Reward and Consent ™

My Behavioral Talk at Our Mother's Recent Funeral Reception

2013-05-07T09:56:00.000-04:00

I have not spoken with our mother recently about her spiritual beliefs, but she used to go to St. Benedict’s in New Jersey under the guidance of Father Anderson, which had been a progressive church where the folk group sang and played acoustic guitars and altar girls participated in the Mass well back into the Seventies. She told me in our younger days that she only believed in heaven. She said God is a loving God who would never condemn anyone to an eternity of pain and suffering.

Lately I’ve been researching and writing a lot about the ethics of behavior modification. My philosophy is rooted in Cornelia’s faith. This talk is a scientific message about love for everyone as influenced by her.

You can say behaviorists believe in a secular version of heaven on earth. They have shown with human experiments that rewarding behavior makes it more likely to reoccur. When we tell someone sincerely we appreciate their smile, they are going to smile for us again and again. When we praise the Good Samaritan for helping the stranger lying wounded in the dirt, we persuade him to do it again, but be careful to reward only pro-social behavior.

Behaviorists claim that our genes, our past experience, and our current situation cause us to behave the way we do. Some people believe we have a freedom of will to choose our own actions independently. Others believe that what we do is determined by the people and places that surround us. There is no proof which philosophy is correct, but a belief in determinism can bring us peace, because when people do things we don’t want them to do, whoever they are and wherever they’re from, we have no reason to find fault with them.

In the Eighties I had a Mexican friend named Paco who used to come to New York once a year to buy musical equipment. Our parents let him stay with us in our home on Shadow Lake. After living in Lakewood for twenty-four years I have come to know a community of substance-free Pentecostal Latinos. My friends are busy today and can’t make it here, so I would like to do the next best thing and tell you something about them, hoping that others can befriend them as well. This is possible because she always drew good people together in the gatherings she arranged. Today is no different.

In 1986, while visiting Paco, I saw homelessness in Mexico City, which had more people than New York City. Driving the highway to the outskirts of the capital for miles and miles as far as you could see were nothing but makeshift dilapidated shacks crowded together. Off Cedar Bridge Ave. in Lakewood, N.J. you can see a homeless community living among the pines. Picture Tent City of Lakewood, but instead of a hundred fifty North Americans, there were a million Mexicans.

They come here to work and send money to their families. Some can’t get unemployment benefits, food stamps, welfare payments, disability insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, private health insurance, decent jobs, or drivers’ licenses. But they have each other. They might live in big groups together. If someone can’t get a job, they might let him sleep free on the floor until he can pay rent. Yet there is no such thing as an illegal human being. We are all just equal individuals who happen to possess birth certificates from different places.

So this philosophy of reward without punishment is what I learned from Mom. When you receive it, and you watch all the suffering on the news, you can calmly sit back and hope that with the science of human behavior, we can apply experimental ways to fix society. We know that punishment brings about escape and retaliation. But rewarding people for what they do well brings peace, love, and understanding. Over the long haul, abundant reinforcement of the responses we desire can replace any appeal for punishment.

So Mom, you got me started on this. We love you. We’re happy you died in peace. We’ll see you in the big blue yonder!

P. S. After the reception I brought the left-over Chicken Marsala to the people at Tent City. Donations in lieu of flowers went to The (AIDS) Center in Asbury Park, N.J.

Is Skinner's Law of Effect a Tautology as Chomsky Claimed?

2013-03-27T11:04:00.000-04:00

More than any other person, it seems, Noam Chomsky (1959), in his Review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, contributed to the re-emergence of introspective, subjective psychology after the predominant heyday of the more objective behavioral psychology in the mid-twentieth century university psychology departments. A small part of his argument against Skinner's behavioral interpretation of human language is his claim that Skinner's definition of operant conditioning (Skinner's version of the law of effect) under positive reinforcement is tautological, but Skinner denied it.

Is it possible to draw a conclusion regarding the veracity of Chomsky's assertion by analyzing the logical form of his argument versus Skinner's?

Explanation of Tautology

Noam Chomsky is a linguist. A rhetorical tautology is "an unnecessary repetition of meaning, using dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing...defined as a series of statements that form an argument, whereby the statements are constructed in such a way that the truth of the proposition is guaranteed or that, by defining a dissimilar or synonymous term in terms of another self-referentially, the truth of the proposition or explanation cannot be disputed. Consequently, the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable. It is a way of formulating a description such that it masquerades as an explanation when the real reason for the phenomena cannot be independently derived. (Wikipedia)."

Key to Terms

To logically express Chomsky's claim versus Skinner's, as a key to the terms, S is a stimulus, S^R is a reinforcing stimulus, R is a response, and F is the frequency or rate of response.

Chomsky's Argument

Chomsky (1959) said, "Consider first of all the status of the basic principle that Skinner calls the 'law of conditioning' (law of effect). It reads: 'if the occurrence of an operant is followed by presence of a reinforcing stimulus, the strength is increased' (Behavior of Organisms, 21). As reinforcement was defined, this law becomes a tautology." Chomsky (1959) also said, "In (Skinner's) bar-pressing experiment, response strength is defined in terms of rate of emission (of response) during extinction."

Chomsky is saying the following:

If S^Rfollows R, then F increases. (The law of effect.)
S^R = an S that increases F when it follows R .
Plug the definition of S^Rinto the first expression, we therefore get an argument that says: If an S that increases F when following R follows R, then F increases.

If a reinforcing stimulus follows a response, then frequency increases.
A reinforcing stimulus is a stimulus that increases frequency when it follows a response.
Therefore, we get an argument that says: If a stimulus that increases frequency when it follows a response follows a response, then frequency increases.

Chomsky's version of Skinner's argument makes it sound like a tautology. The information appears useless. The argument is somewhat complex. The premise contains the conclusion in self-referential, synonymous terms, so its truth is guaranteed.

Skinner's Argument

But Chomsky (1959) quotes Skinner (1938) from his Behavior of Organisms as saying, "The operation of reinforcement is defined as the presentation of a certain kind of stimulus in a temporal relation with either a stimulus or response. A reinforcing stimulus is defined as such by its power to produce the resulting change [in strength]. There is no circularity about this: some stimuli are found to produce the change, others not, and they are classified as reinforcing and nonreinforcing accordingly."

Skinner is saying the following:

In a controlled experiment with an individual organism, I saw an S that followed an R and increased its F. I call this S an S^R. I have seen this operation reoccur. On future trials, as I have seen before, if I hold constant all other variables and if I present an S that I have found to be an S^R after an R, then I will increase F again. Therefore, if S^R follows R, then F increases (again). (The law of effect.)
In a controlled experiment with an individual organism, I saw an S that followed an R and did not increase its F. I do not call this S an S^R. I have seen this operation reoccur. On future trials, as I have seen before, if I hold constant all other variables and if I present an S that I have found not to be an S^R after an R, then I will not increase F. Therefore, if an S that is not an S^R follows R, then F does not increase (again).

Skinner's version sounds more like a verifiable prediction based on a pattern he has already discovered. He arrives at the law of effect without rhetorical tautology. Each proposition adds something different. The information is useful if we decide to reinforce another organism another time. Its truth can be disputed because the argument is falsifiable. If he presents a stimulus that he has classified as a reinforcer under the same conditions on another occasion, and the frequency of response per unit of time does not increase, then his law of effect will be false.

An unfalsifiable theory is not scientific, according to the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, not necessarily because it is false, but because if it is false, then no potential observation can show it to be false. He said Freud's psychoanalysis of the unconscious id, ego, and superego is unscientific since no possible concrete observation can show it to be false. The same holds for vague astrological predictions and for guarantees of supernatural phenomena.

The data from countless carefully controlled laboratory animal experiments that depend on Skinner's definition of operant conditioning have produced falsifiable principles. For example, we can falsify the following sentence, "A behavior we strengthen with an intermittent schedule of reinforcement is more resistant to extinction than a behavior we strengthen with continuous reinforcement," if the findings in an experiment of this sort return the opposite result.

Conclusion

Depending on how you phrase the argument, the law of effect is or is not a tautology, but the useful variety is scientific. It allows us to explain, control, and predict behavior, as Skinner often said.

I'm Happy to Say I'm Published Again

2013-01-16T11:02:00.003-05:00

Truthout included a condensed version of my Op-Ed opposing the mental health gun check database January 15, 2013 in their Speakout page, which is a "treasure chest for bloggy, quirky, personally reflective, or especially activism-focused pieces." They publish "fearless, independent news and opinions." They featured on the front page that day a Second Amendment analysis by Thom Hartmann, a progressive syndicated radio talk show host. For the long version of the essay, see the previous post.

Please share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and followers. Schizophrenics are people too, with feelings that are hurt by this media blitz against them. Will a powerful national leader ever speak out and defend us?

Opposing the NICS Mental Health Background Gun Check Database

2013-01-06T10:26:00.002-05:00

Wikimedia

I have been challenged by schizophrenia, in remission, and I don't want a lousy gun. To hear all the blame of violence on "deranged lunatics," it seems most people hold false or exaggerated stereotypes about schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses. For example, despite the common misuse of the label, the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) excludes split personality from its list of schizophrenic symptoms. In other words, schizophrenics do not have more than one personality.

And despite all the hype in the news, we are not necessarily violent. Walsh, Buchanan, and Fahy (2002) reviewed the relevant literature and concluded that although the rate of violence among people with mental disorders can be four times higher than the general population, "only a small proportion of societal violence can be attributed to persons with schizophrenia." And in their own study in Victoria, Australia, Wallace et al. (1998) found "the probability that any given patient with schizophrenia will commit homicide is tiny." Even the Surgeon General said, "There is very little risk of violence or harm to a stranger from casual contact with an individual who has a mental disorder.... The overall contribution of mental disorders to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small" (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999, p. 7).

Applebaum and Swanson (2010) extensively researched psychiatric gun law and said, "The net increment to public safety from restricting gun access by persons with mental illnesses is likely to be small."

The Criteria for "Mentally Defective" in NICS
As it stands, The Brady Act established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) computer database to include people who have been "adjudicated as a mental defective or been committed to any mental institution."

The Code of Federal Regulations defines mental defective as anyone who is "adjudicated by a lawful authority (to be) a danger to himself or to others: or lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs. The term shall include a finding of insanity by a court in a criminal case; and those persons found incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of lack of mental responsibility... " The Code also defines "committed to a mental institution" as "a formal commitment of a person to a mental institution by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority. The term includes a commitment to a mental institution involuntarily. The term includes commitment for mental defectiveness or mental illness. It also includes commitments for other reasons, such as for drug use. The term does not include a person in a mental institution for observation or a voluntary admission to a mental institution."

But state laws vary in their criteria of which mentally ill people cannot buy a gun. "In the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and Oklahoma, psychiatric diagnosis and/or voluntary treatment can be enough to trigger a prohibition." (Simpson (2007).

My Position
I am opposed to an expansion of the mental health registry. We should weaken what we already have. An illness is not a crime. NICS should only reference documented cases of violent offenders or individuals who threaten violence, disabled or not. It's unjust to include people who might or might not commit a crime. How does a judge decide if someone is a danger if he hasn't done anything dangerous? It's not so black and white.

But if the government keeps adding names to its list, the general public should never have access to it. The United States has a HIPPA Privacy Rule restricting the release of medical information. We should not relax this law in order to strengthen the others.

What if instead we tallied a list of temper-prone "normal" people who claim they have a constitutional right to assault rifles, as though there's a right to hand grenades, and stopped them from buying guns? It is possible that vengeful people with no psychiatric history, such as bullied teenagers or fired employees, perpetuate the horrific incidents of mass violence we hear about so much on TV. They're not necessarily crazy. Maybe they're just angry. Instead of releasing a punch, they're triggering an automatic weapon. We usually don't call the average young man who gets into a fist fight a "rabid madman," but these two behaviors are somewhat alike, even though the consequences are different. In fact, "…the vast majority of people who are violent do not suffer from mental illnesses (American Psychiatric Association, 1994)."

Stigma
Stigma makes everything worse. A sitcom mocking "mental defectives" is supposed to be funny. Unlike racial slurs, parents rarely correct children who say "psycho." They act as though schizophrenics aren't human since they might lose their ability to reason. These words hurt my feelings. Besides, medication can usually mend the disorganized thoughts.

Stigma causes discrimination. After I told a landlord I had a mental health problem, he told me my illness was his reason for denying me an apartment in a good neighborhood. When I was a teacher at a school for psychiatric children and in the closet about my illness, the principal told me she wouldn't hire a schizophrenic. If it happened to me, it happens to many. How would my neighbors treat me if they found out from a public database I had a mental illness?

A registry of mental disorders makes a bad stigma worse. It could actually cause the next Columbine disaster, because a psychologist can teach a potential shooter how to manage his anger, given the opportunity, but a young man who's been mocked and ostracized for being gay just might say to himself, "I'm not like that list of psychos and I don't need a shrink," then turn up at the next gun show, and riddle his classmates with bullets.

Who Will Be Next?
It feels like the The National Rifle Association is scapegoating us to divert attention off the subject of why we have too many guns. So let me ask the readers of this article, "How would you feel if the FBI had you on a list because of who you were, not because of something you did?" Would it make you more paranoid if you were already prone to paranoia? Besides, in my opinion, given the grand scope of psychiatric DSM illnesses, everyone in the country who might walk into a psychiatrist's office in their worst of times can be diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder. What are we going to do, include everyone in NICS and deny guns to everyone? I ask the reader again, "How do you know you won't be included? You mean you've never been too anxious or depressed?"

Nevertheless, perhaps more critically for the nation than for a small group of its citizens, as we approach the big-brother-is-watching-you society George Orwell predicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four, we should rein in the will of the majority. In our feverish pursuit of security, a restriction on the privacy of one chips away at the freedom of all. The United States has long held the beacon of democracy as a guide for the rest of the world. At what point do we cut off the power to the flame that sheds its light over Manhattan Island? We may never know. Liberty may slip away bit by bit with no clear sign of its moment of departure. Perhaps much later on, when one big chunk breaks off into a wider expanse of time, when we have accumulated a sum total of many smaller losses, will we notice that we are not as free as we thought and wrestle back control from the bold reach of Bush-era government.
_____

American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Fact Sheet: Violence and Mental Illness. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. See this fact sheet.

Applebaum, P. and Swanson, J. (2010). Law and psychiatry: Gun laws and mental illness: How sensible are the current restrictions? Psychiatric Services. 61, 7. Full Text

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1999) Mental health: A report of the surgeon general. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health Full Text

Wallace, C., Mullen, P., Burgess, P., et al. (1998) Serious criminal offending and mental disorder. Case linkage study. British Journal of Psychiatry. 172, 477-484. Abstract/Full Text

Walsh, E., Buchanan, and A. Fahy, T. (2002) Violence and schizophrenia: examining the evidence. British Journal of Psychiatry Psychiatry. 180, 490-495. Abstract/Full Text

Petition of Positive Reinforcement of Walmart Strikers

2012-12-30T22:30:00.002-05:00

Here you can do some positive reinforcement of your own, right from this blog post, by signing this petition in support of Walmart strikers.

How to Avoid the Leviticus 20:13 Gay Death Penalty

2012-12-26T09:58:00.000-05:00

King James

The King James Bible said: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death." Leviticus 20:13.

Fortunately, however, there is a way for two gay men to avoid the wrath of God and maintain a loving relationship. Let them toss the double mattress and box spring out to the bulk trash and invest in two separate single beds, so that when they feel the urge to hug and kiss each other, they can do it standing up, but when they need their sleep, they can lie down in two different rooms in two different parts of the home.

They would eliminate an act considered to be bad by taking advantage of a behavioral contingency called the differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior. They can't be standing up and lying down at the same time and place, hence the incompatibility. Through subsequent trials, as they mutually strengthen and reinforce their good behavior and block themselves from emitting any bad behavior, fun standing up replaces fun lying down. They will obey the edict and avoid one of the worst aversive stimuli possible, righteous people putting evildoers to death. Thanks to the behavioral psychology of B.F. Skinner and his followers, they have bought a one way ticket to heaven.

At this point, how can anyone who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible have any problem with the passage? God didn't say they can't hold each other. He only said they can't lie down together.

P.S. If you enjoyed this page you also might like my two previous non-satirical religion-oriented posts: A Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Behavioral Compromise and A Behaviorist Goes to Church.

Please Follow Me on Twitter

2012-12-07T13:14:00.001-05:00

I've been busy these past few months with the prospective sale of my home and driving to New York and North Jersey. I haven't been writing much, but I've been tweeting. To get my updates, please follow me on Twitter, https://twitter.com/#!/RewardConsent.

Coming Out of the Closet Rondeau Poem

2012-10-05T22:21:00.000-04:00

This painting reminds me of my friend in the poem.

We had a guest tonight at the Artist's Guild Coffee House poetry group in Island Heights, New Jersey who taught us how to write a French Rondeau. I wrote my new poem, Nate the Great, which follows the rhyming scheme and the refrain, but not the usual syllable count, of this form of poem.

I dedicate it to the life of my guide to good living since the early 1990s who died of a heart attack only last month at the respectable age of 83. I had asked him once if he took flight before me to the vast unknown eternal mystery to show me a sign that he was up there somewhere, not an obscure, mysterious sign that left me wondering was it so, like rustling leaves in a gentle breeze oh his birthday, but an obvious one, like his voice over the radio saying, "Hello, David, this is Nathan calling. How's everything in Lakewood?" He said he would if he could. I dreamed about him last night. What it was about I can't remember, nothing earth shattering though, but I wanted to write something about him. This evening gave me an opportunity.

In keeping with the behavioral focus of this blog, the poem covers the behavior class we call "coming out of the closet." I hope you enjoy it.

*****

Nate the Great

"Nate the Great" I called you so,
The secret culture you would show,
A married man until she died,
And a thousand men you said you tried
Before the AIDS we came to know.

I came out. You helped me grow,
Mentor, confidant, bigger bro.
I asked you once before you died,
Please, Nate the Great,

Take a ball and make it glow
And shake your beard to make it snow,
A clear sign from the other side
That there's nothing more for you to hide,
That they love you there; there is no foe
From up above, my Nate the Great.

Positive Reinforcement of President Obama's Good Behavior

2012-09-04T18:46:00.003-04:00

Hello, everybody,

I have just rewarded President Obama and I hope you will do the same.

You can probably tell from my blog, I'm a fervent proponent of 1) positive reinforcement of good behavior as the method of first choice for bringing about constructive change. Adding a reward for good behavior is better than the other three functional contingencies in the ethics of behavior modification: 2) functional punishment, or adding an aversive stimulus when we do something bad, 3) functional penalty, or withholding a reward when we do something bad, and 4) functional negative reinforcement, or removing an aversive stimulus when we do something good. The four opposite dysfunctional contingencies either reinforce bad behavior or punish or penalize good behavior. Unfortunately, this can happen too.

Positive reinforcement, used judiciously, wins us more friends. It creates a healthy energy or a good Karma that comes back to us later in manifold ways. It strengthens what we should do rather than chastising us against what we shouldn't. It substitutes bad behaviors with good behaviors that are incompatible with bad behavior. For example, inner city youth cannot destroy property at the same time the Police Athletic League is supervising them in a basketball program. Reward can fill up our schedules with good activities. It shoves unwanted responses aside, well away from our overall repertoire of active behavior. It increases the probability that good behavior will reoccur. It shows others who are watching that they also can be rewarded for good behavior. As a form of counter-influence, it can change people with more power just as well as it can change people with less.

As long as we haven't already deprived someone of a basic need, such as food, in order to create a potent (yet unethical) reinforcer, an individual's consent to behavior modification can be automatic and unspoken, especially when we reinforce with subtle forms of social approval or with special bonus treats for good behavior.

With positive reinforcement, we can learn how to improve our own behavior. It can meme its way across the internet as a life-giving probiotic, a good bacterium of change rather than a malicious virus of hostility that harms in its wake.

In keeping with the principle, I have decided to reinforce President Obama. I just donated to the Obama campaign and I will vote for him and other Democrats in the upcoming election because he supports his fellow citizens, average Americans, even if they're not wealthy.

I created an Obama 2012 grassroots fundraising page to own a piece of what happens on November 6th. Election Day will be here before you know it. Will you show you’re standing with President Obama by making a donation of $5 or more to my grassroots fundraising page today? The money goes to Obama's website, not to me. https://donate.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/2012/DaveJersey.

If you choose not to donate, you can also volunteer. Make sure to register and vote. You can forward this webpage, tweet it, or add it to your Facebook page. You can also create your own message in support of the Democrats and send it across the internet. However you decide to reward him, please do something. Our future and our children's future depend upon us moving forward with Obama.

Thanks

Dave

The Presidential Trend of Democrats vs. Republicans

2012-07-17T23:03:00.000-04:00

Which trend is more appealing? You choose. I prefer the historical results and the promise of the Democratic Party over and above the Republican.

The Previous Democratic President

The Democratic Candidate

The Republican Candidate

The Previous Republican President

Behavior Blocking of a Pet Drinking Toilet Water

2012-07-01T05:31:00.001-04:00

Picture source

I went to my brother's house for dinner tonight and everyone else was outside except for the dogs and me. Max walked into the bathroom and I heard some slurping. I had left the toilet seat up. His water bowl was empty. He had been outside. It was over eighty degrees.

A temporary behavioral solution was easy. I used the technique called blocking, combined with a reinforcement of incompatible behavior. When he was watching, I just lowered the cover, filled his water bowl, and set it down in its usual place. He immediately drank some fresh water. Drinking from the toilet is not possible with the manipulation of an operandum in that little experimental chamber where we go to the bathroom, my closing the lid. When it's down, no immediate after-the-fact consequence, neither an appetitive nor an aversive stimulus, no reinforcer or punisher, is possible. He simply can't perform a blocked behavior. Prevention is happening.

There was no extinction either. Extinction takes a long series of consistently unreinforced trials to bring a previously learned response down to its low level of naturally or accidentally occurring frequency. Put the lid up again when his water bowl is empty and it's hot outside and he hasn't had a drink in a while, he will probably do it again. Extinction isn't happening when responses can't occur.

Drinking from his dog bowl is incompatible with drinking from the toilet bowl. He can't be drinking from the toilet while he's drinking from his bowl. They're in separate rooms. Reinforce the incompatible behavior and it strengthens. The future rate of behavior increases. Hopefully, if fully reinforced, when the seat is up accidentally the next time, drinking from his bowl will be a stronger response than drinking in the bathroom. Then he may drink as he should.

The water is an unconditioned reinforcer. Like food, it naturally reinforces when there's been a significant period of deprivation from fluids. The heat may further establish a condition of thirst. Water does not need to be paired up with anything to act as a reinforcer.

If I had paired my praise with his drinking the way he's supposed to drink, then my praise could become a conditioned reinforcer. By itself, when he first met me, my praise may have been a neutral stimulus, assuming there was no previous conditioning with people like me, but through the presentation of praise with an established reinforcer, such as water, a treat, or some petting, then the stimulus called praise could become a conditioned reinforcer. If then I had praised him for something he did well, then he'd be more likely to repeat the wanted behavior. A contingency I call "positive reinforcement of good behavior" would take place.

If the lid is up while his own bowl is full of fresh water, he will probably go for his bowl instead of the toilet bowl if doing so has more relative strength. This might occur if we praised him for drinking from his bowl and thoroughly and consistently ignored him when he drank from the toilet.

Unfortunately the dirty water can infect him while he's undergoing his extinction trials. So I believe the safest way to treat him, if you don't want to punish him, is to keep the lid down, get him a bigger bowl, make sure it's filled and cold, change it often, especially on a hot day, and praise him now and then when he drinks as he should. This way they're more covered if they forget to drop the lid.

Reprimanding him may in fact act as a reinforcement. Since they were outside, nobody was paying him any attention when he was watching them out the window. Some people say the only thing worse than criticism is silence upon you. Attention, even if it's harsh, can reinforce if it's the only attention you get. If they had previously scolded him in the months that led up to this evening for doing the unwanted act, then unwittingly they may have been training him to do something bad. In the future if he demonstrates drinking at the toilet while his dog bowl is simultaneously full of fresh water, I would suspect that they had already established the bathroom behavior with negative social attention as a positive reinforcement.

We can compare this to the teacher who scolds his students for talking out of turn instead of just calling on the ones who do raise their hands. He has no idea why they misbehave and resorts to real punishers such as screaming or ridicule when they act out. A young girl once told me that her "mean" teacher was cursing at them and she was so happy when the school year was over. The cursing was a punisher for her since she was happy to escape him.

A punishment such as hitting Max with a rolled up newspaper can suppress a behavior when the punishing person is present, but punishment can cause retaliation, anxiety, or withdrawal. It doesn't teach him what he should do instead. The punishing person, disliked or despised, becomes conditioned as an aversive stimulus to avoid.

Moreover in some situations, such as the attention starved creature already discussed or another who doesn't experience any warm physical contact, even hitting can reinforce. "Corporal punishment" wouldn't really be punishment. We would call the incident positive reinforcement if we knew that the the rate of behavior increased over time and if it had consistently resulted in hitting.

My brother and his family have already learned how to block Max's behavior. He is old and has tumbled down the stairs, so they put up a gate at the bottom of the stairs. It was low enough for us to step over and high enough to keep him down. Again his behavior was not contingent upon any punishment, reinforcement, or extinction. How could it be? If it is not possible to perform a behavior, a consequence is not possible. Remove the gate, with all other variables remaining the same, and he may revert to his previous rate of stair climbing behavior. Behavior can recover to a previous level after a time-lag of unperformed responses.

Paying attention to Max when he's climbing the stairs and ignoring him at other times is counterproductive. We all need attention during good behavior so we can strengthen some acceptable alternative behaviors that compete with the misbehavior. Play with him when he carries the old shoe in his mouth and he may become satiated with social reinforcement and stay out of trouble. Don't just scold him when he's gnawing at a good shoe.

If he is curious about playing upstairs in their new house and the upstairs is loaded with reinforcers or it's more unexplored, then blocking with the gate may be the best solution. Other training is necessary while blocking is in effect. You can't just put up the gate and leave him alone. Downstairs needs to be filled with loving and playing. And it is. They are a good family. They don't hit their dogs with anything. I'd say all good families could benefit from some well-informed behavioral tweaking.

These principles are not obvious without knowledge, training, practice, and perhaps some objectively recorded data. Often it's good to hire a Board Certified Behavior Analyst to do a clearly defined behavior assessment, which I am not. I am only a researcher with a passion, a devoted follower of B.F. Skinner with a background in special education. An analyst can observe, document, measure, and analyze the patterns of antecedents and consequences relevant to problem behaviors. After a functional analysis, they can train parents and teachers how to do it as well.

So remember the number one rule in my interpretation of the ethics of behavior modification. "Don't reward bad behavior (without realizing you're doing it)." Negative attention can make things worse. To "reward good behavior" makes everyone happier when it works as it should. These aren't my original ideas either. They've been presented by Skinner and his younger colleagues at the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior in the journals they publish.

The preliminary source of this information is B.F. Skinner's first book, The Behavior of Organisms (1938), with rats as his experimental subjects.

Now if only my mother would praise me for putting the seat down, then that little problem just might go away. Just kidding, Ma. She has her own bathroom.

Flossing Teeth Feels Good to a Control Freak

2012-06-24T13:42:00.000-04:00

Picture Source

Believe it or not, there are reports that flossing your teeth can reduce the risk of heart disease. This blog covers positive reinforcement of desirable behavior. I love to floss. A dental hygienist taught me how to do it correctly. Flossing is a behavior that can be strengthened by reinforcement. Years ago I wrote a poem about the good feeling of self-control gained from flossing as obtained by a control freak such as myself. You might say flossing is intrinsically rewarding since my reinforcement comes from inside the mouth and under the skin. Despite the humor, it's true I feel calmer by ejecting a piece of food from between my teeth. The poem follows below. I hope you enjoy it.

Dave

*****

The Flossbrush

I used to have a control problem; now it's under control – thanks to my new flosser.

When I couldn't get my friends to do what I wanted, I'd flip out inside until I got gas. I'd get red in the face, bubble up, and get stiff in the neck. Now I just floss.

The old way of flossing was no good. I couldn't get to the molars with the string twisted round my fingers all tingly and red. So then I wouldn't floss and my gums would get soft and Dr. Marvin would frown and he'd put me down me right in front of his dental hygienists. "So you're another one who doesn't care about his gums."

But then I found the "Flossbrush" at Rite Aid Pharmacy. The string is wound up on a spindle inside the handle. I feed it through an opening, wrap it around a knob and suspend a quarter inch of floss between two arms, and there it is, the flossbrush, ready to unsnag anything no matter how well lodged in between the denticles.

Nowadays, my routine is set. A day at the park. No problem. I find someone on a half-empty bench, someone I never met; I sit down, and take it out of my pocket. No more broccoli or oatmeal. It's gone in a jiffy. Dr. Marvin will be proud. I'll be keeping these teeth. And I don't care if nobody obeys me anymore. Besides, I stopped making demands.

Just a floss in the morning
A floss before bed;
There's no need to fret
There's a song in my head.

At the family barbecue this summer they told me to get out of their sight. "As you wish," I said. "The string's nice and tight. I'll sit in the grass. There’s no need to sweat." (They couldn’t take the snapping sound and the little bits of corn on the cob shooting out all around the picnic table and landing in the chowder, for instance.) So I sat on the lawn, in the lotus position, and did it while chanting my mantra. "Ommmmmm." The boys said I was weird. Well that's the way it goes sometimes.

It doesn't bother my friends anymore, the two I have left. Freddie just grinds his teeth and says, "Gee, Shmave, not with the mouth again."

And Wilma adjusts her suspenders, snorts, and says, "Another floss! Can I watch? Some day you'll show me how, don't ya think?"

Well, it's OK, and I'm OK, and you're OK. Everyone gets one this Christmas. We could have a flossing party!

Boycott New York City for Stop and Frisk by NYPD

2012-06-13T06:23:00.000-04:00

Wikimedia

The New York Civil Liberties Union says, "The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino." This blog advocates the ethical proscription "Don't reward bad behavior." A boycott follows this rule. Therefore, I'm boycotting New York City until the New York Police Department stops performing this heavy-handed, unconstitutional practice. I, for one, would rather stay in New Jersey and spend my money here than subject myself to the possibility of being stopped and frisked while doing nothing illegal.

The Mayor claims he has reduced crime by way of their aggressive tactics, but they haven't reduced it, they have merely shifted it. While New Yorkers may be committing less crime, the police who follow his stop and frisk orders today are perpetrating the major offenses in the city. Mayor Bloomberg is the biggest thug in New York.

Soldiers Return Medals to NATO

2012-05-27T11:57:00.000-04:00

Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan threw their medals back to NATO at the recent protest in Chicago. They apologized to the people of those countries "for the destruction that we have caused" and for the killing they were "duped" into committing, dedicating them to the children "that no longer have fathers and mothers."

They returned the medals "mad as hell" because they represented positive reinforcement for "crimes against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan," saying "I'm sorry" in the process and "invoking" their "right to heal" from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a debilitating psychological illness common to war veterans.

I believe "don't reward bad behavior" is the most important rule for all of us to follow in the ethical use of behavior modification. When we stop rewarding bad behavior over the long term, bad behavior goes away. There is no need to punish it. See more at my post Don't Reward Bad Behavior.

A Behaviorist Goes to Church

2012-05-04T01:14:00.000-04:00

I enjoy a good church, or a temple, now and then, but I'm not religious. It's been a long time since an older Jewish friend invited me to the temple, but on occasion, during the past few years, my Mexican friends have invited me to join them at a local Pentecostal service. Otherwise, when I'm not invited to any particular congregation, I can go to a church with a gay priest who talks openly during his sermon about his lover or husband who sings in the choir. It's the epitome of gay-friendly. I reject the Catholic Church, where I was baptized, because the popes have been rejecting people like me. But I want to talk to you now about this Latino celebration of the Bible.

All the excitement takes place in an unadorned two-story chamber with whitewashed walls, with no statues or stained-glass windows, and with rock-hard wooden pews minus the kneelers so familiar to Catholics. English banners hang down ensuring the attendants that God loves them. These Hispanic worshipers rent the space and everything else is in Spanish. It lasts for about three hours, from five until eight, on Sunday evenings.

Both sexes greet one another shaking hands saying, "Dios te bendiga." (God bless you.) I sit beside a friend I met in the gym about two years ago. They hook me up with a pair of headphones, and an older bilingual Latino, perfectly fluent in English, stands up in the balcony and translates everything wirelessly to the receiver.

A rock band plays up front for an entire hour with the singers amplified at the microphones and the drums muzzled a little by a clear plastic screen about six foot by six surrounding the set. There's usually a few young men playing electric guitars, a bass player, and an electric keyboard in front of the choir. The people are singing along. It gets very loud.

Everyone dresses in fresh Sunday clothes. During the music, some stand with their hands lifted high above their heads. Others turn around and kneel down to pray, burying their heads in their hands with their faces held over the pews. Others jump around in the aisles, two-stepping to the rhythm. The children dance, laugh and play, sit and watch, or go downstairs to the babysitting room. I never see them reprimanded or getting into trouble.

When the music fades, the pastor displays more emotion than Martin Luther King did in some of his famous sermons. He promises their faith will heal their diseases. He is limping, he crouches and holds his wrist to the pain in his side, and then he jumps down from the platform healthy and rejoicing. His voice is like music, his intonation never shrill, but full of volume. They echo his words.

"¿Amén amén?" he calls.

"Amén amén," they respond.

He says, "Olvídanse de la razón. Ten fe." (Forget reason. Have faith.)

They follow along with their Spanish Bibles reading the passages he's selected and marking their notebooks for take home and study.

He warns against drugs and alcohol. He says nothing bad about gays, as far as I can tell. (Just once on a previous weeknight, a guest preacher said homosexuality is a sin. I asked my other Mexican friend if we could leave. We stoop up and walked out before he finished his talk. I said in the car we could go to another church and listen to an openly gay priest who refrains from passing judgment. He apologized and I thanked him for leaving.) But this visit, this time, it's a typical, uplifting Sunday with the usual leader of the church. He finishes his lesson and everyone gets up and out of their seats to meet everyone else for the handshake of peace. The pastor's son says he likes my "baby blues." I may be the only blue-eyed male in the whole place.

Then the faithful gather up front for the miracles. The music drones loud again. The pastor lays his hands on their foreheads and blows air in their faces. They fall back into the arms of the attendants who lay them down on their backs draping purple frilly linens upon them. A woman is shaking like a person with epilepsy and the pastor's wife and some other women take her to recover behind a closed door on the platform. Another woman approaches with a walker and returns to her seat unassisted without it. It seems like they're in a frenzy with the ceremony reaching a climax, the dancing, singing, and praying more ecstatic than ever. The translation has stopped, but I push the earphones hard into my ears to diminish the intake of music that's pounding too much at my sensitivities.

Throughout the evening, when they stand, I stand. When they sit, I sit. I clap when they clap. I don't sing, dance, raise up my hands, or pray. I sit there wondering how they do it, behaviorally speaking. You can feel the positive reinforcement. It's a joy to be included, regardless of my lack of participation in the rituals. They've got a good thing going. The energetic warmth and grandiose welcome have a lot to do with it. Everyone is active. Smiling glances are constant and abundant. It's a good break from the harsh realities of a long, hard week of low-paying jobs, of day-labor, of the occasional hunger, and of the overcrowded rooming houses of underemployed cooks, dishwashers, landscapers, sheet-rockers, and roofers, of undocumented immigrants ineligible for welfare, unemployment benefits, student loans, state-run prescription plans, Medicaid, Medicare, or drivers licenses, with Latinos helping each other when others need help, who base much of their support in their relations at church, with loans to each other, with meals for the penniless, or a free spot to sleep on the floor in a small room in a big house with three mates when a close friend can't get enough work to survive on his own. Sunday provides a respite and the congregation offers an alternative safety net.

This meeting comes gradually to a close. We mingle and talk. When it's all over, a mustachioed man, just like every other time he had met me before, asks me if I will accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior right here, right now. I repeat the same response I said to him before, "I like to watch, but my spirituality is private." Then he lets me be. If I tell him, "No," I believe he would try to convert me. It would be awkward. It's the best line my ex-boyfriend ever gave me. It always works. I can maintain my integrity, not offend anyone, and go home happy.

On the way out the door a stocky young man who I haven't met asks me in English, "When are you coming back?"

I say, "When I have another invitation."

He says, "I'm inviting you now. See you next Sunday."

A Behaviorist with Jury Duty

2012-04-15T00:29:00.003-04:00

Picture source: Wikimedia

If you are a behaviorist who believes in the futility of prison, what do you do when you're called to serve jury duty on a criminal case?

This happened to me about fifteen years ago. Many potential jurors were called. At first we were more like a crowd than a committee. We were led to the county court chamber with the judge and the prosecutor and the staff. The accused drug dealer sat beside his defense attorney. One by one we were called up for questions. If the prosecutor didn't like somebody, that somebody was dismissed. The same for the defense. One man glared at the accused as soon as he sat down for the questions from the judge. The defense had him dismissed. The prosecutor rejected a woman with a seductive appearance. He didn't say why. Others answered all the questions the judge had to offer and they were accepted and given a seat on the jury. All the seats were filled except for one. It took quite a while.

Then I was called, the last potential juror to fill the slot. Everyone's eyes fell upon me. The judge asked all the preliminary questions. The only one I recall was the last. He asked if I had any reason not to serve. In front of all those people involved in the trial, I said, "I don't believe in the effectiveness of punishment."

He said, "We all agree with you here," but he dismissed me. I wonder what effect it had on the final verdict.

My father is an attorney. He said I was helping the prosecutor. I might have been lenient. I might have swayed the jury not to convict. The defense attorney may have wanted me there.

This leads to the moral question. If you believe that prison is a destructive system, do you get yourself dismissed in this manner, or do you serve and do as you're told, finding guilt or innocence regardless of what could be the penalty, or do you serve and vote to acquit regardless of your determination of guilty or not guilty, intending to minimize harm in a utilitarian manner? This man, if guilty, could have served a sentence, gone to jail, joined forces with the more hard core prisoners, and returned to society a severely damaged man and a worse criminal, wreaking havoc in the neighborhood where he returned. What is legal is sometimes wrong.

I believed I shouldn't serve. I avoided the dilemma of what to do as a juror.

I would love to read your comments.

"Shock Therapy" Is an Oxymoron

2012-04-13T01:10:00.023-04:00

Autistic children are routinely stunned with electric skin shock at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Massachusetts. Michele Dawson, an outspoken critic of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), reported that Board Certified Behavior Analysts are involved at the school. (I believe this is an exception and that a great majority of BCBA's stress positive reinforcement over punishment.)

Its founder, Matthew Israel, was a follower of B.F. Skinner. Skinner did, in fact, defend Israel and the Center, even though he was calling for a world without punishment.

Parents and institutions have consented to their procedures. The state of New York has sent many of its students there. In 2007 Mother Jones published a major article on the school. Children are shocked for minor infractions. The Center represents a flagrant example of why ABA professionals should obtain the dual consent of the child as well as the parent. See my article on the consent of the subject of behavior research and therapy.

This picture shows a child being held down and shocked at the school. It is taken from a video. I found it in an article at NBC news. Their title is unfortunate. There is no such thing as "shock therapy." Shock causes harm and therapy is supposed to help. "Shock therapy" is an oxymoron, a contradiction of terms.

NBC said the video was made public, so I assume the image is in the public domain and re-printable. If there is a copyright owner who wants me to take it down, I will.

I welcome replies from Board Certified Behavior Analysts as well as advocates with autism.

P. S. This article has a video of a boy being shocked at Rotenberg.

Skinner Talks About Punishment

2012-03-06T13:52:00.001-05:00

Watch until the end of this video when B.F. Skinner says we should have a world without punishment.

A Pro-Life Pro-Choice Behavioral Compromise

2012-02-13T20:55:00.000-05:00

Picture source: wikimedia

The philosophy of reward and consent offers a compromise solution to the debate that rages between pro-life and pro-choice advocates.

If I were a woman I would not have an abortion. I would feel like I was taking away something precious. On the other hand, if I had a wife and she became pregnant, I would not want to see her punished if she decided to have an abortion. However, I would not be content unless society had a plan that prevented the demand for abortion.

I would want to see maximized the positive reinforcement of the alternatives to unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Abstinence should be encouraged with a stress that contraception does not always work. Apparently condoms can tear, for example. Abstinence-only should not be taught, because it imposes an unrealistic expectation and people uneducated about birth control are probably less likely to use it in the event of an urgent sexual encounter. We can encourage kissing and cuddling in bed with no other exchange of body fluids for those who seek intimacy and safer sex. Health educators should teach the proper use of contraception, including condoms, to cover those who have the irresistible need to undergo intercourse. Universal health insurance can provide it at no cost to males or females, which would eliminate a financial barrier to the prevention of unwanted pregnancy. We should encourage adoption and make it shameless, inexpensive, and readily available. Society should also provide an adequate economical safety net to prevent poverty and sickness so that babies are not unwanted due a lack of hope for a future of happiness for the family.

As in other solutions advocated in this blog of a world without serious man-made punishment, it would take time to phase in an effective long-term strategy, but it can be done, through the intelligent design of culture, as advocated by B.F. Skinner, the most influential behavioral scientist of the twentieth century.

The Double Starbucks Boycott BUYcott

2012-02-06T20:02:00.008-05:00

Picture source: Wikicommons

Gun victims are boycotting Starbucks because it "thinks it's okay to carry (a) gun into their stores" (gunvictimsaction.org). Gun lobbyists are BUYcotting Starbucks because gun victims are boycotting them (responsiblecitizensofcalifornia.org).

A Christian pastor called for a boycott of Starbucks because it favors marriage equality for gays (huffingtonpost.com). The only missing piece is for gay-friendly people to BUYcott Starbucks for its support of gay marriage. So, to even up the score, I'm calling for one now. Let's BUYcott Starbucks because it is gay-friendly. Yippee!

Who will be sipping espresso? Gun-carrying homosexuals.Who will stay away? The homophobic gun control lobby. Anti-gay gun-lovers will not know what to do when they want a cup of coffee.

All kidding aside, in one sense the method is more important than the mission. If homophobic marriage equality opponents could find anti-gay businesses to support instead of boycotting gay-friendly businesses, then more people would be making more friends and less enemies. If gun victims could BUYcott businesses that supported gun control, then they would make more friends and allies than they do by confronting the pro-gun corporations. Overall, there would be more goodwill floating around, regardless of what everyone is arguing about, because positive reinforcement is friendly and punishment is not.

Newark Mayor Booker Responds Well to "Gay Marriage Referendum"

2012-01-29T21:37:00.029-05:00

Mayor Booker sounded like a constitutional scholar speaking from his heart in a recent press conference. A few years ago I was sitting in the public viewing gallery in the statehouse in Trenton and witnessed first-hand New Jersey's Assembly as they debated their vote against gay marriage. Booker reminds me of one Democrat who spoke so eloquently that day about James Madison's call for the protection of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. (Madison wrote the first draft of the U.S. Constitution.) We weren't allowed to clap, but I stood up on my feet as he gave the speech. Newark's Mayor echoed the sentiment as he spoke out against the cries for a referendum which would let the public decide whether or not gays can marry in New Jersey.

Behavioral Politics with Positive Reinforcement

2012-01-08T22:26:00.003-05:00

Picture source: Wikimedia

B.F. Skinner advocated positive reinforcement as the method of first choice for modifying the behavior of others. I believe the same holds true for the modification of politicians' behaviors. Internet activists such as moveon.org depend upon negative reinforcement too much and do not take enough advantage of the benefits that would accrue from rewarding politicians who do the right thing.

Positive reinforcement occurs when a pleasant stimulus is presented to a person soon after they emit a behavior, which makes the behavior more likely to occur in the future. Rewarding a politician is a good way to make a friend in office.

Negative reinforcement is not the same thing as punishment. Under negative reinforcement, when an unpleasant stimulus is removed, behavior strength increases. People avoid or retaliate against people who rely upon aversive stimuli to bring about a behavior When internet activists send massive emails and phone calls to representatives' offices, they are applying pressure, a negative stimulus, which they remove as soon as they comply with their demands. It is rare to see them sending massive emails and phone calls to thank a politician after they do the right thing. We all like a good pat on the back for good behavior and politicians are people too.

Punishment is the worst strategy. It involves an unpleasant stimulus added after a behavior occurs. Mild or moderate punishment suppresses the behavior through time while the threat of more punishment looms, but it does not have much long-term control over the behavior. People do not like it. Its use increases the likelihood you'll make an enemy of the person you are punishing. Punish a politician and watch him or her turn to the side of your opposition, especially if your opposition is more reinforcing.

There are alternatives to punishment such as the reinforcement of incompatible behaviors. A good vote is incompatible with a bad vote on the same issue. Reinforce them for voting in your favor and it is not necessary to focus on the punishment of those who vote against you. Abstainers are more likely to come to your side if they see they will be appreciated.

I should add that all political internet groups are not unaware of this strategy. The best action alert I have seen online involved "Moms Clean Air Force." In one instance they used positive reinforcement of senators after they had previously rallied their members to pressure the Senate to vote in their favor on an issue they felt strongly about. They sent an email to their followers saying:

Thank you! By raising your voice in opposition, Moms and Dads across the country secured a victory for clean air and our children's health late last week. The Senate voted down a dangerous bill introduced by Sen. Rand Paul that would have permanently blocked the life-saving Cross State Air Pollution Rule, a vitally needed standard that will save up to 34,000 lives every year. How did your senators vote? Click here to find out and then either thank them for supporting children's health or urge them to stand on the side of clean air in the future.

That link brought them to a page where members entered their addresses and the website said, "Once you have entered your zip code, we will match you with your senators to thank them for voting against this bill or remind them how important it is that they stand up for our children's clean air."

I commend momscleanairforce.org for the best use of positive reinforcement I have ever witnessed among political internet organizations who use action alerts to advocate their causes.

Volkswagen's Fun Theory

2012-01-04T03:18:00.002-05:00

Here's a corporation emitting some socially responsible behavior. (All of them are not always bad. Lol. I also like Subway.) Volkswagen initiated thefuntheory.com contest with a cash award for the best invention for getting people to do good things with fun as the reward. Along the same lines, they also say they make their environmental cars more fun to drive. Visit the website to watch videos on how they got children to wear seat belts with an entertainment center that only works when the buckle is clicked, how instead of taking the escalator, they got more people to take the "piano staircase" with a different note for each step, they got more people to drive the speed limit with a speed camera lottery, backed up by a cash payment to people driving the speed limit, as funded by fines on the speeders, got more people to recycle bottles with the bottle bank arcade with its flashing lights and points, and more to throw rubbish into the "world's deepest bin" instead of on the ground.

About ten years ago the police near my home town stood between cars at a busy traffic light and gave away coupons to people they "caught" wearing their seat belts. I was thrilled.

Here's a video of the award winner.

Computer-Based Instruction Generalizes to a Regular Work Setting

2012-01-01T16:01:00.008-05:00

Picture source: Wikimedia

Ingvarsson and Hanley (2006) wanted to know if learning that takes place during computer-based instruction can generalize into the regular work setting of preschool student-teachers. The variable they investigated was the teachers' morning greeting of their students' parents by name. The results of their study showed that they would use their names more often in the classroom after being trained on a computer to identify the parents' pictures by their names.

They explained that some recent studies of computer-based instruction have taught computer skills to normal healthy adults, and there have been many other studies demonstrating the effectiveness of computer-based training on other kinds of subjects, but little has been done to show if the learning that takes place on the computer is transferable to other settings beyond the computer.

They argued that the computer is well suited to the kind of programmed instruction taught by B.F. Skinner (1968). This entailed breaking down a complex skill to its basic sub-components and minimizing errors during training by prompting the subject with the correct answer and gradually fading away the answer-cues until responses occurred without prompts.

In this experiment, they taught the teachers to memorize parents' names in three steps. The computer displayed a picture of the parent along with the name. Teachers then typed the name of the parent in order to advance to the next frame. Then the computer showed the picture and spelled the first half of the name of the parent and the teachers entered the full name and moved on. In the third level, the picture appeared without a prompt and they needed to type the name completely from memory. (This was a behavioral study, so the authors did not employ the terms "memory" or "to memorize.")

As it turned out, during the baseline at the beginning of the study, teachers infrequently used the names of the parents in the morning as they dropped off their children despite being directed to do so, but after the computer training, the rate of using the parents' names increased substantially in three of the four subjects.

Ingvarsson and Hanley (2006) argued that "stimulus generalization" contributed to the results, that the resemblance of the parents' pictures to their actual faces allowed the actual faces to set the occasion for the naming response in the regular setting, after the pictures had already gained some control over the naming response in the computer program. They also said that "response induction" took place, that the response of typing the name into the computer transferred to a response with a different topography. Typing a name and saying a name are different, but related activities.

Despite being directed to do so, teachers generally did not address the parents by name until after the training. This study not only showed what did work, a behavioral intervention, but perhaps a greater value of the study lies in its demonstration of what did not work, a basic instruction by a supervisor with no supplemental training. A supervisor needs to do something empirical with evidence-based results, a technique that an experiment can demonstrate as effective. The more traditional style of supervision of simply giving an order without a data-based evaluation of the approach may be completely ineffective.

Teachers signed consent forms granting the experimenters their permission to study them, and the experimenter informed them that they were collecting data on their performance, but they didn't specifically mention that they were recording their naming skills. I see nothing unethical in this approach. While they did not completely inform them of all the specifics, they did not misrepresent the fact that their performance was under review. Telling them which competency they were analyzing could have introduced a confounding variable into the study. The teachers might have performed differently knowing that name-use was under scrutiny. By not informing them of this, the results may have more closely resembled their performance in an ordinary situation where no experiment was taking place.

Ingvarsson and Hanley (2006) used the computer as a tool to develop a memory skill. They also could have trained them with mnemonic memory tricks and paper and pencil. A similar generalization to the classroom setting could have occurred had they employed different name memorization techniques. It would be good to see other skills besides memorization taught on the computer and generalized to another setting.

For the work in my blog, Reward and Consent, I am looking at behavioral studies of normal healthy adults to see if the principles of behavior modification as discovered with animals do apply in the real world to regular people. Once again we are witnessing the control of the behavior of healthy adults through changes in their environment without appealing to an inner causal agent such as a free will. My previous report, Prompting for Food Bank Donations, showed how an environmental intervention can modify the behavior of normal adults in a community setting when they do not know they are under evaluation.

References

Ingvarsson, E. T. & Hanley, G. P. (2006). An evaluation of computer-based programmed instruction for promoting teachers' greetings of parents by name. [Electronic version]. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 39, 203-214. Retrieved January 1, 2012 from U.S. National Institutes of Health PubMed Central database Web site: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1479777/pdf/jaba-39-02-203.pdf

Skinner, B. F. (1968). The technology of teaching. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Prompting for Food Bank Donations

2011-12-27T16:23:00.008-05:00

Photo source: Wikimedia

There are more people going hungry in this bad economy and the demand for food donations has risen. Google "food pantry demand" and you can see all the reports on the need for food.

Farrimond and Leland (2006) addressed this problem in the Summer 2006 issue of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. They capitalized on a previous study that showed that point of sale signs can increase sales. They placed signs on the shelves by non-perishable food items in a supermarket in New Zealand. They said, "How about buying one for the food bank bin" and directed them to the location of the bins at the exit of the store.

They performed an ABAB design. During the baseline (A), the staff did not post any signs on the shelves, but the bin was still available to receive donations. During the intervention (B), they posted the signs on the shelves. They started with the baseline, moved to the intervention, and repeated (ABAB). The results showed that as much as five times as much food was donated when the prompts were posted, as opposed to the baseline condition with no prompts.

The authors said, "The current study demonstrated that (point of sale) signs were a cost-effective method for increasing donations to a food-bank bin (p. 251)."

Behaviorally speaking, this is a study on the effectiveness of prompts. Prompts are stimuli occurring before a person emits a behavior, antecedents to behavior, which is then followed by consequences. The donations increased either because of added positive reinforcers for making a donation, (perhaps someone smiles, or there's an increased feeling of doing some good), or a reduction in negative reinforcers (less guilt) for making a donation. The prompts gained some control over the behavior due to the consequences which would follow or due to reinforcing consequences for making donations in the past, which increased the probability that donations would be made in the future.

Consent is not a problem in this study. Shoppers voluntarily participated, perhaps anonymously. Presumably nobody received a negative consequence for not participating. The venue was a public location with normally-occurring, publicly exhibited behavior in a community setting, with no collection of personal data besides the count and the value of the donated items, so informed consent was not necessary. This study can be rated high on an ethical scale because of the degree of anonymous and voluntary participation without punishers and without intrusion into the lives of the participants. The subjects may not have been informed about the collection of data, but there was no harm done.

I chose this article because this blog advocates behavior modification of people with more power, probably in this instance, normal healthy adults. I began this blog with a question. Can human behavior be modified using the behavioral techniques discovered with animals? This study gives us some evidence to support the claim that the behavior of normal, healthy adults can indeed be modified scientifically. The ABAB design used here shows that the intervention worked, and when it was removed, the low rate of donations reverted to its normal, low level of responding. It took an applied experimental evaluation of human behavior to demonstrate with a degree of confidence one specific technique to help people who are going hungry.

Reference

Farrimond, S. J. & Leland, L. S. (2006). Increasing donations to supermarket food-bank bins using proximal prompts. [Electronic version]. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 39, 249-51. Retrieved December 27, 2011 from U.S. National Institutes of Health PubMed Central database Web site: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1479784/pdf/jaba-39-02-249.pdf