Behavior and Environmental Management - Essay Example

Behavior & Environmental Management/Psyc 2*** Fall Behavior is defined as: It is defined as the set of reactions as a response to an internal or external stimuli, be it a threat, a question, an accusation or any general action. A natural mechanism by which animals (read humans) respond in their immediate surroundings. Behavior can also be defined as a manner to control and exhibit oneself in ways of both good and bad. For e.g: The repulsion and attraction of a Magnet is its behavior. 2. Provide a behavioral definition of “aggression” Aggression in terms of behavior is defined, as to cause or inflict pain on to others. This may be as a result of a possible threat, psychological absence of something or just to gain dominance in order to satisfy one’s ego and pride. Aggressive behavior takes up a violent pattern, where aggression becomes a part of the person’s conscious and subconscious behavior. From smaller issues to bigger issues, aggression becomes a normal act. 3. What is the difference between overt and covert behavior? The literal meaning of covert and overt is secretive and obvious, respectively. Hence, the meanings give an outlook about the terms. Covert behaviors are the one which can’t be easily determined by someone. Overt behaviors are traits that are easily recognizable by anyone observing the person. Cognitive behaviors include thoughts, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. Much of this behavior is described as “self-talk,” the things that people say to themselves (or “think”) in response to antecedent and consequent stimuli (“Behavior Change in Human Services” Pg12). These can be secret actions carried out by a person as well, for example; stealing, lying, and deceiving. Overt responses are often loud and visible; some common examples are, screaming, yelling out in public and public displays of affection. 4. Sherry had throat surgery and could not talk for days. She worked with a speech therapist to increase her voice loudness. The therapist used an instrument to measure increases in the loudness of her voice. What dimension of behavior was the physical therapist recording? The therapist has examined Sherry by recording the data in the format of Repeatability. This is the dimension of measuring behavior where the data is recorded and sampled in the following format. The instances or recordings are recorded and counted in order to establish how many times the behavior occurs, the rate at which she (Sherry) could maintain that level and finally the therapist used this dimension in order to record and examine how her performance varies over time. 5. List and provide an example of the four dimensions of behavior that can be observed and recorded? The four dimensions of behavior that can be observed and recorded are: Frequency of the behavior: The frequency determines the number of times the behavior has been repeated/occurred. For example: How many times did the Captain bite his lips during the match. This measure will help determine the intensity of nervousness during the match. Duration of the occurrence of the behavior: This determines for how long a subject carries out a certain activity or repeats a behavior. For example: How long does the dog bark when it hears fake footsteps from outside the door. Intensity of the behavior: Intensity is the impact with which the behavior has been conducted. For example: How hard does a woman press her hand when exposed to a horror scene. Celeration: This is the measure of the variation occurring over time. Determining if the occurrence of the behavior has changed or not. For example: The behavioral change occurring in a drug addict after a suitable treatment has been introduced. 6. Provide an example of a behavioral excess and a behavioral deficit. As it always said, “excess of everything is bad”, so does it is proved in the case of behavioral excess. Behavioral excess is the state where the intensity of the action has to be reduced to a desirable amount or range. For Example: A basic and quite explanatory example of behavioral excess is that of chain smokers. Their behavior to smoke rapidly is not only bad for themselves but for the people in their surrounding environment as well. This is the kind of behavior that has to be reduced to a range that is not harmful for any. Behavioral deficit on the other hand is the opposing situation, the behavior that has to be brought up to a healthier mark in order to gain maximum benefit from the result. Behavioral deficits, either often lack attention or are neglected. For example: Shyness is a basic example of behavioral deficit. Not having the power to speak confidently in the public. Such behaviors can be modified and practiced in order to bring improvements and gain benefits. Frequent public speaking is one procedure through which we can get rid of shyness. 7. Describe one way to reduce reactivity of observation. There are certain methods that can be applied in to your research in order to reduce the reactivity of the observation. The easiest way is to not to the subject that they are being observed. This action might turn out to be harmful in case of researches associated with trauma study; for that subject’s security is most important. To reduce reactivity in that case, observer can manage to give as much time to the subject as he can in order to gain their trust and comfortability. 8. Identify at least one way in which behavior modification has been applied in each of the following areas: community psychology; business; health related behaviors; sports psychology; gerontology. Community Psychology: Introducing positive attitudes and actions on a scale that intervenes in the activity of people at mass helps develop behaviors that provides benefit at large. Community Psychological activities are introduced to do the same. Public awareness against littering, drunk driving, illegal parking, helping the disabled and old, community services are such examples where such positive attitudes have been introduced in order to gain benefit at large. Business, Health related behaviors: Trainings are often provided in Companies and Multinational businesses in order to attain maximum productivity and profit. Employees are trained in order to reduce accidents at work, or are given workshops to improve their abilities to maximize their work limit and productivity, positively. Often workshops are carried out to initiate positive attitudes at work, psychologically, which in turn brings both mental and physical easement. Fitness and health can be maintained by introducing healthier activities among masses. Teaching people the benefits of a healthier lifestyle, diet and exercise. Whereas effective workshops against, smoking and drug addiction can bring a rapid drop in their access. Sports Psychology: Sportsmen spirit is the key to success. Athletes and players should be encouraged that they should have the will to accept both their victory and defeat with pride. They should be taught to stay away from unhealthy and unethical activities i.e. Doping and Drug abuse etc. Gerontology: Nursing homes and other such facilites play a vital role in bringing a change in the patients or subjects lifestyle and healthy. They should be keen enough to bring about positive changes in patient’s health and personality. Helping out the elderlies to adjust easily in the new environment and mingle with new people, they can help them out to look after themselves in order to know when a patient needs physical or emotional assistance. Employees should be trained accordingly and should be acknowledged for their good efforts. 9. Briefly describe the contributions of Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, and Skinner to the development of behavior modification. These have been the Pioneers in instrumenting ways for the development of the scientific studies of behavior modification. Pavlov’s major contribution to the field was the presentation of the concept of Conditional Reflex. According to his analysis, often the actions of beings are stimulated in response to a neutral or even passive stimulus. His research was based on an experiment that he carried on a dog. He stimulated the dog’s saliva by the sound of a metronome and placing the food in front of the dog at the same time. Later on the dog’s saliva was stimulated at the sound of metronome, even without the presence of food. Thorndike has been acknowledged greatly for his Law of Effect. This law explained that every behavior that enforces a favorable or positive effect on the environment has the tendency to be repeated again in the future, quite rapidly. His experiment was conducted on a cat being put in a cage with the food placed just outside the cage door. In order to collect the food, the cat had to open the door by hitting a lever. The cat learnt the task quite easily and used it repeatedly each time it was put in the cage. J.B. Watson was the motivational mind behind Behaviorism. His thoughts projected that every response is a truthful reaction of a stimulus or action from the surroundings. His school of thought was; observable behavior was the proper subject matter of Psychology. (“Behavior Modification”) B.F. Skinner further extended the concepts of Behaviorism presented by Watson. His studies and research distinguished both the studies presented by Pavlov and Watson from that of Throndike. He explained two modes of reactions to stimuli, either the stimuli-response action as presented by Pavlov and Watson or the repeated constructive occurrence of a behavior in the future as said by Thorndike. It is believed that Skinner’s research and analysis are highly regarded as the foundations of behavior modification. 10. (circle one) Indirect/Direct assessment methods are preferred within the field of behavior modification. Direct Assessment. 11. Does the A-B design demonstrate a functional relationship (i.e., is the A-B design a true research design)? Why or why not? A-B research design is the simplest of all the research methodologies where “A” is taken as a ‘baseline’, a behavior being tracked, whereas “B” is the possible change encountered after a treatment or mode of change being implemented later on. It is being said and accepted that A-B design is the weakest of all the research designs. Thus the power of the AB design to make casual inferences is rather limited (“Empirical Clinical Practice” Pg 116). The A-B design is used in researches where only the cause and effect of a certain behavior or treatment has to be analyzed. Hence, A-B design is not a true research design as it does not take into consideration more than one variables that might have caused a change in the subject’s response. More than one extraneous factor is often neglected in this design. The design is thus used in order to demonstrate a behavior change, the modification patterns are however, determined and demonstrated through other means. Such designs are often used in self- management demonstrative projects. 12. Below are the results of interval recording by two observers, A and B. Calculate inter-observer reliability. Intervals Observer A Observer B A X X A X X A X X A X X A X X A X X A X X D X Since the data has been recorded in intervals, hence the procedure to calculate the inter-observer reliability (IOR) is as follows: For this reason we will check the agreement of the two observers at every interval, marked as A, while D is marked as the interval where the two observers have disagreed. The result is calculated by dividing the total number of intervals with agreement, by the total number of intervals. IOR = A/(A+D) IOR= 7/8 IOR= 0.875 or 87.5% 13. Matching. CONTINUOUS INTERVAL TIME-SAMPLING Time-Sampling recording involves dividing the observation period into smaller units of time and recording whether or not a specified behavior occurred. Continuous recording involves continuously observing a specified behavior and recording every occurrence of that behavior. Interval recording involves only observing a behavior during a specified time within an interval and recording whether or not the behavior occurred (discontinuous intervals) 14. Why are graphs used in behavior modification to evaluate behavior change? Plotting graphs and recording behaviors is a way to determine the pattern or mode of behaviors in a specific or scattered dimension. Graphs help in identifying the ups and downs, depression and suppressions in the behaviors influenced by either internal or external factors; depending entirely on the mode of study being carried. Graphs also help to determine the change that has been occurred after a proposed treatment. 15. Prior to treatment, Jenny smoked the following number of cigarettes on consecutive days: 15, 15, 16, 14, 20, 15, 16, 17, 14, 20. After treatment, Jenny smokes the following number of cigarettes on consecutive days: 10, 10, 8, 8, 6, 5, 4, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0. Draw the graph that shows the frequency of Jenny’s cigarette smoking before and after treatment. Be sure to include all of the essential components of a complete graph (6). Days Cigarettes consumed on consecutive days 1 15 3 15 5 16 7 14 9 20 11 15 13 17 15* 20 17** 10 19 10 21 8 23 8 25 6 27 5 29 5 31 0 *Last day of smoking cigarette prior treatment. **Treatment begins -- The plotted line graphs show a rapid decrease in Jenny’s behavior to smoke, post-treatment. 16. Dr. Allen evaluated the effects of the drug, Ritalin, on the aggressive behavior of a 6-year-old boy using an alternating treatments design. He measured the number of aggressive behaviors (hits) each day. He alternated days in which the drug was given with days in which the drug was not given. The drug was given on even numbered days and drug was not given on odd numbered days. The results were as follows: Days 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Hits 12 5 15 6 13 2 11 4 15 3 12 4 Draw the alternating treatments design graph of these results. The graph explains that there was a massive drop in the aggressive behavior of the boy when he was under the effect of the drug, Ritalin. 17. T / F A good behavioral definition requires you to make inferences about internal states or motivation of the individual. True T / F Behavior management treatments are implemented by persons in everyday life. True T / F Inter-observer reliability must be 100% to be acceptable. False T / F Behavior management emphasizes hypothetical underlying causes of behavior. False T / F In behavior modification, measurement of behavior before and after treatment is important. True T / F Behavior management places emphasis on current Environmental events as important causes of behavior. True Read More