made. Changing the Antecedent can greatly alter the behaviors chosen, changing the ‘why’ behind our behavior choice to get a desired consequence. But there is yet another force here that can alter our ‘why’, motivation.

Motivation comes in to play by changing the desired consequences. Let’s take a look at what you ate for lunch. Let’s say you ate a slice of pepperoni pizza and had a Coke to drink with it. What are some of the consequences of your actions? For one you feel less hungry and it tasted great putting you in a good mood. These are the positive consequences and it kind of makes you want to eat a pizza right? If your motivation was to feel good and less hungry you might make a similar lunch choice. But what about the negatives? Eating that pizza didn’t provide you with a good source of protein or vitamins. Drinking that Coca-Cola put 350 more calories added to your caloric intake which could lead to weight gain if the calories aren’t burnt. These are the negative consequences, and now that I said these things makes you second guess eating a pizza right? That’s because your motivation shifted from wanting to feel good, to providing the body with healthy substitutes, which is making you feel good about your choice to not eat the pizza. With simple words I was able to change your opinion on pizza for lunch using your motivation. That brings us to our model, Motivate Me!

Motivate Me! Is the hot new smart phone app that helps motivate you to the right choices, the choices that you want. With lead Behavioral Specialist Dr. Otto Maclin, we have developed a software that motivates you, Helps you set goals, and live a healthy life if you desire it. Using a combination of Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation strategies, accompanied with an operant conditioning model, we guide you to success for anything that you could want out of life. So how does it work?
There are three main aspects that this idea is generated around. Self-Analysis, Vision, and Goal Implementation. These three aspects allow our program to target a behavior at your command that you want to modify, enrich, or even diminish. This app is based around an intrinsic philosophy. In this process we have 3 general phases that we introduce to the client.
First Phase. Self-Analysis. In the self-analysis phase the program learns about the athlete. We start with the history. Move into discussing their likes. Then we bring about their hobbies as well as their enjoyments in any field. Also we have the client rank items that they view as most important. We even have the client pick their favorite role models.

The first page of the app the athlete puts in name another general history information. We want to understand the client. The program takes into account of the age of the client when discussing target behaviors and developing the goals that we will see in later phases. With that a useful tool would be past experiences in which we could relate certain experiences when discussing motivating systems.
The next section takes the client to a page in which they proceed to discuss their likes, dislikes, hobbies and favorite things they have enjoyed. This section is used to understand what the client values in life. This will help in our visual section where we read a visualization script relating to one of their hobbies. This also helps when giving videos of motivation, to promote a primed mental state, when days get tough.
The third section in the self-analysis phase the client will rank attributes of life in the order that they view most important to them, for example health, body shape/weight, work, family etc. Understanding what the client views as important in their life will help the program generate an accurate assessment of motivational cues. This will also help when discussing target behaviors.
The final section for self-analysis is a section in which we flash three pictures of successful people or popular role models in which they enjoy or respect the most. This section is here to generate a pool of potential motivating videos the client might enjoy.

The second phase is the visual phase. Here the client must learn why they emit the behaviors they do and how to elicit the behaviors they want. We start by asking the client to present information attending to what they want in the future. After we have learned about the passion in the client’s perception we can take the step to goal setting, and learning possible target behaviors. In our vision section we include a visualization script where we have the client sit in a quiet room close their eyes as we have a speaker read them a script that pertains to them.
In this phase the first thing you will see is a series of questions asking the client about their future aspirations. We do not ask them for their goals, but simply ask them where they vision their life in the next years. We use this to get a good understanding of the path the client wants to take.
The next section of this phase we ask the client to measure their success now and measure where they want it to be. In this process we prompt the client to think about what makes them truly happy. We ask if there was anything that they would do for free what it would be. Then from there measure the happiness satisfaction levels.
The final section of this phase is the visualization script. Here we take from the self-analysis section their favorite hobbies and select a hobby that has a pre made script. This script the client listens attentively as they view the scenario in their mind. Visualization is a huge tool, after the client has started the app with us they will be given each week a visualization script. This will result in the increased skill of visual perception. Here the athlete will have a plausible experience with their vision of their goal progress.

Goal implementation. In the goal implementation phase we take the client and introduce them to the SMART goal setting method where we take the S specific, M measurable, A attainable, R realistic T time based attributes and apply it to a list of target behaviors that they identified. Here we discuss the short term and long term goals the client has identified, of which it has an edit function for any changes to goals.
The first section of this phase we use the clients identified aspirations and have the client list target behaviors that present themselves as distractions to the aspirations. Here the client discusses possible alternatives to their behavioral choices. After these options have been stressed the client then choses one target behavior for each aspirations they identified. We used this section to understand and asses the progress of the client as we as aid us in the graphing system of the program.
The next section of this phase is the section in which we have the client apply the SMART method for their given target behavior. Then the client has to give a time schedule for the target behavior to take place. They program then takes this information and applies a calculated week by week and day by day schedule based on the SMART guideline.
The final section of this phase is customize the client’s messages and alerts that the app will utilize. The customization goes from background color all the way to preferred motivational videos. With each alert the app will give a motivational video alarm with it. Here the client watches the video of a successful individual overcoming the obstacles in their pursuit to success. Videos can also range into speeches about (for example) family if the client showed a big importance on family or health. For example. If the same client target behavior was to exercise each day after work, the family and health motivational cue will go something like. “A healthy heart is the product of good cardio exercise, a healthy heart will add on more years to your life giving you more time to enjoy playing chess with your grandkids.” Here the program would take the clients interest in family, health, and chess to generate a motivational cue that primes them to activate the ‘why’ behind the behavior choice to workout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
This YouTube clip is from TED TALK. In this video we see a combination of the visual aspects Ted talks about through a comic like drawing created by Cognitive Thinking. This video explains what motivates people. And for that reason what doesn’t motivate people when we think about the efficiency of it. HE explains his topic with 3 main ideas. Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. This says that with these three things this is how people get motivated. In a business model.
http://psychology.about.com/od/eindex/f/extrinsic-motivation.htm
This web source talks about the intrinsic vs extrinsic model. Here we can look at how people view the motivational models, there is a good time for each of these. This web source shows that we can use extrinsic motivators to increase our intrinsic motivation levels.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiR79fb2OPJAhXDTSYKHZgmC1cQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cod.edu%2Fpeople%2Ffaculty%2Fosulliva%2Fphys1554%2FWeightMatters%2Fplan.html&psig=AFQjCNE6f0hEAnR4BtQQOiSE4zBEMVXwVQ&ust=1450469126481831
This source is a picture of the SMART model.
All other information was previously attained in other classes relating to Sports Psychology. Here I was able to learn the procedures and think deeply about the choices people make and how they can make better ones.
Terms: Behavior, ABC’s of Behavior, Operant Conditioning, Conditioning, Target Behavior, Behavior, Antecedent, Consequence, Emit, Elicit, Diminish, Behavioral Specialist, Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Motivation, SMART model, Goal setting, Visualization,

For my behavioral change project, I chose to try to reduce my calorie intake and decrease my weight. I want to adapt what I learned from this into a token economy based on reducing weight of those who are overweight and also in their teens and early twenties. I think that being able to produce a program with this age group and life style in mine would really help promote a healthier life style in the long run and impact many lives.
Taking from my own experiences stress is a large reason for over eating. Another problem is boredom eating. With this token economy I hope to reduce or eliminate both of these problems while still allowing teens and early twenty somethings to live an enjoyable life. This program is going to focus mainly on the subgroup of gamers. In this subgroup activity is hard to come by because of the importance of playing digital games. The tokens of this economy will be points stored digitally. This helps to prevent issues of counterfeiting and stolen points if they don’t exist physically. This does mean that internet access would be required to track and use points.
The main thing I will be selling is a device that acts as a distributer of reinforcers. This device will attach to your gaming device or computer and will only allow access to content after points have been used. The reinforcer is access to gaming content or internet use for points. This device would have to be attached to a peripheral device such as a fit bit style device that tracks activity and can track food intake also. So let’s say that you want to play your favorite game today you will have to earn points to unlock access time with the game be performing a daily exercise regime and by the food choices you make each day. Junk foods will not add points or deduct points from your total where as good and balanced food choices will add points thus adding more time to game that day.
With this concept the idea of the reinforcer losing effectiveness will be avoided by using something so integral to the person’s life as internet access or gaming. In this day and age, it’s rare to find someone who hasn’t gamed or doesn’t use the internet. There will also be variety in the different exercises that have to be performed every day to help alleviate boredom. By requiring this set of tasks to be performed before every day’s use of the internet or gaming system it is a form of continuous reinforcement schedule and will lead to the fastest results. Once the system has been in place for some time the points for each reward may be lowered or raised based on results to help the person get the target behaviors that are seeking. The idea is that eventually the system would be unneeded once the person has a routine in place and have reached a goal weight.
Terms/ behavior, consequence, token economy, target behavior, reinforcer, continuous schedule, counterfeiting, distributor.

The product I am going to be explaining in this assignment is a token system for parents who are struggling to improve their child’s behavior. This token system be primarily at home or when the family is out in public, but only when a parent is with them. It is a fairly frequent problem that younger children refuse to help with household chores, fight with siblings, and be mouthy towards an authority figure. My invention is a token application for Iphones and Androids this app will work by the parent keeping track of how many tokens their child has earned, there is different levels of rewards depending on how many tokens the child has and how long they want to keep ahold of these tokens. Since most children are motivated by reinforcement rather than punishment, this app will help encourage the child to keep up good behaviors and be rewarded with a certain amount of time on or a family outing. The different level of rewards will start out with fifteen minutes of free time on the computer or tablet (whatever the child chooses), the next level will be worth more tokens and allow the child to pick between what movie to watch for their family movie night of the week. The third token category is worth the most tokens and takes the longest to achieve. This will have rewards like going out for ice cream with one parent and going to see a movie. This will reinforce the child’s behaviors at home because these rewards can be applied to any child, these are rewards that are wanted and children will feel better about themselves when they have accomplished a goal. This will help out with the parents as well because it won’t seem like they are on their child’s back and nagging them about every specific thing they have neglected to do. This invention is fairly simple but it will change the way an adolescent behaves for the better. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky developed the idea of scaffolding. This is defined as a temporary framework that is put up for support and access to meaning and taken away as needed when the child secures control of success with a task. I will be using this idea to help form the point of this app. This app is not meant for older children, and shouldn’t be used throughout the time the child is at home. This app will help shape future behaviors of the child and be more socially involved. The idea with a token system is to get children to do these behaviors automatically when they grow older and not be devastated if they do not gain a token or even a reward from this. The point here is to condition the child to be nice, do their chores, and be an asset to the community. Children who do not get this idea instilled in them when they are young grow up to be citizens who are not always socially accepted. These are the people who do not learn right from wrong, and are normally social outcasts. This could have been prevented when they were young children and could have easily learned from a token system with rewards. The big difference between reinforcement and punishment is that reinforcement looks at the achievements the individual has made. Punishment comes into play when an authority figure looks at the bad or not so socially acceptable, and are positively or negatively punished. Studies have shown that this actually negatively influences the individual and hurts them in the long run. This is why rewarding and reinforcing a child is best, because they learn how to become someone who follows the rules. Without the ability to follow rules an individual will be getting nowhere in life. This is put very bluntly but it’s true. Someone would not be able to maintain a job because they would have to follow rules and take orders from someone who is higher standing then they are. Getting this app will help the relationship between you and your child by giving them rewards when they accomplish something positive. The child will understand exactly what they have to accomplish in under to get the rewards that they desire. This helps the parent because they won’t have to be on their child’s case all the time about completing their chores because the child will feel motivated to do so. The token system has been around for a very long time; I have modified it to be more relevant for today’s children because what motivates them is different then what motivated children a few years ago to complete their duties on time. When I was a kid the rewards that would motivate me were to have extra time outside or being able to stay up an hour later to be able to watch The Simpsons show with my older brother. The key element here is for parents to find what motivates their child, because if the reward is not worth it, then there is little that is going to get the child’s attention to do the target behavior. The target behavior may need different rewards in order for it to be instilled in the child, but it will work eventually. This takes time and patients but it is bound to work with children in due time. This product will help obtain a target behavior for a child and mold them to become a self-efficient adult.
Terms: behavior, token system, rewards, motivated, reinforcement, punishment, scaffolding, condition, positive, negative, target behavior,
URLs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1310790/
http://discipline.about.com/od/increasepositivebehaviors/a/Create-A-Token-Economy-System-To-Improve-Your-Childs-Behaviors.htm
http://www.educateautism.com/token-economy.html

BNC
Final

The the final assignment I will be developing a service based on behavioral science with what I've learned in this class this semester that is focused on Recycling. Behavior modification is figuring out what is causing the behavior and replacing it with a healthier one, behavior activation.
First thing's first you have to focus in on the science behind the product of what the behavioral principles are. It is helpful to break it into the ABCs where A equals Antecedent, B equals Behavior, and C equals Consequence. B.F. Skinner states that almost all behavior can be broken down into these components. Starting with before such as the antecedent would be At home, then the behavior is recycling and after that is the consequence of preventing waste of useful materials and reducing the consumption of fresh raw materials. “When you can control the antecedents and the consequences we can start to control the behaviors.” So in order to do the behavior you have to emit it and in order to make a behavior occur you it means elicit. Our target behavior, the behavior of interest we are trying to increase in frequency, in this case is to increase recycling. We now have to figure out the contingencies related to this behavior.
This target behavior will be achieved by positive reinforcement this will involved something aversive. This will be done by self-reinforcement which occurs when the reinforcer is self delivered. In order for the environment to change we need to have an establishing operation which will increase the chance of the reinforcer to be used. In order to provide a desirable stimulus the reinforcement is drinking a glass of chocolate milk before bed. This would be a secondary reinfocer because it is not biologically relevant although it is food it's not a need. The reinforcer being used isn't as broad in value and is intrinsic.
The schedule of reinforcement for this service is referred to as fixed interval schedules because the reinforcement comes after an interval of time.
We will now focus on the self-directed behavior steps. The first step is setting a goal. Increase recycling at home. Secondly, define/specify the goal as a set of target behaviors. This has to be precise, manageable, measurable and it has to fit within the practical scope of our daily lives. Have an organized tubs before you recycle therefore it's easier to measure and sort. Next keep a record, keeping a diary is manageable and easy. Write down when you recycle and what it was. The fourth step is graphing a baseline. This is important because you can see the routine to increase behaviors over time. Determine contingencies is next, this is a self-directed behavior procedure so in order to self-evaluate our behavior against some criterion we have to self-administer reinforcers. I chose the reinforcer of drinking one glass of chocolate milk before bed because it relates to the activity. After the milk gallon is finished you can then recycle in return. The sixth step is determining the antecedents. Antecedents as stated earlier elicit behaviors. We will use what we know to help achieve our goals by placing his journal to take notes in places where you will be reminded. Likewise you will put the recycling container in the kitchen where you can see it not in the garage when you don't want to go out there in the first place. Lastly you will then implement and adjust the contingencies. If things don't go as smooth don't give up, Thorndike's puzzle box research is a good reminder of trial and error.
Goals are very important. Goals need to be realistic. They also need to have a specific time frame. It may help to have sub goals that focus on smaller set goals to achieve on the way to a larger goal. That way you can reinforce the smaller successes as they occur. The goal needs to be achievable and you'll need to have the ability to do so. Manageable and maintenance are also things to consider when setting goals. You need to believe in your goals otherwise it will be harder to achieve them, also known as support base.
You have to be able to measure the behavior. This will be monitored on your fridge right by the recycling container to be able to monitor the behavior. You can then measure it by how any containers you place in it at the end of each week every Sunday you will add it up. We are serving the function of recycling and reducing raw materials and preventing waste.
The token economy of providing a recycling service to pick up your recycling will increase the likely hood of people recycling allowing their self-directed behaviors to increase their frequency of the behavior. This service will be clearly delivered by brochers and allow convenience for individuals. The company will have a ticket system that is safe, easily dispensed, and can't be counterfeit. The company will keep a track of their own on how many you receive. After receiving 10 tickets your next pick up is free! This will encourage you to continue recycling.
Eventually you will revisit the baseline to notice your progress. If the behavior is increasing in frequency the reinforcer is doing it's job and eventually you will no longer do the reinfocer and make that behavior come natural in habit.

The product I am pitching today is an app for your mobile device called MyDiabetes. The reason I chose to develop this product is because I have family members who are diagnosed with diabetes, and one of my best friends was diagnosed a few years ago. His case was so severe he almost died because of it, and I feel as though there are many other people out there who may not be managing their diabetes in the correct way. While not everyone can prevent being diagnosed with diabetes (depending on the type) everyone who is diagnosed can help manage it. This app will be available for a person's Android or Apple product, so it is accessible to anyone who may need to make use of this app. The purpose of this mobile app is to elicit good behaviors for people diagnosed with either Type One, or Type Two Diabetes.
As you can see the antecedent for using this app is having Type One, or Type Two Diabetes. The purpose of using this app is so diagnosed persons can monitor the behaviors they are emitting, and through positive reinforcement (which will be discussed more later on) using this app will hopefully produce good behaviors being emitted by the diagnosed person. As a consequence of emitting good behaviors the diagnosed person will live a healthier lifestyle, their diabetes will be better managed, and they will live a longer life.
In the United States alone there are twenty-one million people diagnosed with diabetes, and approximately eight million people that are undiagnosed. That means almost twenty-eight percent of people with diabetes do not even know they have it! This is extremely nerve-wracking because diabetes is a very serious illness, and many health complications can come from it. Some of the complications that can result from having diabetes are: hypoglycemia, hypertension, dyslipidemia, heart attack, stroke, blindness/other eye problems, kidney disease, nerve damage, skin complications, and amputations can also be very common. Diabetes is also the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, and in 2010 there were 69, 071 deaths that could be attributed to diabetes. To help manage diabetes, and hopefully prevent many of these things from occurring, there are multiple things that can be done. If a person wants to manage their diabetes they should emit healthy eating behaviors, be physically active, and consult with a healthcare professional. These behaviors will be reinforcing to the person because it will help make them feel a lot better. Having diabetes is also very expensive, so you can reinforce yourself by taking better care of yourself so you do not have added expenses on top of the ones you will already have. Studies have shown that someone with diabetes will spend a little over two times more than the average person who does not have diabetes!
So you may be wondering what this app, MyDiabetes, has to offer, and how it will help modify a person's behavior. The MyDiabetes app will be the best app for anyone suffering from diabetes. It will allow you to track many different things on a daily basis, which is very important to do whenever you are wanting to modify your behavior. It is almost like an online journal, and since you can carry your phone with you anywhere you will also be able to report your behaviors at any time. In it's entirety the behavioral class the MyDiabetes app is aiming to change is a healthier lifestyle for the diagnosed person, and then through different features on the app it will have different target behaviors for the person. The MyDiabetes app includes a calendar feature where you can enter in appointments with your healthcare provider, and then MyDiabetes will send you notifications of upcoming appointments. MyDiabetes will also have a feature where you can track your water consumption of the day, what you have eaten for that day, and what physical activities you have done. Each week the MyDiabetes app will compile the data you enter, and create a chart so you can see what areas you are doing well in, and what areas you are not. The MyDiabetes app will also target things that are specifically about the person's diabetes as well; these include, being able to track your blood sugar levels at variable intervals throughout the day (However, you can have it alert you at fixed intervals if you would like), you can track the amount of insulin you take before meals, and you can even have it alert you of the times you should be eating throughout the day to make sure you are keeping yourself healthy. Some bonus features this app will include are links to diabetic friendly recipe sites, a blog where diabetics can discuss things they have found that personally help them manage on a day to day basis, and a meal generator link that will provide them with weekly meal plans if they are unsure of what to eat, or are just tired of eating the same old things all of the time.
As you can see the MyDiabetes app offers many benefits to the person using it, but that may not be reinforcing enough for the individual. In order to ensure that the diagnosed person is actually utilizing this app the product involves a sort of token system. This system involves positive reinforcement for the individual to be rewarded for good behaviors. There will be a sort of "bank" on the app that will keep count of the total points you earn. As I previously mentioned before, you can chart different data throughout each week; what you can do is set up a goal to hit each week and if you reach the goal you get fifteen points. The user will want to make sure the goal is realistic, so they can actually reach it. Other ways you can receive points are by simply opening the app (one point), entering in data (five points each time), writing reviews on the recipes provided on the app (five points each time), if you share the app with a friend you receive ten points, and you can receive ten points for rating the app. These points build up, and then you can later trade them in for backup reinforcers. The backup reinforcers will include a fifteen dollar gift card to a place of your choosing, ten dollars off your next insulin prescription, a free week of diabetic friendly snacks, or a free insulin/needle carrier.
I believe the MyDiabetes app is a fun, easy, and reinforcing way for people diagnosed with diabetes to take better care of themselves. I believe you should invest in this app because it will help save people's lives, and make make it so diabetes is no longer the seventh leading cause of death in the United States!
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/data/statistics/2014statisticsreport.html
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
http://glucerna.com/diabetes-nutrition-management?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=%20diabetes%20food&utm_content=Diabetes%20&%20PreDiabetes%20Food_Broad&utm_campaign=NonBrand_Diet%20and%20Nutrition_Broad%20
http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/taking-care-your-diabetes-every-day
http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/?referrer=https://www.google.com/
Terms: elicit, behavior, antecedent, emitting, positive reinforcement, emitted, consequence , emit. reinforcing, reinforce, fixed intervals, variable intervals, behavioral class, target behaviors, token system, rewards, goal, backup reinforcer

Hello everyone! My name is Dr. Stanek and I am the head of this behavioral change group. We have conducted many studies for relieving anxiety from employees and have helped other companies like this one. I'm thrilled to be here to inform you all of the steps, or what us behaviorists called the ABC's of behavior, to make sure you emit the positive target behaviors that are needed in a work environment.

First I would like to explain what the ABC's are and why they are so crucial for this to be successful. Antecedents, behaviors, and consequences are the core of the behavioral approach because they show us the before and after of a certain behavior. If we could find the antecedents to our employee’s anxious behaviors, we would be able to alter them to elicit a more pleasurable consequence. The antecedent is the environment that is occurring before the behavior. These can determine what behavior will occur based on appropriateness. The behavior is the main action that we focus on; it’s the target behavior that we either want to increase or decrease. And the consequence is the event that happen after the behavior is emitted. This can be pleasurable or aversive depending on the environment and circumstances.

We need to discuss this change through the whole upper management team, supervisors, and employees using the same explanation to avoid confusion. This goes for deciding the target behaviors as well because we all want to have the same understanding to avoid confusion and frustration. A problem that can happen when people have a different understanding is that extinction can occur. Extinction is when the target behavior is no longer being reinforced so it eventually stops. This is a major road block in our experiment because we would then have to create different ways to reinforce the target behavior.

This brings me to another important This is a controversial debate because some believe punishment makes people work harder and faster. But research has shown that reinforcement is better for learning because it promotes the learning process and makes it enjoyable. I highly suggest reinforcing employees to emit the target behaviors on a continuous reinforcement schedule at the beginning. This means reinforcing every time the behavior is emitted. Then gradually move onto a variable ratio schedule. A VR schedule is when the employee doesn’t know how many times they need to emit the target behavior to be reinforced. This is the best reinforcement schedule, in my opinion, for this environment because the employees will try their best to elicit the behaviors that will be reinforced at random times.

Creating a token economy is a great to involve the employees in this process. The reinforcer will be a token, this will be discussed in a bit, and it can be cashed in for better reinforcers. Many teachers for younger children use token economies to promote cleaning up, sharing, doing homework, or being polite. It can be used as a helpful parenting tool as well. But it can also be used in a work environment. A token can be a ticket, a bead, a sticker, anything that represents progress. When cashed in, the bigger tokens can be a longer break, added days to vacation, or maybe over time opportunities (paid time and a half).
Now that I have briefly explained some of the important aspects of my behavioral change experiment, I want to apply these concepts to your specific company. I have been told anxiety is an issue that many employees have and it tends to affect their work and time. Let’s apply the ABC’s to anxious behaviors.
Example one: An employee is losing time to finish their paperwork that has an assigned due date. Because of the little time that is left, the employee rushes to finish it and does not put in their best effort. Anxiety rises during this experience and the result of the anxious behavior was poorly done /rushed paperwork and an aversive association with their job and paperwork. The ABC’s for this situation are: A- due date was placed on the paperwork, B- employee started late and rushed to finish the job, and C- the paperwork is done poorly and the experience is associated aversively with their job. A solution to this issue is to not procrastinate. I know this is easier said than done but steps can be done to alter the ABC’s. When given paperwork, make a to do list for each day and one for throughout the day. Crossing off simple things creates a boost of confidence and a feeling of accomplishment. We want an enjoyable and productive atmosphere in our work place to ensure that things are getting done. Another solution is to set timers for work time and break time. When there is no break, employees feel sluggish and unmotivated to begin work. A token can be given when supervisors notice an employee following the check list and are on task. The token could be an early day off because the employee was productive during their whole shift. I would encourage the employees and supervisors to keep a behavioral diary to record the ABC’s of the desired behaviors. This way we can know what elicits those behaviors and it is a good way to stay on track.

* Further explanation: The behavioral diary is a tool for direct assessment. Direct assessment is when the individual or others directly record the behaviors. It’s direct because the person is recording themselves or another person is seeing the behaviors from that individual and recording them.

Example two: An employee is assigned a large project and it very important to the company. The employee is excited and anxious because they don’t want to disappoint their boss or make mistakes. This results in them wasting time because they feel overwhelmed and are unsure of how to start. The ABC’s of this situation are: A- employee is assigned important project, B- employee procrastinates because they are overwhelmed, and C- possibly turn in a project that wasn’t thoroughly thought out or planned. Large projects do create anxiety and this is a natural reaction. How to avoid wasting time due to anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed is to create smaller steps for each large part of the project. This is similar to the to do lists in the previous example. Creating smaller steps alleviates stress and the employee is more likely to see everything coming together this way. A token that can be given here could be over time if the employee is working hard and upper management can see continuous progress. The bigger reinforcer from that token would be a larger pay check.

As we can see the ABC’s can be different for certain situations but they can all be changed to produce a pleasurable consequence. I want to reiterate that positive reinforcement is the most beneficial technique to elicit productivity and relieve anxiety. Positive reinforcement is when something is added to the situation to increase the behavior. Over time was added to an employee’s schedule to increase their productivity.

The people who keep track of the tokens and can distribute them are only the supervisors and upper management. The tokens need to go through upper management before supervisors can give them out though. This is to ensure that everyone sees the same target behaviors and can agree that those behaviors are being emitted. Again, this is to avoid confusion and extinction. Some tokens can only be distributed from upper management, such as more vacation days, because those are more serious reinforcers since they can affect the future schedules being made and the pay checks given from the company. The tokens need to be recorded in a behavioral diary and this must be kept in the upper management and supervisors offices to avoid being tampered with.

After a few months, my group and I will come back to see the progress that is being made from your behavioral diaries. If need be, we will make changes to the process. The changes do not mean that things are being done wrong; it’s just to make sure that mind numbing routines are not occurring. We want your employee’s alert, productive, and happy while at their job. Changes are normal and if you believe that some need to be made then please do so. We are here to help you and your company! Every time we come back to check on things, we will give your upper management progress reports until we believe that our service is no longer needed because everyone is doing such a great job. Communication is key! And remember, positive reinforcement is the way to go when creating a productive and stress free work place.


Terms: behavioral change, the ABC's, emit, positive, target behaviors, antecedents, consequences, behaviors, elicit, environment, pleasurable, aversive, extinction, reinforced, reinforce, reinforcement, punishment, continuous schedule, variable ratio, token economy, behavioral diary, direct assessment, positive reinforcement

We’re nearing the end of 2015. The new year will be here before we know it. This time of year people often indulge in foods and spending money. It’s easy to do these things this time of year while leaving little burden on our conscious. “I’ll get in shape after the new year.” “I’ll start saving money and keeping track of my finances once the holidays are over.” New year’s resolutions are a very common tradition to celebrate the new year. While waiting for the clock to strike twelve, we share with others what we would like to accomplish in the upcoming year. These things range from losing weight to spending more time with family to saving up to buy a new car. During the next couple of weeks or so after January first, the once full gyms are empty, not one phone call has been made to parents or children in a week, and the savings fund had to be used on rent. Why is this? This type of behavior repeats itself year after year. Is it just in our nature to not be able to stick with something to meet our goals? What if I told you that by making a few simple changes to the way you decide to change your behavior, this next year would be your most successful one yet. By visiting our company and meeting with one of our behavior modification consultants, you can finally achieve your goals that you have been trying to reach for so long.
How does our company work? First, I feel I need to clarify something; Any time of the year is a good time to change something in your life. It does not have to be right after New Year’s. That being said, we are open year round. What a client would need to do first, is show up with a goal in mind. We only accept one goal at a time, as we find that too many changes in a behavior is too much for the client to handle and will result in none of the goals being met. After the client arrives, they explain their goal to the receptionist, and then they are sent to a behavior modification consultant that specializes in what they would like to accomplish. Some of the specialties that our consultants have are weight loss, fitness, finances, business, education, and family planning. The majority of goals that people seem to come to us with fit under these categories. Those that don’t fit under these categories meet with our general organization consultants. Once they are sent to one of the consultants, the consultant asks the client questions pertaining to what they would like to accomplish, their daily life, and what has interfered with reaching their goals in the past.
The main objective of the first meeting is to clarify the client’s goal. People usually come to us with their goals being very vague. Their goals are usually things like losing weight, saving money, and getting healthy. These are called behavior classes. What we would like for them to decide on is a target behavior. To explain this, let’s look at a person who come to us with the goal of “getting healthy”. Many target behaviors can fit into that behavior class such as eating less sugar, not eating processed food, lifting weights, running, and taking vitamins. Some of these target behaviors may not be possible or may be too difficult for that specific client. They may have asthma and not be able to run. They may not have enough money to buy foods that aren’t processed. We find it very important for the target behavior to fit the client's needs and lifestyle to ensure that the client is successful in reaching their goal. The target behavior must be precise, manageable, measurable, and able to fit into the client’s daily life. Also, during the first meeting, the client will decide on a way to keep track of their behavior. Say the person who wants to get healthy decides that the best target behavior for their lifestyle is to run for two miles every day. This is precise and measurable, and the client says that they are able to do this, physically and timewise. The consultant would ask the client of their preferred ways to track their running. This could include journaling, using a treadmill that displays the distance, or using a running app on an electronic device. The client would then decide which they would like to do. For the first week, the client would need to determine what the client’s baseline performance is. The baseline performance for this example would be how much and often the client runs without reinforcement, which we will get to later. After determining the target behavior and way to measure their behavior, we will make an appointment with the client a week from that day. The client then tries reach their target behavior during their first week.
During the second meeting, the client will present their baseline performance to their consultant, who will then graph the baseline. The graph will show when the client ran the most and when they ran the least and how long they ran each time. The consultant will then ask the client about problems that they ran into. For this client, they may have picked too long or too short of a distance to start at or needed to be more specific about when they were planning on running (morning, afternoon, night). Looking at the graph can show when problems arose, and help the client determine what may have been a problem in reaching their target behavior. The target behavior is then adjusted to fit the client’s life better. The next step for this is determining the reinforcer. A reinforcer is used to heighten the likelihood of a person emitting a certain behavior. It is important that when choosing a reinforcer that the reinforcer does not conflict with the target behavior. If the target behavior is to run every morning their reinforcement shouldn’t be to allow themself to sleep in late. It also needs to be determined when and how the reinforcement will be administered. The client would choose something that really like to have or like to do to act as a reinforcer. After choosing what the reinforcer will be, they choose when it will be administered. Will it be administered after every time they emit the behavior? Will the reinforcement be weekly? They will choose, with the help of the consultant, when the reinforcement will occur. Another thing that would be determined during this meeting is the the antecedents. Antecedents are things in a person’s environment that influence the behavior in occurring. The client may need to change things in their environment to ensure that they emit their target behavior. For the client who would like to run in the morning every day, they may need to set an alarm clock every morning at 6:00 to be able to run before school. Something that may help them is laying out their running clothing the night before. These antecedents would influence the person to emit the behavior of running in the morning. After the second meeting is over, the person would leave, and continue trying to achieve their target behavior while this time using their reinforcement as often as was determined in their meeting. They would still use their means of keeping track of their behavior this week. *
The client would return to meet with their consultant after their week of reinforcing their target behavior. They would bring their recording means to show the consultant how they did. The client would determine if they needed to change their reinforcement if it didn’t work for them or any antecedents that needed changed. If they do, the consultant would help them adapt the behavior modification plan with them. If the client is comfortable with their plan and feel good about their achievements, they are able to make this their last meeting, while still continuing their reinforcement. If not, the person can continue to schedule weekly meetings with their consultant. If a person decides that they would like to stop making meetings, but later on feel like they need help again, they can continue their meetings where they left off. Our company has found that self-directed behavior modification to achieve goals has been the most effective way for a person to change their behavior and turn their life around. Any questions?

*We also offer a reinforcement service where our company will sent a reminder text or call at a determined time during the day or night.

Terms: Behavior, New Year’s Resolution, Behavior Modification, Goal, Behavior Class, Target Behavior, Baseline Performance, Reinforcement, Emit, Antecedent, Self-directed Behavior

College students tend to be a group of people that deal with high levels of stress as a part of the way the system of higher learning is designed. While during finals weeks, Universities will often try to address this stress by bringing in puppies and such, there should be a better way to help address this stress. My company seeks to answer this need. We believe that this bandaid system of finals week destressors isn't the correct way to deal with student mental health. We want to change the behaviors and situations surrounding stress, and help equip the student to deal better with stress in the long run, giving them tools to help reduce stress and anxiety for more than a week every semester.

One thing that sets us apart from other programs is that we try to specialize our programs for each separate college or department that is on campus. When we come into a new department, we start our research by both consulting research already done on those type of students, and then administer questionnaires to the students in that department to get an idea of specifically what their problems regarding stress are. Once we have this information we can then develop a program of both seminars on self-help techniques, and other ways to incite target behaviors that will have the consequence of lowering stress.

To give you an idea of how our program works, we will examine a group of students we have already worked with, and walk you through how we created and proctored our program. We will examine students from the music department at a college. After conducting some research and polling students, we came up with several areas that students felt contributed to stress. Music students are a unique group of students, due to the fact that in addition to purely academic stressors, they also often have performance related anxiety, and more anxieties related to how they perform with their instrument or voice. They also have more normal anxieties such as preparing for tests, finals week, finding enough time to both practice and study, and still have time to relax. When speaking with professors in the department, their biggest complaint was that students tend to push assignments up to deadlines, which in the end results in more anxiety for the students.

Taking these factors into account, we developed a couple different programs to help address these issues. The first one was a required seminar for incoming students that was a crash course in principles of behavior modification. We taught them the ABCs of behavior. Antecedent, behavior, consequence. We then examined how this relationship can be used to help change negative scenarios in their performance. We looked at performance anxiety, one of the antecedents that leads to a poor performance is physical symptoms, such as butterflies in the stomach, shallow breathing, increased heart rate. This leads to emitting more nervous and negative thought patterns, and can have the consequence of a poor performance. We explored how changing the antecedent of physical symptoms can then change behaviors emitted and consequences of performance. If when you feel those physical symptoms start, you instead start taking deep breaths, and attempt to use those breaths to regulate and slow your heart rate, you will find that it also leads to you emitting more calm thoughts, being more at peace, and without this distraction, you are able to better perform.

Some students also struggled with not procrastinating, or not putting in enough time in the practice rooms. As part of our seminars, we explored how often we don't do the things we know we should be doing, because there is something that we perhaps shouldn't be doing, but that we would rather do. We introduced the idea of using the Premack Principle in these scenarios. Instead of just bearing down, and refusing to do the activity you would rather be doing, we suggested turning that activity into a reward for emitting the target behavior of studying that you are trying to elicit. By doing this, you turn an activity that is negative, into a positive, that encourages you to emit the correct behavior. In addition, sometimes practicing can be hard due to the environment we are practicing in; the very environment where we are doing a task is a powerful antecedent in how we perform our target behavior. Because of this, if you find yourself less able to practice, or less motivated whenever you go to a practice room, try changing the environment where you practice. Now this may not always be a viable option, a lot of instruments tend to be very loud, but there were outside areas at this college actually designed as performance venues, and when not in use for performance, could be used by a student for practice. By changing the antecedent, the consequence can be a much more successful or meaningful practice section.

Outside of our seminars, we decided to implement a token economy to encourage students to complete assignments before deadlines. The defined behaviors that would result in a token were turning assignments in to a professor via email or the schools internet grading system a minimum of one day before the assignment was due. Everyday homework counted as one token, projects counted as ten. The tokens themselves we points that were banked on the site where they turned in assignments and could check their grades, so they were always kept abreast of how they were faring. This was a convenient part of the system, due to it being online, there was less cause for a professor to make an error or have any inconsistent rewarding of points. The back-up reinforcers were small gift cards to local shops, that were worth fifteen points, additional free tickets to shows put on by the large venue on campus, that often attracted famous pop singers, musicals, etc., and these cost 35 points. Noting how often students attended the small convenience store style shops on campus, there were also gift cards for these that cost fifteen points as well. Some students also found the requirement of attending a certain number of recitals on campus every semester to be a chore, so they could earn one recital they did not have to attend, for the sum of 40 points. The goal in offering these back up reinforcers was to have a selection that would appeal to a large cross-section of students, and result in more buying into the program. This is an example of a token economy that relies on positive reinforcement, we aren't looking to punish any behaviors directly, we instead reward the target behavior that we want to increase. This also leads to students appreciating the program instead of resenting it, or the people enforcing it.

This is just one example of how we seek to provide customized solutions to the stress encountered by students, and not seek a simple one size fits all, one week a semester program.

Terms-emit, elicit, antecedent, behavior, consequence, Premack Principle, token economy, back-up reinforcers, positive reinforcement, punishment, reinforce.

Hello, I am here to offer you an new product to increase customer satisfaction across stores nationwide. How often do you hear about people coming into any of the superstores and spend way too much time in there because they got lost trying to find what they need. From a psychological perspective, people who are not pleased after a visit are more likely to find somewhere else that can please them. The customer leaves the store after wasting their time in a disgruntled mood when they can’t find the one item they came in for. In a competitive market, you need to work on increasing customer satisfaction to pull ahead of the other companies. After your business, Target, saw a 3 point drop in customer satisfaction from 2013-2014, bringing customer satisfaction should be one of your number one goals.
The product I am bringing you today is called FindIt. FindIt is a small computer system that will be in each of the departments in the stores; electronics, grocery, home, outdoors etc. that can be used to search for where the item the customer is looking for. Using the stores inventory, where the item is located, and recent sales of that item, customers can see where the item is located and if there are any left in stock. Many people come into the stores and will spend valuable time trying to find what they are looking for on their own before ever asking an employee for help. Showing that they don’t want to ask questions, FindIt should almost be a necessity for you. Increasing customer satisfaction should be one of your main goals.
Using the ABCs of Behavior before FindIt
Antecedent = Customers have an item they want to purchase.
Behavior= They aimlessly waste time searching through the aisles in an attempt to find what they are looking for.
Consequence= They leave, upset at spending so much time in the store or even without purchasing anything.
Working FindIt into the ABCs starts the same way.
A=Customers have an item they want to purchase.
B= Customers come in the front door and use the FindIt service to see the amount of the product left and where they can find it.
C= Customer leaves happy and comes back more frequently to continue doing business with you.
To talk more about what FindIt is, FindIt is an innovative computer system that is to be placed around a store in the more higher trafficked areas. Once a map of the store environment is set up on the computer by one of our trained employees who will then show the store manager how to work it. FindIt connects to your inventory and sales system to get the numbers on how much of the good you have left. When a person accesses the FindIt to elicit the response, they type in what they are looking for. FindIt searches the store for them showing what department they can find their goal and where in the department they can find it making their trip quick, easy, and up to par.
As I said earlier, superstores are a competitive market. As I offer the FindIt to you at Target, you have to think about how it will increase customer satisfaction and how it will take business away from your biggest rival, Walmart. Decreasing the amount of time the customers have to spend in your store will act as reinforcement to get them to come back after having a positive experience there. At the moment, Walmart has about 4,500 stores in the US compared to your 1,795 meaning you should be ahead of them in customer service. Target is already more profitable than Walmart and taking some of their business would help raise those numbers. It is only a matter of time until Walmart implements the FindIts. Beating them too it could make some of their loyal customers switching to us and realizing what Target has to offer.
Target is a great business that prides itself in having happy customers. Implementing the FindIt system would make it so Target could surpass its competitors due to their lack of helpfulness in the store.

ABCs of behavior, reinforcement, antecedent, behavior, consequence, positive, elicit, goal, environment, psychological, frequently, implementing

http://www.scmagazine.com/target-customer-satisfaction-levels-drop/article/341245/
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/070715/target-vs-walmart-whos-winning-big-box-war.asp

For my behavioral change project, I want to decrease the amount of stress that is influence by being a full time student, full time employee, and a part time employee just to make it by each day. Being in this situation myself I understand the stress and struggle that it is to motivate yourself to keep going. My target behavior is getting rid of or decreasing the amount of stress there is on students that have to work multiple jobs to support themselves. I want to help others stay motivated even when times are hard. Also want to make sure that they do not have to struggle like I did this last year and stay focus on getting good grades so they do not have to retake classes or have bad grades. My ideas to increase positive behaviors and avoid emitting negative behaviors are to help students be able to afford to support themselves and only have to work part time until they graduate so they can focus on getting good grades and avoid dropping out. First idea is to make it so that there is a requirement to meet with their advisers at least once a year to make sure they are on track and to get some ideas of grants and scholarships they can apply for. Also, just have meeting about things they can do during the winter, spring, and summer breaks to make and save some money so that they do not have to stress about working multiple jobs.
Another thing that can help students avoid stressing out about working and going to school is talking to someone that haves been in a similar situation and hearing how they were able to make it through the hard times. Having someone to talk to makes it easier to handle the stress and staying motivated to keep going even when you do not want to or feel like you cannot keep going. This theory is something that I would have to test. So that I could prove that by making these things available for students will help them decrease stress and staying motivated. I would have a signup sheet for the first 50 students that are stressed and struggling to balance work and school to participate in a study were I would have half of the participants use their advisers, friends and other students that have been through a similar situation. And I would have the other group go through the semester normal. At the beginning of the semester the participants would be survey about physical, mental, and emotional behaviors. Then they would be survey again half way through the semester and again at the end of the semester. As a reinforcement to get the students to participant in the study they will be given $150 for participating in the study. Also they will be entered in a drawing for a scholarship that will cover the costs of tuition for 2 years.
Terms: target behavior, motivated, positive behavior, emitting, negative behavior, reinforcement

Throughout this semester we have learned about several behavioral modification principles. As the semester progressed we tried to demonstrate them in two different examples. One of these we got to choose a Target behavior to reinforce, which for this one I choose to reinforce exercise. The other one was decided for us and we needed to reinforce our water consumption. For both examples making sure I was drinking enough water was very important. The first because in order to main a level of intensity while working out it is important to stay hydrated, and the other example was important because it was what we were trying to keep track of. What I found out was in both cases I had a hard time in calculating exactly how much water I was drinking and when I needed to drink more. This led me to invent what I call the Agua Balance Bottle.
Before I get into the science of how the bottle works or what it is for that matter lets look at why drinking the right amount of water is important. As many of us know our bodies are made up of 60 percent water. Our body uses water in all sorts of ways to keep us functioning, ranging from our blood, to keep our bodies cool on a hot summer day. Because our body is constantly losing water through things such as sweat, it is important that we keep replenishing our water levels.
Although it is important just to keep us healthy, drinking water also has a lot of other benefits. First off is headaches, all headaches stem from some kind of chemical, structural or emotional problem. One of the leading problems here is dehydration, which can elicit all sorts of headaches. For example dehydration can lead to fatigue, which in return can lead to extreme stress, which causes headaches. Therefor staying hydrated by drinking water could alive these headaches. Next is kidney stones, drinking and maintaining a healthy balance of water has been proven to be able to reduce kidney stones. Along with this having a high balance of water can improve our appearance. Drinking water and keeping water levels high has been proven to improve skin and reduce acne, as well as boost metabolism, which helps with weight loss. Drinking water 30 minutes before eating has also shown to increase your chances of weight loss by up to 44 percent when done over a 12 week time period.
Now lets talk more about the product itself. The product is a sleek water bottle indorsed by many professional athletes, available in many colors I might add, with a max capacity of holding around 24 ounces of water. The product separates from the competitors by a little sensor located towards the nozzle of the water bottle. The sensor is important because it keeps track of how much water is leaving the bottle or in other words it keeps track of exactly how much water you are drinking. This is important because it keeps track and records this information saving it so you can compare how much you drink over the past few days, weeks or hours.
Because we live in a world full of smartphones and apps, we have also created an Agua Balance app that goes hand and hand with your bottle to make sure you get the most out of it. The app is essential to the bottle and can emit lots of different things because it displays the amount of water you are drinking along with many other things. The app keeps track of the time you drink so you can monitor the times of the day that you drink. It also allows you to put in your exercise plans for the day so you know if you need to drink more water than normal, and how much more to make sure you are. Hydrated. This was also designed to target a problem that I personally have along with many other people. When performing in high intensity workouts or sports drinking to much water to quickly can actually be a bad thing. It can cause aversive and undesirable stomach cramps and pains which make physical activities hard to perform. The bottle can monitor how fast your are drinking and warn you to slow down to prevent over drinking. Because the app checks when you drink the most and the least you can have it set reminders throughout the day to remind you of times when you should drink a little more in order to keep on pace. In addition to this the app is also set up like certain run apps, so when milestones are reached congratulations will be given to boost your moral.
That’s the technology behind the product but what’s the science behind it? What makes this product so effective? While the design and technology behind the Agua Balance bottle is important to its success, its real ingeniousness comes from how it uses basic principles of behavioral modification that have been demonstrated by Thorndike, Watson, Pavlov and Skinner, to increase its appeal to purchasers. One principle that it uses is the idea of scheduled reinforcement. It uses this principle to reinforce user to continue drinking with they reach their goals on drinking levels throughout the day or week. For example you can set a goal to try to improve your water intake each day over the course of a week, everyday if you meet that goal you will be reinforced with a message congratulating you. The water bottle saves you from certain consequences and punishments that can result from poor drinking habits. As I mentioned earlier the product measures the amounts of water you are drinking, this helps to make sure you are in a healthy medium between deprivation, and satiation. So as you can see while this product shows great advances in technology it makes its money through its foundation in Behavior modification principles.

Terms : Monitor, Behavioral Modification, scheduled reinforcement, reinforce, reinforced, Goals, consequences, punishment, Thorndike, Watson, Pavlov, Skinner, elicit, emit, hydrated, dehydration, target behavior, deprivation, satiation, aversive, undesirable

http://www.everydayhealth.com/water-health/water-body-health.aspx

Coming up with a product or service for the final assignment was a lot harder of a task than I had originally thought. I was so stuck on trying to figure out a product that I forgot about the service option which was much easier to create. At first I asked myself what behaviors are a nuisance and need to be changed hence the course name of behavior modification. First thing that came to my mind was people and their addiction to cellphones. They use them everywhere from the moment they wake up until the moment they fall asleep. I thought about people using their phones while driving as the most annoying behavior I could possibly think of. The behaviors of using one’s phone and driving are not just an annoyance but even more so they are extremely dangerous. In many places it is illegal to text and drive and unfortunately distracted driving is the norm. It is hard to find more cars that don’t have drivers on their phones. Drivers on their phones not only drift into other lanes, blow through stoplights and stop-signs, hit obstacles and other cars, but they also cause deadly accidents. It was hard for me to find a service to limit that behavior so I then attempted to create a possible product and got further on the idea. The name for the product is still in testing, so for now it is The Pod.

The Pod is similar in design to the snapshot by Progressive but it does not measure driving habits and has two other components. It will plug in just like snapshot but also a sensor is placed both inside the car on the ignition switch and inside the phone. The sensor would trip once the ignition in the car turned over and it would active a chip inside the phone. This chip would record every second the phone’s display was on indicating that the phone was in use and the information would be stored in The Pod. This product does not change behavior by simply recording when the phone is off or on while the vehicle is in drive. To fix this issue I made sure to outfit the sensor in the ignition switch to active the airplane mode on the driver’s phone so that it could not be used for calling, texting, or applications. The sensor will not switch the phone into airplane mode unless a set number of on screen minutes is reached. The set number of minutes is negotiating between the driver and the insurance company. A driver then noticing or thinking about The Pod will elicit the driver to not use the cellphone while operating the vehicle.

Insurance companies along with all cellphone companies will require The Pod to be placed on all phones and vehicles for their customers. It will become a federal mandate to insure this product will be used for every driver in order to limit the amount of crashes and deaths due to cellphones distracting drivers. The insurance companies, cellphone companies, and drivers will learn about the ABC’s of behavior modification to understand the antecedents, behaviors, and consequences are associated with cellphone usage while driving. The behavior will be using the cellphone while driving and a possible antecedent could be the need to be connected with our social sphere no matter if we are walking, eating, sitting, or driving. An example of a consequence of using a phone while driving is taking eyes of the road and crashing the car, or maybe even answering the text message because the consequence does not have to be aversive. Although for this situation aversive consequences have a much larger impact than desirable consequences. In order to change a behavior one must have a specific target behavior that is to be either increased or decreased. It is important to use a specific behavior and not a behavioral class. A behavioral class would be distracted driving so in this case the target behavior would be drivers not using their cellphones while their car is on, which will in turn hopefully decrease the behavior of using their cellphone while driving. To achieve this behavioral change a token economy must be implemented among the customers, insurance companies, and cellphone companies to reinforce a driver to want to stop using their cellphone while driving. No customer will accept not using their cellphone while driving unless they get something good out of it or are forced to not use their cellphone legally by way of punishment. Punishment does not work as well as reinforcement does when trying to modify a behavior.

This token economy is based on reinforcement to encourage drivers to not use their cellphones while their vehicle is on. The system runs on positive reinforcement, where customers will receive tokens for emitting the correct target behavior. The tokens used for this system will be points it is based on a point system. In order to earn one point the driver must emit the target behavior of not using their cellphone and for each minute they don’t use it they earn one point. If for example they drove to school and it took them 24 minutes and they didn’t use their cellphone those entire 24 minutes then they earn 24 points. The Pod that is plugged into the car records the minutes that the phone screen is on and not on. It will also record the number of points earned continuously adding them until they are withdrawn for an incentive or backup reinforcer.

The backup reinforcers also known as the incentive system contains several different reinforcers that are chosen by the customer/driver after they have accumulated so many points. The driver will emit the target behavior of not using their cellphone while driving therefore adding points to their total. After earning a certain amount of tokens/points the driver can then chose what reinforcer they would like to trade in for so many of their points. They can at any time use their points to trade in for a reinforcer. The reinforcers are distributed by both the insurance companies and the cellphone companies making the reinforcers into two different categories. Under the insurance companies the drivers can chose to trade in their points to lower their insurance bill which will lower their bill for only three months, not forever. Upon earning 2500 points a driver can trade those in for $10 off of their bill for the next three months. Upon earning 5000 points a driver can trade those in for $20 off their bill for the next three months. Upon earning 10,000 points a driver can trade those in for $30 off their bill for the next six months. Upon earning 20,000 points a driver can trade those in for $50 off their bill for three months. Under the cellphone companies the drivers can chose to trade in their points to lower their monthly bill, earn more data, earn discounts/deals for a new phone, or other potential prizes. Upon earning 2500 points a driver can trade those in for either $10 off monthly bill for three months, earn 2GB more data for the following month, or earn 10% off next phone purchase. Upon earning 5000 points a driver can trade those in for either $20 off their next phone bill for three months, earn 4GB more data for the following month, or earn 20% off their next phone purchase. Upon earning 10,000 points a driver can trade those in for $25 off their bill for six months, 5GB more data for the next three months, or earn 30% off next phone purchase. Upon earning 20,000 points a driver can trade those in for $30 off their phone bill an entire year, 6GB more data for the next six months, 50% off next phone purchase, or a $100 gift card to anywhere.

This product and token economy may be a tough sell to both the insurance companies and cellphones companies. I think the first step would have to be a small sample group of maybe 100 drivers or so to try this out and see if drivers use their cellphones less while operating their vehicle. They would first need to establish a baseline of about a week or two with drivers operating their phones while driving to see how often they use their phone and for how long. They can then start the token economy program which should then decrease the usage of the cellphones by drivers with each successive week. This study should last at least three months so that enough time has been elapsed to get a clearer picture of how effective the program worked. If the study does well then it can be replicated across several different populations. The hope would be for these studies to do well, get backing by the federal government and become a mandate for both the insurance and cellphone companies in order to preserve life because of the huge rise in cellphone related crashes and accidents. The token economy system is a fairly easy way to reinforce drivers to not use their phones and in the end will end up costing insurance companies a lot less in litigation and legal cases due to car crashes and fatalities.

Terminology: Behavior, Reinforcement, Target Behavior, Positive Reinforcement, Punishment, Emit, Token Economy, Elicit, Backup Reinforcer, Baseline, ABCs, Consequence, Antecedent

We have seen how technology has advanced greatly in the last twenty years. CDs, iPods, Blu-Ray players, internet, cell phones—everything is right at our fingertips. Most people are addicted to some type of technology at this point in time, and some have trouble moderating the amount of technology they use. One can spend hours on a cell phone, playing games and watching videos, scrolling through Facebook and Twitter, and keeping a close eye on family and friends. Technology has become somewhat of a companion, and a way to escape from the real world. Instead of showing up at your doorstep with roses and an apology, your significant other can now just shoot you a text. You can call people from inside your vehicle. You can use your phone to find your way around town. There are so many upsides and downsides to all of this. One of the things I see most often: I look around the room and see more than half the people looking down at their phones, instead of at each other. It is really quite sad.

Which makes us wonder, were our grandparents better people? More functional, more communicative? Without all of the technology we have now, did they spend as much time as we do on the couch? Or did they sit around with family and friends and enjoy the company? They sat around the dinner table and focused on family, instead of their cell phones. They LIVED without technology, so why couldn’t we, if only for a little while? I had to think about what could get people to move up off of the couch. Also, how can we help parents be better parents by giving them the chance to say “no,” without actually saying it. What product or tool can we develop to help them manage their children with technology.

With people being so dependent on technology these days, and it being so readily available, how can we help them moderate the amount of technology they use? The product we are developing is called Tot, or “Turn Off the Tech.” Tot is a device with two timers; when the timer is up, the device you are utilizing will be shut off for a certain amount of time. Each person that uses the device will have their own sign on, so that their time utilizing the device will not impede on others’. The device can be used on smart TVs, old TVs, home computer consoles, game consoles (i.e. Playstation, Xbox), wifi routers, and laptops. Cell phones and iPods can have a Tot app, which one can download. The cell phone will only be able to be used for phone calls and texting when the timer is up, and the user will not be able to open any games, music, or internet.

The actual Tot device package has multiple pieces, depending on which device you are planning on using it on. There is an Tot HDMI plug for the Xbox and Playstation (and other consoles) which will interrupt the power at the appointed time. This will help the video game addict with moderation—good for kids, may be difficult at first for parents dealing with the kids. Have an issue with Netflix “bingeing”? Now you can help yourself on your smart TV or regular TV. The Tot plug for the TV interrupts power to the device at the appointed time; this can also be used on the smart TV. You plug the plug from your TV into the device, and the device plugs into the wall. This plug device can be used with ultimately anything that has a two or three prong plug. The SmartTV app can also allow one to select certain channels to be dormant during ShutOff time. There will also be a software code you may purchase for each computer or laptop you own.

How does the timer work? For example, you may set a timer for a “Usage” of 4 hours per day. You may also set a timer for the device to be “ShutOFF” for an allotted amount of time. It will keep track of how much time you use throughout the day. You may also set a timer for a “Time Segment,” such as 12am to 10am. This will keep the device off during those hours. This will be particularly useful for parents who have a hard time getting their children to stop watching TV and go to bed, or to prohibit texting/phone use at the dinner table. For further reinforcement, we are making a lock of 24 hours; once the timer is set, it cannot be changed for that amount of time. There will also be a log that one can view per person to see their usage--this can be in app form or in the computer software mentioned--but must be one or the other to utilize this feature.

How does the science of behavior modification apply? We are using a slight application of negative punishment, because we are removing something desirable. However, by doing so, we are giving the person an opportunity to do something more valuable with their time. The hope is to also create a conditioning-like situation where when the device turns off, the person will motivate themselves to do something else; like go to the gym, call a friend, do homework, get some fresh air, get that work done they’ve been trying to get done at the house forever. I had to think about how much time is spent with technology in my own life, to really realize how much this addiction falls upon me. I look around and see it as well. We want to give the incentive as well as create an antecedent of technology-free time so that the person is motivated or forced to emit other behaviors. I believe this will create more happiness in parents as well as in children; having the opportunity to see that technology is not everything can allow people to find happiness in other things. One could also look at this as a type of negative reinforcement, since we are using the removal of technology to manipulate the target behavior; hopefully this antecedent can help the person create a new behavior that will be more beneficial to their time.

What are the warnings and advice we should give to parents about using this device? Sure, this product can be good for parent-child punishment (like grounding), or a good way for parents to moderate their children’s technology use as well as their own. However, we must warn that aversive feelings in children may be at first developed toward the parents and the device. People should also be aware that technology withdrawal may arise—not only in a child but in the parent as well. Parents will have a harder time, I think, than children moderating the behavior because they have the control. We must say that the product will only help you if it is programmed to work! We will have specialists on standby in customer service to assist with programming and offer advice for programming in special situations. All-in-all there are more pros to cons with Tot, and we believe it will more harm than good by creating happier, more active and productive individuals.

Terms: technology, dependent, functional, moderation, addiction, reinforcement, negative punishment, science, behavior modification, conditioning, incentive, antecedent, emit, behaviors, punishment, aversive, product, time, negative reinforcement, manipulate, removal, target behavior, situations, productive

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