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Scenario
Jame, a 12-year-old boy, has developed a habit of throwing his backpack and upper clothes around the lounge when he returns home. His parents find this behavior undesirable and wish to change it. To address this, James’s parents have decided to apply principles of operant conditioning to teach him to hang his clothes and backpack when he comes back home. During the PSYC FPX 1000 Assessment 1 initial stage of training, James receives chocolate and praise each time he hangs up his upper clothes and bag. As the desired behavior becomes more consistent, his parents gradually shift to a more variable schedule, sometimes offering chocolate and sometimes only praise, intentionally utilizing principles from behavioral theory.
Plan
PSYC FPX 1000 Assessment 1 Conditioning Principle
The targeted behavior is James consistently hanging his clothes and backpack after returning home. His parents are using operant conditioning to develop good manners and instill a habit of cleanliness.
Primary Reinforcer
PSYC FPX 1000 Assessment 1 chocolate is used as a primary reinforcer of the expired contingency since James loves chocolate. As stated by Jessel et al. (2020), primary reinforcers like sweets are very useful when it comes to changing children’s behavior because such a reinforcer meets a child’s need.
Secondary Reinforcer
Hence, apart from chocolate, James’s parents employ praise as the second type of secondary reinforcer. According to Leijten et al. (2019), the love for admiration is well known, and children are no exception; therefore, they wouldn’t mind emulating such behavior repeatedly.
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Schedules of Reinforcement
James’s parents apply both variable-ratio and variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. On a variable ratio schedule, James gets chocolate after several times, though the number of times he hangs his clothes and backpack is unpredictable. On a variable-interval schedule, he earns chocolate after variable time intervals when he performs the desired behavior for a day. These schedules assist in reinforcing the habit so that the chances of habit extinguishing in the future are minimal (Johnson et al., 2022).
Shaping for PSYC FPX 1000 Assessment 1
First, James’s parents always give him chocolate every time he hangs his clothes and backpack. When the behavior becomes a habit, they change the type of reinforcement to variable intervals in a bid to maintain it. Rewarding tends to encourage positive behavior change without having to punish the kids, a move that has adverse effects on their morale and confidence (Hargreaves et al., 2020).
Optional Follow-Up
PSYC FPX 1000 Assessment 1 Parents should ensure that they reinforce in their children the political culture of achieving every duty required of them, as this will build their personalities. This goal can be achieved through operant conditioning and reinforcement. As pointed out by Simanjuntak et al. (2022), adult behavior and habits are usually those that they were taught when they were young. Hence, there is a need to ensure that children are trained on basic manners and ways of personal hygiene at a young age.
References
Hargreaves, E., Quick, L., & Buchanan, D. (2020).
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.717
Johnson, A. R., Christensen, B. A., Kelly, S. J., & Calipari, E. S. (2022). The influence of reinforcement schedule on experience‐dependent changes in motivation.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 58(2), 180–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.07.900
Simanjuntak, M. B., Lumingkewas, M. S., & Sutrisno. (2022).
