John A. Nevin
I will start with a very simple question. One that we have all considered on occasion: What makes behaviors more and less easy to modify or even eliminate?
Readers will think of examples of acquaintances, or even of themselves in whom they have been able to modify behaviors that are impossible for others to change, such as stopping To bite nails, quit tobacco or resist compulsive shopping.
The Behavioral Moment Theory: What Exactly Is It?
Here comes into play one of the proposals to respond to our concern: the Theory of Behavioral Moment by John Anthony Nevin (1988), but first, we will explain some basic concepts of Learning Psychology to get your mind ready.
- Learning: It is the conscious or unconscious acquisition of knowledge and / or skills through study or practice. It can also be defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior due to reinforcement.
- Reinforcer: It is any element that increases the probability that a behavior is repeated. (For example, giving a treat to our pet when it responds to an order that we have given it will cause it to do it again in the future)
- Continuous reinforcement: It consists of granting a reinforcer whenever the desired behavior is emitted.
- Partial reinforcement: It consists of granting the reinforcer sometimes yes, sometimes not before the same behavior. It can be established in every 5 correct answers (Fixed) or at random (Variable) so that reinforcer could be given in behavior number 3, and in the next in 15 without there being a fixed number.
- Extinction: It is called like this, the abandonment of reinforcement to eliminate a behavior that was produced thanks to it.
With these terms clear, we can begin to describe Nevin's Theory of Behavioral Moment, or TMC from here on.
Explaining resistance to change
Nevin proposed the Theory of Behavioral Moment to explain the resistance to change of behaviors that, in many people, they become automatic either by training or by a massive practice of them. Therefore, he proposed a concept: The behavioral moment, defined as the susceptibility of a behavior to be interrupted.
But what creates that susceptibility? What makes one behavior more resistant than another when it comes to eliminating it? The answer is found (among others) in the forms of reinforcement with which the behavior was acquired.
Research supporting this theory
Consider two mice that we have trained to press a lever. Each time they did, they would receive a food pellet. The behavior is to press the lever, and the reinforcer the food pellet.
Mouse 1 has always been reinforced after pressing the lever, while Mouse 2 has been partially reinforced (sometimes yes, sometimes not and without a fixed pattern). At this time, when the behavior is fixed, we want to eliminate it in our little rodents. Therefore, we stop dispensing food pellets each time the lever is pressed (behavior extinction).
I ask you, dear readers: which mouse will take longer to extinguish its behavior, that is, to stop pressing the lever: number 1 or number 2?
Reinforcement
Mouse number 1, which he learned by continuous reinforcement, will extinguish very quickly the behavior because you will find that food no longer falls into your feeder regardless of how many times you press the lever. That is to say: if food was always given and suddenly it is not given, it will make a few attempts that, after being unsuccessful, will definitely give up.
Extinction
And mouse number 2? It will suffer a paradoxical effect explained by the Theory of Frustration (Amsel, 1962) whereby his behavior will not only not begin to die out immediately, but will increase.
Why is this happening? Mouse number 2 was boosted a few times yes, a few times no. He doesn't know when a ball will fall back into his trough, but he knows there have to be a few lever presses that it won't land and a few that it will. Therefore, he will press the lever 20, 100, 200 times until he finally understands that there will be no more balls in the trough if he emits the behavior and it ends up extinguishing.
Or what is the same: mouse number 1 had less behavioral moment than number 2.
How does this phenomenon affect us in our lives?
If we look away from the mice to ourselves, this explains a multitude of everyday actions:
- Check the mobile every so often to see if we have messages or calls.
- Refresh social networks in search of a Like.
- Look frequently in the direction we know a person we have been waiting for on the street is coming from.
- Check the mailbox even on holidays (maybe the postman wanted to work ...) just in case there is a letter.
Disorders in which it influences
But it can not only be applicable in such everyday behaviors, but also in disorders such as gambling, the adictions, Eating Disorders… In which apparently a continuous “reinforcement” is generated, but in reality it is not like that. A gambler does not always manage to get money out of the machine, a cigarette produces instant pleasure, but it stimulates areas of the brain that increasingly ask for more, and more of it. stimulus to satiate, a person with binge eating disorder can fill up on food and be seized by a great discomfort due to their lack of control that makes that "little pleasure" remain dissipated…
The difficulty of quitting an addiction or overcoming an eating disorder is known to all, and in This is the resistance to the extinction of the behaviors that are emitted, in relation to how these are acquired.
Still, it is necessary to make a careful note. The Theory of Behavioral Moment has provided an excellent framework for studying resistance to change and the extinction of behavior, but logically, the complexity that characterizes us, specifically, humans, makes it unlikely that only the behavioral moment explains extinction by itself only. In any case, it is a very interesting theory to take into account for our knowledge.