It's sometimes thought that the extinction procedure simply amounts to "ignoring the behavior." If you want to use everyday terms, then yes, that's sometimes what's going on when a behavior gets extinguished. But this is too simple; extinction is NOT simply ignoring a behavior that you want to decrease in frequency. Extinction requires you to figure out what's reinforcing the undesirable behavior. Functional assessment, right? Then you have to figure out how to arrange conditions so that when that behavior happens, it's not followed by the reinforcer. There are all kinds of ways to do this, and ignoring the behavior is only one of them. Ignoring only works when the reinforcer is your attention. In those cases, if, by "ignoring," we mean not giving attention when the target behavior occurs, then this is an example of extinction.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
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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.
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