There are many methods of behavior modification when it comes to helping individuals stop a bad habit from continuing or to assist an individual in picking up a healthy habit that will be helpful to them in their future. In this instance, lip biting is a self-injurious behavior that can be linked to many different reasons, including stress, nervousness, personality disorders, and even mental disabilities. This research will discuss a few behavioral modification methods used to help individuals with nervous lip biting behaviors.
Humans are naturally nervous creatures who tend to get nervous when put under pressure or put in certain situations that make them uncomfortable. There are many individuals who can handle this easily and know how to release that stress without it turning into a stress forming habit. There are others who are unable to handle these situations properly and develop certain “tics” that help the individual release this nervous tension. These types of behaviors can be things like nail biting, chewing on the insides of one’s gums, hair picking, and lip biting. Many different studies have been done on these types of nervous behaviors to figure out what can be done to help reverse these habits and which type of behavior modification works best for helping an individual stop these self-injurious behaviors.
In the research study, “Relax and Try This Instead: Abbreviated Habit Reversal for Maladaptive Self-Biting” done by Jones, Swearer and Friman, they found that the most effective treatment for self-biting is habit reversal. To show the success of habit reversal treatment they conducted a study on a fifteen year old boy, named Sam, who had been diagnosed with overanxious disorder and was severely biting his lips when...
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...estructive oral habits (biting, chewing or licking of the lips, cheeks, tongue or palate). Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 13(1), 49-54. doi:10.1016/0005-7916(82)90035-0
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Psychology consists of countless different components that help describe various aspects of individuals both mentally and physically. Though Psychology is used for multiple different areas, one of the most common areas to observe in this field is behaviors. Behaviors range from person to person and can be altered by different situations and variables. The point when behaviors can become of interest is when an individual’s actions and behavior are extreme or they are inconsistent with the appropriate behavior in certain circumstances. These abnormal behaviors are often consistent and can be related to psychological disorders. Though some psychological disorders may be manageable to live
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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).
In most cases, the disorder may be evident as from preschool. There are isolated cases when the disorder may commence at later years. Research makes it apparent that the disorder in most cases kicks in at the teenage. The disorder may further be evident towards the end of the teenage years in some individuals. It merits noting that the condition is prevalent in the community to the extent that one in every 16 adolescents is likely to be a victim of the disorder (Rocque, 2016). The severity of the disease varies widely from mild, moderate to severe cases. In the mild cases, the symptoms are only visible at one setting either home or school. For the moderate cases, some of the symptoms could be visible in a minimum of two settings mostly at home and school. For the severe cases, the symptoms are evident in more than settings. The following are some of the symptoms to be on the lookout for when diagnosing for open defiance
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In a closer view of some these distinguished therapy techniques described by Shelder (2010), we can infer that the established patterns in behaviors,
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