Week 1 Flashcards
What is behaviour modification
Attempts to analyze, understand and change behaviour does not only examine behaviour also examines the environment to determine the antecedents, (the events that signal that the behaviour can be performed) and the consequences (the events that occur after the behaviour and can influence the likelihood of its repitition) to gain a sense of the system that the behaviour occurs in
Target behaviour
The behaviour of interest, (the behaviour that we are trying to modify)
What is behaviour according to the behaviourist approach
According to the behaviourist approach behaviour examines behavior in terms of mee mo like me moves- my moves fit the behaviourist definition of a behaviour because they are monitorable, external, can be examined just in terms of the environment, measured and are overt
How do we describe behaviours
We must describe behaviours using verbs, ex. we could describe a behaviour as yelling and hitting but not as angry, we can only use verbs as they describe specific single actions- we can not use words that can communicate what actions represent but do not signify what the actions themselves actually are
What are the measurement dimensions of behaviour
FILD - filling something could be a behavior measured in terms of frequency, intensity, latency and duration
Frequencey - refers to the number of times that a behaviour occurs, ex. if we define yelling as vocal production above a certain decible the frequency would be the ammount of times that this occurs. Since frequency measures the number of instances in which a behaviour occurs it is important to define what an instance is as if someone yells for 30 seconds straight it depending on what we define as an instance that could represent multiple or just one instance of the behavior occuring.
Intensity, is used to measure force to measure an action ie grip strength is a measure of force that could be associated with an action
Latency - the time between a defined event occurs and the behavior of interest occurs. Ex if rats are placed in a T maze and our behaviour of interest is them reaching either end point of the T maze the latency would measure the time from when the specific event, (them being put in the maze occurs) to when the target behavior, (them reaching an end point occurs)
Duration - Duration measures the ammount of time that a target behavior actually occurs for ex. if the target behaviour in the rat maze example was changed to maze running then the duration would have the same time span as the latency as the target behavior would now just be the rats being in the maze, other ex if a child cries for 5 seconds the duration in which they cried for is 5 seconds.
What is the difference between duration and latency?
Duration like doing looks at the time where participant is doing the target behavior
Latency - L like later because includes the time in which the target behavior still must occur later, (measures the time starting at a specific event before the target behavior has occured).
We are looking for duration if we are looking for how long the target behaviour occurs for and we are looking at latency if we are looking at the length of time between a specific event and the occurance of the target behaviour
Why is it important to have a means of quantifying behaviour
Can tell us how effective treatment is and if it is needed. Humans tend to have a bias where the more attention grabbing a behaviour is the more emphasis we place on it so for example a teacher could consider a child to have a behaviour issue based on the idea that they are disrupting class every day, however a teaching assistant may go in and record the frequency in which episoides defined as disruptions occur and may discover that it is only once a week but it is so attention grabbing and heavily emphasized in the teachers mind that they have come to believe it occurs more often then it actually does. Can also tell us if a modification is effective.
Why is it important to be specific when defining a behaviour?
We need to define a behaviour very specifically in order to get accurate measures of it, ex. yelling might be defined as noise produced by a certain individual that exceeds a certain threshold however this definition is too vauge. If the individual claps and their clapping reaches above the baseline threshold it could according to this definition be classified as yelling as it comes from the individual and meets the noise criteria, in order to avoid this we must specify that we are looking for a vocal production - noise that only comes from the individuals voice
What are the rules surrounding behaviour
LIE MOM
If my mom lies after when someone asks a question abt where I want to live and then I thank her for doing so after it could follow the rules of behaviour
It is LAWFUL if the sequence can be predicted, ie if each time someone asks my mom about where I want to live then she consistently lies and I consistently thank her afterwards then the entire sequence can be predicted from the antecedent (the event that lets my mom know that the behaviour of lying about where I want to live can be performed (someone asking where I want to live)). Based on having a predictable sequence the behaviour can be changed by changing the antecedent or the consequence, (antecedent - if people quit asking about where I want to live my mom will no longer be triggered to do the behaviour of lying) or (consequence - if I quite thanking her and ask her to tell the truth about where I want to live then she is less likely to do the behaviour of lying about where I want to live)
INFLUENCES THE ENVIRONMENT in this case by producing the consequence of me thanking her
is EXTERNAL
can be MONITORED
is OBSERVABLE
can be MEASURED, (ex we could measure how often she lies about where I want to live)
What do we consider lawful behaviour to be?
We consider a behaviour to be lawful enough to predict something always happening if it happens consistently enough- we have to oversimplify as it is unlikely that something will always happen
What is a misconception about the term desirable behaviour
Desirable behaviour does not equal good behaviour it just refers to the behaviour that we want to increase. Ie if I want to see if having adults model violant behaviour towards toys to children and then praising the children after they perform the behaviour to determine the degree to which previously unknown adults can influence children then my target behaviour would be the children behaving violantly towards the toys which is a bad behaviour while still being the desirable behaviour in this case.
What is behavioural excess?
A behaviour that is occuring in excess, (too much) - an undesirable behaviour that we either want to decrease or stop entirely. Eek it is a behaviour that makes us say eek, it is a behaviour that we do not want
What is a behavioural deficit?
D like desirable it is a behaviour that we want to increase, a desirable behaviour
What is experimental behavioural analysis?
E like examine using a behaviouralist lense just referes to studying the behaviour using behaviourist views
What is applied behavioural analysis?
A like and alter, examining the behaviour using a behaviouralist lense with the goal of ALTERING the behaviour
What is the difference between experimental and applied behavioural analysis?
E like examine as experimental behavioural analysis just aims to examine behaviour and does not attempt to change it whereas applied behavioural analysis applied a like ALTER bc in addition to examining behaviour applied behavioural analysis also attempts to ALTER (change it)
Experimental behavioural analysis asks if we can understand a behaviour and applied behavioural analysis asks if we can understand and use that understanding to ALTER a behaviour
What does behavioural analysis not focus on?
DIP when using behavioural analysis we DIP when looking at
the Distant past
Internal processes
and Personality
What is stimuli?
Aspects of the sequence from the external environment
SAC just like a SAC is part of the external environment
Stimuli refers to parts of the external environment which in the sequence include the Antecedent (the event that signifies that the behaviour can occur) and the Consequence (the event that occurs in response to the behaviour)
What is the behaviourist sequence and what are the controlling variables?
The behaviourist sequence follows ABC (Antecedent, (the event that signals that the behaviour is able to occur) Behaviour, and Consequence (the envrionments response to the behaviour)). The controlling c like cause is the variable that causes another variable, here the controlling variables are the Antecedent and the Consequence because manipulating them can manipulate the behaviour and the behaviour is caused by both of them.
What do we need to measure for treatment
Before, during, after and long term after
BDAL
If I want to quite the behaviour of crying when I see a BDAL(beatle) due to fear must measure before treatment, during treatment, after treatment and long term after treatment.
