All I can say is that I am glad this man lacked his usual means (i.e., the discriminative stimulus) to do such a thing.
Another case example for gun control.
An update on the plastic bag fee in Toronto (see my previous post here). Not only did Toronto City Council vote to scrap the fee, but the pendulum swung the other way and they voted to ban them entirely. Removing the discriminative stimulus from shopping settings is one way to change plastic bag use.
Motivating operation: I see the brake lights of the car ahead of me come on.
Discriminative stimulus: Brake pedal in my car.
Behaviour: I lift my foot off of the gas pedal and step onto the brake pedal.
Consequence: I slow down and stop in time enough to avoid hitting the car ahead of me (negative reinforcement)
I have not done a four-term contingency in a while but this one came to me while sitting in traffic yesterday. It can be difficult to separate the motivating operation (MO) from the discriminative stimulus (SD), but I think this example highlights quite nicely the 'availability of reinforcement' factor that defines the SD versus the 'need for reinforcement' factor which defines MO. While driving, we have available to us the break pedal for slowing down or stopping our vehicle. But is is not used all the time. We have learned that pressing the brake pedal is a reliable means of avoiding something or someone, keeping you and others safe. There are any number of situations that suddenly require us to behave in a way that will avoid hitting objects or people. These additional environmental changes such as the car's brake lights or a child running out into the road are what establishes the need for reinforcement - in this case avoidance of hitting the car ahead or another person. In summary (or in other words), we always have available to us the potential to brake; however, only do so when there is a need for it.There’s been recent talk on Twitter around the debunking of ‘learning styles’. You may have completed a number of checklists that in the end summarize what kind of learner you are - visual, auditory, kinesthetic. Or maybe you are a converger, diverger, assimilator or an accommodator according to Kolb’s model? From a behaviourist perspective however, you are just a learner. Whether a lesson or your work is based on visual stimuli, auditory stimuli or tactile stimuli, they are all considered the discriminative stimulus (SD) in the three-term contingency. They act as the cue to which you respond. In the case of Kolb’s model, the styles speak more to behaviours that may or may not have been reinforced. Our preference for one kind of stimulus or action over another may simply be a matter of our learning history and not some inherent preference we were born with. In other words, some of us may have become “kinesthetic learners” because our environments were rich with objects and materials to manipulate and learn from, while other so-called “auditory learners” may be in environments where there is a lot of information and instruction coming via auditory sources.
You can think of the learning styles debate as the classic ‘chicken and egg’ phenomenon: which came first? Was it the learning style that first appeared, and then the materials were adapted to suit? Or, were the materials present first and the learning style evolved from there?
Regardless of which side you choose, the bigger issue is that learning needs to be generalized. We can learn addition by seeing the numbers add up on a page, by listening to the teacher explain to us what “10+1” is or by lining up a pile of apples and oranges and adding them up. I bet you can respond correctly in any one of those scenarios. Congratulations! You have generalized the concept of addition from a variety of cue/SDs. In applied behaviour analysis, there is always a focus on generalizing one’s behaviour so that it will occur under a variety of circumstances when warranted. We don’t necessarily want our learner to only know how to respond under one kind of stimulus, but all kinds - visual, auditory, tactile. Even within those senses, we aim to teach using a variety of materials. Using the example above, if adding up apples on the table, we may later include lessons that make use of addition with other materials such as books, pop cans, folding towels, stacking chairs etc.
Learning is complex, it involves a variety of stimuli and millions of three-term contingencies across our lifetime. Learning is on-going and as such, we have generalized much of our early life lessons to be efficient under today’s circumstances. We may categorize ourselves as one learning style over another. Since learning is an everyday occurrence, we are not giving our environment credit for setting up so many other opportunities to learn; learning that may be outside of what we call our learning style. In order to truly know something, we must respond as such under any situation - be it visual, auditory or tactile etc. Teaching should therefore cover all of these elements.
When a person asks for help, what they are essentially asking for is a change to their behavioural repertoire so that behaviour(s) can come in contact with reinforcement or avoid being punished. To change a person’s behaviour is to change the environmental conditions the person comes in contact with (Skinner, 1974). In the process of offering help, the helper may change up the cues/materials (i.e., discriminative stimulus; SD) in the environment making it likely that the person’s behaviour will come in contact with reinforcement. A prompt is one way we help people. For example: when helping someone put together a piece of furniture from IKEA, the helper may arrange the pieces into categories or point to the required hardware. This then allows the person to construct the furniture correctly, which they will then later benefit from.
Another way of changing the environment to “help” is to arrange the positioning of objects or events so that the person no longer comes in contact with aversive stimuli that may punish behaviour. An example of this is when a parent clears away obstacles as their child begins to walk. If the young child comes in contact with these obstacles and repeatedly falls down (which presumably results in some discomfort), then walking attempts may decrease. Even still, a helper may arrange for a reinforcer to either be present or to occur at a schedule conducive to learning or shaping behaviour. Again, using the example of a young child learning to walk, a parent may hold out their arms ready to hug and praise their child for walking. Initially, the hugs and praise may be delivered for a smaller number of steps. When the child is successfully taking more and more steps, this offer of hugs and praise may then only occur after a greater number of steps; therefore, changing the ratio of behaviour (steps) to reinforcement via social attention.
These examples of helping described above all involve bringing the person’s behaviours under the control of various environmental contingencies (Skinner, 1974). Therefore, when helping someone, we are controlling aspects of their environment(s) and not necessarily the person themselves. We can help others without controlling them. This perspective however may be an issue of semantics (‘controlling the environment’ vs. ‘controlling the person’) and I have chosen to view them as separate entities to make my point. Others may say that to control the contingencies present in the environment and the subsequent behaviour changes that result is an act of control on others. I believe however, that the initial act of control by the helper is energy directed towards the environment and that this now changed environment may control what the other person says or does.
Often, people take issue with being controlled - like control is a negative thing. The idea that helping is really just arranging the person’s environment makes no reference to that person “feeling controlled”. When people speak of “feeling controlled”, it is often the case that they do not like what is happening to them. If we assume that to help someone is to do so for the good of the person (i.e., can come in contact with reinforcement or avoid being punished; Skinner, 1974) then good feelings should be the result. Thus, the negative feelings associated with “feeling controlled” suggests that what is happening is not an act of help; rather some other motive on the part of the so-called helper is at play.
People view help as a good thing. Control on the other hand, gets a bad rep. I say they are one and the same.
References:
Skinner, B.F. (1974). About behaviorism. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
If guys are going to pee on trees (the discriminative stimulus [SD] to this behaviour), then alter the SD some and now their behaviour is much more acceptable.
Sometimes it’s not about stopping the behaviour from happening. People at outdoor festivals have to and will pee. Rather, it’s about changing the circumstances under which they occur. Kudos to the designers and festival organizers for demonstrating stimulus control.
I have a habit of not washing my face in the evening before I go to bed. I know I should, but frankly, I can be quite lazy. By the time I get upstairs and remember, I don’t want to head back downstairs to do it (or rather the environment is lacking in reinforcers on my way down). My solution for now is to re-arrange the antecedent condition by making the cues more apparent in my environment. Once I see the facial wipes, I have no problem following through and using them. I think my issue is that I am not cued until I’m upstairs (likely when I look in the mirror) but the materials are downstairs. So, if I won’t go to the face washing supplies downstairs, then the supplies will come to me upstairs.
Re-arranging where materials are located in one’s environment can elicit behaviour to occur at the desired time, or in the proper setting. The facial wipes are located on my dresser upstairs so that when I look in the mirror and think, “I should wash my face”, the next step in that chain of behaviour is right there. The alternate placement provides additional visual cues to make use of the materials and be reinforced afterwards. In the last four nights, I have been successful three times in washing my face. Not bad from a baseline of ‘zero’.
In many examples of behaviour, an item is the beginning of the A-B-C chain of behaviour. Without them, there is no behaviour to be reinforced or punished. When trying to change one of your behaviours, consider the placement of objects and materials that are likely to elicit either the desired or undesired behaviour. If you’re trying to elicit desired behaviour, it can be as simple as moving an object to be closer to where you need it, will benefit from. Or, it can mean hiding or removing an item associated with an undesirable behaviour. When we give more thought to the role of objects as antecedents for behaviour, it can seem simple to make changes. Small changes like this can set someone up on a path for desired behaviour.
Antecedent: In the bathroom; see bath mat on the floor.
Behaviour: Pick up bath mat and drape it over the edge of the tub.
Consequence: Person taking the shower yells, "hey" (punishment).
Whoops! Apparently I don't discriminate whether or not someone is in the shower before I put the bath mat back on the tub. I must have gone through several ABC chains where I was the last one to take a shower in our house, and where my placing the bath mat on the tub was reinforced. This is an example of how a behaviour can be under stimulus control of one detail in the environment and not others. It would seem that only the bath mat on the floor (regardless of what else is going on) is the discriminative stimulus (Sd) for my picking up bath mat behaviour. This time however, that behaviour, with the added stimulus of the shower being on, was likely punished. We won't know until I find myself in the same situation and observe my not picking up the bath mat.An “interesting” article on the benefits of deadlines and incentives on one’s performance or task completion. I say “interesting” because the research cited in the article is informative with respect to human behaviour; but “interesting” because it is yet another example of how behaviour principles are misrepresented by journalists. After reading the article a few times, I feel they failed to relate to the underlying principles of operant conditioning (i.e., the “behaviour psychology” they speak of); choosing instead to use the “carrot and stick” analogy of rewards and incentives.
My first concern is with the mis-use of the word, ‘bribery’. In every example used in the article, a reward is given after the target behaviour and behaviour increases. One such example was the parents who show up to a clinic to get their child vaccinated receive a bag of food. A reinforcer is delivered AFTER the target behaviour with the intent that future behaviour is more likely to increase. This is reinforcement. Bribes however, are given to people BEFORE the target behaviour - a “I’ll-pay-you-now-for-good-behaviour-later” deal or arrangement. Bribery is seen as a method of behaviour control (assuming the person will still perform despite being paid). As such, bribery has a bad reputation. Combine that with incorrect labels and associations with behaviourism and we have a case of bribery = bad; therefore, behaviourism = bad.
Second, an opportunity was missed to expand upon people’s understanding of behaviour as being more than just ‘cause and effect’. If you have been reading my blog for some time, then you’ve read my previous references to the ‘three-term contingency’. Establishing a deadline is an example of a discriminative stimulus (Sd), or an antecedent for behaviour. It cues the person that a reinforcer is available. Using the same example, the information about when and where a vaccination clinic is open provides the parent with cues that if they show up, their behaviour will be reinforced. Whereas, in the past when the clinic was open at random hours, the Sd was unclear: either the parent showed up and the clinic was closed; therefore, reinforcement could not occur (even if the reinforcer - the food in this case- was inside) or they were uncertain that the clinic would be open, so didn’t even try. I think this is a great example of how one can have what they think is the most amazing reward for people, but if the antecedent conditions are not considered and arranged, then the target behaviour may not even occur; and therefore does not meet up with the reinforcer.
The take home message is informative and beneficial for consumers, businesses, policy-makers, clinicians and educators alike: set up clear and useful antecedent conditions with plans to reinforce behaviours when they occur and you can overcome procrastination. I only wish that the “behaviour psychology” which was referenced was properly represented. I believe that journalists and the media have a integral duty to provide their consumers with the correct information, including making proper references to the terms and scientific principles represented in the research they are sharing.
