Overview of Behavioral Analysis

behaviourism During the early years of the 20 th century while Freud, Jung, and Adler were relying on clinical practice and before Eysenck and Costa and McCrae were using psychometrics to build theories of human personality, an approach called behaviourism emerged from laboratory studies of animals and humans.

radical behaviourism Skinner’s strict adherence to observable behaviour earned his approach the label radical behaviourism, a doctrine that avoids all hypothetical constructs, such as ego, traits, drives, needs, hunger, and so forth.

BF SKINNER

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna Pennsylvania. Burrhus received his BA in English from Hamilton College in upstate New York. After some traveling, he decided to go back to school, and earned his masters in psychology in 1930 and his doctorate in 1931, both from Harvard University., Skinner accepted the model of classical conditioning as originated by Pavlov and elaborated on by Watson and Guthrie, but he thought this type of conditioning only explained a small portion of human and animal behavior. He thought that the majority of response by humans do not result from obvious stimuli. The notion of reinforcement had been introduced by Thorndike, and Skinner developed this idea much further.

Reinforcement: The Basis of Behavior Reinforcement: The act of strengthening a response by adding a reward, thus increasing the likelihood that the response will be repeated. Skinner believed that an animal or human could be trained to perform virtually any act and that the type of reinforcement that followed the behavior would be responsible for determining it,

Respondent and Operant Behavior Skinner distinguished between two kinds of behaviour: Respondent Operant Behavior

RESPONDENT BEHAVIOR: Involves a response made to or elicited by a specific stimulus. A stimulus is applied and the response occurs. This behavior is unlearned, it occurs automatically and involuntarily. At a higher level is respondent behavior that is learned, called Conditioning.

OPERANT BEHAVIOR: Behavior emitted spontaneously or voluntarily that operates on the environment to change it. It involves acting in a way that appears to be voluntarily rather than reacting involuntarily to a stimulus to which we have been conditioned.

Through Operant Conditioning the consequences of a behavior produce changes in the probability of the behavior’s occurrence. A behavior followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to recur, where as a behavior followed by a punishing stimulus is more likely to not recur. (Theories of Development) For example: In a nursery class where the teacher gives a student a reward, maybe a candy or a nap time, whenever a student does well in class, that student will most likely excel knowing that the reward will be given to him or her.

In Skinner’s view, REWARDS AND PUNISHMNETS shape a person’s development. BEHAVIOR is the key aspect to DEVELOPMENT, not thoughts and feelings. Behavior consists of pattern of behavioral changes that are brought about by rewards and punishments. (2009).Theories of Development

SKINNER BOX It is known as Skinner’s operant – conditioning apparatus used to demonstrate the operant - conditioning apparatus. It is also referred to as the operant conditioning chamber. “A Skinner box, used to study the concepts of behavior, reinforcement and psychology, is a box that houses an animal and offers both unconditioned and conditioned stimuli — such as colored lights and food, respectively — and response levers or keys that serve to monitor the animal's behavior.” (Foster)

An example would be a food – deprived rat placed in the Skinner box. “At some time during this activity, the rat will depress a lever or bar located on one wall of the Skinner box, causing a food pellet to drop into a trough. The rat’s pressing of the lever has operated on the environment and, as a result, has changed it. The environment now includes a food pellet.” (Schultz, 2005)

In this situation, the food pellet is also referred to as a reinforcer for the behavior of pressing the bar. Because it is provided with more food, it will behave in the same way, pressing the bar, more frequently. It is seen here that with everyday that the Rat is placed back in the Skinner box, his reaction of pushing the lever can be predicted. With this, we can control the rat’s behavior of pressing the lever through providing or withholding the reinforcer which is the food pellet.

A Skinner box may be fairly simple, with only one lever or key, or it may be quite complex, with a variety of stimuli and ways of monitoring response. The Skinner box has received criticism because it does not capture every nuance of the animal's behavior; pushing the lever with a nose or a paw registers as the same response, for example, and light touches of the lever may not be recorded. (Foster) “Skinner believed that most human and animal behavior is learned through operant conditioning.” (Schultz, 2005)

Added Information about B.F. Skinner: Did you know??? B.F. Skinner has been accused, notably by author Lauren Slater and by the Church of Scientology, of raising his daughter in a Skinner box, leading to her mental illness and suicide, but this is untrue. Skinner designed a special air-crib intended to make childcare easier, but he did not conduct psychological experiments on his daughter or abuse her. Deborah Skinner Buzan, Skinner's daughter, is still alive and has refuted every point of these rumors. (Foster)

Schedules of Reinforcement Reinforcement Schedules- Patterns or rates of providing or withholding reinforcers. Provides an effective technique for controlling, modifying, and shaping behaviour. Among the rates of reinforcement he tested are the following: Fixed Interval Fixed Ratio Variable Interval Variable Ratio

Fixed Interval Reinforcer is presented following the first response that occurs after a fixed time interval has elapsed. The timing of the reinforcements has nothing to do with the number of responses.

Fixed Ratio Reinforcers are given only after the organism has made a specified number of responses. Presentation of reinforcers depends on how often the subject responds.

Variable Interval Reinforcers are presented on a variable basis. Reinforcer might appear after 2 hours in the first instance, 1 ½ hours the next time, and after 2 hours and 15 minutes the third time.

Successive Approximation

Also known as SHAPING Small steps in behavior, one after another, that leads to a particular goal or behavior Small steps one after another that get closer and closer to the goal Small steps toward some ultimate goal are reinforced until the goal itself is reached Successive Approximation

More complex tricks SHAPING

He never punished the rats for wrong behavior He just ignored it and rewarded the behavior he wanted Learning was fast and painless and the tasks were increasingly complex

Superstitious behavior Defined as: Persistent behavior that has a coincidental and not a functional relationship to the reinforcement received Ex: when an athlete does something out of the ordinary once before a game (ex: tapping a sign “play like a champion”) and the athlete suddenly plays better. The athlete will instinctively look for a reason, find it and repeat it so he cam play with the same performance as last time he did it.  Superstitions are easily learned; in fact one occurrence can cause a superstition  In humans, superstitious behavior can persist throughout life and only require occasional reinforcement to sustain them.

Self- Control of Behavior Defined as: The ability to exert control over the variables that determine our behavior To some extend we can control the external variables that determine our behavior

Types of self control  Stimulus avoidance: Removing yourself from the external variable that affects your behavior Ex: when something annoys you, you leave or get rid of it  > Self- administered satiation: We exert control to cure an addiction by saturating ourselves with it to the point of disgust, illness or epic boredom (“angang sa super-UMAY sila!”)to traumatize themselves not to do it anymore…  Aversive stimulation technique: Declaring their intentions to the public so that if they do not attain their goal, they will face embarrassment, ridicule, personal failure and criticism thereby forcing them to stop a behavior or start a new one to attain a goal.  Self reinforcement: One rewards his/herself for doing or displaying good or desirable behavior (self- rewarding)

Works Cited a.k.a. sources!!!! :D 1.Foster, N. (n.d.). Language. Retrieved June 27, 2011, from Wise Geek: box.htm 2.Schultz, D. P. (2005). Theories of Personality. Wadsworth. 3. Ciccarelli, S. & White, J. (2009). Psychology. NJ: Pearson Education, Inc 4. successive-approximation./