Exam 1 Psych 282

Overt behaviour

A simple action that can be objectively measurable (eg verbal or motor)

Covert behaviour

A simple action that can be not observable by others (may only be inferred from overt behaviours), also called private events. (Eg thoughts and feelings)

Response

One instance or occurrence of a behaviour

Response class

A group of responses with the same function; that is each response in the group produces the same effect on the environment (the same consequences) [you could drink 1 cup of water from a glass, a bottle or a coconut through a straw]

Repertoire

The collection of all behaviours a person can perform

What is behaviour not?

• Interpretive descriptions of a personality trait

• Diagnostic label

• Products of behaviour

Dead Man Test

Ogden Lindley 1965

“If a dead man can do it, then it ain’t behaviour, and if a dead man can’t do it, then it is behaviour”

What are the three aspects of psychology?

Theoretical, experimental, applied

Psychology

The scientific study of human behaviour and mental processing

Theoretical psychology

Conceptual thinking, done at a computer, at a desk, in an office

Experimental psychology

Basic research, often with animals in a lab

Applied psychology

Practical research and treatments to solve a problem, usually on people, in the real world

What are the three branches of psychology?

Behaviourism, experimental analysis of behaviour (EAB), and behaviour modification (b-mod)

Behaviourism

Philosophy of the science of behaviour

Experimental analysis of behaviour (EAB or behavioral analysis)

Basic scientific research on the functional relationship between environmental events and resulting behaviour

Behaviour modification (b-mod)

The application of experimentally derived laws of learning to human behaviour and providing behaviour analytic services to consumers

What is behaviour modification?

Includes analyzing the relationship between environment and behaviour and changing the environment to help people modify their behaviour. These are applied to reach the goal of improving people’s lives. Typically defines problems in terms of measurable behaviours. Solutions are evaluated in terms of those same behaviours. Treatments work by affecting an individuals environment comprised of stimuli. Can be applied by non professionals. Based on the two kinds of conditioning and does not rely on hypothetical constructs. Places high importance on accountability for everyone experiencing, administering and overseeing treatment programs.

Stimuli

Things perceptible in one’s immediate environment

What are the two types of conditioning

Operant and respondent

Hypothetical constructs

Theoretical concept that mediate behaviour

Applied behaviour analysis (ABA)

Using knowledge about human behaviour to reduce socially undesirable behaviours and or increase desirable ones

B-mod is considered by some a larger category that includes:

• ABA (applying only principles of operant conditioning)

• Application of respondent (Pavlovian) conditioning

• Behaviour therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy (treatment carried out on dysfunctional or maladaptive behaviour and thinking)

Psychology in the 19th century

The scientific study of conscious experience

Psychology in the 20th century

The science of observable behaviour

Law of Effect

A behaviour that has a favorable outcome is more likely to occur again in that situation in the future

Methodological Behaviourism

The study of behaviour alone, not of any internal, mental state or event

S-R psychology

Focused on how environmental events and stimuli (S) and affect responses (R)

Rationale

Mental events cannot be objectively observed or studied

Radical Behaviourism

goal is to understand and explain ALL behaviour, this includes private events that occur inside the skin (thoughts and feelings). They are behaviours that have no special properties. Are different from public behaviours only in that they are not directly accessible to others and are influenced by the same kinds of variables as publicly accessible behaviours.

S-R-S model

Three term contingency or ABCs of behaviour.

Antecedent: stimulus produces…

Behaviour: or response which in turn produces…

Consequence: (also a stimulus or event) reinforcement or punishment

What was the first book with behaviour modification in the title

Case Studies in Behavior Modification (Ullman & Krasner, 1965)

What was the first scientific journal specifically for ABA called?

Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis

What was the Association for Behaviour Analysis International called when it was first founded?

The Association for Behavior Analysis

List some areas of application for behaviour modification

• Autism and intellectual disabilities

• Clinical behaviour analysis/cognitive behaviour therapies

• Environmental sustainability

• Parenting and parent child relationships

• Medical care

• Health

• Education

• Sport psychology

• Employment settings

• Self management

What are the six rights of a client who is seeking treatment?

1. A therapeutic environment

2. services whose overriding goal is personal welfare

3. treatment by a competent behaviour analyst

4. programs that teach functional skills

5. behavioural assessment and ongoing evaluation

6. the most effective treatment procedures available

Within-subject experimental design

one person’s response is compared to their own response in a different situation/at another time.

Between-subject experimental design

Compares one group (experimental) to another (control)

Experimental analysis of behaviour (EAB)

Rate or frequency of response is most commonly used (dependent variable). A within-subject experimental design. Visual analysis of graphed data is preferred over statistical analysis and inference, and description of functional relations is valued over formal theory/hypothesis testing (no hypothetical constructs used)

Several phases of behaviour modification

1. Screening or intake phase

2. Preprogram assessment phase or baseline phase

3. Treatment phase

4. Follow-up phase

Screening or intake phase

• obtain client demographic information and reasons for seeking assistance

• establish if b-mod is appropriate for the client

• inform client of practitioners policies and procedures

• screen for crisis condition requiring immediate intervention

• diagnose client according to the DSMMD to determine eligibility for treatment or insurance benefit coverage

Preprogram assessment phase or baseline phase

define and measure initial baseline level of behaviour

Treatment phase

Actively apply training, intervention or treatment program

Follow up phase

Determine effects on behaviour following termination of treatment program

Behavioural assessment

Measuring the target behaviour of a client by considering the “who, what, where, when and how” of the target behaviour. The person being assessed is called the target person or client.

Who may be the observer in a behavioural assessment

• a professional

  • Licensed behaviour analyst or psychologist

• layperson

  • teacher

  • coach

• oneself

  • self-monitoring

  • self-management

Problems may include the observer being poorly trained, unmotivated, or biased

Target behaviour

The behaviour that you’re interested in changing

Behavioural goal

the level of the target behaviour that a program is designed to achieve

Outcome goal

broad, abstract result that one wishes to attain, often recognized as important by society

Interobserver agreement (IOA) and interobserver reliability (IOR)

are defined to that multiple people can agree

Dimension: Frequency

number of responses in a given period of time

Dimension: Latency

Time between an antecedent stimulus or event, and the onset of behaviour

Dimension: Duration

Length of time of behaviour

Dimension: Intensity (or magnitude)

Assesses strength of behaviour, often with a rating scale

Dimension: quality

Often arbitrary judgment of social value, may use a rating scale

Operational definition

A precise, objective definition of a term by specifying the operations the researcher or observer made to measure it

Direct assessment

Antecedents, target behaviours, and consequences are observed and recorded as they occur (by oneself in self monitoring or by a behaviour analyst in the same room as the client or watching secretly through a two-way mirror)

Indirect assessment

Based on second hand (or third hand) remembered information. For example questionnaires/rating scales, role playing, information from consulting professionals, and interviews with clients and significant others

Problems with indirect and direct assessments

Indirect is generally less accurate than direct, the observers may not have training, and memory can be fallible/distorted.

Direct is more difficult and time consuming. Observers need to be trained and others cannot observe covert behaviours.

Natural setting

Behaviour is observed in target person’s typical environment (but may also prevent accurate measurement like a noisy workplace or crowded room)

Analogue setting

Behaviour observed in a simulated location.

Unstructured observation

Observations made without giving instructions, or altering events or activities

Structured observation

Observations made while instructions are given, or specific events are planned to occur systematically

Reactivity

Recording or measuring a behaviour affects occurrence of the behaviour. For example, recording the time you spend studyinf may cause it to increase.

Continuous recording (or event recording)

Record every instance of a client’s behaviour during the entire observation period, Suitable if each response has a similar duration and behaviour occurs at low rates

Pros: provides actual measure of behaviour, well suited to self-monitoring

Cons: very labour-intensive, impractical, or impossible

Interval recording

Record target behaviour within successive time intervals of equal duration. Suitable for responses with variable durations or high rates

Partial-interval recording

record of behaviour a maximum of once per interval, regardless of how many times it actually occurred, good for frequently occurring behaviours

Whole-interval recording

Record behaviour if it persists during the entire interval, good for behaviours that have long durations

Pros: easier/less demanding to record than continuous recording

Cons: Less sensitive to true occurrence of behaviour

Time sample recording

Record behaviour during brief intervals separated from each other in time

Pros: easiest/least demanding to record

Cons: more subject to sampling error

ABC observation data sheets

Used to identify and record antecedents, behaviours, and consequences

ABC observation checklist

After antecedents and consequences have been identifies, they can be more quickly recorded using a checklist

Interobserver Agreement (IOA)

Statistic calculated to determine consistency in recording of target behaviour. Can reveal biases of an observer and may be used to evaluate definition of target behaviour.

Morals vs ethics

Morals are our own principles, ethics are provided by a social system

Dimension of evaluation: Generalization

Does the behaviour occur in different situations other than the training exist?

Dimension of evaluation: Maintenance

How long does the behaviour remain altered?

Clinical significance of change

Does the individual benefit from the treatment in a meaningful way? Does it return the individual to the normal range?

Social validity

Does the behaviour change have a beneficial impact on daily functioning?

Social comparison

Compare client to equivalent or normal group

Expert evaluation

Subjective to evaluation by experts

Cost-benefit ratio

Are the benefits of the treatment larger than the costs required to conduct the treatment

Side effect

A result that is secondary to the active treatment

Trade-off

forgoing one desired aspect to gain another desired aspect (cost vs benefit)

Revenge effect (or perverse incentive)

Ironic, unintended consequence of treatment. For example, the cobra effect.

What are the components of a graph?

1. x-axis and y-axis lines

2. labels for x-axis and y-axis

3. numbers on the x-axis and y-axis

4. data points and lines connecting them

5. phase lines if there are different phases

6. phase labels

Independent variable (IV)

The treatment applied to the client

Dependent variable (DV)

Target behaviour measure

Confounding (or extraneous) variable

Another factor that may affect behaviour that is not controlled for

Functional relationship

Treatment procedure regularly causes a change in the target behaviour, requires

1. IV-DV relationship: changing IV causes a change in DV

2. replication: consistent pattern of results

A-B design

Has one baseline phase (A) and one treatment phase (B). In baseline phase, collect at least three data points that do not show a trend

Pro: satisfactory for self-management

Con: not a true experimental research design (lacks replication) and cannot ascertain cause and effect and change may be due to a confounding variable

A-B-A-B (or reversal) design

Has two baseline phases and two treatment phases. Examines the same behaviour in the same client and in the same setting. Can be varied to include more than one kind of treatment (A-B-A-C or A-B-C-A-C to compare B and C treatment).
Pro: can establish cause and effect

Con: may be unethical to withdraw a beneficial intervention or behaviour may not revert back in second baseline

Multiple baseline designs

More than one A-B design is carried out. Baselines may vary in length before treatment begins. Intervention phase is staggered across separate designs and can provide evidence that treatment is effective.

• across subjects

• across behaviours

• across settings

Pros: has no reversals, thus good for behaviours that do not revert. If the behaviour change occurs only when the B phase starts in each condition, we can conclude it was the result of the intervention
Cons: treatment may spread across conditions during supposed baseline phase, precluding cause-and-effect conclusions

Alternating-treatments (or multielement) design

baseline and treatment phases are applied in rapid succession. Extraneous factors that could affect the results can be counterbalanced. For example treatment might be given in the morning one day and in the afternoon the next day. Treatment effects shown by fractionation, or consistent vertical separation between curves

Pros: Extraneous variables will have less of an effect and evaluates the effect of different treatments

Cons: Treatments may interact with each other

Changing-criterion design

Criterion for successful treatment progressively changes and uses A-B design, but the goal for target behaviour changes in the treatment phase.

Pros: Well-suited to behaviours that can be approximated gradually

Cons: Unsuitable for behaviours that may not change gradually

Law of Effect

Behaviour followed by pleasant consequences is more likely to occur again in that situation

Who coined the law of effect?

E. L. Thorndike (1911)

Operant (or instrumental) conditioning

Manipulating the consequences of behaviour to increase or decrease. The consequence of a behaviour can be a stimulus or event that leads to further behaviour.

Reinforcement

The process in which the consequence of a behaviour increases the behaviour. Behaviour is more likely to occur in the future (frequency) or occurs more quickly (latency)

Reinforcer

A stimulus (object or event) that increases a behaviour if it occurs contingent on the behaviour. Often is an appetitive stimulus characterized by a natural desire to satisfy bodily needs. Behaviours are reinforced, people are not.

Positive reinforcement

A situation in which a behaviour is followed by the presentation of an appetitive (pleasant) stimulus that increases the behaviour

Negative reinforcement

A situation in which a behaviour is followed by the removal of an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus that increases the behaviour.

Escape behaviour

Subtype of negative reinforcement, causes the removal of existing aversive stimulus