behavior modification

(noun)

The act of altering actions and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement or punishment.

Related Terms

  • trial and error
  • Law of Effect

Examples of behavior modification in the following topics:

  • Knowledge Management and Behavior Modification

    • Knowledge management and behavior modification are tactics employers use to ensure organizational growth and adaptability.
    • Behavior modification was first introduced in psychology as a collection of behavioral change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors.
    • In psychology, behavioral modification was made popular by B.
    • Behavioral modification includes altering an individual's behavior through positive and negative reinforcement.
    • His theories are still used in behavior modification today.
  • Educational Implications

    • Behaviorist techniques have long been employed in education to promote behavior that is desirable and discourage that which is not.
    • Among the methods derived from behaviorist theory for practical classroom application are contracts, consequences, reinforcement, extinction, and behavior modification.
  • Behavior Modification

    • Behavior modification is a method of eliciting better classroom performance from reluctant students.
    • Reinforcement of behavior patterns develop until the student has established a pattern of success in engaging in class discussions.
    • Further suggestions for modifying behavior can be found at the mentalhealth.net website (http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap11/).
    • These include changing the environment, using models for learning new behavior, recording behavior, substituting new behavior to break bad habits, developing positive expectations, and increasing intrinsic satisfaction.
  • Classroom Importance

    • They change behaviors to satisfy the desires they have learned to value.
    • They generally avoid behaviors they associate with unpleasantness and develop habitual behaviors from those that are repeated often (Parkay & Hass, 2000).
    • The entire rationale of behavior modification is that most behavior is learned.
    • If behaviors can be learned, then they can also be unlearned or relearned.
    • Behaviorist learning theory is not only important in achieving desired behavior in mainstream education; special education teachers have classroom behavior modification plans to implement for their students.
  • Behavior Modification

    • External forces that impact behavior are referred to as stimuli, and understanding what type of stimuli may modify behavior is useful in leading organizations.
    • This is just a simple example of a cultural decision that will result in modified behavior.
    • Behavior modification in organizational management is often linked with B.F.
    • Skinner's contributions to the study of behavior.
    • These influences on behavior are different than environmental influences because they are deliberately reactive to employee behaviors (as opposed to proactive or incidental).
  • Behavioral Psychology

    • Behaviorism is an approach to psychology that focuses on observable behaviors that people learn from their environments.
    • Its application to the treatment of mental problems is known as behavior modification.
    • In his theory, mental disorders represented maladaptive behaviors that were learned and could be unlearned through behavior modification.
    • Some behavior therapies employ Skinner's theories of operant conditioning: by not reinforcing certain behaviors, these behaviors can be extinguished.
    • This later gave rise to applied behavior analysis (ABA), in which operant conditioning techniques are used to reinforce positive behaviors and punish unwanted behaviors.
  • Conditioned Behavior

    • In classical conditioning, a behavior is paired with an unrelated stimulus; in operant conditioning, behaviors are modified by consequences.
    • Conditioned behaviors are types of associative learning where a stimulus becomes associated with a consequence.
    • Classical conditioning is a major tenet of behaviorism, a branch of psychological philosophy that proposes that all actions, thoughts, and emotions of living things are behaviors that can be treated by behavior modification and changes in the environment.
    • In operant conditioning, the conditioned behavior is gradually modified by its consequences as the animal responds to the stimulus.
    • In this way, the animal is conditioned to associate a type of behavior with the punishment or reward.
  • Behavior Therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis

    • Behavior therapy is based on the idea that maladaptive behavior is learned, and thus adaptive behavior can also be learned.
    • Behavior therapy is a treatment approach that is based on the idea that abnormal behavior is learned.
    • Behavior therapy methods sometimes focus only on behaviors, and sometimes on combinations of thoughts and feelings that might be influencing behaviors.
    • Those who practice behavior therapy, known as behaviorists, tend to look more at specific, learned behaviors and how the environment has an impact on those behaviors.
    • The first use of the term "behavior modification" appears to have been by Edward Thorndike in 1911.
  • Biopsychology

    • Biopsychology is the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental processes and physical behavior.
    • The fields of behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology are all subfields of biological psychology.
    • Because all behavior is controlled by the central nervous system, biopsychologists seek to understand how the brain functions in order to understand behavior.
    • Philosophers like Rene Descartes proposed physical models to explain animal and human behavior.
    • (credit “left”: modification of work by Health and Human Services Department, National Institutes of Health; credit “center": modification of work by "Aceofhearts1968"/Wikimedia Commons; credit “right”: modification of work by Kim J, Matthews NL, Park S.)
  • Social Psychology

    • Social psychology studies individuals in a social context and examines how situational variables influence behavior.
    • Social psychology typically explains human behavior as a result of the interaction of mental states and immediate social situations.
    • Thus, social psychology studies individuals in a social context and how situational variables interact to influence behavior.
    • Essentially, people will change their behavior to align with the social situation at hand.
    • (credit “signs”: modification of work by David Shankbone; credit “walk”: modification of work by "Fibonacci Blue"/Flickr)
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