Principles of Behavior Management (PSY333):

Gary L. Cates, Ph.D., N.C.S.P

My Behavior Management Project

Gary L. Cates

Decreasing dinning-out

General reason why I want to quit dinning out.

Research supported reason1 why I should quit dinning out.

Research supported reason 2 why I should quit dinning out.

Research on Target Behavior

• Study 1 looked at ____ and found ___

• Study 2 investigated _____ and the data suggested that _____.

• The research has not investigated the extent to which keeping a log may impact dinning out.

Purpose of the study

• Purpose of the study was to determine extent to which a log would be helpful in the decreasing dining out behavior.

Method

• Participant/setting

• Procedures

• Design and Dependent variables

• Inter-observer Reliability (if applicable)

Results

Should have at least one graph for each behavior targeted.

No statistics are needed.

Discussion

• Summarize purpose and results

• What were the strengths of the projects

• What were the weaknesses

• What would you do differently

• Tips for others considering doing a similar behavior modification project.

• Ask for questions and provide answers

Questions?

Stimulus Discrimination and Stimulus Generalization

3 Types of Stimuli

• Discriminative Stimulus: Reinforcement is available (SD)

• Neutral Stimulus: No reinforcement or punishment is available (SΔ )

• Warning Stimulus: Punishments is available

Discrimination Training

• Learning when to behave and when not to behave

• Reinforcing a response in presence of one stimulus but not another

e. g. Colors

Color Discrimination

What about you?

• When have you engaged in stimulus discrimination today?

Stimulus Control

• Degree of correlation between stimulus and response

• Degree to which a behavior occurs in presence of a specific stimulus

• e.g. Traffic light

Color Discrimination Revisited

What about you?

• What behaviors do you have that are under stimulus control?

Let’s discriminate

Learning an Alien Language

Effective discrimination training

• Choose distinct signals

• Minimize opportunities for error– Minimize stimulus array

• Maximize Number of learning trials

• Make use of rules

Stimulus Generalization

• Responding similarly across two or more stimuli

√ The more the stimuli are alike the more likely the response to take place

e.g. finding your car

What about you?

• What behaviors/responses do you generalize across settings?

• Can that response always be generalized?

• Should that response always be generalized?

Classes of Stimuli

Stimulus Class: Set of stimuli with similar characteristics in common

AKA: Concept

Equivalence Class: Set of stimuli with different characteristics, but represent the same thing

e.g. Written name, verbal name, picture of person

Inducing Stimuli Classes

√ Explicit training is not necessarily needed to induce stimulus control across stimuli

• Symmetry: A = B

• Reflexivity: A = A

• Transivity: A = B; B = C; A = C

Discriminating discrimination among other discriminative

stimuliStimulus discrimination and escape

e.g. hailing a taxi out in the cold: Must have no patrons in it.

Stimulus discrimination and punishment

e.g. Boiling pan: Do not touch or you get burned.

Stimulus Discrimination and Differential Reinforcement

DR- 2 responses (right way and wrong way)and 1 stimulus

e.g. Asking mom for money

SD- Two stimuli (Right signal wrong Signal) and 1 response

e.g. Asking mom OR dad for money?

Requirements for stimulus control

• Attention of the subject

• Sensory capabilities of the subject

• The stimulus must stand out relative to other stimuli.

Shaping, Chaining, Prompting & Fading

Shaping

Reinforcing successive approximations to the target response while extinguishing preceding approximations.

√ Does not have to be done in an exact way

This concept requires understanding of Reinforcement, extinction, and Differential Reinforcement.

Terms

Terminal Behavior: The final goal of an intervention

Operant Level: Frequency of responding before reinforcement

Initial Behavior: Some behavior that resembles the terminal behavior in some way.

Intermediate behaviors: Those behaviors that more closely approximate the target responses.

Lookin’ for a volunteer

• Who wants to shape up their behavior?

Chaining

√ Must be done in a general stepwise format

e. g. making a sandwich

√ Each response serves a dual function– Signal for next response– Reinforcer for completion of the previous

response.

Task Analysis

• Breaking a behavioral chain into its smaller responses.

• Extent to which you are successful with teaching new behaviors from a chaining perspective is directly related to your ability to do a good task analysis.

2 Types of chaining

Forward Chaining (total task presentation)

Presenting each link in a forward format

- Example: Putting on a pair of pants

Backward Chaining: Presenting each link of a chain in a backward format.

- Example: Putting on a pair of pants.

Time to make a chain

Do a task analysis for making an omelet

Do a task analysis for a chain of responses that you consider yourself an expert in that perhaps no one else in the class is.

Respondent Conditioning

Do not say Classical Conditioning

- Eliciting of behavior not evoking behavior

- Automatic Physiological responses not controlled free willed or operant responses

General

• Pavlov: Russian Physiologist

US UR

US + CS CR

CS CR

Examples

Example 1: Salivating Dogs and Bells

Example 2: Little Albert & White Rats

Example 3: Chemo Therapy & Favorite foods

Example 4: Mammalary Effusion: Leaking Breasts

Example 5: Coke Classic vs Caffeine Free Coke

Example 6: Phobias

Example 7: Bedwetting

Example 8: Aversion Therapy

Factors That influence Respondent Conditioning

• Number of pairings

• inter-stimulus interval: .5 sec

• Continuous Pairing > Intermittent Pairing

• Intense Stimuli (CS US)

Respondent Extinction

• Stop pairing the CS with the UCS

Q. How is this different than escape extinction?

Compound Stimulus

• Two stimuli together is your CS

• Generalized Conditioning– Second order conditioning, third order and so

on– Generally it gets weaker and easier to

extinguish

• √ Difficult due to respondent extinction

Drug Overdoses

• Most are due to taking too much poison. However, they often occur in novel environment but no more drug than they took before.– Drugs not only produce a high, but also

counter effects to reduce the high.– The drug, Room, Needle Prick

Operant-Respondent Interactions

• Emotions: Rewards and Punishers are associated with internal events

• Thinking: Words are associated with senses

Systematic Self-Desenstization

• Construct a Fear Hierarchy (0-100; least to most fearful)

- SUD : Subjective Unit of Discomfort

• Deep Muscle Relaxation:

• Implement Program

Flooding

• Putting person in fearful situation with positive outcome.

• Not allowing the CS to be paired with UCS

Systematic Desensitization

• You should seek help if you:– are uncomfortable during the creation of the

hierarchy– Contradictory SUDS Ratings– Can’t produce visual imagery– Inability to control the beginning or ending of

image– Inability to meet goals