Water is extremely important and essential to our health. In this experiment, an A-B-A-B design will be used to determine the effects of positive reinforcement on daily water consumption. It is expected that this treatment will increase daily water intake when combined with a positive reinforcer. Positive reinforcement occurs when a behavior is followed immediately by a stimulus that increases the future frequency of the behavior in similar conditions. The data for this experiment was recorded daily for a span of 4 weeks, following the rules for a reversal A-B-A-B design. The materials used in this experiment included an Apple iPhone to record the gold stars received for each day, 8 ounce Dixie plastic cups and 16 ounce Poland Spring water bottles. The participant was a male college student 18 years of age. The second week of procedure began the treatment. An average daily goal was set to 80 ounces per day. The third week of the procedure repeated the baseline treatment from week one. The data was recorded for that week the same with no reinforcement. The fourth and final week repeated week 2 of the positive reinforcement treatment. Gold stars were given accordingly if the participant achieved his daily goal of 80 ounces per day.
Keywords: A-B-A-B design, positive reinforcement, baseline treatment
Positive Reinforcement and Reversal A-B-A-B Design Effects Increase Daily Water Consumption on a Healthy Male
The human body is estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent water. Blood, as well as your muscles, lungs, and brain all contain a high percentage of water. Water is extremely important and essential to our health (Kaushik, Mullee, Bryant, Hill, 2007). Dehydration is one of the most common side effects of not consuming enough w...
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...g their behavior. The findings in this experiment directly support the hypothesis. However, not only do the findings support the hypothesis, the results show a drastic improvement in water consumption when paired with the positive reinforce of almost 77 ounces per day. That equates to about an average of 5 more 16 ounce Poland Spring bottles per day. There were few limitations discovered throughout the study. For future reference, increasing the population size might yield different results since the experiment was performed on a single participant. Also the age of the participants directly correlates with the type of reinforcement given. For example, even though the experiment was successful, gold stars might be a more suitable reinforcer for children between the ages of 5-12. For a young male at the age of 21, you might want to find a more suitable reinforcer.
Behavior modification is based on the principles of operant conditioning, which were developed by American behaviorist B.F. Skinner. In his research, he put a rat in a cage later known as the Skinner Box, in which the rat could receive a food pellet by pressing on a bar. The food reward acted as a reinforcement by strengthening the rat's bar-pressing behavior. Skinner studied how the rat's behavior changed in response to differing patterns of reinforcement. By studying the way the rats operated on their environment, Skinner formulated the concept of operant conditioning, through which behavior could be shaped by reinforcement or lack of it. Skinner considered his discovery applicable to a wide range of both human and animal behaviors(“Behavior,” 2001).
Hence, in his experiment, Skinner placed rats in the Skinner box and observed its’ behaviors. Initially, these rats would be randomly moving around exploring, and would usually press the bar accidently. At this point, a food pellet would drop into the tray. He observed that if a hungry rat receives a pellet of food when it presses a lever after, maybe 2 minutes have elapsed since the last pellet, then its response rate increases with the passage of time. In other words, after the first incident of the food pellet dropping into the tray, the rate of the rats pressing the bar rises dramatically and remains high until the rats hunger were satisfied. Thus, this study showed a clear association made between the behavior and the consequence of that behavior. In this case, the consequence of a behavior encouraged the repetition of that behavior also known as positive reinforcement.
A1 – Skinner believed that behaviour in setting which is reinforced tends to be repeated and behaviour that is not reinforced tends to die out or be weakened. Positive reinforcement should be used in setting to strengthen behaviour. Negative reinforcement can also strengthen behaviour because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience. Positive reinforcement can be shown by rewarding good behaviour with stickers and golden time. Negative reinforcement can be shown by doing the opposite of positive reinforcement with no stickers and no golden time.
Out of positive reinforcement and punishment only the reinforcement was successful for my behaviour modification. I believe this was the case for a number of reasons but dominantly because the positive punishment had a lack of severity. The reason I came to this conclusion was because I realized in the case of positive reinforcement if I committed the operant response at least once my entire day of hard work would be ruined. When I made the switch to positive punishment I realized in the eventuality I performed the operant response I could just do the 50 push ups and be done with it. Upon comparison of my success and failure I reflected and realized if the punishment was more severe than 50 push ups I would not do it for actual fear and reluctance of doing the positive punishment. For example if the punishment was a 1000 push ups each repeated operant response I would most likely not bite my nails. I did enjoy the modified behaviour as my nails seemed fuller and less scarred but it was not long of an experiment enough so refraining from biting my nails was still a conscious action and took a lot of effort.
...an be concluded that these methods are valid forms of conditioning that prove to be effective in altering human behaviour. It has been proven that personal adaptation can result from conditioning the body. Furthermore, from the results of both studies, we can deduce that conditional learning of a subject can be quite influential to the individual’s drinking behaviour and attitude toward alcohol.
Many psychologists performed many experiments that involved shaping and changing behavior. There is one influential thinker that made a remarkable discovery that one can change another’s behavior by providing or establishing a reward based systems based upon their behavior. B.F. Skinner uncovered the idea that one change or shape another’s behavior by establishing a system based upon rewards that can change another’s behavior.
Before beginning my analysis of my smoking habits, I recorded the number of cigarettes smoked on a daily basis. On an average day I smoked 4-5 cigarettes. By establishing my baseline performance on a typical week, I set out to find the positive reinforcements, which coerced me into smoking. The days that were most prolific in smoking were Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. The primary reason for the increase in smoking was due to the social events of that particular evening, which included the occasional alcohol consumption, and companionship of fellow smokers/friends. “Partying” dramatically affected my smoking habit. Undoubtedly my gregarious antics affected my smoking, but the post-sex cigarette also added to the count. By pinpointing these factors, I was able to invent a fixed negative reinforcement schedule to lead me away from smoking and steer me towards a healthier lifestyle.
Although arguments could be made for the influence of operant conditioning on disordered eating, classical conditioning is assumed to a major component in the development of maladaptive eating behaviors (Greeno & Wing, 1994; Jansen, 1998). Empirical evidences supports classical conditioning models of eating desires. For instance, Van Gucht et al. (2008) tested the ability to condition serving trays (i.e., neutral stimuli) of different shapes and colors to elicit chocolate cravings. Conditioning consisted of three phases:
...in order to show the participants that cooking at home is an easy task. This will increase their self-efficacy. During this program, participants will be trying to lose 2-10% of their body weight in 6-months’ time. By losing a little weight, they will see that they can achieve weight loss, and will continue to try and lose weight. The reinforcement construct refers to rewards or punishments someone gets for doing something. By going to every meeting, participants will be rewarded by small prizes. This will reward them for coming, and they will be more likely to return. Fact sheets, brochures, and a series of print materials will be used to teach the participants and motivate them to participate. By completing this program that has been based on the Social Cognitive Theory, participants will lose weight and learn about how to eat a healthy diet in their daily lives.
First of all, I was highly interested in the concept and various factors that together make up positive reinforcement. I had a premise that I could do some experimental work on the three children for whom I baby-sit during the week after school. They leave school full of energy and it is my job to get them to complete a series of tasks before the end of the evening. I imagined that some positive reinforcement might get them on their way to handling their responsibilities in a timelier manner. My first step was to come up with a specific instrumental response that would produce reinforcement. This took no time at all because by far the most painfully difficult thing for me to do is get the children to sit down and do their homework. I then spoke specifically to each child and asked them what they would rather choose as an after school activity. They named video games, television, and going to play with other neighborhood children. I had expected these types of answers from the children and made them into the positive reinforcers that would be contingent on the children’s performance of the instrumental response; namely completing their homework. I explained to the children that if they behaved and finished their homework, then directly following they could spend an hour doing an activity of their choice.
The utilization of positive reinforcement is a possible technique for enhancing students’ behavior for a variety of school conditions for individual and as well as for the group of students (Wheatley, et al., 2009).
B. F. Skinner concluded that people could mentally have control over all of their responses. He believed that a reinforcement and/or consequence given after a behavior would influence future behavior (Roblyer,2003, p.57). In other words, reinforcements and/or punishments can shape human behavior. For example, if a child eats all of his vegetables at dinner and his parent’s reward him with positive words and a cookie, then the child will probably eat his vegetables at the next dinner.
B.F. Skinner is a major contributor to the Behavioral Theory of personality, a theory that states that our learning is shaped by positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, modeling, and observation. An individual acts in a certain way, a.k.a. gives a response, and then something happens after the response. In order for an action to be repeated in the future, what happens after the response either encourages the response by offering a reward that brings pleasure or allows an escape from a negative situation. The former is known as positive reinforcement, the latter known as negative reinforcement (Sincero, 2012). A teenager who received money for getting an “A” is being positively reinforced, while an individual who skips a class presentation is being negatively reinforced by escaping from the intense fear and anxiety that would have occurred during the presentation.
Instrumental conditioning is a form of behaviorism where, according to Shteingart, Neiman and Loewenstein (2013), a positive reinforcement is given to elicit a desired behavior and negative reinforcement is given when an undesirable behavior is performed. In many experiments with animals, the positive reinforcement is food and the negative reinforcement is having to start over without receiving the food. Instrumental conditioning involves behaviors that must be learned and the behaviors can be adjusted so that the participant can obtain the desired results frequently. For example, if you place a mouse in a maze with food at the end, the mouse may hit a wall and then adjust itself to find the correct way to the food. This paper will focus on learning strategies, how instrumental conditioning is implicated in everyday life, the benefits and the drawbacks of instrumental conditioning.
Any individual that leads a healthy lifestyle will say that healthy living is more than just a fad or goal, it’s a way of life. Changing certain aspects of one’s current lifestyle to become healthier is not the final goal, rather, the objective of setting these short and long term goals is maintenance. Therefore, I choose to change an aspect of my current lifestyle that I felt would facilitate the improvement of my health and would later become a change that I can maintain over the course of my life; I choose to increase the amount of water I drink per day to improve my inner bodily health. I decided on this change because I feel that setting a smaller goal that I could easily monitor and execute will expedite future changes to my lifestyle,