5 behavior modification techniques

Behavior, which is the connection established between the body's response and a specific environmental situation, can sometimes be maladaptive.

To increase its functionality (by removing, decreasing or changing) it is common to apply learning principles, known in psychology as behavior modification techniques.

Techniques for creating and increasing behaviors

There is a wide range of strategies that can either increase or promote desirable behaviors, or reduce or eliminate dysfunctional ones. Among them we find the following.

1. Reinforcement of behaviors

There are different types of reinforcement: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.

The first consists of increasing the probability of the occurrence of a behavior following it by a satisfactory event. For example, congratulating your child on good grades on a test will encourage his later effort in study.

The second is about increasing the probability of the appearance of behaviors that stop unpleasant events. For example, in the case of a person with claustrophobia, go up the stairs instead of the elevator, to avoid 

the anxiety that it produces will tend to repeat itself.

How to use the enhancers?

Positively reinforced behaviors are better learned and maintained over time. However, not just any reinforcement is useful, you have to know how to choose them well depending on each case, so that they adapt to the needs of the plan and do not go against your own logic. How to use reinforcers correctly?

First of all, they must be chosen properly. To do this, we must bear in mind that they must be proportional to the effort of the behavior to be developed. Likewise, it is preferable that they have an intrinsic nature (whose reinforcing value is defined by the person) and are issued by the natural contingencies of the activities carried out, that is, that it is the environment that reinforce.

As for when to apply them, the time interval between the emission of the behavior and the obtaining of the reinforcer has to be taken into account. Immediately applied reinforcers are more effective in rapidly acquiring desirable behavior, among other things because it is clearer what action has caused them to appear.

However, for its consolidation and long-term maintenance, it is preferable that this interval increases progressively. In this way, little by little they depend less on that reinforcement plan, until the behavior is already assimilated and is part of their own habits.

2. Molding

Shaping is defined as the systematic reinforcement of small steps that lead to the desired behavior. An example is learning to write: we do not learn directly to write sentences, if we do not that first we know the letters, we practice calligraphy, we associate letters forming syllables, words...

For a good application of the same, both the final behavior must be specified (to know what behavior is intended to be emitted once the process), such as the initial behavior (to know the baseline from which the person starts), the steps to follow during the process and the pace of progress.

Sometimes, to facilitate the application of the technique, the molding is accompanied by other support methods, such as promptings (verbal indications that guide the behavior to be emitted: "the G and the I have a U in the middle to write STEW"), a physical guide (help in the motor plane in each of the molding levels: take the hand of the learner to help him get the shape of the O) or exemplification (in which the "teacher" acts as a model to be imitated: he draws the letter himself).

On the other hand, the behavior modification approach through shaping has a lot in common with the concept of scaffolding who he worked with Lev vygotsky.

3. Learning

Model learning (also known as modeling or learning by imitation) is acquired by observing the behavior of another person.

The learner sees the reinforcement that the model gets for performing his action and will try to imitate it whenever the same reinforcement is desired. An example is the learning of prosocial and cooperative behaviors.

The modeling process consists of a learning phase and an execution phase, which can occur with greater or lesser effectiveness depending on variables such as the characteristics of the model, the observer and the situation, in the first phase, or of the motivation, the quality of the execution and the generalization, in the second.

Techniques for the reduction and elimination of behaviors

These are techniques to make certain behaviors go away.

1. Extinction

Extinction consists of the withdrawal of reinforcements that previously supported a behavior. In this way, a gradual process of weakening it begins until it finally disappears.

For example, a teacher who attends to children who ask without raising their hands in class, when he decides to lend Attention only to those who comply with the established rules, will decrease the behaviors of talking spontaneously about their students.

For its application, it is necessary to previously identify the reinforcer that maintains the dysfunctional behavior and its nature (it is not enough to eliminate any reinforcer that accompanies the behavior, but the one that is keeping).

Keep in mind that unwanted behavior can sometimes be increased initially in the process. This increase can be sustained for long periods of time (especially if the behavior has been sustained for a intermittent reinforcer, which supposes a greater resistance to extinction), but later it will weaken until it is removed.

2. Satiation

Satiation (a technique contrary to deprivation) consists of the massive presentation of a reinforcer to weaken its reinforcing value: its excessive administration in a short space of time ends up being aversive to the person, so that in the end it avoids certain behaviors.

For example, a child who never eats vegetables because he always wants pasta. If you eat only macaroni for several days in a row, you will end up loathing the dish, finding it unpleasant.

Two modalities can be distinguished in this technique: the satiation of the stimulus and the satiation of the response.

To apply them it is necessary, first of all, to detect undesirable behaviors. Once the satiation modality has been identified and chosen, we must offer an alternative behavior to the person (to substitute for the dysfunctional one) and achieve its maintenance.

Bibliographic references:

• Mairal, J.B. (2014). Behavior modification techniques: a guide to its implementation. Synthesis.