Behaviorism (part 2)

1. Behaviorism (part 2)

2. Factors Influencing Reinforcement • Immediacy • Consequences are less effective as the delay between the response and the consequence becomes longer • Contingency • Consequence is more likely to reinforce the response if it consistently follows the response • Establishing Operations • Events that change the value of a stimulus as a reinforcer at a particular time or in a particular situation • Examples: Water when we are thirsty or food when we are hungry • Individual Differences • Likelihood of a consequence being a reinforcer varies from person to person • Magnitude • More intense stimulus is usually a more effective reinforcer

3. Schedules of Reinforcement • Continuous vs. Intermittent • Fixed Ratio: Applying reinforcement after a specific number of responses. • Variable Ratio: Applying reinforcement after a variable number of responses. • Fixed Interval: Applying reinforcerafter a specific amount of time. • Variable Interval: Applying reinforcer after a variable amount of time

4. Response Rates to Schedules of Reinforcement VR: Variable ratio schedule FR: Fixed ratio schedule VI: Variable interval schedule FI: Fixed interval schedule

5. Two-factor Theory • Brings together the processes of classical and operant conditioning • Classical conditioning: learn significance of events in the environment • Operant conditioning: learn ways of responding to these environmental events

6. Behavior Modification • Approach to the assessment, evaluation, and alteration of behavior • Development of adaptive behaviors and the reduction of maladaptive behaviors

7. Key Characteristics • Focus on behavior • Focus on current influences on behavior • Focus on learning experiences to promote change • Focus on assessment and evaluation • Focus on application

8. Areas of application • Developmental disabilities • Mental illness • Education • Rehabilitation • Community psychology • Clinical psychology • Sport psychology • Self-management

9. Counter Conditioning • Counter Conditioning: Pairing stimuli that evokes one response with an opposite response, so that the stimulus now evokes the new response. • Giving someone a food treat (elicits good feelings) as a feared object is moved closer • Feared stimulus becomes associated with good feelings

10. Systematic Desensitization • Systematic Desensitization (Joseph Wolpe, 1958): method of pairing muscle relaxation with fearful situations • Develop a “fear hierarchy” of increasingly more fearful situations • Can be conducted imaginally or in vivo

11. Flooding • Flooding: prolonged exposure to the feared stimulus • Provides maximal opportunity for the fear response to diminish • Very effective but some patients may find it difficult

12. Functional Assessment • Understand the factors that maintain a given behavior • Classically, the focus has been on observable events/ behaviors • Recently, some attention has been given to individual’s thoughts and expectations as well • Focus has always been on understanding the antecedents and consequences of behavior • ABC’s of functional assessment • Antecedents (sometimes including thougths) • Behavior • Consequences

13. Components… • Antecedents • Preceding events • Does a given behavior only occur when x is occurring? Does the behavior occur (or is more likely to occur) at specific times throughout the day? • Behavior • The behavior in question (almost always an undesirable behavior) • Can be a deficit or an excess • Consequences • What happens after the behavior occurs • Reinforcement and punishment

14. Tools of Functional Assessment • Indirect assessment • Questionnaires, interview, self-monitoring • Direct assessment • Observation, psychophysiological recordings • Experimental functional analysis • manipulation of hypothesized antecedents of a given behavior, followed by an examination of the consequences of each condition

15. Contingency Management • Use principles of operant conditioning to change the behavior of a specific individual • Often entire environment is designed to bring about change • People provide reinforcement immediately after the desired response has been emitted

16. Shaping • Effective for adding new behavior • Used when target behavior doesn’t exist yet • Differential reinforcement of successive approximations of target behavior • Remove reinforcement for prior step – extinction of a previous approximation • Allows us to start with more frequent behavior and end up with a behavior never previously performed

17. Punishment • Presentation of an aversive event after a response has been performed • Withdrawal of positive consequences • Punishing consequences based on effort

18. Prompting • Prompting is used to increase the likelihood of target behavior during a specific time • Helps person engage in correct behavior in presence of particular stimulus • Prompts help to provide an opportunity for differential reinforcement • Prompts make training more efficient • Increase the likelihood of a correct response

19. Types of Prompts • Verbal Prompts • Verbal behavior of another person results in the correct response • Instructions, rules, hints, reminders, etc. • Gestural Prompts • Physical movement leads to a correct behavior • Not the entire behavior • Modeling Prompts • Demonstration of correct behavior • Physical Prompts • Person physically helps person engage in correct behavior • Hand-over-hand guidance

20. Modeling • Observational learning: individual acquires or modifies behavior by noting performance of someone else • Vicarious reinforcement