Today, behavior modification is used to treat a variety of problems in both adults and children. Behavior modification has been successfully used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, phobias, bedwetting, anxiety disorder, and separation anxiety disorder. Behavior modification is not used to treat disorders and problems, it is also used to increase a desired behavior. An example of a behavior many try to increase is their athletic abilities including speed, strength, and endurance (Fedor, 1990).
Athletes use a variety of behavior modification techniques to accomplish their overall goal. The most widely used is positive reinforcement, which encourages certain behaviors through a system of rewards. Following rewarding desirable behavior, behavior modification can also discourage unwanted behavior, through either negative reinforcement, or punishment. This could be removal of a privilege or an undesired event.
Behavior modification in athletics requires the development of goals. It needs one overall goal as well as small step goals. Goal setting is one of the strongest motivational tools. Studies have shown that goals should be broken down into short-term or intermediate goals to help attain the ultimate goals; goals must be accepted by the individual; challenging goals are better than easy ones; tracking progress is useful to remain committed to goals; and a plan of action facilitates goal attainment (Annesi, 2004). With the addition of a written contract binding the athlete to their goals it acts as another enforcer to accomplish their desired behavior.
Behavior modification, or behavioral therapy, trains individuals to replace undesirable behaviors with healthier behavioral patterns. Behavior modification does not try to understand the motivations for the bad behavior it seeks to create a more desirable behavior through a system of rewards. By using additional techniques like, positive "self talk", attendance tracking, and support from others behavior modification is the most effective means of modifying behavior.
BIB
Annesi, James J. Ph.D. Enhancing Exercise Motivation: A Guide to Increasing Fitness Center Member Retention. New York: Lofback, 2004.
"Behavior Modification." Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. 2001. Mar 11, 2005.
Fedor, Joseph. Principles of Behavior Modification. Lowe Syndrome Association. Mar 11, 2005
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Skinner thought classical conditioning was too simple to explain something like the human mind. Skinner went to work to expand on the finding of Thorndike and Watson. Skinner worked to expand Thorndike’s Law of Effect. Skinner eventually coined the word “operant conditioning”. Skinner built a device called “Skinner’s box”. The device consists of a lever connected to a food dispenser, only dispensing when the lever is pressed. He found that the rat will reduce “error” between attempts and goes directly to the lever. The device has reinforced the rat’s behavior. From this experiment, Skinner discovered positive and negative reinforcement. A positive reinforcement means giving a stimuli and a negative reinforcement is taking away a stimuli, along with punishment. Punishment weakens the behavior rather than reinforcement which strengthen the behavior. Positive and negative reinforcement works on punishment too. The Skinner Box also showed that the reinforcement had to be scheduled or else the rats will start giving…
- 457 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Studying the behaviours of animals has been a great importance to many psychologists. By studying animal behaviours, researchers can determine what influences them, whether it is their surrounding environment, reinforcements or stimuli. A very famous psychologist, Burrhus Frederic Skinner enjoyed studying animal behaviours. Skinner believed that any response that is followed by a reinforcing stimulus tends to be repeated (Hergenhahn and Olson, 2005). He also says that to modify a behaviour, one merely has to find something that is reinforcing for the animal whose behaviours one wishes to modify (Hergenhahn and Olson, 2005). Skinner explains this in his Skinner box studies. A Skinner box refers to an experimental test chamber that consists of a grid floor, lever, light and food cup (Hergenhahn and Olson, 2005). Mainly used to study operant conditioning, which refers to increasing the rate at which a response occurs (Hergenhahn and Olson, 2005). These studies involve rats and observing the rat in the…
- 2342 Words
- 8 Pages
Better Essays -
Define your specific goal, consider the benefits and barriers, and choose a behavior modification plan.…
- 807 Words
- 4 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Behaviour modification is used for helping children move towards appropriate behaviour and to give positive attitudes. It is the most common method used to systematically improve and encourage appropriate patterns in behaviour. It is based on the principles of operant conditioning in which rewarded behaviour tends to be repeated. Any behaviour that is not rewarded will eventually not be repeated and will…
- 63 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
Behavior modification is being used to treat drug addiction by applying aspects of the learning theory, and establishing ways to eliminate drug use as a positive reinforcer and withdrawal as a negative reinforce (Abadinsky, 2014). This form of treatment attempts to search for new positive reinforcers for drug users (Abadinsky, 2014). Since the learning theory is associated with behavior, it’s important that reinforcers are available strictly after a certain behavior is displayed in order for behavior modification to work (Abadinsky, 2014). Behavior can be altered by using an aversive stimulation, which is an instance where a drug addict who just did their dose of drugs is quickly injected with a muscle relaxer, called Anectine (Abadinsky, 2014).…
- 369 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Skinner conducted experiments on rats and developed his theory of operant conditioning stating that learning can be programmed by whatever consequence follows a particular behaviour. People tend to repeat behaviours that can be rewarded, and avoid behaviours that are…
- 1058 Words
- 5 Pages
Powerful Essays -
altering behaviors, the potential for its misuse and abuse arise from a lack of governmental…
- 1415 Words
- 6 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Having the ability to modify ones behavior is a trait that I wish to have. It takes so much time and determination for me to change a bad behavior, sometimes it feels like it’s not worth it. When the behavior is bad enough, like foul language, it gives me an incentive to work on it. Changing my use of inappropriate language in everyday life is really important to me for many reasons. First, it shows a lack of intelligence when I use language that is not appropriate. It shows that I cannot think of another way to fraise my sentence, so I don’t have to say certain words. Second, in formal situations, the use of foul language is not welcomed. Not being able to control what comes out of my mouth is a serious flaw that I see within myself. Lastly, it’s just not attractive. I have spoken with many people about what is a turn off to them; the one main attribute that sticks out is foul language.…
- 565 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
As I set off to do this modification, I thought to myself, how easy this will be. I thought, I can do this with ease. I knew I had it in me to obtain this goal. What I found out is it was not so easy for me. I am my worst enemy as the saying goes. I found myself giving negative thoughts and I had to push these thoughts out of my head in order to exercise for at least 30 minutes. I thought I would walk on Mondays and Wednesdays right after I got out of school. This rarely happened. I usually came home and took a nap. I had to adjust my sleep pattern because I was used to sleeping in until 9 A.M. but now I had to be in class by 8 A.M. So I had to force myself to go to bed earlier. I then got the bright idea that maybe I could sneak in a walk before class. That NEVER happened. I barely got on schedule to get up in time to make it to class let alone walk before class. I was struggling and I am still struggling to exercise. My worse week, was week 1 and week 3. Along with my negative thoughts in my head about why I shouldn’t exercise, I had to still make time for my husband, children, dog and grandchildren. Sure I thought, I had no commitments at home to hold me back. I thought I would start school and exercise and have all the time in the world. Boy was I wrong! I have a lot of family support about going back to school and about trying to exercise but in my own mind, I feel guilty if I am not readily available to each one of them. I plan to continue this modification. I hope I get better at it. It has helped me understand that I need to think more positively about exercising. Up until this point, I thought about exercising with negative thoughts. I know if I keep the positive affirmations that I can do…
- 371 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
5. Covert self-instructions. Finally, the child performs the task while saying the instructions to her or himself.…
- 8534 Words
- 35 Pages
Good Essays -
Education in the United States is a continuous source of controversy. How should the generations be taught? This is an extremely important and in depth issue that has many levels. Each level has its own disagreements. One particular level of education that has been researched is whether or not behavioral methods are effective enough to be used in the classroom to improve academic performance. As can be seen in the data included here, there are many forms of positive reinforcement contingencies that can be presented in the classroom. These may include social rewards, like acceptance and encouragement from peers, tangible rewards, like the token economy, or internally motivating rewards, like having a sense of self-efficacy and feeling confident and proud of a particular accomplishment. The studies included here investigate cooperative learning strategies and how behavioral methods relate to academic performance that way, the use of rewards for good or improved performance, and then finally how the removal of a punishing aspect of the classroom environment, like a teacher 's criticism can possibly improve academic performance.…
- 2688 Words
- 11 Pages
Powerful Essays -
A friend of mine who was trying out for the football team at school recently approached me for help in developing a program to help him lose weight. I started by asking him questions regarding his dietary habits, his workout habits and how much time he has to spend working on his goal. I asked him a number of questions about what he hoped to achieve, not only for his short term goal of playing football, but for his long term goal of becoming healthier as well. Along with an exercise program that focused on the building of muscle strength necessary in sports, I also put together dietary guidelines that he followed in order to be successful in achieving his goal.…
- 930 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Operant conditioning involves operant behavior that actively operates on the environment to produce stimuli. Skinner's work elaborated a simple fact that Edward Thorndike called the law of effect: rewarded behavior is likely to recur. In his experiments involving the now famous ‘Skinner box’, Skinner used shaping, a procedure in which rewards guide an animal's behavior toward a desired behavior. By rewarding responses that are ever closer to the final desired behavior, and ignoring all other responses, researchers can gradually shape complex behaviors.…
- 456 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Each of these four behavior modifying techniques result in learning. They either reinforce a good behavior to help it continue or they discourage a bad behavior so it doesn’t continue. Management needs to be diligent in making sure employees are getting the right…
- 292 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The theory of B.F. Skinner is based upon the idea that learning is a function of change in overt behavior. Changes in behavior are the result of an individual's response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment. A response produces a consequence such as defining a word, hitting a ball, or solving a math problem. When a particular Stimulus-Response (S-R) pattern is reinforced (rewarded), the individual is conditioned to respond. The distinctive characteristic of operant conditioning relative to previous forms of behaviorism (e.g., Thorndike, Hull) is that the organism can emit responses instead of only eliciting response due to an external stimulus.…
- 613 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays