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Behavior Modification
- This is the general term for the use of operant and classical conditioning methods for practical application
- - institutional settings (drug rehab centers, psychiatric hospitals, prisons)
- - education settings
- - the workplace
- - therapy
When behavior modification is used in therapy, it is often referred to as " Behavior Therapy"
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How are new responses acquired in operant conditioning?
- Shaping - learning by successive approximations of the response
- - approximation: getting the subject closer to the desired response
- Backward Shaping - a behavior modification technique; with a chain of sequenced behaviors, you train by starting at the end and working backwards
- - completely make the bed, except for the pillows, then the person has to complete the last step; reinforced for completing
- - next, the bed is made except for the pillows and the bedspread; reinforced for completing again
- - each successive step, less is done
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The Use of Punishment and Omission
- Punishment: S presented, R decreases
- - punishment is used to decrease an undesirable response. However, punishment can have unintended consequences, such as social reinforcements induction of aggression
- Omission (time out): S removed, R decreases
- - Time out or omission is used as an alternative for suppression of behavior
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Alternative Reinforcement Methods
- Token Economy - System that uses generalized reinforcers; earn points by engaging in particular behaviors, later cash in the points for other reinforcers (e.g. TV access, better food); common in institutional settings
- - the "token" can be points, poker chips etc.
- - positive reinforcement run by general reinforcement
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Premack Principle
- High probability activities can be used to reinforce low probability activities in an unconstrained environment
- Raking leaves => low probability
- Going to a rock concert => high probability
- "If you rake the leaves in the yard I will pay for you to go to the concert"
- - difference between token: barter system, token accumulates points
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Behavioral Treatments for Phobias
- - Intense fear
- Types of treatments:
- Flooding - direct, intense exposure to phobic stimulus, to induce extinction; e.g. force someone who has elevator phobia to use the elevator in a skyscraper repeatedly
- - avoidance behavior makes it difficult to extinct, most people won't volunteer to do so
- Systematic desensitization - patient learns to relax, then gradually learns to associate the relaxed state with the phobic stimulus; also known as counterconditioning; this is one of the most successful methods used for psychological therapies
- - you're trying to condition a state(comfort/neutral state)incompatible with the phobia
- - associate the phobia with the relaxing state gradually
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