Changing Automatic Processes

Question 1

Situational Cues

Answer 1

• The environment, things around you that may provide cues and prompt behaviour
• e.g. a couch on a Friday night

Question 2

Cueing Interventions

Answer 2

• Cue the cues
• Trying to make a change in your environment so you are cues to whatever behaviour you want to do
• e.g. leaving shoes by the door, hiding the chips
• Goal priming, prompting, serving size cues, nudging, product placement, default options

Question 3

Goal priming

Answer 3

• Leaving something in the environment to remind you of what it is you want to do
• e.g. shows by the door to prompt yourself to go for a run

Question 4

Serving size cues

Answer 4

-Getting big versus small pop

Question 5

Product placement

Answer 5

-How marketers try to get us to buy things

Question 6

Situated Conceptualizations

Answer 6

• Thinking about the cue and imagining
• Feeds the behaviour
• e.g. Couch and TV, snacks in fridge, relaxing with friends while enjoying drinks and snacks

Question 7

Training Interventions

Answer 7

-Implementations intentions, attentional bias modification, approach-avoidance, inhibitory control, mindfulness based training, evaluative conditioning

Question 8

Implementation Intention

Answer 8

-Dual processing: creating an implementation is conscious and you practice it to allow you to bypass thinking in the actual situation

Question 9

Attentional Bias Modification

Answer 9

-Training where we look in the environment and what sorts of things attract us

Question 10

Mindfulness based training

Answer 10

-Another way to train people to automatically say “I will bypass this behaviour and choose this one”

Question 11

How can we change impulsive processes?

Answer 11

-Behavioural Conditioning

Question 12

Reinforcing behaviour arises from…

Answer 12

-Operant Conditioning

Question 13

Operant Conditioning

Answer 13

-Being reinforced or punished for something constantly

Question 14

Stimulus –> Learning –> Response –> Consequence

Feedback is…

Answer 14

• Stimulus = Antecedent
• Response = Behaviour
• We always feed back from consequence into learning

Question 15

Changing antecedents is called…

Answer 15

• Stimulus control

- Changing what you feed in the beginning (stimulus) so we can change people’s learnings

Question 16

Types of consequences

Answer 16

• Reinforcer

- Punishment

Question 17

Reinforcer

Answer 17

-Any consequence that strengthens the behaviour is follows

Question 18

Positive reinforcement

Answer 18

• When the consequence that strengthens a behaviour is the appearance of a new stimulus
• e.g. Penny behaviour of leaving is strengthened when chocolate appears

Question 19

Negative reinforcement

Answer 19

• When the consequence that strengthens a behaviour is the disappearance of a stimulus; removal of a stimulus, taking something away
• e.g. dog barking so you take it for a walk; the dog is reinforcing you to take a walk by disappearing of barking but you strengthen the behaviour of taking it out for a walk

Question 20

Punishment

Answer 20

• Decreasing a behaviour
• The appearance of a stimulus following the behaviour suppresses or decreases the behaviour
• e.g. pain so you stop running

Question 21

Altering consequences is a powerful method for behaviour change… therefore what do we need to do?

Answer 21

• Consider the person in their environment

- If you try to change someone’s behaviour in an unsupportive environment, it can be challenging

Question 22

Mastery experiences is an example of what?

Answer 22

-Positive reinforcement

Question 23

Environmental Cues

Answer 23

-What is happening around people?

Question 24

Prompting practice

Answer 24

-Constamntly trying things and constantly reinforcing people so they learn from behaviours and it becomes habitual

Question 25

How does knowing you are being operant conditioned affect a person?

Answer 25

• Aware but ready for change = likely to change
• Don’t want to change and you try to reinforce them = reactance
• it depends where they start attitude wise

Question 26

Evaluative Conditioning

Answer 26

• Thoughts that automatically arise are changed by repeatedly pairing a topic with positive or negative stimuli
• Trying to change associations
• When things are paired in our environment, we automatically get thoughts about them
• A way we can try to change how people think about certain situations
• We can change societal representations (e.g. reduce weight bias in gyms)
• Targets operant conditioning

Question 27

Evaluative Conditioning Example

Answer 27

• Unhealthy snacks compared to fruit
• Snacks repeatedly paired with photos of heart diseases
• Automatic associations towards unhealthy snacks were worse; directed people to think “these chips aren’t good” at an automatic level
• People were more likely to choose fruits over unhealthy snacks

Question 28

Nudging

Answer 28

• Influencing behaviour and decision making in a subtle manner by making changes in the environment
• Manipulating our environments so we are nudged into a certain behaviour
• A cueing intervention
• Influences choices without taking choices away from people
• People are free to do whatever they want but you are trying to use cues to push them in another direction
• Exploits our biases and heuristics (cognitive flaws) to affect our individual decision making
• Choice architecture is inevitable therefore we are manipulating the choices people have and are offered without EVER eliminating choices

Question 29

Nudging Analogy

Answer 29

• GPA: the user chooses the destination, the map helps you get there and allows you to take a detour without ever yelling at you
• it makes where you want to go easier, without commanding you must do something

Question 30

Green footprints towards garbage cans are an example of…

Answer 30

• Nudging
• People could still litter if they wanted to but they were more aware of the habit and directed to the garbage cans to litter less

Question 31

How do we create associations we hold in memories?

Answer 31

• Happens over time by exposure, culture, families, environments we are in
• We have learned to associate things in our long term memory
• They influence our gut reactions/automatic impulses and how we react to things in our environment
• Therefore many behaviours occur without us thinking about them or we aren’t aware we are doing them (so we want to get people to stop and think about what they are doing!)