For this session’s final assignment, you will address our four major settings of focus for the application of behavior modification strategies:
Self-management: Impacting the frequency of our own behaviors or establishing new behaviors
For example, habits to reduce or increase such as exercise, smoking, etc.
Family: Impacting the frequency of behaviors or establishing new behaviors within the family
Often emergent in parent-child relationships with an emphasis on discipline, reinforcement, etc., but can be observed across family relationships—for instance, encouraging a spouse to communicate more frequently or help out with household chores
Workplace: Impacting the frequency of behaviors or establishing new behaviors within workplace culture
For instance, supporting the development of positive behaviors in employees (e.g., arriving to work on time)
Culture: Impacting the frequency of behaviors or establishing new behaviors within a culture
Think “big picture”—how does the justice system attempt to reduce problem behaviors and reinforce positive ones? Diversity across cultures for social expectations can also influence behaviors in this setting.
In preparation for this week’s final assignment, you will be applying these four settings to the things you have learned about in this week’s readings. Create a chart or table with the following four headings:
Self-management
Family
Professional
Culture
You may choose to use the following template for your assignment or create your own template:
PSY-385A S2 Behavior Modification Strategy Assignment Template.docx
In each of these settings, identify examples of the following terms:
Stimulus control
Extinction
Reinforcement
Punishment
You will need to use creativity in the examples you provide, but one to two sentences or bullet points for each example will be sufficient.
For instance, in the family setting, your example of extinction could be as follows: “My husband used to frequently bring home roses, but I did not ever thank him and I did not express happiness about the gift. He eventually stopped bringing roses.”
