Behavior Modification

Modified: 2020-03-27

Behavior modification is the application of principles of conditioning to the everyday world. In some sense, all of us are behavior modifiers. But, we may not be aware that we are. For example, suppose you pick up your newborn every time you hear a cry. Soon, you will notice an increase in crying. Why? That child has learned that crying will be reinforced. Parents have to learn to extinguish their infants' crying by not picking them up.

Behavior modification is also the name given to intentional efforts to modify behavior. They can be as simple as placing objects that need to be taken somewhere in a prominent position. For instance, I put all of the materials I will need for a class on the floor in the doorway of my office. Then, when I leave for class, I have to step over them. Stepping over those materials reminds me to take them. Or, they are a discriminative stimulus for my behavior of picking them up. Or, sometimes my chair will give me a note for a student in my next class. I put the note under the clip of my pen on the outside of my shirt. When I get to class someone will ask me why I have a piece of paper attached to my shirt. Then, I deliver the note.

Behavior modification can also be used in schools and other settings to promote or to discourage certain behaviors. For example, giving elementary students a gold star for certain behaviors is behavior modification. The gold star is a secondary reinforcer (see above). A more complicated form of behavior modification is the token economy. A hypothetical set of token economy rules is given in one of the handouts. The tokens are also secondary reinforcers because they can be "cashed in" in for other reinforcers. Certain types of therapy are explicitly based on behavior modification. They include systematic desensitization, flooding, and aversion therapy.

An ethical issue surrounds behavior modification. That issue revolves around its use with certain groups. For example, few question the right of parents to modify their children's behavior. However, do we have the right to apply behavior modification everywhere and anywhere? If people ask to change, then there is usually no problem. But if we apply behavior modification to people who do not want to change, that is an altogether different situation. For example, prisoners who are asked to volunteer for violence-reduction training may do so because they know it will likely lead to early parole. So, they are not really volunteers but are being coerced. Some, like the late Anthony Burgess in his novel A Clockwork Orange, have expressed the fear of government control over people via behavior modification.

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