Change behavior - Research Paper Example

Changing Behavior What is one behavior that you would like to change? Use ALL of the principles of learning fromChapter 5 to design a program to help you change the behavior. If you cannot think of a behavior you would like to change, imagine that your are helping a friend attempt to change a behavior. Alice, a working friend of mine told me one time that she had difficulty leaving her workplace when people seem to get along well with each other while she appears indifferent for being so tied up with her formal tasks.

She observes, however, that her chief interest for the job and the act of interacting with colleagues only when necessary somehow makes her feel lonely and detached despite good performance. They occupy an average office space and Alice is bothered at having to let everyone know that her time is up since the majority of her colleagues have gotten used to proper exit besides the habit of conversation on any topic the whole shift through. Basically, my friend feels sorry that making even simple utterances as ‘goodbye’ seems huge a deal by norm and on attempting to find a way to do it properly, she ends up with awkward gestures instead.

Having confided to me that she badly needs for such concern to be addressed, I first asked her to identify the issue behind why she could properly execute her way out of the office. Eventually, Alice completely figures that it has to do with her lack of communication and resolving this would moreover imply determining what brings it about. It turns out, she is not interested in the stuffs most of her colleagues discuss and are involved with. We talk about the options of how it might be possible to change her behavior by gradually adapting to the overall attitude of the work settings.

By associative learning, she may acquire signs that can give her a basic idea regarding individual concerns. For instance, spotting for officemates who would often go or lurk near her station might evoke wanting to approach her for a chat, so as much as she can sense that this is about to take place, Alice must take a few moments to condition herself for some nice response toward any probable invitation. Because Alice is aware of her limited capacity for initiating conversation, through operant conditioning, she may enable her co-worker to understand her need to be approached constantly in order for her to gain the interest in getting to know him or her little by little until she has fully adjusted herself to the general situation.

In this scheme, she must not expect though that the stimuli exhibited by her attempts may not necessarily yield her desired response from everybody for stimulus interpretation varies for each person based on the set of perceptions, biological inclination, and even cognitive processes that are unique for an individual with diverse background. I particularly advise her to keep a journal record of significant events in her workplace which highly affect her state of emotion and social growth for the purpose of reflecting about possible remedies to areas of her behavior that still require further modification. (2) Share one of your flashbulb memories.

Are you as confident of this memory now as you were before reading Chapter 6? Why or why not? Riding an elevator one time and finding myself in an incident where I almost got stuck on one level remains fresh in my flashbulb memory. It was such a startling first time experience since the building I was in back then possessed its own ghost story which I recalled vividly the time I struggled pressing the button I thought would no longer work to close the elevator doors. After going through the studies with chapter 6, I am somewhat less confident of the myth I held in belief.

I learned that by classical conditioning, it was the strength of the ghost story in my imagination which served as the original stimulus whereas the unusual elevator occurrence was the second. Associating malfunctions of an object with a supernatural phenomenon had been inevitable but when I suddenly remembered the missing details, such as when the building administrator warned about an ongoing maintenance, the corrected flashbulb memory becomes less intense. ReferenceWortman, Loftus & Weaver (1998).

Psychology. 5th ed. Mcgraw-Hill (Tx).