BCS 172 Lecture 14

The Behaviorist Perspective

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Behaviorist paradigm - ABC

• A - antecedent - any event, action, or circumstance occurring immediately before a specific behavior that triggers or sets the stage for that behavior

• B - behavior

• C - consequence - any variable that is inserted into an individual’s experience following a behavior of interest

Example

raising your hand to ask a question (antecedent), Dan saying “yeah what’s your question” (behavior), getting an answer and maybe asking a question in the future (consequence)

Skilled behavior

• Examples: learning the alphabet or driving a stick shift

  • Can be taught through behaviorist principles

Compromising Behavior

• Example: a child sitting in a classroom with autism

  • Antecedent: sitting in class for 6 hours a day for 5 days a weel

  • Behavior: picking up and throwing a chair

  • Consequence: when he tosses a chair, the teaching staff might let him take a break from sitting in class

Behaviorism

• Genetic + environmental contribution

• In both cases, the environment is critical

• The environment of the individual shapes, to a great extent, their development

• Consider one’s history of reinforcement under particular antecedent conditions

B.F. Skinner

• People often criticized him for being too negative and pessimistic of the human condition

• Would often discuss provocative subjects

• Provocative character that believed that we should approach human behavior from a very scientific framework

Implications for Culture as a Whole

• We attempt to use reinforcement to shape certain behaviors

  • Dan visited a “utopian” society in Mexico, and he believed that the people there weren’t happy

Principles of Behaviorisms

• “Conditioning” occurs through interaction with the environment

• “It’s a matter of consequences”

• Reinforcement drives up certain behaviors

• Punishment drives down target behaviors

• Also, we learn through association (consider discriminative stimuli)

• By virtue of language, RULES exert control over our behavior. Focus on the OBSERVABLE

  • Example: when we hear the national anthem at a football game we put our right hand on our heart

Definition

Functional behavioral assessment is the process of determining why a student engages in challenging behavior and how the student’s behavior relates to the environment. Functional assessments describe the relationship between a behavior and variables that contribute to its occurrence. Functional behavioral assessments lead to hypothesis formation. Consider the work of a botanist. 

• Unraveling various complex patterns of human behavior

  • Compares it to the parts of a flower

  • Example: while in solitary confinement John McCain would yell obscenities at the guards which caused him to get beaten

    • He said having people in his cell beating him was better than loneliness

Triangle

Behaviorism: theories about behavior → applied behavior analysis: research and practice in clinical settings → experimental analysis of behavior: laboratory studies of behavior change →

Applied Behavior Analysis

• “Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is the science in which procedures derived from the principles of behavior are systematically applied to improve socially significant behaviors to a meaningful degree and demonstrate experimentally that the…”

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)

• Applied: using science to solve problems of social significance

• Behavior: views human behavior as a variable that can be carefully defined as measured

• Analysis: like any science, a key goal is the systematic analysis of phenomenon (e.g. behavior)

Types of ABA Therapy

“He’s got a gun!”

• The autistic child with a toy gun example

• The kid had G.I. Joe’s spare handgun

• When he would have a panic attack, he would go to the bathroom and take out a G.I. Joe action figure and preoccupy himself with it

Reinforcement

• Definition: stimulus that increases the probability that a behavior will occur again

• Individualized based on assessment of each student

• Given immediately after correct response

• Important to avoid inadvertent reinforcement of other responses

(cont)

• A consequence that accelerates or maintains preceding behavior

  • Intended and unintended

  • Idiosyncractic

  • Verbalized or “unrecognized”

  • Consider your ratio!

    • 7:1 ratio of reinforcement to punishment (not actual concrete number lol)