Revised on 1/4/14
The 1st thing you must always do when trying to understand or change an organism's behavior (including your own) is to specify exactly what behavior you want to understand or change. You'll probably hear this from me over and over throughout the semester.
The term, "target behavior," as we use it in this course, refers to the behavior (or "response;" they're synonyms, as we see in Ch. 1) that's of most interest to us in the present scenario. We may be interested in a behavior because we want to understand why it happens. Or we may want to change the frequency of a certain behavior. In both kinds of cases, the behavior of primary interest is the "target behavior."
In the 3 diagrams on p. 2, the target behavior in each one is described in the "Behavior" box in the middle of the diagram. In each of these cases, Malott is suggesting why those behaviors happen. It's because they're immediately followed by the delivery of a reinforcer. In the 1st diagram, before Rod cries he doesn't have the reinforcer of Dawn's attention. Then he performs the target behavior, & immediately following that behavior, he has that reinforcer. That's why the frequency of Rod's crying in these kinds of situations is high - it's usually reinforced. Can you see the same kind of explanation in the other 2 diagrams?
BTW, helping you to identify the correct target behavior is the main purpose of the dead man test.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
First task always: Pinpoint the target behavior
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Principles of Behavior: Ch. 01
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I teach courses in the principles and applications of Behavior Analysis, the science and technology of behavior, which is different from other approaches in psychology in that it takes behavior as a subject matter in its own right, rather than as a tool for studying something else, such as the mind. The main purpose of this blog is to be a supplementary means of communication with students who are taking my courses.
4 comments:
My son helped me study last week. I told him this morning, look alive. He said, "I'm breathing." I ask him, is that behavior? Why? "Because a dead man can't do it." What a concrete way to test behavior. In listing behaviors, my son said a dead man can't bleed. Is bleeding behavior?
Good! By getting your son involved with this stuff, you're helping to save the world with behavior analysis.
No, bleeding is not a behavior. Some dead men do, indeed, bleed. Also, we mustn't forget Malott's definition of behavior on p. 9. I don't think bleeding is a muscle, glandular, or electrical activity.
I'm really interested in making sure that I'm understanding how to target a specific behavior. I have a 19 month old and I really want to be able to target certain behaviors she may display.
I also like the way Malott has two ways to look at the dead man rule. "If a dead man can do it, it probably isn't behavior" or If a dead man can't do it, then its probably is behavior". This helped me to understand what is behavior a little more.
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