BBP 181 Midterm Study Notes

• Study notes for BBP 181 Midterm

Key Terms and Concepts

• Behaviour is any observable and measurable action of an organism.
• Overt behaviours are observable, while covert behaviours are not.
• Behavioural science studies how environments can be arranged to increase desired behaviours and decrease undesired behaviours.
• Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is dedicated to understanding and improving human behaviour.
• Psychological theories have components including hypothetical constructs, explanatory fiction, and circular reasoning/logic.

History of Psychology

• Psychology as an experimental field began in Germany in 1854.
• Wilhelm Wundt was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor considered one of the fathers of modern psychology.
  • Wundt established the first lab dedicated to psychological research.
  • He distinguished psychology as separate from philosophy and biology
  • Wundt was the first person to call himself a psychologist in the 1890's
• Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who developed psychoanalysis as a separate branch.
  • Freud's theories focusing on the unconscious mind form the basis of treatment for mental disorders still used today.
• Late 1800s psychologists began work in mental testing and memory.
• Mentalism is an approach attributing behaviour to an inner dimension, with the mind responsible for behaviour.
  • Mentalism is the most common approach to the study of behaviour in psychology.

Behaviourism

• Emerging in the early 1900s, behaviourism was a response to limitations in traditional psychology.
• Behaviourists aimed to create testable predictions.
• Edward Thorndike's law of effect suggests that a behaviour can be strengthened or weakened by the consequence following it.
• In 1913, John B. Watson published "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It," shifting psychology's focus.
  • Objective and experimental study of behavior became central, replacing subjective introspection of consciousness.
• Other figures that advanced the field - Ivan Pavlov (classical conditioning) & B.F.Skinner (operant conditioning).
• The three branches of behaviour analysis are behaviourism, applied behaviour analysis, and experimental analysis of behaviour.

Logic

• Circular reasoning in logic is when the evidence is used to reiterate the claim itself. For example, "Sonia is good at making pasta because she is good at baking."
• Hypothetical constructs are assumed to impact behavior, but are unobservable (self control, free will etc)
• Explanatory fiction attempts to explain behavior by reclassifying it through naming mechanisms or labels.

Skinner

• Skinner's lab experiments in the 1930s, that showed, on animals laid the foundations of observed behaviour.
  • Consequences following behaviour directly influence how much the behaviour happens in the future.
  • He found when a rat pressed a lever, a food pellet was produced and this resulted in an increase in the behaviour of pressing the lever.
  • Identified and empirically tested foundational principles that we continue to use in our field today in practice and applied research.
• Operant conditioning is the selective effect of consequences on behaviour, pioneered by Skinner.
• Behavioural approaches relate behaviours to external events and focus on observable behaviour.
• Mentalistic approaches describe behaviour using character traits, attributes, or summary labels.
• Overt behaviour is behaviour that can be observed by others.
• Covert behaviour can only be observed by the individual engaging in said behaviour.

Clinical Applications

• Teodoro Ayllon and Jack Michael published "The Psychiatric Nurse as a Behavioural Engineer" in 1959
  • The study took place in a psychiatric hospital with patients with schizophrenia and others with intellectual disabilities.
  • A target was psychotic babble disrupting to others routines.
  • They observed measured behaviors that increased with attention.
  • An intervention was crafted to teach nurses to withhold attention for psychotic babble and provide attention for engaging in desired behaviour.
  • Resulted in decreased psychotic babble.
• Explanatory fictions and summary labels are helpful when time is of the essence. Its faster to say someone is "sad" then to say, "their eyes are squinted, tears running down the cheeks, frowning, head down, wiping nose with a tissue, attending a funeral, etc.,"

Risks and Limitations

• Using summary labels and explanatory fictions alone to describe behaviour can be risky
  • It may lead to the assumption that it is an issue of the persons motivation instead of behavior and influence our reactions to that person
  • It may cause us to judge the person and come to a conclusion too quickly which influences interaction and changes future behaviour
  • Instead, behaviour should be labeled just as observed.
• Behaviour is NOT something a dead man can do, a static state, or the absence of doing something.
• Target behaviour refers to a behaviour/action/movement or a series of behaviours that can be targeted for increase or decrease.
• Behaviour excess refers to actions or behaviors that occur too frequently, intensely, or for too long compared to what is considered typical or appropriate.
• Behaviour deficits are behaviors that occur too infrequently, are underdeveloped, or are completely absent when they are expected or necessary for daily functioning.
• Behaviour occurring in excess or deficits may:
  • Pose a safety risk to those individual or others.
  • Affect physical and mental health
  • Jeopardize a placement opportunity
• Measurement is applying quantitative labels to describe and differentiate objects and natural events.
• Social validity assesses the acceptability or viability of an intervention.
• Environment includes the physical setting and all other stimuli like people, items, sounds, smells, interactions, etc.

Dimensions of Behaviour

• The 3 Dimensional Qualities of Bx

  • Repeatability - instances of behaviour can occur repeatedly through time
  • Temporal extent - every instance of behaviour occurs during some amount of time
  • Temporal locus - every instance of behaviour occurs at a certain point in time with respect to other events

• The 7 Dimensions of ABA

  • Focusing on observable events and behaviour improving socially significant behaviour.
  • The procedures should be described clearly and should be able to be replicated
  • All be tied to behavior analysis
  • Improvement of targeted behaviour must be measurable
  • Behaviour should improve behaviour effectively

• Regular measurement and analysis of data can help in reducing errors.

• Reduce risks of unnecessary treatment

• In addition improve effectivness

• Habilitation is the extent to which a person's skills and behaviors help them gain more rewards and positive experiences while reducing negative consequences.

  • Habilitation is about increasing a person's independence in all aspects of their life

• Social invalidity occurs when an intervention or behavior change is ineffective or not valued, even if technically effective.

• Frequency signifies the amount of time a behaviour occurs

Data Collecting

• Inter-observer agreement measures how two independent observers report the same observed values
• Measuring should be at 100% is most desirable
• IOA is most commonly used indicator of measurement QUALITY in ABA
• IOA is calculated differently when consider different type of measurement analysis
• Inter Observer Agreement helps to determine competence of new observers whether the behaviour is being measured with accuracy
• Regularly checking for 'observer drift' where one observer may have drifted from the original operational definition
• The more observers there with high IOA assures that the operational definition was clear and unambiguous
• Changes in data likely reflect actual changes in behaviour and it means the program and intervention in fact work
• Celeration measures how rates of response change over time, accelerating, and decelerating
• Acceleration is when participant response is faster over time
• Deceleration is when participants respond slower over successive observations