Behavior is everything that people do or say (performances, reactions, responses, actions,…). When certain behaviors of a person are not appropriate (for example, aggressive behaviors), work must be done to modify them and, thus, promote a better quality of life.
We will explain reinforcement, punishment, modeling and extinction, among other psychological techniques to learn new behaviors, eliminate or enhance existing behaviors. Do you want to know 8 of these behavioral modification techniques? Keep reading this Psychology-Online article: 8 behavior modification techniques.
1. Positive and negative reinforcement
One of the main behavior modification techniques is reinforcement. Due to its effectiveness, positive and negative reinforcement is one of the most used behavior modification techniques.
When to apply reinforcement? In order to positively or negatively reinforce a specific behavior, it is essential to first determine whether it is appropriate or inappropriate behavior. When we talk about appropriate behaviors, we are referring to those behaviors that we would like to be repeated frequently. One of the techniques or strategies to ensure that these behaviors are repeated the next times that the person in question faces the same situation is to reinforce the specific behavior. There are two types of reinforcement: positive and negative.
Positive reinforcement
What is positive reinforcement? When positive reinforcement is chosen, what is intended to be achieved is to reinforce the desired behavior immediately after its appearance, immediately, through a reward in order to provoke a greater probability that it will be repeated.
- Examples positive reinforcement: congratulations for the behavior performed and a hug.
negative reinforcement
What is negative reinforcement? When negative reinforcement is chosen, it is not about giving a reward, but about removing or removing something that is unpleasant for the person, so that the possibility of continuing to repeat the desired behavior also increases. In this sense, both negative and positive reinforcement follow the same purpose: to increase the probability of repeating desired behaviors, even if it is through different forms.
- Example negative reinforcement: reducing tasks
In this article you will find more examples of positive and negative reinforcement: .
2. Intermittent reinforcement
When we talk about intermittent reinforcements we are referring to the same behavior modification technique as before (positive and negative reinforcement) but using reinforcements intermittently and not continuously. That is, it is not about reinforcing the same behavior every time it is carried out, but rather it is about occasionally reinforce the behavior.
3. Extinction
Extinction is another of the most used behavior modification techniques. In this case, it is done through the withdrawal of positive or negative reinforcement prior to ensuring that a behavior disappears over time. In this way, with the withdrawal of reinforcements, the person will begin to stop performing specific behaviors until finally, there will come a time when the behavior will disappear completely. This technique always works gradually to end the unwanted behaviors that are intended to be eliminated.
4. Fade
Fading is another behavior modification technique and refers to a gradual change in behavior. Is about accompany the behavior from someone else through aid (verbal, physical…) to turn it into a desired behavior. In this sense, these aids must be withdrawn over time until the person is capable of carrying out the desired behavior on their own, without needing to receive aid.
5. Molding
Molding is carried out when the aim is to get a person to perform a certain behavior and this has never been done before. To carry out this behavior modification technique, the first thing to do is reinforce responses similar to the desired one and, as the desired behavior takes shape, it is about extinguishing approximations similar to the desired behavior.
6. Punishment
Another of the most used behavior modification techniques, especially in childhood, is . The application of punishment as an immediate consequence after the performance of an unwanted behavior reduces the probability of a future appearance of that same unwanted behavior. There are two types of punishment: positive and negative.
positive punishment
A punishment is a aversive stimulus or punitive that makes it used to reduce the frequency of the appearance of certain behaviors in similar situations. Although it can also be a punishment, in this case it would be called punishment
negative punishment
In this case, the punishment is withdrawal of a pleasant stimulus.
- An example Negative punishment is taking away a teenager’s cell phone.
7. Satation
In order to modify a behavior through the satiation technique, one must massively and excessively presenting a reinforcer, so that the excessive presence of this weakens the value of the reinforcement itself, giving rise to a perception of that reinforcement as something aversive. In this sense, when the value of reinforcement is weakened by turning it into something punitive, the person begins to avoid carrying out certain behaviors to, at the same time, avoid said massive reinforcements.
Example of stimulus or reinforcer satiation
In order to better understand satiation, we present the following example: a child never wants to eat vegetables, however, he always wants to eat meat with potatoes, so for a few days he is given only meat and potatoes, until he stops eating. get tired of that foodcoming to seem something unpleasant to him, so he will finally choose to eat what his parents consider to be most appropriate.
8. Systematic desensitization
It is the most widely used behavior modification technique to treat phobias and other anxiety-related disorders. It is a technique made up of three steps to follow:
- Relaxation training: teach the patient to learn to relax through different relaxation techniques.
- Rank feared situations: hierarchically order the situations that are feared by the patient from lowest degree to highest degree of fear. For example, a patient with a phobia of spiders (arachnophobia) prioritizes his situations by putting first, imagining a spider, second, seeing a photo of a spider, among others, until reaching the presence of a live spider, in movement and in real life. Furthermore, once the hierarchical list of feared situations has been created, the patient must show the degree of anxiety that each of the situations on the list causes and, thus, list them according to the degree of anxiety that each situation causes (for example , from 0 to 10).
- Systematic desensitization: is about expose the patient to these feared situations, starting with the least feared and moving down the list gradually. The exhibition can be carried out through imagination, virtual reality and live exhibition. Thus, depending on the patient and her specific situation, the professional must choose which type of exposure best suits her. Furthermore, while gradually advancing in the hierarchy created by the patient, it must be mixed with others in order to reduce the fear and anxiety that the situations may cause in the patient.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Labrador, F.J. (2008). Behavior modification techniques. Madrid: Pyramid.
- Martin, G., and Pear, J. (2008). Behavior modification: what it is and how to apply it. Madrid: Pearson Educación, SA