PLEASE NOTE THIS IS THE 1977 EDITION AND NOT THE 2006 ON THE READING LIST, although parts have been updated to reflect
Self-directed behaviour
Chapter 1 Adjustment, Personal goals and self-direction 6
Adjustment as a value judgement 6
Behaviours and situations 6
Trait Theory 6
The medical model 6
Achieving self-direction 7
Behaviour is a function of the environment 7
Behaviour is learned 7
Achieving self-direction 7
Self-Direction and Will Power 7
The process of self-direction 7
Summary 8
Chapter 2 Self-directed behaviour 8
Steps in self-directed change 8
Applying principles 9
Adjusting and changing plans 9
Does a self-change plan really work? 9
Summary 9
Chapter 3 Specifying the goal 9
Ideas that interfere with specifying the goal 9
Tactics for specifying behaviours in situations 10
Make a list of concrete examples 10
Ask yourself what you would be dong if you achieved your goal 10
Phrase the goal as behaviours in-situations 10
Become an Observer 10
When the problem is non-performance of behaviour 10
See what you are doing in a target situation 10
See what you should be doing in the target situation 10
When your goal is not a behaviour one 11
Successive approximations to a goal 11
Changing plans as your self-understanding deepens 11
For more complex goals where do you begin? 12
Has the goal been correctly identified? 12
How to Increase your self-efficacy beliefs 12
Becoming optimistic 12
Stages in your thoughts about changing 12
Relate your target goals to life goals 12
Summary 12
Chapter 4 Self-knowledge: Observation and recording 13
Discovering the effects of situations 13
Antecedents and consequences 13
Structured diaries for antecedents and consequences 14
Frequency recording 14
Rating scales 15
Combining techniques 15
The reactive effects of self-observation 15
Dealing with problems in getting records 15
Building record keeping into your pattern of habitual behaviours 15
Self-recorded data and planning for change 16
Difficulty in recording data 16
Aids to recording data 16
Summary 16
Chapter 5.1 The principles of self-regulation theory and practice 17
Regulation theory 17
Social constructivism 17
Development of language regulation 17
Chapter 5.2 Behaviour-environment relationships 18
Effects of consequences 18
Operant behaviours 18
Reinforcers 18
Escape and avoidance 19
Reinforcing consequences in your life 19
Punishment 19
Extinction 19
Effects of antecedents 19
Stimulus Control 20
Respondent behaviour 20
Respondent conditioning 20
Emotional Conditioning 20
Modelling 20
Summary 20
Chapter 5.3 Antecedents 21
Modifying old antecedents 21
Chapter 6 Consequences 22
Arranging consequences 22
Contingency 22
Direct observation of reinforcing consequences 22
Consummatory responses 22
Intermittent reinforcement and avoidance behaviours 22
Cataloguing and selecting reinforcers 22
Positive reinforcers 22
The Premack Principle 23
Imagined reinforcers 23
How to use reinforcement 23
Rapid reinforcement 23
Reinforcement for thoughts and feelings 23
Avoiding problems in reinforcement 23
Sharing reinforcers 23
Using others to dispense the reinforcement 23
Extinction 24
Self-punishment 24
Why punishment alone is insufficient 24
The loss of positive reinforcement as a punishment 24
Precommitment punishment 24
Summary 25
Chapter 7 Developing new behaviours 25
Shaping: The reinforcement of successive approximations 25
How shaping works in self-directed behaviour 26
Using Models to set shaping steps 26
Problems in shaping 26
Plateaus 26
Cheating 26
Losing Will Power 26
Incompatible behaviour 26
Relieving depression with incompatible thoughts 27
Behaviours incompatible with anxiety and tension 27
Relaxation 27
Developing new behaviours through rehearsal 27
Developing new behaviours through modelling 28
Summary 28
Chapter 8 Antecedents 30
Identifying Antecedents 30
Controlling and rearranging antecedents 30
Consummatory problems 30
Interpersonal problems 30
Narrowing antecedents 30
Breaking up chains 30
Changing the chain of events 31
Arranging new antecedents 31
Creating stimulus generalisation 31
Precommitment and programming your social environment 31
Self-instructions 31
Summary 31
Chapter 9 Planning for change 32
The features of a good plan 32
Rules 32
Goals and sub goals 32
Feedback gathering 32
The contract 33
Chapter 10 Is it working? Analysing the data 33
Chapter 11 Termination 33
Chapter Summaries 33
Chapter 1 33
Chapter 2 34
Chapter 3 34
Chapter 4 35
Chapter 5 36
Chapter 6 36
Chapter 7 37
Chapter 8 38
Summary 39
Key Concepts 40
Chapter 1 Adjustment, Personal goals and self-direction
To adjust is a combination of harmonising your inner values
and harmonising self to the world. In other words if you want to be a pop star
but the environment is showing no signs that you can be, then maybe this is an
unrealisable dream. Adjustment to the
environment is a dynamic one as self and environment continually change. The outcome of this dynamic relationship is
that plans must be modified in light of environmental change and plans may be
replaced on the basis of environmental change.
The voyage, that the adjustment of the rudder enables, may either be
fulfilling in itself, or get you somewhere where you want to get to. Personal
adjustment is the achievement of personal goals.
Adjustment as a value judgement
All decisions for life process and purpose are value
judgements. Sometimes it is difficult to
see this, as you have been taught your values as true, they have come from your
societal group and you are still within that group. However of course, there
are other groups who have different values, you just weren’t born into them. Whilst there may be some universal values,
love, happiness and freedom, what these specifically mean may well differ
markedly from one society to another.
There is a sense when non-achievement of goals is synonymous
with maladjustment and is a target of therapy.
These goals are always contextual, so if a person wants to be more
assertive, they might find it is only in certain types of situation that this
comes up. Likewise with depression, if someone won the lottery, or was asked to
star in a new film then these situations would alleviate the depression.
Distress therefore is a situational issue. The distress being caused by the interaction
of our behaviour with a situation.
Behaviours and situations
People often explain their behaviours by saying that’s their
character, which means they have a consistent way of doing things, although
research shows that they overestimate the consistency and underestimate the
effect of the situation
Trait Theory
This is that people have persistent characters that explains
behaviour, therefore the situation has little influence. In other words
behaviour can be explained by an inner cause.
However personality is a label that has been given from the
behaviour in a number of situations. Has
the label added anything to explain the behaviour, well a little to stop
thinking on the matter, give a bit more certainty? The difficulty with labels is that they are
abstract and cannot be changed, if you want to change the list of behaviours
that has led to the label then that seems more useful. However if you closely analyse this list you
will as mentioned above usually find an overestimation of consistency and an
underestimation of the interrelation between agent and the environment.
The medical model
Sees mental distress in the same paradigm as physical distress.
There is an inner cause, a chemical imbalance, which causes an outer problem,
behaviour. The trouble with the medical model is it doesn’t explain striving
towards goals. You could have a goal of having more friends, or working in a
hospital, and the medical model struggles, both with the stating of the goal,
or indeed the struggle to attain it, what chemical sets goals, what chemical
enables the effective movement towards it, and much of psychotherapy is the
movement towards goals. If you are not achieving your goal then does this mean
you have a disease? The medical model ignores the interaction between agent and
the environment.
Achieving self-direction
A goal is specified in terms of behaviour in a situation.
Goals can be to stop or start behaving in a certain way.
Behaviour is a function of the environment
Behaviour is a determined by the nature of the situation,
therefore is a function of the environment. , so to change the environment
changes our behaviour. The relationship
between self and environment is dynamic, self-shapes environment and vice
versa. How we perceive and interact affects the environment, and how others act
how the situation impinges on us affects us. Personal adjustment, achieving goals, is a
question of changing the interrelation between self and environment.
Behaviour is learned
Our behaviour, our interaction with the environment is
learned, but is also modified by new experience and by our goals. The
environment, created by our perceptions thus evokes behaviours that have been
learned in the past and to teach new behaviours.
Achieving self-direction
Whilst you cannot completely control your behaviour as there
is the past that affects your behaviour, your future, modified by social forces
and the environment that all interact on it, you certainly can increase your control.
The scientific disciplines that deal with this are known as behavioural
analysis and behavioural modification.
Self-Direction and Will Power
Self-direction is about actualising your values, or should I
say living in tune with your values as your values are ideals that can never be
realised, but I guess they can be lived, you can say I value generosity but if
it is never actualised by acting generously then it is never realised and is
something of a fantasy. Self-direction is about achieving goals that accord
with your values.
The relation with will power and self-direction is to place
yourself in situations where self-direction becomes easier. To not sin, is to
not put yourself in the situation that occasions sin. Will power is not
therefore clenched teeth but rather guiding yourself to situations that make
your destinies become easier.
The process of self-direction
Successful self-direction contains:
1.
Self-knowledge (desire)
2.
Planning
3.
Information gathering
4.
Modification of plans in light of the
information available
Self-direction is a process, setting and modifying goals is
a process. These processes don’t end, but rather should be a way of life. Even if you achieve your goal, you need to
keep it achieved unless you change your goal.
Summary
People in therapy want to change. Change their emotions,
change their behaviours. So what causes the current problem emotion\behaviour?
Psychoanalysts, proponents of the medical model, trait theorists would all
argue that there are internal causes. Psychoanalysts would argue its drive
conflict that causes it. Medical model proponents would argue it’s a
chemical\genetic deficiency. Trait theorist would argue that it’s a
personality.
What all of these theorists miss out is the effect of the
environment, people, places and things. The relations between self and
environment one is a dynamic one. The self perceives the environment and they
do so due to their mood, past experiences and futural goals. The self also
changes the environment by interacting with it. Likewise the environment
changes the individual, by talking to it, raining on it, or leaving a bright
new penny in front of it to be picked up.
Emotion and behaviour is context dependent, thus to change
is to change the interaction between self and environment. Once you achieve your goal you need to keep
it, thus change is a process.
To achieve change then you need to be clear on
1.
Your desires to produce goals
2.
Planning, you need to plan how to achieve your
goal
3.
Information, to find out how, to understand the
situations where you can achieve your desires. Information about yourself, your
capabilities and information about the environment where you can achieve your
goals
4.
Plan modification. In light of changing
information you need to adapt your goal to suit
Chapter 2 Self-directed behaviour
Steps in self-directed change
1.
Select a goal
2.
Specify the behaviours necessary to change to
reach this goal, i.e. target behaviours. This makes the goal specific and
achievable, if you can’t specify behaviours that you need to achieve this, then
is the goal realisable? I want to not be depressed might be a goal, but the
steps to achieve this may be nebulous, and therefore the goal nebulous too. So
another way to achieve this would be what would you do if you weren’t
depressed, then make these targets and this cuts out the middle man.
3.
Observer target behaviours. Find out the events
that stimulate them, the obstacles and those things that reward them. Finding
out the situational modifiers makes life easier as you can change the
situation. Self-reinforcement is rewarding yourself for target behaviours.
4.
Work out a plan for change. What situations do
you want to be in more of or less of, how can you get rewarded for your target
behaviour.
5.
Readjust your plan as you get to learn more
about yourself
Applying principles
The principles of human behaviour are used in self-adjustment
work. Principles of human behaviour included punishment and reward modify
behaviour. Situations modify behaviour. Self-observation modifies behaviour so
counting target behaviour is the activity of self-observation. Establishing
desires and putting them into a concrete form means you can do something about
them. Big problems broken into small problems are easier to achieve. Success
breeds success.
Adjusting and changing plans
Plans need to be adjusted, so is the overall goal what you
want, are the methods towards it working, is the plan having an unpleasant
consequence?
Does a self-change plan really work?
They can, people can successfully self-direct, of course
though they can fail but the thing that comes out of the difference is that if
you use techniques for long enough they will pay off. If you reward your
behaviour this will make a difference.
Summary
Okay to get a goal you need to
1.
Specify target behaviour
2.
Plan
3.
Monitor
4.
Implement
5.
Adjust plan
6.
Rewards
To specify target behaviour puts reality on your plan if
your target behaviour is unrealistic and unspecifiable then this is the
incarnation of your goal, so this should be adjusted. As you monitor your target behaviour you look
at circumstantial modulators, you understand punishments and rewards. This does
two things, one it makes you a self-observer and two it provides you with ideas
as to how to achieve your plans. As you
observe yourself you slow down and in this process you take a more conscious
engagement with your target behaviour which does actually modify that
behaviour.
Chapter 3 Specifying the goal
You can’t work towards a goal until you know what you would
be doing, thinking and feeling to know if you’ve achieved your goal. Putting a
goal in behavioural terms means you can take action towards achieving your goal
as you know how you want to act. It is concrete.
Ideas that interfere with specifying the goal
Abstract goals can’t provide concrete action to achieve
goals which is what is required. So to
say I want to be more confident is to point back to a personality that is a
label which has been justified by an overestimation of the similarities of
behaviour and an underestimate of the dynamic interplay between self and
environment. You can only change
specific things, so goals need to be defined in these terms.
You may also think that you need to change your motives.
Understanding what motivates you is useful in terms of understanding your
rewards and punishments, but stating a goal as I need to be more motivated only
defines the problem not the solution.
Tactics for specifying behaviours in situations
Focus on your goals for practice not your goals of practice,
so if you want to be a great football player, make your goal, to become a
better football player in practice and focus on that.
Make a list of concrete examples
If you have an abstract problem like being depressed, then
specify this in terms of concrete examples, I stay in my house all the time
when I’d want to do things that interest me. What you need to do is to specify
behaviour and situation in an example. You can make you concrete goal contain
all the behaviours and situations it does include and those it doesn’t, as it
gives scope for the goal. In specifying
a goal for change then take 3 or 4 everyday examples of the problem and see
what is common for all of them.
Ask yourself what you would be dong if you achieved your goal
If your client struggles to articulate their behaviour to
achieve their goal, then ask them how it would be if they achieved it. Doing it
this way can articulate what they actually want to achieve. You may want to use
creative visualisation and imagination to flesh this out, use the full range of
senses.
Phrase the goal as behaviours in-situations
If you do this then your goal becomes more concrete, and you
have a situation and your interaction with it that you can modify
Become an Observer
When you use vague abstract labels to describe yourself your
behaviour then you need to become an observer.
The vague abstract labels are more of a speculation, observation will
remedy this. The observer can see
problems in greater details and see patterns of behaviours, both of this makes
the problem\goal more concrete and more achievable. The shorter the time between the observation
and its recording the more accurate it will be.
So if a client has a vague problem, set them a task of
getting examples and making them more concrete. So what was the situation, how
did you feel, what did you think, what did you do, and how did your body feel.
When the problem is non-performance of behaviour
See what you are doing in a target situation
Specify what you are doing in the situation when you should
be doing target behaviour, what do I do when I should be working.
See what you should be doing in the target situation
You are more likely to succeed when you try to increase
positive behaviour rather than decreasing negative behaviour. This is because
taking action engages but stopping action always leaves a hole.
Specify the chain of actions that will produce your goal
Sometimes it is difficult to know what your positive
behaviour should be, i.e. I’m depressed but don’t know what to do to change
this. In this instance look at a chain of events that may well lead to a
positive outcome. When the chain of behaviour is produced you can see where the
chain breaks down. Then think about changing that behaviour and how it will affect
your goal. If you can’t see a causal relationship then you may well have the
wrong goal.
Get advice
If you can’t get all the links in the chain to get to your
target behaviour then ask for help from friends and family. What you want in
advice is what are the steps to get to the target behaviour, not reasons or
judgements why you haven’t.
Use a model
Observe the behaviour of those who achieve their target
behaviour, this can enable you to flesh out your chain of behaviour. Some
people think imitating other people is distasteful. Still as children we
imitated then appropriated. Observing others can also give you ideas which you
can use as they are, synthesise with your ideas, do in your style.
Role playing
Pretending you are in a situation say with your therapist,
or in your imagination, can give you ideas in terms of how you do act and the
ways that you need to act differently.
This enables you to self-observe on events that happen too quickly or
too rarely to learn from.
When your goal is not a behaviour one
There may also be behaviours that are contributing to you
not achieving your goals that you are not aware of. To find these out ask
yourself what you are doing that interferes with you achieving your goals.
To achieve non-behavioural goals, like slimness, or shyness,
then these are achieved behaviourally and contrariwise the problem is created
and maintained behaviourally.
Self-analysis enables you to become a scientist of yourself.
If you ask who am I, then the question is better framed with what would I be
doing if I knew who I was.
Successive approximations to a goal
As you self-observe then you may get successive
approximations to a goal. So if you see that your target behaviour is created
by a situation, then find out what it is about that situation causes your
target behaviour. So if getting frustrated with your child leads to depression,
you may see that it is the feeling of being a bad dad that causes you to be
depressed and realise that comparison with others is causing the problem. So
your goal would be to stop comparing yourself with others or to put in positive
terms to start valuing what you do more.
Changing plans as your self-understanding deepens
As you see one chain of behaviour that leads to target
behaviour then you can set a goal. As you start to achieve that goal, you may
see another chain that leads to the behaviour then you can target that one.
Likewise it’s also good to start off with small achievable goals, then once
they have been achieved then to start looking at building on that.
For more complex goals where do you begin?
Start observing and start with a small achievable goal, but
one that inspires you.
Has the goal been correctly identified?
Check that on implementation of your plan that it has made
an impact on target behaviour.
How to Increase your self-efficacy beliefs
1.
Focus on the process of change not the end goal,
then you get more rapid reinforcement
2.
Discriminate between past performance and
present project
a.
If you have failed before it doesn’t mean to say
you will fail again
3.
Whilst focussing on the process of change keep
records of your progress
4.
Realise that being emotional in a situation
doesn’t mean to say you cannot perform adequately
a.
Being brave doesn’t mean you are afraid, it
means you are and doing it anyway
5.
Make a list of specific situations in which you
expect to find difficult
a.
Put the harder ones off until you have conquered
the easier ones.
6.
Pick a target you have some confidence of
achieving
Becoming optimistic
What we expect creates self-fulfilling prophecies that
affect our behaviour. Unrealistic optimism creates its own truth, although
within limits!! So realistic optimism. No matter how optimistic I am I won’t
become an Olympic gymnast.
Optimism can be generated by:
1.
Writing down the reasons you will be successful.
2.
Write out a chain of events that can lead to
success
Stages in your thoughts about changing
1.
Precontemplation, not thinking about changing
2.
Contemplation, thinking about changing but not
specifically when
3.
Preparation, getting ready to change at a
certain date
4.
Action, change occurs
5.
Maintenance, relapse prevention
Relate your target goals to life goals
It’s easier to change when you realise a target behaviour
conflict s with a strongly held belief, or value.
Summary
To get a goal you need to specify it in terms of contextual
behaviours. Doing it in this way enables you to be able to take specific
action. It also enables you to observe and learn about your current situations
and to learn what are the modulators of your target behaviour.
To specify a vague problem in contextual behavioural terms
if you struggle
1.
List examples of target behaviour and abstracts
the commonality
2.
Ask yourself what things would be like if you
achieved your goals
3.
Always specify target behaviour in situation
4.
Move from using labels to observation,
depressed, shy are labels find out what the actual behaviour\situation
circumstances are to get more data
If the problem is
non-performance, e.g. I want to do more exercise
1.
Find out what you are doing in the situation
when you should be doing it
2.
Try to specify the goal in positive terms, as
you can only really act towards taking action, rather than not taking it, as it
always leaves an absence that needs to be filled
3.
Find out the chain of action that would lead to
the behaviour you want and you may well find a gap. If you can’t do this, then
use modelling of other people, or get advice or use your imagination of the
situation. Doing this can provide ideas as to how to produce your chain of
action, or see ways in which you actively prevent the chain being completed
If the problem is non-behavioural
e.g. I want to be slim then
1.
Specify in terms of the behaviours that add to
and reduce the ability to achieve target behaviour
2.
Again use chain of action analysis to provide
steps to achieve
If the problem is complex
1.
Again chain of action analysis to break down
into small achievable units
2.
Use observation to understand the situation,
then observe again to find out what really is the problem. Successive
observation iteration will enable you to find the root issues in a problem that
may not be that complex.
Chapter 4 Self-knowledge: Observation and recording
Self-knowledge is the key to self-direction. Your
behaviours, your actions, thoughts and feelings are embedded in situations all
of these aspects must be carefully observed. Observation is a much underrated
technique. Our casual observation can be affected by emotion and can sometimes
generate false memories. People think that they know themselves but then on a
closer observation can make many discoveries.
Discovering the effects of situations
Antecedents and consequences
A situation has a before and an after. So in terms of your
target behaviour, what was the situation before your target behaviour and
after. So when you do SETB this is quite
often a mix of before and afterwards. I was left on the seat by myself, I was
angry at my boyfriend. The latter emotion possibly happened a bit later, there
may well have been the emotion of feeing lost and abandoned at the time of
sitting at the seat. So when doing SETB look at the temporal element. So to use
ABC analysis with a target behaviour, is to ask what happened before the
behaviour and what happened afterwards.
Antecedents, is
what, where, when with whom. It can also be thoughts and feelings and physical
events. It main aspect is what was the stimuli for the behaviour.
Behaviours:
Actions, thoughts and feelings
Consequences: was
it pleasant or unpleasant, so what did it feel like
Using the ABC analysis finds out the causes of behaviour and
their consequences and allows you to alter the causal elements and find other
ways of getting consequences if there is positive reinforcement.
Structured diaries for antecedents and consequences
Using a diary can start to show themes and patterns, you do
this by measuring the same thing at different times and contexts. What they
will do is show up situational themes, the nature of the situation might be
what happens, how you think or how you feel.
ABC
Write down the antecedents, behaviours and consequences
Mechanics of diary writing
Write up the event as soon as the target behaviour has
happened.
Recording thoughts and feelings
Thoughts can be the target for change, i.e. putting yourself
down, or they can be the antecedent, i.e. putting myself down, can make me try
to seem superior. Thoughts can be verbal as well as visual.
What the diary tells you
A diary at first glance say for giving up smoking may
contain a catalogue of seemingly unrelated events to the problem in hand. It
may take some time and some patience to see any patterns of behaviour that
modulate the target behaviour, it may be that you also through looking more
closely at situations that there was a thought or image or emotion that you had
just before the target behaviour happened. So for instance you may find that
you smoke, when you have a strong emotion that you can’t deal with and there’s
the thought that a magic stick will take it away.
Frequency recording
Simple counting
When you count you can see if your strategies to enable
target behaviour is working, you can count frequency, duration, intensity,
successes or failures. Also with counting you give yourself distance from your
target behaviour to better understand it. Simple counting can either be numeric,
did something happen, or in terms of duration, how long did it happen for. You
can also combine counting with categorisation of situation, or antecedent. So
if you smoke, then after eating, for a break etc. can be used to see what antecedent
is most common for your smoking. You
need to count as soon as the behaviour happens or you will forget it. Sometimes people don’t, or stop counting for
the fearful news that it will provide. Recording
devices should be present when the behaviour occurs
Counting is the basis of self-observation.
Rules for counting
1.
Do it when the behaviour occurs
2.
Be accurate
3.
Keep the recording system as simple as possible
4.
Keep written records
Rating scales
You can use a rating scale of different levels of intensity
to record emotional issues where intensity rather than frequency is of issue.
So make sure your measurement type fits the what is being measured. Rating
scales can put things in perspective, if its happiness is of issue, put death
on one side and lottery win on the other and this will show that your current
issues are not as great as you think.
Combining techniques
You can use a daily log where you have a rating scale on the
left, time on the right, and shifts in rating can be attached to an event.
The reactive effects of self-observation
You perform differently when being watched and this also
includes you as observer. This is known as reactivity. Undesirable behaviours
tend to diminish when you are observing and recording them. The levels of reactivity
depend on how much you care about changing what you are recording. Evidence
suggests 15% of plans that people care about are changed by simply observing.
If you record before you engage in target behaviour this can make a difference,
e.g. marking down calories before eating will reduce how much you eat. You can also record within the chain of
actions that lead to the target behaviour. Doing this will break the chain and
prevent the target behaviour.
Public record keeping can increase reactivity but you might
also want to be mindful of embarrassment or failure if things don’t go
according to plan. So social reward if you succeed or social punishment if you
don’t. It’s easier to keep records if you weave it into your patterns of
behaviour.
Dealing with problems in getting records
Some behaviour happens absentmindedly, some you do so often
you can’t recognise it anymore. In these instances then you may want to
practice the behaviour whilst consciously attending to it. This is known as
negative practice. This practices paying
attention to it.
Building record keeping into your pattern of habitual behaviours
As record keeping may be a punishment as it shows you the
bad things that you are doing. So try rewarding yourself for keeping records.
If you are failing at record keeping because it is behaviour in itself then try
applying behavioural principles to find out when it works and when it doesn’t
and make this the first target behaviour.
Self-recorded data and planning for change
If you get a baseline prior to starting your plan, you can
monitor the efficacy of your strategies.
Difficulty in recording data
1.
Target behaviour not specific in terms of
behaviour in situation
2.
Target behaviour is unconscious
a.
In this case deliberately practice the target
behaviour and monitor it, this will aid getting used to monitoring
b.
Ask friends to point out when you do it
3.
Target behaviour is unpleasant and not something
you want to record
4.
Record keeping is not simple enough
Aids to recording data
1.
Specifically define target behaviour
2.
Recording device must always be present
3.
Simple recording system, e.g. peas in pocket
4.
Not punishing
recording system
5.
Rewards given for recording
Summary
Self-observation is critical to change. It enables you to
understand the scope of the problem, what you do and how often. It also
provides information about the situations in which you do it and the consequences
of doing it.
Firstly with self-observation you need to do an ABC
analysis. This provides information about the situation and its effects. You may also want to provide a before
behaviour ABC and an after. This provides in greater relief the stimuli that
led to the target behaviour, that in some way set up the situation such that
you behaved in a certain way. If you then extend the analysis to provide an ABC
analysis of a few examples of the target behaviour then you can see these
emerging and you might find a new aspect of the situations that is very
influential in providing stimuli for the target behaviour.
When you have done an ABC analysis you know some more about
yourself and the target behaviour. After that then you need do count the
instances of the behaviour either numerically, or in terms of intensity or
duration. Counting in this way provides you with more self-observation and what
this does it tap into the reactive effect.
When people are watched they perform differently, when you watch yourself
then you likewise act differently. If you can count prior to starting your plan
then you provide a baseline which then enables you to gauge success of your
plan.
Your counting also may provide situational information, such
that I always struggle at 4pm and during the week, which again may aid
information to be able to formulate interventions.
People can have difficulty doing this as either their
behaviour is unconscious or unpleasant. If it is the former then you need to
actively do the behaviour whilst monitoring, and practise monitoring. If it is
unpleasant then you need to make this the plan and apply behavioural principles
to help you do it. Using reward for counting can really help.
Chapter 5.1 The principles of self-regulation theory and practice
This is chapter 4 in the 2002 edition
Regulation theory
There are many machines that self-regulate, e.g.
thermometers, where there is a desired goal, some sensing and some action that
follows if there is a discrepancy between the two.
Self-regulation is we have standards of behaviour, we
perceive how we do behave and a gap between the two produces a call to action,
well hopefully or we can become emotionally activated and not act!! To act
requires energy and in humans that can be provided by attention Having emotion
can be a motivator to change, so disgusted by your behaviour!
Regulation theory explains an inability to act, out of the
following:
1.
Having no standards to achieve
2.
Not attending to current performance
3.
Actions are not available to us to change
Social constructivism
All behaviours develop in the following stages:
1.
Control by others
2.
Control by self
3.
Automatization
I get shown how to drive, do it mechanically, then do it
automatically.
When behaviour is automatic, then it has come under the
control of antecedents in the environment. If however the automatic behaviour
doesn’t suit you, then you can bring it back under control. This is done by
directing your attention to your own behaviour and breaking the undesired
automatic cycle.
Development of language regulation
Small children are told what to do, they then might repeat
out loud what to do, and in time this becomes subvocal and in time this becomes
automatic. To get to automatic behaviour
some of these verbal statements get distilled into rules, some becomes
pre-conscious.
Principles
1.
From early life to adulthood, regulation by
others and the self (particularly through verbal instructions) act as a
powerful guide to behaviour
2.
Operant behaviour is a function of its consequences
3.
A positive reinforcer is a conseuqnce that
maintains and strengthens behaviour by its added presence
4.
A negative reinforcers is a consequence that
strengthens its behaviour by being subtracted from the situation
5.
Behaviour that is punished will occur less often
6.
An act that was reinforced but no longer is will
begin to weaken
7.
Intermittent reinforcement increases resistance
to extinction
8.
Most operant behaviour is eventually guided by
antecedent stimuli, the most important of which are often self-directed
statements
a.
An antecedent becomes a cue to behaviour when
that behaviour is reinforced in the presence of that antecedent
9.
An antecedent can be a cue or signal that an
unpleasant event may be imminent, This is likely to produce avoidance
behaviour.
10.
Through conditioning, antecedents come to elicit
automatic reactions that are often emotional
11.
Many behaviours are learned by observing someone
else perform the actions, which are then imitated.
When an antecedent automatically evokes a behaviour then it
is said to have stimulus control. It
gets this way by being repeatedly associated with a reinforced behaviour. You can break stimulus control by changing
the antecedents, you can try using a self-statement.
Chapter 5.2 Behaviour-environment relationships
Situations can be understood in terms of ABC analysis. This
shows what stimuli are in the environment for you and what positive reinforcers
are.
Effects of consequences
Behaviour is strengthened if there are positive
consequences.
Operant behaviours
Behaviours that are strengthened by their consequences are
called operant behaviours. An operant behaviour is something that has a
consequence on your environment, i.e. changes the environment. I think the thing though is focus, an operant
behaviour is a function of its consequence, you do it because of its
consequence, some behaviours are done because of their intrinsic pleasure,
operant behaviours are a function of the consequence, if you didn’t get the
consequence you wouldn’t do the behaviour. Operant behaviours are strengthened
or weakened by what follows them.
Some consequences strengthen behaviours
The best index to gauge the likelihood of an action is its
frequency, the more often something is done, the more likely it is that it will
be done.
Reinforcers
If a consequence strengthens its behaviour then it is called
a reinforcer. Positive reinforces encourage behaviour through their presence,
negative reinforcers encourage behaviour through their absence. So if you’ve
had a good outcome, and you expect it again, then you will do the behaviour
more often, which is positive reinforcement. If you’ve had a good outcome,
through something not being there, e.g. anxiety, then you will do it again when
you want to get rid of anxiety.
Escape and avoidance
Negative reinforcement shows how we avoid unpleasant
consequences. Escape learning is negative reinforcement that terminates the
unpleasant consequences, in avoidance learning negative reinforcement avoids
the unpleasant consequences. This can be useful as some people do things for
which there are apparently no consequences, no reasons, but it could well be
negative reinforcement that motivates it as they avoid an unpleasant situation.
Avoidant behaviours are often performed in an unemotional, blasé way.
Reinforcing consequences in your life
To understand negative and positive reinforcement is
important as it gets you to understand your action and the things that it
produces. It may be hard to change behaviour as it gets you some kind of
reinforcement, so understanding that reinforcement is important so that you can
seek to get that elsewhere. Alternatively you can put in place your own
reinforcement of the behaviour that you want, or tweak the reinforcement of
behaviour you don’t want, looking to reduce the rewards.
Punishment
Behaviour that is punished, has negative outcomes will occur
less often. Punishment can be either a painful outcome, or a reduction of
pleasure. Negative reinforcement makes the behaviour more likely, punishment
makes the behaviour less likely.
Extinction
An act that has previously been reinforced and now no longer
is, will be less likely to occur. The weakening of motivation to behave by the
removal of reinforcement is called extinction. If the reinforcement is
intermittent, then this reduces the level of extinction as there is still a
hope that the reinforcement will come back. So if after 50 acts you get
reinforcement, then you may well wait
another 50 to see if you are going to be reinforced, thus the act becomes more persistent.
Effects of antecedents
There are antecedents in a situation that can indicate that
a positive or negative outcome is likely, and these can guide behaviour. The distinction between operant behaviour and
the effect of antecedents is quite tight. In operant behaviour, what the
outcomes of an action are reinforce that action being done. In the effects of
antecedents, there are clues in your environment as to what the consequence is
and you behave on the basis of that. If eating red things has led to an upset stomach
you associate red things with an upset stomach and avoid eating red things,
likewise if you eat blue things and its pleasant then you associate blue things
with pleasure and eat more blue things. You can look at both of these events
from either aspect either from the effect of antecedents or in terms of their
consequences.
Avoidance learning is highly resistance to extinction as a
person doesn’t learn that the unpleasant outcome is no longer there.
Stimuli that evoke a certain response are known as
discriminative stimuli, i.e. I stop at a red light, think eating fudge will be
nice. This cue lets us know when there will be some kind of reinforcement.
Stimulus Control
When a stimulus\cue consistently been associated with a
reinforced behaviour then it gains stimulus control and becomes semi-automatic
behaviour. A stimulus becomes a cue if the behaviour is reinforced, and if it
is continually reinforced then the cue has stimulus control.
Respondent behaviour
Not all learning is based on the reinforcement of operant
behaviour, some is automatically controlled by antecedent stimuli, e.g. knee
reflex. So a loud bang will make you
behave in a startled way, there are no consequences that you are trying for, it
is purely on stimulus that you respond. It is an automatic response, so up the
scale from stimulus control. These
behaviours are controlled by the autonomic nervous system and are known as
respondent behaviours. The antecedent stimuli is sufficient to cause the
behaviour. People can get these
automatic, reflex like responses, in phobias.
Respondent conditioning
Respondent behaviour can be created by involving pairing
with one stimuli that causes the behaviour with one that does not. So with
anxiety, when there is the original stimulus, the UCS, that produces the UR,
then this gets generalised to the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned
response.
Emotional Conditioning
You can transfer emotional behaviour, so that there is
respondent behaviour to one stimulus, say a spider crawling over you, to
another, a picture of a spider, or the fear that the spider is in the room. This
is done via association.
Modelling
Much of human behaviour is learnt by imitation. This is
learning through observation
Summary
Behaviour is learnt in 3 ways
Through
1.
Consequences
2.
Conditioning, where you associate a cue with an
outcome
3.
Modelling peoples behaviours
Consequences: can
either be positive or negative reinforcement. Positive means something good
happens, and negative means something bad is taken away. Punishment is also a
consequence and can be either an unpleasant event or a reduction in pleasurable
events. Behaviour is strengthened by
reinforcement. If that reinforcement isn’t there then the behaviour is
extinguished, an intermittent reinforcement being harder to extinguish.
Negative reinforcement can promote avoidance learning, where
you avoid an unpleasant outcome by not doing something. This is hard to change
as you never learn that the consequences have changed.
Conditioning:
antecedents in our environment are stimulus or cues to reinforced behaviour. If
there is a consistent relation between stimulus and reinforcement then the
behaviour becomes semi-automatic and is said to be under stimulus control. Some behaviour becomes reflexive, where it is
automatic, you can see this when you shut your eyes when you sneeze. Conditioned
learning is where you associated an unconditioned response with a neutral
stimuli, such that the neutral stimuli produces a conditioned response, and
thus is now a conditioned stimuli. So if a person when shot at ducks this is
the unconditioned stimulus and response, they may then associate the bang of a
cars exhaust with his and this neutral stimuli then makes them duck.
In therapy then you want to understand the positive and
negative reinforcement from an act, what is it that makes you want to do this
act. You also want to understand how this act has been motivated, is it by the
consequences, the operant behaviour, or is it by conditioned associated to some
other event that produces this behaviour.
For operant behaviour then what you would do is look to
extinguish the reinforcement directly and also by providing other ways that you
can achieve the reinforcement. For conditioned behaviour then you seek to break
the links between the unconditioned and the conditioned.
Chapter 5.3 Antecedents
This is chapter 5 from the 2006 book
To identify antecedents:
1.
Look at the antecedent chain of events that
leads to the problem, the antecedents are as much within the chain as just
prior to the event
2.
Antecedents involve self-statements
a.
Self-instructions
b.
Beliefs: these may have to be logically deduced
from the commonality through emotional reactions
i.
3 types of irrational beliefs
1.
I must..or else
2.
Others must..or else
3.
Conditions must..or else
Modifying old antecedents
1.
Avoid the old antecedents
a.
Absolutely, contextually
2.
Narrowing antecedent control
a.
Only allow the behaviour that you want to stop
in a specific place\time. Works with insomnia only use the bed to sleep if
awake after 10 minutes leave the bed.
3.
Reperceive antecedents
a.
So look at cigarettes as being sold by evil drug
dealers trying to get your money to spend on lap dancers and guns
4.
Changing chains
a.
Change the chain of antecedents that leads up to
the problem behaviour, as you get near the end of the chain, the behaviour or
reaction becomes more under stimulus control, but higher up the chain change is easier
i.
Build in pauses as you move from one link to the
other
5.
Arranging new antecedents
a.
So what would the virtuous chain look like, can
we take part of that and insert it into the problem chain
6.
Eliminating negative self-statements
a.
Often problem behaviour is via instruction, you’re
going to fail here, so look to replace these negative self-statements with more
positive ones
7.
Initiating positive self-statements
a.
Look to find realistic positive statements to
help you act the way you want
8.
Thought substitution
a.
When you have a
negative thought challenge it and seek to find a more balanced thought
9.
Building new stimulus control
a.
So associate a very specific place, situation
with a desired behaviour.
Chapter 6 Consequences
Arranging consequences
One basic formula for self-change is to give reward for
desired behaviour.
Contingency
Reward is a positive reinforce if it is contingent on
achieving desired behaviour. To change behaviour firstly understand what your
reinforcers are an then make them contingent on desired behaviour
Direct observation of reinforcing consequences
Behaviourism maintains that there is some type of
reinforcement maintaining undesirable behaviour. One way once you understand
the reinforcement of your current maladjusted behaviour is to use that
reinforcement on some desirable behaviour instead.
Consummatory responses
Detaching reinforcement from behaviour is especially
difficult in the case of consummatory behaviours where the reinforcer is
consumed. So the pleasure of drinking is the effect that the drink has when you
drink, but it also functions as a pain reliever, and an uninhibitor, so these
are the areas of reinforcement that can be changed.
Intermittent reinforcement and avoidance behaviours
If you have persistent maladaptive behaviour then it is
possible that it is only intermittently reinforced therefore hard to
extinguish.
Avoidance behaviour makes it difficult to find out
reinforcers as the behaviour might have been done for so long, it becomes
respondent behaviour and you forget why you do this behaviour in the first
place.
Cataloguing and selecting reinforcers
If you can’t discover the reinforcers for the maladaptive
behaviour you can still use reinforcers for the desired behaviour.
Positive reinforcers
List all of the things that you can use as treats, rewards
etc. If no treats seem possible due to resources then you can use the Premack principle.
The Premack Principle
This states that if you do something frequently and it is
relatively easy to do, if you make it contingent on doing something that you
don’t want to do, the latter item becomes easier to do. Any behaviour that you
do less frequently will be performed more if you make it contingent on
something your do more frequently. If you can link the desired and undesired
activity this works quite well, so you can replace the undesired activity. The
best choice for a an activity to pair with is something that you want to do,
that you could stop doing which would inconvenience you, but not cause major
problems, so don’t choose breathing.
Imagined reinforcers
You can imagine pleasant scenes, have pleasant thoughts as reinforces,
although they aren’t as powerful as actual ones they do get around the resource
problem or not having any ideas about other reinforcers. The more vivid the imagination the more
effective the reinforcement, so to get anything like this working then you
would need to get the paradigm imagined scene done in session using NLP
techniques. Don’t use imagined reinforcers instead of real ones.
How to use reinforcement
There are different levels of reinforcement, choose the
strongest one that you can, the greatest reward.
Rapid reinforcement
The best reinforcement comes immediately after the behaviour
as it strengthens the association. Often the undesired behaviour has immediate
reinforcement, the desired behaviour has reinforcement in the future, thus what
you need to do is to give yourself immediate reinforcement for the desired
behaviour. You can increase the rapidity of reinforcement by shaping that is
breaking the task\behaviour into smaller units and work with those. You can
then use tokens as reinforcement where tokens represent smaller parts of larger
gains.
Reinforcement for thoughts and feelings
You can use reinforcement on feelings, although I would
question the efficacy here
Avoiding problems in reinforcement
Don’t overuse reinforcers or you will get tired of them and
they will lose their potency and appeal.. Don’t use reinforcers that punish
others as this can cause tension and lead to punishment. Use separate
reinforcers for separate plans, or if you succeed with one plan, it will weaken
your desire for the other plan.
Sharing reinforcers
When there is someone else affected by your contingent
reinforcer say a partner, who you can go to the film with if you’re good, then
you need to enlist their help. If someone is concerned about your behaviour
then this can be useful leverage in getting them to do it
Using others to dispense the reinforcement
If self-discipline is weak then you can give something to
another to give back to you when you behave in the desired way. This role is
called the mediator role.
Extinction
Extinction is the weakening of behaviour by removing
reinforcement from it. In self-direction extinction is harder to use, as as
soon as you remove a reinforcer something else steps into its place. So if you
skip class and go play pool, then stop playing pool, you may go home and watch
TV instead. However you can use imagined extinction. Imagined extinction works
very well with consummatory behaviours.
So imagine doing your behaviour but not getting the reinforcement, in
fact maybe even imagine negative outcomes. The evidence for imagined extinction
is slight, so don’t rely on it, but it can be used in combination with other
approaches.
Self-punishment
Why punishment alone is insufficient
The behaviour itself may already be punishing and all you
are doing is adding to the punishment.
So you already have the position that punishment. Punishment also
doesn’t teach new behaviour, at best it least the desire for behaviour in place
and creates a vacuum. One better approach than punishment is to reinforce an
incompatible behaviour, if one exists. You can never say that you have changed
behaviour if you need to keep the behaviour going by punishment, it must be
supported by positive means, as otherwise there is no human agency in it. Guess
the assumption being that humans are motivated by achieving positive outcomes.
Rules for punishment
1.
Use only removal of benefits
2.
Use punishment only as a method to positive
reinforcement
3.
Use precommitment punishment as a deterrent and
only temporarily
The loss of positive reinforcement as a punishment
Losing benefits is a better punishment than adding an
unpleasant stimulus, although I’m not sure why. I guess that people get angry
and resentful when punished and this isn’t good for learning.
Precommitment punishment
This means selecting yourself the punishment that will
happen if you do the undesired behaviour. So make a cheque out to your most
hated organisation and send it to them if you smoke. In precommitment
strategies make the punishment so heavy that it acts as a deterrent.. These are
high risk strategies and should only be used temporarily.
The only way reinforcement works is when you are trying to
achieve a goal that you value. If you don’t you are forcing yourself to a goal
you don’t want, which will reduce the concomitant amount of pleasure that is
produced.
One of the powerful effects of reinforcement is that it
highlights the activities, makes it more vivid, highlights your success.
Summary
A large part of our motivation for behaviour is the
consequences of it. Working out what the positive and negative reinforcements
for these are can help understand your behaviour and pave the way to do
something about it. Positive reinforcement is getting the good stuff, negative
reinforcement is not getting the bad stuff.
So if you have B1 that you are trying to change into B2, then you work
out what the positive reinforcers are for B1, then try to either reduce them,
or to put them onto B2. Behaviour that
is motivated by consequences is known as operant behaviour. If you can reduce
the positive reinforcement break the link, then this is known as
extinction. Extinction is harder to
weaken when the reinforcement is intermittent. Likewise when negative
reinforcement produces avoidance where you don’t get the thing you are averse
to, this is quite hard to shift as you no longer realise that the bad stuff won’t
happen when you behave.
If something is hard to shift, or you can’t see what the
reinforcers are, then you can use imagined extinction where you imagine the
scene in vivid detail without the reinforcement or even something quite nasty
happening.
So the best way to get B2 to happen is to positively
reinforce it. If you can’t find anything then you can use the Premack principle
and choose a behaviour b3 which is relatively neutral in terms of pleasure but
more frequent than b2 and make doing b3 contingent on b3.
Using reinforcement to its full effect.
1.
Ensure reinforcement as soon after behaviour as
possible
2.
You can use shaping to ensure rapid
reinforcement
3.
Only use reinforcers that are potent, so you can
wear them out
Chapter 7 Developing new behaviours
The techniques of reinforcement work mentioned in the
consequences section on the actual behaviour so how do you get the behaviour
started in the first place. So for new skills then you need some techniques.
Using shaping techniques is useful as you get to see all the component parts of
the desired goal, you get to reinforce each step to make progress and you get
to get more awareness of how to do it, by seeing its components as well as
seeing that it is an achievable task.
The four techniques to develop new behaviour are
1.
Shaping
2.
Modelling
3.
Incompatible behaviours
4.
Rehearsal
Shaping: The reinforcement of successive approximations
To learn a new skill then if you break it down into small
steps and reinforce each step then this can make learning the new skill easier.
Shaping starts from your current level of skill increase the skill piece by
piece with reinforcement to get to the next level
How shaping works in self-directed behaviour
Start at level 1, when
you can consistently perform at this level move to level 2, on each
level you get reinforced.
3 rules for shaping
1.
You can never begin too low
2.
Step ups can never be too small
3.
Be flexible, adjust the steps, repeat the steps
if problem, go back to a previous step, take longer on each step than you
expected
Using Models to set shaping steps
If you have no idea of the steps you need, then look to use
a role model to guide you, ask them, or observe them to create the steps.
Problems in shaping
Plateaus
You may well make good progress in the early steps then hit
a plateau where you make no progress. What you can do here is to break the step
down into smaller steps. Alternatively given that the plateau experience is
common you can simply ride out the plateau, be patient. Again if it is hard look to how other people
handle this step. Maybe you have reached your skill level and the plan should
be terminated.
Cheating
It is easy to cheat and give yourself reinforcement when you
didn’t achieve a step. In this instance you may want to use someone else to
give reinforcement so they can check you are achieving your steps.
Losing Will Power
Often it isn’t a will power problem but a shaping problem
with the steps being too big.
Incompatible behaviour
To rid yourself of an old habit you need to replace it
somehow, do something else. Thus the most efficient way to replace an old
behaviour is to reinforce a new incompatible behaviour. If you try to extinguish behaviour you are
left with a vacuum, if you try to punish behaviour you are left with resentment
and without any new skills. Also with incompatible behaviours then you can use
reinforcement to increase them, true you could use reinforcement with the
absence of behaviour, but humans work better with a positive thing, rather than
a negative, negation being an abstraction.
The incompatible behaviour may not be a behaviour you want
to keep, for instance making a fist instead of cracking your fingers, but
finding any incompatible behaviour will help you remove the old behaviour. You must reinforce the incompatible behaviour
as it is usually not as desired as the maladaptive behaviour.
Incompatible behaviour method
1.
Find an incompatible behaviour that you want to
replace your old behaviour
2.
If you can’t find that then find an incompatible
behaviour that would prevent the old behaviour
3.
Count the incompatible behaviour
4.
Reinforce the new behaviour
Relieving depression with incompatible thoughts
Whilst hard you can use incompatible thoughts to combat
emotions. Find a good feeling thought and whenever you find yourself thinking
bad thoughts then use this to combat the mood
Behaviours incompatible with anxiety and tension
The most incompatible behaviour with anxiety is relaxation,
however there are also distractors. So a socially anxious person may be asked
to go to a social situation note the different occupation of all the people
there. Sexual arousal combats anxiety as does intellectual curiosity. Physical
exercise can also work as can meditation.
Technique
1.
Identify the situation in which you are anxious
2.
Choose a behaviour that is incompatible with
anxiety
3.
Practice that behaviour in that situation
Relaxation
This can be achieved by yoga and meditation. Deep muscle
relaxation is also almost always accompanied by mental calm. To use relaxation
techniques then at the first sign of tension use it to relax and reduce
tension. Relaxation has various levels, there is mild to deep. As you practice
become aware of the range of these responses, so you can relax to an
appropriate level. Learn to relax in as many situations as possible, so that
when real life situations come then you can relax in them. Relaxation should be used before you
encounter what you think might be a problematic situation.
Developing new behaviours through rehearsal
The best way to master a skill is to practice in or before
the situation takes place. If this isn’t possible, then use imagined rehearsal.
So first of all relax, then imagine a situation in minute detail, use all your
senses, see how your anxiety levels are. If they are a high then imagine
yourself being relaxed in that situation. Then relax again and imagine the
scene, repeat this process until you are not anxious when you imagine that scene.
You can also imagine the problem behaviour, its adaption and
imagine its reinforcement. Through rehearsing in this way then you will
increase the likelihood of behaving in this way in vivo. You can also imagine
being relaxed in a situation where you would be anxious.
You can also construct a feared hierarchy and move through
it imaginally, this would also help with a shaping approach. So one way that
you could work with feared hierarchy is firstly to write them down to see the
steps you have to achieve your end point. Then you can imagine being in them in
a relaxed fashion, when you have imagined a step and being relaxed in it, then
you are in a position to do it for real. In the imagination then you imagine
being relaxed and imagine a positive reinforcement for it. So that’s it do the
feared hierarchy, list positive reinforcement for each level, practice
relaxation, when you have relaxation skills then do an imaginal rehearsal of
each level and achieve it without anxiety and imagine getting your positive
reinforcement. Then do it for real, and repeat until you feel confident.
Developing new behaviours through modelling
Modelling is probably the most prolific method of learning.
In this instance you can take a role model and imagine how they would deal with
a certain situation, then imagine yourself as that person doing that act. In
terms of role models either choose someone you know, or a screen icon, or an
imagined person.
Summary
To create new behaviours there are certain techniques to use
1.
Shaping
2.
Incompatible behaviours
3.
Imagination
4.
Rehearsal
5.
Modelling
Shaping takes the new task such as for me fishing and breaks
it down into its component parts. Each part needs to be small enough to be
achievable. The exercise of shaping then enables you to get a better
understanding of the task which gives you how much resource is required to do
the task, what’s the impact of the task, what’s the temporal implications of
learning the task etc. What it also does is enable you to attach reinforcement
to each part such that you can reward yourself for getting closer to achieving
the task, and thus make the task more achievable. As you perform the sub tasks of the task, then
perform the step, get reinforcement, repeat the step until you are happy with
it then move onto the next one.
Problems that you can face in shaping are
1.
Defining the shape
a.
If you struggle to shape then look to a model to
see how they do it, by observation, or take advice from someone as to how they
do it.
2.
Plateaus
a.
See if
the next step can be shaped
b.
If it isn’t this is a natural part and be patient
c.
After you have been patient maybe you have come
to the end of your skill\interest in this task and therefore you should abandon
it
3.
Cheating
a.
People can reinforce when they haven’t achieved
their step, this being the case get a third party to give reinforcements
4.
Losing will power
a.
Often with will power it’s actually a problem
with shaping, so the steps are too big
One difficulty with shaping is that you need to have
effective reinforcers, so stage one in shaping is to define a list of
contingent pleasurable reinforcers, also as you need to be able to repeat each
step until you are happy with it then you need to be able to keep your
reinforcers fresh. One way would be to use imagined reinforcers.
Incompatible behaviour
Whenever you want to produce a new behaviour it is going to
be replacing an existing one. So I want to have better social skills, this is
going to replace my poor social skills. As removing something is harder than
doing something new, then you can use an incompatible behaviour to do this.
There are two types of incompatible behaviour
1.
The desired replacement of the original
behaviour
2.
A preferred replacement of the original
behaviour
3.
Something that is incompatible with the original
behaviour
As soon as you have the incompatible behaviour then
reinforce it. Sometimes the incompatible behaviour can be done before the
original behaviour, e.g. relaxing before the exam, or sometimes during, social
anxious persons, makes a note of what everyone is wearing in a room.
Rehearsal
The best way to introduce new behaviour is to rehearse it in
situation. If this isn’t available then you can do it using imagination
Using Imagination you can
1.
Imagine applying incompatible behaviour in
situation
2.
Imagined reinforcement
3.
Imagine a role model achieving what you want to
4.
Imagine applying new skill
5.
Move up a shaped\feared hierarchy
Chapter 8 Antecedents
Identifying Antecedents
Within any situation where there is unwanted behaviour then
it happens for a reason, in another situation then you would act differently,
so what was it about that situation that got you acting the way that you did.
There are likely to be multiple antecedents to unwanted behaviour.
Controlling and rearranging antecedents
When you have discovered the antecedents that have stimulus
control then you can avoid them to avoid the unwanted behaviour. However this
doesn’t teach you how to deal with it, and if you are faced with the antecedent
again, likewise it is difficult to reinforce avoidant behaviour. When you learn
your new behaviour then rehearse, shape and reinforce.
Consummatory problems
The best way to deal
with consummatory problems is to start with avoidance, then to build new
incompatible behaviours that allow you to deal with the antecedents again. So
you should reinforce avoiding in stage one, then reinforce being able to be
exposed to the antecedents. For consumptory issues then imagined extinction can
also be useful, imagine the doughnut tasting
When there are multiple antecedents then you can look to
gain control over one by one. So you are shaping your antecedents. Then you can
apply, avoidance, stage one, then imagined avoidance, then ability to be with
the antecedent without the unwanted behaviour.
Interpersonal problems
When the antecedent is the behaviour of another person then
you can use positive reinforcement for another kind of behaviour. If you punish
bad behaviour this leads to another punishment or retaliation and a vicious
cycle. If you reward good behaviour then this leads to a virtuous cycle.
Sometimes you need to ask what are the antecedents I am providing for another
and then reinforce another behaviour
Narrowing antecedents
Here if you identify the antecedents, then you narrow them
down until the behaviour is unlikely to occur at all. Here you can either
remove as many antecedents as possible, isolate the act, so that you also get
no reinforcement. So a smoking chair, where all you do is smoke.
Breaking up chains
The current antecedents are the result of a long chain of
antecedent and consequence, the consequence then being the antecedent to
another consequence. Here the best form of action is to break the chain early.
If there is a stimulus control between one antecedent and a consequence then
associate the antecedent with other consequences, so if standing in the garden
is always associated with smoking then go and stand in the garden for another
reason. Likewise you can pause between items in the chain or select a different
behaviour, so if standardly you pour the drink get the ice and then drink, the
pour the drink and go and empty the washing machine.
Changing the chain of events
When you have the chain of events then look for strategies
to break the chain, you can use substitute behaviour or pauses or making a
record. The earlier in the chain you can break it the more effective it is.
Arranging new antecedents
The aim here is to build in some stimulus control for the
desired behaviour. Stimulus control
happens when there is consistent reinforcement to a stimulus and that
reinforcement only happens with that stimulus. So the trick is here to set up some antecedents that only
have the desired consequences and nothing else. For instance with insomnia make
sure the only thing you do in bed is sleep or have sex. Firstly don’t do anything
else in it, don’t read, watch TV, and if you can’t sleep get up until you feel
tired. If you need to multi use an object, then arrange it in a specific way
that you associate with a specific task.
You can also analyse for your desired behaviour what the
antecedents of this are when you do it, so again you can arrange antecedents to
achieve this. You can also arrange to make some antecedents only related to a
certain thing, so if concentrating whilst studying is important then make a
special place to do this, and only be in that place when you are concentrating.
Creating stimulus generalisation
If you create a special place where you only do your desired
behaviour and associate your behaviour with that place that that’s stage one,
stage two is generalising this behaviour so you can do it in other places. To
do this then find antecedents that are similar to the paradigm.
Precommitment and programming your social environment
Precommitment is to arrange in advance helpful antecedents.
You can also use cues and reminders for your desire behaviour
Self-instructions
You can use this as antecedent and give yourself self-instruction,
so psyche yourself up for the event, or activity. You can also use music to get
yourself in the desired mood, pumped up, or relaxed.
Technique
1.
Make self-instruction explicit enough to guide
behaviour
2.
Make self-instruction seem reasonable to you
3.
Use them to guide your behaviour in actual
situations
As much as you can use positive self-instruction, listen out
for any negative self-instruction that supports undesired behaviour and
challenge that when you hear it
Summary
Antecedents have an impact on behaviour, some antecedents
have stimulus control whereby they are positively reinforced and become a semi-automatic
way of behaving. They do this by continually being associated with
reinforcement. Even if there isn’t
stimulus control then behaviour is done in certain situations and there are
prompts, cues to certain behaviour. Thus for smoking you smoke when you are
angry say, or when you need a break. Through understanding what the antecedents
to your behaviour are then you can learn to do something about it.
So the task here is to identify all the antecedents to your
undesired action. The first option to
deal with these is to avoid these situation and reinforce this behaviour, then
one by one use reinforcement to deal with the antecedents. You can deal with
the antecedents by imagined rehearsal.
If the antecedents are strong and have stimulus control then
there are other options. The antecedents with stimulus control have a long
chain of consequences that themselves become other antecedents. So if you
overeat, then maybe you do so as you are angry, then at that point, you go to
the fridge, select some food, get a plate, sit down whilst watching TV and gorge
yourself. In this chain of action then you can look to disrupt the chain,
either by pausing between each stage, or by adopting some arbitrary action
instead.
If you are trying to encourage new behaviour then what you
can do is to set up a special set of antecedents and only perform the action
there and to reinforce every time you do it, so you set up some stimulus
control between the antecedent and the outcome.
You can also use precommitment, to decide to do something
tomorrow and set up antecedents, these can be aide memoires, reminder or such
like. Also think about using self-instructions, i.e. the opposite of NATS.
Chapter 9 Planning for change
The features of a good plan
A good plan has
1.
Rules that state the techniques to use in
certain situations
2.
Goals and sub goals
3.
Feedback on progress from self-observation
4.
Comparison on progress between self-observation
and goal achievement
Rules
You need to set yourself rules and the rewards that you get
for following them, I will eat three meals a day when I’m at home and every
time I do I can buy myself something. Each rule should be stated in terms of
situation\technique\reward.
Goals and sub goals
These act as milestones and should be heavily reinforced!
Each goal and sub goal will have its own set of rules attached. The sub goals
will be as a result of shaping.
Feedback gathering
You need to monitor your performance against targets to see
how you’re progressing, whether the rules are working and the efficacy of the
techniques and rewards. So this is the same as the self-observation that
enabled you to create the plan in the first place, by being aware of your
antecedents, behaviours and consequences.
The contract
Once you have established your plan, then you should write
it out and make it explicit and clear.
Chapter 10 Is it working? Analysing the data
Data looks to answer the question am I making progress, is
the goal right. On the basis of this you modify your techniques and goals. If
you don’t get data then you will seriously misjudge as most people increase
their goals on the basis of new performance levels. If your targets change then you need a new
baseline to measure against. Both success and failure are data that can be used
to adjust your techniques to maximise your performance.
Chapter 11 Termination
The time to stop with your plan is when you plan goals are
performed naturally. You can still arrange the environment to reinforce your
target behaviour but in a less formalised way. A good way to check if your
target behaviour is solid is to use stimulus generalisation and to try it in a
number of different situations. You may
also want to build in resistance to extinction by using intermittent
reinforcement (Thinning).
There is always a risk of stopping too soon, so the wisest
thing to do is to keep observing for a period after the plan has stopped to
ensure you are still on track
If you do lapse or relapse, then you need to reinstate your
plan as quickly as possible to ensure you return to target behaviour
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
People in therapy want to change. Change their emotions,
change their behaviours. So what causes the current problem emotion\behaviour?
Psychoanalysts, proponents of the medical model, trait theorists would all
argue that there are internal causes. Psychoanalysts would argue its drive
conflict that causes it. Medical model proponents would argue it’s a
chemical\genetic deficiency. Trait theorist would argue that it’s a
personality.
What all of these theorists miss out is the effect of the
environment, people, places and things. The relations between self and
environment one is a dynamic one. The self perceives the environment and they
do so due to their mood, past experiences and goals. The self also changes the
environment by interacting with it. Likewise the environment changes the
individual, by talking to it, raining on it, or leaving a bright new penny in
front of it to be picked up.
Emotion and behaviour is context dependent, thus to change
is to change the interaction between self and environment. Once you achieve your goal you need to keep
it, thus change is a process.
To achieve change then you need to be clear on
1.
Your desires to produce goals
2.
Planning, you need to plan how to achieve your
goal
3.
Information, to find out how, to understand the
situations where you can achieve your desires. Information about yourself, your
capabilities and information about the environment where you can achieve your
goals
4.
Plan modification. In light of changing
information you need to adapt your goal to suit
Chapter 2
To achieve goals then you need
1.
Specify target behaviour
2.
Plan
3.
Monitor
4.
Implement
5.
Adjust plan
6.
Rewards
To specify target behaviour puts reality on your plan if
your target behaviour is unrealistic and unspecifiable then this is the
incarnation of your goal, so this should be adjusted. As you monitor your target behaviour you look
at circumstantial modulators, you understand punishments and rewards. This does
two things, one it makes you a self-observer and two it provides you with ideas
as to how to achieve your plans. As you
observe yourself you slow down and in this process you take a more conscious
engagement with your target behaviour which does actually modify that
behaviour.
Chapter 3
To get a goal you need to specify it in terms of contextual behaviours. Doing it in this
way enables you to be able to take specific action. It also enables you to
observe and learn about your current situations and to learn what are the
modulators of your target behaviour.
To specify a vague problem in contextual behavioural terms
if you struggle
1.
List examples of target behaviour and abstracts
the commonality
2.
Ask yourself what things would be like if you
achieved your goals
3.
Always specify target behaviour in situation
4.
Move from using labels to observation,
depressed, shy are labels find out what the actual behaviour\situation
circumstances are to get more data
If the problem is
non-performance, e.g. I want to do more exercise
1.
Find out what you are doing in the situation
when you should be doing it
2.
Try to specify the goal in positive terms, as
you can only really act towards taking action, rather than not taking it, as it
always leaves an absence that needs to be filled
3.
Find out the chain of action that would lead to
the behaviour you want and you may well find a gap. If you can’t do this, then
use modelling of other people, or get advice or use your imagination of the
situation. Doing this can provide ideas as to how to produce your chain of
action, or see ways in which you actively prevent the chain being completed
If the problem is non-behavioural
e.g. I want to be slim then
1.
Specify in terms of the behaviours that add to
and reduce the ability to achieve target behaviour
2.
Again use chain of action analysis to provide
steps to achieve
If the problem is complex
1.
Again chain of action analysis to break down
into small achievable units
2.
Use observation to understand the situation,
then observe again to find out what really is the problem. Successive
observation iteration will enable you to find the root issues in a problem that
may not be that complex.
Chapter 4
Self-observation is critical to change. It enables you to
understand the scope of the problem, what you do and how often. It also
provides information about the situations in which you do it and the
consequences of doing it.
Firstly with self-observation you need to do an ABC
analysis. This provides information about the situation and its effects. You may also want to provide a before
behaviour ABC and an after. This provides in greater relief the stimuli that
led to the target behaviour, that in some way set up the situation such that
you behaved in a certain way. If you then extend the analysis to provide an ABC
analysis of a few examples of the target behaviour then you can see these
emerging and you might find a new aspect of the situations that is very influential
in providing stimuli for the target behaviour.
When you have done an ABC analysis you know some more about
yourself and the target behaviour. After that then you need do count the
instances of the behaviour either numerically, or in terms of intensity or
duration. Counting in this way provides you with more self-observation and what
this does it tap into the reactive effect.
When people are watched they perform differently, when you watch
yourself then you likewise act differently. If you can count prior to starting
your plan then you provide a baseline which then enables you to gauge success
of your plan.
Your counting also may provide situational information, such
that I always struggle at 4pm and during the week, which again may aid
information to be able to formulate interventions.
People can have difficulty doing this as either their
behaviour is unconscious or unpleasant. If it is the former then you need to
actively do the behaviour whilst monitoring, and practise monitoring. If it is
unpleasant then you need to make this the plan and apply behavioural principles
to help you do it. Using reward for counting can really help.
Chapter 5
Behaviour is learnt in 3 ways
Through
1.
Consequences
2.
Conditioning, where you associate a cue with an
outcome
3.
Modelling peoples behaviours
Consequences: can
either be positive or negative reinforcement. Positive means something good
happens, and negative means something bad is taken away. Punishment is also a
consequence and can be either an unpleasant event or a reduction in pleasurable
events. Behaviour is strengthened by
reinforcement. If that reinforcement isn’t there then the behaviour is
extinguished, an intermittent reinforcement being harder to extinguish.
Negative reinforcement can promote avoidance learning, where
you avoid an unpleasant outcome by not doing something. This is hard to change
as you never learn that the consequences have changed.
Conditioning:
antecedents in our environment are stimulus or cues to reinforced behaviour. If
there is a consistent relation between stimulus and reinforcement then the
behaviour becomes semi-automatic and is said to be under stimulus control. Some behaviour becomes reflexive, where it is
automatic, you can see this when you shut your eyes when you sneeze. Conditioned
learning is where you associated an unconditioned response with a neutral
stimuli, such that the neutral stimuli produces a conditioned response, and
thus is now a conditioned stimuli. So if a person when shot at ducks this is
the unconditioned stimulus and response, they may then associate the bang of a
cars exhaust with his and this neutral stimuli then makes them duck.
In therapy then you want to understand the positive and
negative reinforcement from an act, what is it that makes you want to do this
act. You also want to understand how this act has been motivated, is it by the
consequences, the operant behaviour, or is it by conditioned associated to some
other event that produces this behaviour.
For operant behaviour then what you would do is look to
extinguish the reinforcement directly and also by providing other ways that you
can achieve the reinforcement. For conditioned behaviour then you seek to break
the links between the unconditioned and the conditioned.
Chapter 6
A large part of our motivation for behaviour is the
consequences of it. Working out what the positive and negative reinforcements
for these are can help understand your behaviour and pave the way to do
something about it. Positive reinforcement is getting the good stuff, negative reinforcement
is not getting the bad stuff. So if you
have B1 that you are trying to change into B2, then you work out what the
positive reinforcers are for B1, then try to either reduce them, or to put them
onto B2. Behaviour that is motivated by
consequences is known as operant behaviour. If you can reduce the positive
reinforcement break the link, then this is known as extinction. Extinction is harder to weaken when the
reinforcement is intermittent. Likewise when negative reinforcement produces
avoidance where you don’t get the thing you are averse to, this is quite hard
to shift as you no longer realise that the bad stuff won’t happen when you
behave.
If something is hard to shift, or you can’t see what the
reinforcers are, then you can use imagined extinction where you imagine the
scene in vivid detail without the reinforcement or even something quite nasty
happening.
So the best way to get B2 to happen is to positively
reinforce it. If you can’t find anything then you can use the Premack principle
and choose a behaviour b3 which is relatively neutral in terms of pleasure but
more frequent than b2 and make doing b3 contingent on b3.
Using reinforcement to its full effect.
1.
Ensure reinforcement as soon after behaviour as
possible
2.
You can use shaping to ensure rapid
reinforcement
3.
Only use reinforcers that are potent, so you can
wear them out
Chapter 7
To create new behaviours there are certain techniques to use
1.
Shaping
2.
Incompatible behaviours
3.
Imagination
4.
Rehearsal
5.
Modelling
Shaping takes the new task such as for me fishing and breaks
it down into its component parts. Each part needs to be small enough to be
achievable. The exercise of shaping then enables you to get a better
understanding of the task which gives you how much resource is required to do the
task, what’s the impact of the task, what’s the temporal implications of
learning the task etc. What it also does is enable you to attach reinforcement
to each part such that you can reward yourself for getting closer to achieving
the task, and thus make the task more achievable. As you perform the sub tasks of the task,
then perform the step, get reinforcement, repeat the step until you are happy
with it then move onto the next one.
Problems that you can face in shaping are
1.
Defining the shape
a.
If you struggle to shape then look to a model to
see how they do it, by observation, or take advice from someone as to how they
do it.
2.
Plateaus
a.
See if
the next step can be shaped
b.
If it isn’t this is a natural part and be
patient
c.
After you have been patient maybe you have come
to the end of your skill\interest in this task and therefore you should abandon
it
3.
Cheating
a.
People can reinforce when they haven’t achieved
their step, this being the case get a third party to give reinforcements
4.
Losing will power
a.
Often with will power it’s actually a problem
with shaping, so the steps are too big
One difficulty with shaping is that you need to have
effective reinforcers, so stage one in shaping is to define a list of
contingent pleasurable reinforcers, also as you need to be able to repeat each
step until you are happy with it then you need to be able to keep your
reinforcers fresh. One way would be to use imagined reinforcers.
Incompatible behaviour
Whenever you want to produce a new behaviour it is going to
be replacing an existing one. So I want to have better social skills, this is
going to replace my poor social skills. As removing something is harder than
doing something new, then you can use an incompatible behaviour to do
this.
There are two types of incompatible behaviour
1.
The desired replacement of the original
behaviour
2.
A preferred replacement of the original
behaviour
3.
Something that is incompatible with the original
behaviour
As soon as you have the incompatible behaviour then
reinforce it. Sometimes the incompatible behaviour can be done before the
original behaviour, e.g. relaxing before the exam, or sometimes during, social
anxious persons, makes a note of what everyone is wearing in a room.
Rehearsal
The best way to introduce new behaviour is to rehearse it in
situation. If this isn’t available then you can do it using imagination
Using Imagination you can
6.
Imagine applying incompatible behaviour in
situation
1.
Imagined reinforcement
2.
Imagine a role model achieving what you want to
3.
Imagine applying new skill
4.
Move up a shaped\feared hierarchy
Chapter 8
Antecedents have an impact on behaviour, some antecedents
have stimulus control whereby they are positively reinforced and become a semi-automatic
way of behaving. They do this by continually being associated with reinforcement. Even if there isn’t stimulus control then
behaviour is done in certain situations and there are prompts, cues to certain
behaviour. Thus for smoking you smoke when you are angry say, or when you need
a break. Through understanding what the antecedents to your behaviour are then
you can learn to do something about it.
So the task here is to identify all the antecedents to your
undesired action. The first option to
deal with these is to avoid these situation and reinforce this behaviour, then
one by one use reinforcement to deal with the antecedents. You can deal with
the antecedents by imagined rehearsal.
If the antecedents are strong and have stimulus control then
there are other options. The antecedents with stimulus control have a long
chain of consequences that themselves become other antecedents. So if you
overeat, then maybe you do so as you are angry, then at that point, you go to
the fridge, select some food, get a plate, sit down whilst watching TV and gorge
yourself. In this chain of action then you can look to disrupt the chain,
either by pausing between each stage, or by adopting some arbitrary action
instead.
If you are trying to encourage new behaviour then what you
can do is to set up a special set of antecedents and only perform the action
there and to reinforce every time you do it, so you set up some stimulus
control between the antecedent and the outcome.
You can also use precommitment, to decide to do something
tomorrow and set up antecedents, these can be aide memoires, reminder or such
like. Also think about using self-instructions, i.e. the opposite of NATS.
Summary
Ok so what’s all the about behaviourism. Well the basic idea
is that behaviour happens through two reason, cause and effect and that all
behaviour happens in a situation.
There are some antecedents that produce behaviour in an
automatic way, i.e. reflexes and some in a semi-automatic way, i.e. whenever
I’m angry then I shout at people. With consequences then we do things to
achieve things this can either be positive reinforcement, getting some
pleasure, or negative reinforcement avoiding some pain.
Antecedents and consequences also merge in terms of stimulus
and cues. There are stimuli in a situation that we have associated with certain
consequences so that we always stop at red lights, as if we don’t then we know
people are going to give us dirty looks, we may crash etc. etc.
So to modify behaviour then you need to do the following:
1.
Observe
2.
Plan
3.
Act
Easy really!!
To create new behaviour, then you need to do the following
1.
Gain information about the new behaviour from
observation or conversation
2.
Plan
3.
Act
Again easy really!!
To modify behaviour
In the observation stage then what you need to do is to
analyse the situation in terms of antecedent and consequence. For antecedents
then you need to know what has what the stimulus are, what has stimulus control
and what the situations are that cause the behaviour. Then you need to look to
see what the consequences are and how they are reinforced.
On an understanding of this your plan should look to detail
all antecedents that are under stimulus control and see to remove them from
that using extinction, i.e. ensure that you do not reinforce that behaviour in
a situation. So for instance if getting angry makes me shout, and people then
do what I say. I should look to try to shout in a way that they won’t do what I
say, hmm that’s a bad example, ok when I’m tired I eat pizza and rest on the
sofa, so having pizza is associated with rest, then whenever I have pizza I
continue what I’m doing.
Other ways to remove antecedents from stimulus control is to
look at the chain of behaviour that results in them. There will be quite a long
chain of behaviour and consequence, the consequence then turns into an
antecedent that results in the antecedent that has stimulus control. Breaking
this chain early will disrupt the stimulus control. You can do this using pauses, or alternative
behaviours to break the chain.
Working with consequences, then first of all we can look to
get the reinforcements in different ways. Secondly we can start to reinforce
the desired behaviour.
To create new behaviour then first of all what we need to do
is to shape it, i.e. break the task down into small units and then reinforce
each unit as they’re done. Doing it this way enables us to both understand the
task better and also get reward each time we achieve so motivate behaviour. If
we are only rewarded every six months it will be impossible to carry on
behaving in that fashion without reward. You can also enable new behaviour with
the Premack principle, finding something that you do with greater frequency
than the desired behaviour and make the existing behaviour contingent on the
new behaviour.
If we are trying to stop behaving in a certain way then we
must find a new way to behave. To stop the old way, we can avoid the
antecedents that cause it, we can start performing incompatible behaviours with
the old behaviour, but whatever we do, we need to find a new behaviour in that
situation.
Key Concepts
1.
Shaping
a.
Break tasks into smaller units and reinforce
2.
Chains of action
a.
Will always be prior to an item with stimulus
control
3.
Reinforcement
a.
Must be contingent
4.
Behaviour is always in a context
5.
Stimulus control
6.
Extinction
a.
Intermittent reinforcement increases resistance
to extinction
7.
Incompatible behaviour
8.
Observation changes behaviour
9.
Modelling
a.
Enables new behaviour
10.
Imagination
a.
Used to rehearse reinforcement, extinction
11.
Premack principle
12.
Goals
a.
must be concrete and specific to act on
13.
Stimulus Generalisation
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