As of Nov. 6, 2017
The principles presented in this program may sound new to you, because the concepts presented here differ from many of the frequently used explanations for what variables make humans do the things they do. This material is based on established learning principles. A great number of experiments and demonstrations have been conducted on learning. Also, a large amount of material has been written on learning principles and how they work in our daily life.
This material presents methods to change behavior. The format allows the material to be used as a text by anyone who, for any reason, is attempting to learn these principles. It can also be used as a text in sessions with a teacher or counselor.
In this set of materials, self-control is presented as a particular technique through which you can change or improve behavior through the application of learning principles. By applying the principles you will learn in this text, you can use them to change your own behavior.
Teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other behavioral scientists have found successful solutions to many behavior problems through the use of behavior principles, for example
1. teaching students to learn material faster and more effectively,
2. changing the behavior of alcoholics,
3. restoring speech in a mental hospital patient who had not talked in 12 years,
4. eliminating stuttering,
5. cutting down excessive behaviors (eating, smoking, gambling, or in anything where the lack of self-management is a problem),
6. treating child bed-wetters,
7. improving the results of meeting and talking with people,
8. reducing thumb sucking behavior in children,
9. changing sexual behavior problems,
10. solving problems encountered in marriage.
It is safe to say that if you can name the problem, you could find an application of the principles presented here to change that problem behavior.
Advantages of Learning an Approach Using Behavioral Principles:
We have quickly presented a general description of what this section of the text is all about. Listing some of the advantages of this type of program might prove to be interesting and helpful to you.
1. Useful in Self-Help: You can control your behavior by setting up favorable environmental conditions for your behavior using behavioral principles. With the knowledge that people generally do not like to be coerced into doing things, this set of material offers an opportunity to learn principles that you can set up in your life to change your behavior. The relevancy of the program lies in helping you to take early action in applying the learning principles to your own particular situation.
2. Short and Easy: The initial instruction period is comparatively short and easy to learn.
3. Use Aids Available: Existing social groups such as the family, religious groups, or other agencies may serve as useful assets in the attempts to do something about the behavior to be changed. If it is impossible to include others in your behavior change program, you can still use the program suggested here by using other aspects of the environment.
4. The Manual as A Teaching Aid: This material is prepared in such a way that it can be used alone or with an instructor, a counselor, or a friend who might be attempting to help you change a behavior.
5. Use in Real World: The principles learned in training can be used whenever and wherever self-control is a problem. Once the techniques are learned you have them for a multitude of situations.
6. Small Steps: The program has small, clear, and easily-learned steps. It is quite specific as to what you must do.
7. Success: The learning techniques dealt with here have been successful in the change of behaviors in many other situations.
8. Not a Theory or “Faith,” But Practical Steps: You need not be impressed by the theory; you need only apply the practical steps presented.
9. A Behavior Problem Should Be Viewed as a Learned Behavior: Your behavior is viewed as a learned behavior, that is, your behavior is not judged and is not viewed as a result of an evil or inner force. Likewise, it is not caused by some mysterious magic. It is a behavior which you can change by applying the principles described in this program.
10. Wide Range Usability: The program is applicable to almost everyone. The amount of schooling or “IQ” are not crucial factors. Success depends upon learning and applying the principles to be presented here and in the following units.
11. Take it With You: You can take the manual with you and use it as homework.
12. Cost Less: The cost of following the program is much less than the cost of many other treatments or behavior change programs.
13. Less Aversive: The “pain” you may have encountered in revealing an embarrassing history is not necessary. What is important is “here and now.” The treatment does not depend upon elaborate past histories, but rather upon working with your present situation.
14. Less Stigma: This program will continually emphasize and illustrate the fact that your problem is a behavior problem. This emphasis should be an aid in eliminating any stigma you have attached to the behavior deficit. Bad behavior is looked upon as bad conditioning; what is needed is new conditioning to change the behavior.
15. Specific Goals: The goals of behavioral therapy, because they use learning techniques, can be clearly stated. Later in the program itself, the importance of specifying behavior will be discussed.
16. Ease of Familiarity: Family members or friends can study and learn from the material you have here.
17. Data To Back Program: This type of treatment program is based on well- formulated and observable experimental evidence. We will make reference to research data during different parts of this program.
18. Treat the Behavior, Not the Inference or Conjecture: This program is based on changing behavior so that it can lead to permanent change; therefore, the treating of the inference or conjecture of processes unknown is irrelevant, if not erroneous.
19. Day at a Time: Behavior is built up a little at a time. If you have failed many times in an attempt to change a behavior, it may appear as though a “miracle” is needed to make a behavioral change which makes starting the program seem difficult. By telling yourself you can wait, for example, “Tomorrow I will start, today I need my bad habit,” you are just increasing the learned strength of the response. Today is the day to begin. Many individuals find decision-making rewarding. Just verbalizing the decision that you are going to change your behavior may be an aid in itself in maintaining control of your behavior.
20. More Than Name Calling: Previously, most of the emphasis in this type of self-improvement program has been on the general classification of a problem and the referral sources which exist. Even if the goal of such a project is achieved, about all you might learn is a few terms, for example, “emotionally disturbed,” “nervous,” “hyperactive,” “mild neurotic,” “hypochondriacal,” “schizophrenic reaction-hebephrenic type,” and so on. Whether this does anyone any good is another question. Certainly this manual is not saying that as soon as you read this manual all will be “cured.” This set of materials does suggest a down-to-earth way of working on problems. Implementation of these principles is needed to develop self-control.
21. What Changes the Behavior: Compulsive talking, preoccupation with inferences, self-deprecating talk, and talk of quitting are now replaced by more serious consideration of the behavior principles involved in behavior change.
22. Groups or Individual: This program allows a group to work together on a problem or it can be used by an individual. Later in the material, the value of the group will be presented.
23. How Different is Your Problem: The person may see by working in this program that the behavior change which she/he is undertaking is not a unique problem.
24. Multi-Agency Meeting Grounds: The role of various people involved in behavior change is defined. This may serve as a “meeting ground” for work by a number of agencies on a behavior problem.
25. Techniques Useful Wherever Self-Control is a Problem: In addition to its direct value in changing the specific problem, one learns procedures for self-control which should be useful, in general, wherever self-control or self-management constitutes a problem.
26. Not A Gimmick: Besides the appeal of a “down-to-earth” treatment of behavior problems, the attention-compelling aspect of this program is increased by referring to other rather spectacular and fascinating applications of the same learning principles in other settings. This learning approach does not consist of a mere “bunch of gimmicks” or a “bag of tricks” that are used to “pick people’s minds” or “treat people like animals.” This learning approach consists of experimentally derived and highly technical procedures and specific skills used to bring about a given behavior, to maintain a given behavior once it occurs, to increase a behavior that does occur, or to eliminate an undesirable behavior.
27. Introduction To Technical Language: The technical language of the learning approach has been translated in this program so it can be easily learned and applied. However, the technical terms are also taught. The reason for introducing these terms now is that later, if you come to more material in the area of learning, more technical terms will be used. The background learned here will make it easier to read these advanced sources.
28. A Multi-Principle Program: Quite likely, one step of this self-control program, e.g. money control, will not solve your eating, drinking, gambling, or any other problem you might want to work on. As you read and observe the different materials that make up this program, notice that this is only one step among many. If all principles presented in this material are fully applied, the behavior should be under good control; however, this will only be true if these steps are applied, not just read.
29. More Material Available: Certainly the discussions of the topics are not exhaustive. More material is available in many other sources referred to in this book.
II. INTRODUCTION TO BEHAVIORAL PRINCIPLES (THE LAWS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE)
Steve Larsen and Jerry Mertens
A. Implications:
Science is sometimes broken into two categories: natural science and behavioral science. Some contend that behavioral science cannot be studied as science and cannot generate laws or principles which have the same generality as the area that we call natural science. In this material we attempt to show that behavioral science can, in fact, be studied using the methods of scientific inquiry. In this section we will look at principles, rules, or laws of behavior which have generality. Just as with the laws of physics, these behavioral laws or behavioral principles are the controlling principles in many situations. This cannot simply be declared to be true. Science requires that one shows laws or principles are relevant. One objective of this course then, is to get you to look for implications or applications these principles may have for situations in daily life.
B. What We Mean by the Laws of Science:
Students are often confronted with statements about laws of science, and possibly without a good understanding of what is being talked about. These misunderstandings arise from confusing laws of science with legal or governmental laws.
Laws of science are concise statements about order in nature. These laws make it possible for scientists to predict and control events. For example, in chemistry, Boyle’s law states that “the volume of a given quantity of gas at constant temperature is inversely proportional to the pressure.” This statement allows a chemist to predict and control what gases will do. These relationships between pressure, volume, and temperature are always found to be true. This is an important feature of scientific laws. Laws of science work whenever and wherever certain conditions are observed. This is not always the case with legal maxims.
It is important that you understand what a scientific law is because in this course, we will be dealing with behavior as an orderly process which can be expressed in terms of laws or principles.
C. The Type of Law You Can’t Escape From:
The law of gravity works every time. When you drop something it accelerates toward the Earth. It works if you want it to or not. The law of gravity is an inescapable will of nature. If you don’t believe in the laws of gravity, but you step out a 2nd floor window, you can probably guess what will happen next. When one falls down some stairs, they fall down, not up. (Well, maybe up if they are on an escalator.)
Certainly other laws of science allow us to go beyond simple laws of gravity, e.g. airplanes and balloons do get off the ground, because of other laws of physics, and there are other laws or principles of behavior as well. These lawful relationships cannot be turned on or off at will. If you understand how these laws of nature operate, you can get them to work for you and not against you. These principles of behavior are at work in our daily life. They are not at work only when we set out to use them. Like the law of gravity, they are always there, whether we believe or not.
People try continually to influence their own and others’ behavior, so that the individual claiming to use behavior principles is distinctive only in that he or she is attempting to influence behavior more systematically. To be opposed to behavior principles is sort of like being opposed to the law of gravity, or Ohms Law. The key issue is what sort of care, knowledge, caution, and control should be exercised when behavioral principles are applied precisely, systematically and ethically.
In the history of the human race, people have continuously tried to control their environment and to find ways of teaching themselves and others better means of acquiring skills. Notions of the ways that reward and punishment can change behavior have existed since written records began. Elements of what are now referred to as behavioral principles were used long before psychologists learned to talk about how human behavior is controlled by antecedent and consequential events.
III. POSSIBLE ROAD BLOCKS TO LEARNING BEHAVIOR PRINCIPLES
Dave W. Schaal and Jerry C. Mertens
You may find some of the learned repertoires listed below acting as “road blocks” in your study of behavioral principles:
1. Human(e) or Romantic: Some people contend that living by a science of behavior takes the human(e) or romantic aspects out of life. One might say “yes” to this claim, if romantic or human(e) means accepting fictitious explanations of behavior and living with unanswerable mysteries surrounding
what we humans do. One could hold to a view that applying scientific principles to life is the way to be human(e) or romantic. A surgeon who operates with a good bedside manner and beautiful verbal expression, but lacks modern surgical skills, is not covered or justified by his/her manner.
2. Everybody is Alike: Some contend a science of behavior treats everyone the same. Behavioral scientists apply their principles to the solution of human problems. These principles can work best only when an individual’s learning history is considered.
3. Religion: Some view a science of behavior as anti-religious. Science itself is not religious or anti-religious, that is, it works to discover “what is” without religious group consideration. Whether behavioral laws were God’s plan or were installed in primates by outer space aliens has no effect on their application. One can look at the source of these laws as a point of individual preference; the important issue is that the lawful relations do, in fact, exist.
4. Rejects So Much: Some say a science of behavior denies the existence of the mind and other things. Behavioral scientists do not necessarily deny existence of mind or other concepts. Instead, they push for translations of concepts such as mind, creativity, etc. into observable factors. Once these concepts are defined in observable terms, they are open to study. One might consider our science as just a better way to talk about those important notions.
5. Simplistic: Some say behavior is just too complex to be studied with simple scientific techniques. Human behavior may seem complex because of the incredible number of situations humans behave in. People behave in so many different ways under such varied circumstances that one may be awed at one’s “complexity.” Awe yields to inquiry in a science of behavior.
The reader may be able to supply a number of other “road blocks” to accepting a science of behavior. Our attempt in this segment is to encourage the reader to go around these blocks to examine what a science of behavior says.