1. How is the experimental analysis of behaviour generally carried out? What are the components of a b-mod program?
2. Describe the “who, what, when, where, and how” of behavioural assessment:
• Who is being assessed? Who is the observer?
• What is the behaviour?
• How is the behaviour measured? How is the behaviour recorded?
• Where does the behaviour occur?
• When are the observations made?
3. Differentiate among target behaviour, behavioural goal, outcome goal, and operational definition.
4. What are some common dimensions of target behaviours?
5. What are the ways behaviour can be recorded during the observation period?
6. How can interobserver agreement be calculated?
7. What are the six rights of a client who is seeking treatment?
8. Explain three ways to evaluate programs, and the problems of unintended consequences.
How effective is drug abuse education?
(Sarafino, 2012)
- by 1980, drug use in junior high and high school students had increased significantly
e.g., marijuana use _______ in those aged 12-17 from 1970 to 1980 (SAMHSA, 2003)
- school counselors decided that, to prevent drug use, they had to address:
• students’ lack of _________ about the downsides of drug use
• students’ low levels of ____-______, which made them susceptible to the appeal of drugs
- eighth-grade students were given readings, videos, and testimonials about the health dangers and criminal risks of illicit drug use
e.g., D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), created in 1983 by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the LAPD
- comparisons were made before and after the program
- results:
• students had higher levels of self-esteem
• students scored much higher on knowledge about drugs
• students had lower opinions of drugs, drug use, and drug abusers
Bangert-Drowns (1988):
- performed ____-________ of 33 evaluations of drug education programs
- programs were successful in changing knowledge and attitudes
- however, programs were unsuccessful in changing the drug-using __________ of students
- conclusion: it’s important to measure the target behaviour, and compare it to a behavioural goal
Gosin et al. (2003):
- new evidence-based D.A.R.E. “keepin’ it REAL” program (for Refuse, Explain, Avoid, and Leave)
- based on ________ into successful behaviour-change techniques
- hands-on program that builds communication and decision-making skills, and lets children rehearse these behaviours using role-playing
- reduced substance use at a rate 72% higher than a control group (Kulis et al., 2007)
Experimental analysis of behaviour (EAB) general methodology:
• dependent variable: rate or frequency of response is most commonly used
• repeated or continuous measurement made of precisely defined responses
• ______-_______ experimental design:
- one person’s response is compared to their own response in a different situation/at another time
- in contrast, a typical between-subjects design compares one group (experimental) to another (control)
• visual analysis of graphed data is preferred over ___________ analysis and inference
• description of functional relations driven by data is valued over formal theory testing
- no hypothetical constructs are used (e.g., mental images, or superego)
Behaviour modification program consists of several phases:
1. _________ or intake phase: obtain client demographic information, and reasons for seeking assistance
• establish whether b-mod is appropriate for the client
• inform client of practitioner’s policies and procedures
• screen for crisis condition (e.g., child abuse, suicide risk) requiring immediate intervention
• diagnose client according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2022) to determine eligibility for treatment or insurance benefit coverage
2. preprogram assessment phase or baseline phase: define and measure initial “baseline” level of behaviour
3. _________ phase: actively apply training, intervention, or treatment program
4. ______-__ phase: determine effects on behaviour following termination of treatment program
- definition: measuring the ______ behaviour of a client (or target person)
- performed by considering the “who, what, where, when, and how” of the target behaviour
Who is being assessed?
• called the target person or client (not patient)
• use person-first language (e.g., “person who has autism”)
• however, some autism self-advocates prefer identity-first language (e.g., “I am an autistic person.”)
Who is the observer?
• may be a ____________
e.g., licensed behaviour analyst or psychologist
- Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) offers technical certificates
▸ Registered Behavior Technician™ (RBT®) -- high school level
▸ Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst® (BCaBA®) -- Bachelor’s level
▸ Board Certified Behavior Analyst® (BCBA®) -- Master’s level
▸ Board Certified Behavior Analyst™ - Doctoral (BCBA-D™) -- Doctoral level
- College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP)
- certifies training and experience, and requires written exam
- government license may be required
• may be a _________
e.g., teacher or coach
• may observe _______
e.g., self-monitoring
e.g., in self-management: you are your own client and therapist
- potential problems:
observer is poorly _______, unmotivated, or biased
What is the behaviour?
- ______ behaviour: the behaviour that you’re interested in changing (i.e., increasing or decreasing in frequency); the “what”
- behavioural ____: level of the target behaviour that a program is designed to achieve
- outcome goal: broad, abstract result that one wishes to attain; often recognized as important by society; the “why”
- target behaviour is not the same thing as a behavioural goal; behavioural goal is not the same thing as an outcome goal:
• target behaviour: “Drinking water.”
• behavioural goal: “I want to drink 1 litre of water per day, five days a week.”
• outcome goal: “To be healthy.”
How is the behaviour measured?
- behaviour must be defined and quantified
• poor definition: “To eat _________.”
• better definition: “To eliminate dessert from the dinnertime meal and replace it with one vegetable serving, as defined by UnlockFood.ca (Dieticians of Canada, 2018).”
- guidelines:
• describe objectively: avoid ______ (like “depressed”)
• use active verbs
e.g., passive: “The keys were dropped by X” versus active: “X dropped the keys.”
• no inference made about ________ states or motivation
e.g., hunger or anger
• defined so that multiple people can agree: interobserver _________ (IOA), a.k.a. interobserver reliability (IOR)
- some common dimensions:
• _________: number of responses in a given period of time
e.g., number of incidents of bed-wetting in a week
• ________: length of time of behaviour
e.g., duration of social interaction in those with social anxiety disorder
• latency: time between an antecedent stimulus or event, and the onset of behaviour
e.g., length of time after teacher makes a request to return to task until student complies
• _________ (or magnitude): assesses strength of behaviour, often with a rating scale
e.g., sound pressure level of shy girl’s voice, in dB
e.g., number of calories eaten
• _______: often arbitrary judgment of social value; may use rating scale
e.g., ISU Judging System for figure skating
(other, more complex dimensions exist, such as interresponse time, celeration, product recording, topography, etc.)
- ___________ definition: a precise, objective definition of a term by specifying the operations the researcher or observer made to measure it; the “how”
e.g., anxiety is the score on an anxiety questionnaire
e.g., fear is an increase in heart rate measured by EKG (physiological), raising of eyebrows or and escape recorded by trained observer (behavioural acts), and a self-report made by target person (language)
e.g., using a pedometer, fitness tracker, or app to count steps
- potential problems:
definition may be vague, subjective, incomplete, or have loopholes
some behaviours best captured by multiple dimensions
e.g., eating dessert: frequency and intensity
- examples of target behaviour definitions (Sarafino, 2012):
• _______ ______: The person’s finger is in his or her mouth, and the teeth are chewing on the skin beside the nail.
• __________: The person is jogging on a treadmill at 3.5 miles an hour at 5% incline for 30 minutes plus 3 minutes each of warm-up and cooldown at lower speeds and no incline.
• having a _______: The person is crying, screaming, and being aggressive, such as by kicking or pounding on objects or surfaces.
• _______: The person is expressing a complaint verbally in a high and wavering pitch.
• ____ ____________: Rolling of pulled hair between any fingers, gazing at pulled hair, and any contact of hair with the lips or mouth.
(consider loopholes in all of these definitions)
How is the behaviour recorded?
• ______ assessment: antecedents, target behaviours, and consequences are observed and recorded as they occur
e.g., by oneself, in self-monitoring
e.g., in the same room as client, or secretly watching through a two-way mirror
• ________ assessment: based on second-hand (or third-hand), remembered information
e.g., questionnaires/rating scales
e.g., role-playing: client re-creates a problematic situation
e.g., information from consulting professionals (physicians, social workers, etc.f)
e.g., __________ with clients and significant others
- potential problems:
indirect generally less accurate than direct assessment
- observers may not have training
- ______ can be fallible/distorted
direct is more difficult than indirect assessment
- more time-consuming
- observers need to be trained
- others cannot observe ______ behaviours
Where does the behaviour occur?
• _______ setting: behaviour observed in target person’s typical environment
e.g., a student in a classroom
• ________ setting: behaviour observed in a simulated location
e.g., a lab made to look like a classroom
• ____________ observation: observations made without giving instructions, or altering events or activities
e.g., client performs their typical daily life activities
• __________ observation: observations made while instructions are given, or specific events are planned to occur systematically
e.g., client asked to grasp various objects to see how pain affects movement
- potential problems:
natural settings may prevent accurate measurement
- noisy workplace, crowded room
__________: recording or measuring a behaviour affects occurrence the behaviour
e.g., recording the time you spend studying may cause it to increase
- confounds cause-and-effect conclusions, but may still be beneficial (i.e., improves behaviour)
- reactivity may _________ (decrease) over time
When are the observations made?
Target behaviours can be observed and recorded different ways during the observation period:
• __________ recording (or event recording): record every instance of client’s behaviour during the entire observation period
- suitable if each response has similar duration and behaviour occurs at low rates
e.g., number of cigarettes smoked per day
- pros & cons:
provides actual measure of behaviour
well-suited to self-monitoring
very labour-intensive, impractical, or impossible
• ________ recording: record target behaviour within successive time intervals of equal duration
- suitable for responses with variable durations or high rates
e.g., watching TV, checking Instagram
- _______-________ recording: record behaviour a maximum of once per interval, regardless of how many times it actually occurred (good for frequently occurring behaviours)
e.g., child talking to neighbour in class
- _____-________ recording: record behaviour only if it persists during the entire interval (good for behaviours that have long durations)
e.g., child listening while teacher is talking
- pros & cons:
easier/less demanding to record than continuous recording
less sensitive to true occurrence of behaviour
• ____ ______ recording: record behaviour during brief intervals separated from each other in time
e.g., record if child talks during 1 minute interval, measured every 10 minutes
- pros & cons:
easiest/least demanding to record
more subject to sampling error
• ____ ______ can record a behaviour’s frequency, duration, latency, or occurrence in intervals
• antecedents and consequences of behaviour can also be recorded
- ABC observation data sheets (or “ABC charts”) are used to identify and record antecedents, behaviours, and consequences
- ABC observation checklists: after antecedents and consequences have been identified, they can be more quickly recorded using a checklist
(Figure 13-3, p.256, Miltenberger, 2016)
• can be paper-based, or computer sheets
• other useful technologies include golf counters, stopwatches, smartphone ____
- definition: _________ calculated to determine consistency in recording of target behaviour
- rationale:
• assessment is preferred to be highly consistent (>90%)
• IOA can reveal the ______ of an observer
• IOA may be used to evaluate definition of target behaviour
- calculation depends on aspect being recorded
• frequency: use frequency ratio
smaller count |
× 100 = IOA (%) |
larger count |
• duration or latency: use ____ ratio
shorter time |
× 100 = IOA (%) |
longer time |
• interval or time sample recording: use point-by-point agreement ratio
A |
× 100 = IOA (%) |
A=number of agreements |
A + D |
D=number of disagreements |
e.g., child talking to neighbour in class
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
O1 |
X |
X |
- |
- |
X |
X |
- |
- |
X |
X |
O2 |
X |
X |
- |
- |
- |
X |
- |
- |
- |
X |
|
A |
A |
A |
A |
D |
A |
A |
A |
D |
A |
__8__ |
× 100 = 80% |
8 + 2 |
(______ are our own principles; ______ are provided by a social system.)
Clients have the following rights (Van Houten et al. [Association for Behavior Analysis], 1988):
1. a ___________ environment
2. services whose overriding goal is personal welfare
3. treatment by a competent behaviour analyst
4. programs that teach functional ______
5. behavioural assessment and ongoing evaluation
6. the most _________ treatment procedures available
_______ evaluation is used to determine efficacy:
• dimensions of evaluation
- ______________: does the behaviour occur in different situations other than the training context?
- ___________: how long does the behaviour remain altered?
• amount and importance of the change
- clinical ____________ of change: does the individual benefit from the treatment in a meaningful way?
e.g., Does it return the individual to the “normal range”?
- social ________: does the behaviour change have a beneficial impact on daily functioning?
- social comparison: compare client to equivalent or “normal” group
- expert evaluation: subjective evaluation by experts
• ____-_______ ratio
- are the benefits of the treatment larger than the costs required to conduct the treatment?
Professional standards/ethical principles:
• Ethical Issues for Human Services (ABCT, 1977)
• The Right to Effective Behavioral Treatment (Van Houten et al. [Association for Behavior Analysis], 1988)
• Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (BACB, 2020)
• Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists (CPA, 2017)
• Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA, 2017)
Potential problems:
• ____ effect: a result that is secondary to the active treatment
e.g., eating candy as reinforcement for studying leads to weight gain
• _____-___: forgoing one desired aspect to gain another desired aspect (cost vs. benefit)
e.g., increased studying improves GPA by 1.0 vs. negligible weight gain of 1 gram
• _______ effect (or perverse incentive): ______, unintended consequence of treatment
e.g., the cobra effect (Dubner, 2012)
- British government concerned about venomous cobras in colonial India; offered a bounty for each one killed
- some people bred cobras for the bounty
- reward program was terminated
- cobra “farmers” then ________ their cobras into the wild, which increased their numbers
Other examples of revenge effects:
1. activity-based ________:
- due to increases in physical activity, animals (and people) show paradoxical reductions in food intake (Pierce et al., 1994)
- reduction in body weight can lead to mortality (death)
- may be a model for ________ nervosa (Klenotich & Dulawa, 2012)
2. “health ____” effects:
- when ordering from a fast-food restaurant that is seen as healthier (Subway), people are more likely to underestimate their calories
- they choose higher-calorie side dishes, drinks, and desserts, compared to ordinary fast-food restaurants (McDonald’s)
- implication: if you don’t actually count your calories, you may end up consuming ____ (Chandon & Wansink, 2007)
3. athletic performance and injury
- as sports technology improves, athletes may be prone to more injuries, as they push themselves harder (Tenner, 1996)
- safety equipment may lead to risk ____________
- in U Sports hockey, players wearing half visors were 2.3 times (facial) and 9.9 times (dental) more likely to sustain injuries
- similar findings obtained for protective equipment in rugby, skiing, and snowboarding (Hagel & Meeuwisse, 2004)