Human behavior and its modification
Human behavior is the capacity of physical, mental, emotional and social activities experienced in a person’s lifetime. These activities are influenced by culture, traditions, environment, attitude, and values a person encounters in their lives. The use of reinforcement to alter the human behavior gives a high, and steady rate of response immediately after the delivery of the reinforce but the behavior is likely to be repeated or increased in future if the reinforcement has a desirable consequence (Furukawa et al., 2017, pp.248-257).
Punishments means of changing or altering human behavior have proven to be effective in decreasing the behavior of respondents in the human life cycle unlike other means of altering behavior. Excessive behavior sometimes is in a form of a binge, for instance, activities like video games, watching which can be a leisure time activity that mostly ends up being binge watching for TV shows and movies. For instance, reports indicate that approximately 10 % of the total viewers streamed through the entire fifteen episodes of “Arrested Development” within the twenty-four hours when the show was released by Netflix in 2013 (Rayborn, 2018). This was only a single case as there are millions of similar incidences happening every day with the involvement of many people where the teenagers contribute a bigger percentile of the divide. Binge watching results in lack of proper sleep that is required by the body thus increasing the risk of health issues including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes among others. Most victims of binge-watching end up being lazy and forego physical exercises leading to a high number of obese cases.
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a learning process which facilitates modification of the strength of behavior by punishment or reinforcement also called instrumental conditioning. In operant conditioning, the response is achieved when a behavior is rewarded or punishment is imposed to change that behavior as its well explained in psychology modelling, by Strauss Anselm (Strauss, 2017). In this case, the participant is conditioned to either increase behavior by reinforcement or decrease the behavior by punishment. This study was conducted to reduce the bad habits of binge-watching which has become a major concern as the participants range from young children to adults. The research was done in the form of a fixed ration schedule which is a positive punishment.
Methods
One participant participated in the behavior modification program. The participant was a female student 19 years of age who was an undergraduate psychology student at The University of James Cook University, Singapore. The participant voluntarily participated as part of an assessment task in Learning and Behavior class. The participant went through positive punishment which was in a form of the fixed ration schedule into current opinion in behavioral science (Vanderschuren et al., 2017, pp.77-84).
Binge-watching and its negative effects on health
Materials
During the research, an iPod Pro was used as a tool to watch which belonged to the participant. An application called Moment to track the period she spends watching the TV programs and series. A handwritten notebook which was used to record data during the research. An alarm device and a Netflix account owned by the undergraduate which was the platform upon which she watched the TV programs and series.
Procedure
During the behavior modification program, the process was divided into three stages. These stages were; baseline, modification, and post-modification (Evans et al., 2018, pp.157-198). The procedures were carried out systematically since the second procedure could be only conducted after finishing the first, second, then the last. The baseline period took a period of one week, followed by Modification period which took 20 days, then finally the Post-modification stage came last taking a period of one week. During the Baseline period, the participant was allowed to maintain her binge watching as she is used to.
In the modification period, a fixed ration schedule was introduced to limit the participant’s on screen-time iPad Pro as she watched the movies and series. An alarm was set for three hours every time the participant began watching her programs on the Netflix she was required to stop watching. The alarm was aimed at time the participant so that she could not exit more than three hours while watching her programs on her iPad Pro. This fixed ration schedule was only to be used during the modification stage while the participant was to guide herself during the post-modification period (Mayer et al., 2018, pp.365-379).
Data analysis
First, the screen time or the three stages, the baseline, modification, and post-modification were mapped.
Secondly, the mean data of the baseline and post-modification period were tabulated and compared.
Thirdly, the cumulative screen-time during the baseline and post-modification period were also compared.
Results
At the end of the behavioral modification program, all the data collected at all the stages were transferred to a spreadsheet for easier presentation and interpretation.
The graph showing the screen-time (hours) versus the days the participant spend during the behavioral modification program.
From the graph, it was observed that the participant spent a lot of time watching the TV shows in line with her habit as it is indicated by the on screen-time during the baseline stage(day 1-7).
During the modification period (Day 8-27), the participant amount of time that she spent watching reduced greatly as indicated on the graph. The percentage drop in the average time at modification stage was observed to be 46.8 percent.
Operant conditioning: A learning process to modify human behavior
During the post-modification period (Day 29-34), the amount of on screen-time increased sharply reverting to the similar amount of time she spent during the baseline period. It was .observed that the participate screen-time dropped slightly during the post-modification period on the final day of the program.
A graph showing the days against the cumulative screen time (in hours) during medication and post-modification periods
From the graph, it was clear that was a drop in the cumulative screen-time on the iPod between the baseline period and the post-modification period
Discussion
From the statistical results of the experiments, it was observed that the participant spent a lot of time during the baseline stage which indicated her usual habits. A great quality of on screen-time while using her iPod Pro reduced during the modification stage with the introduction of a fixed ratio schedule. The fixed ration schedule was a tool that was used as a means of positive punishment in behavior modification in the experiment. It made the participant reduce her on screen-time by a great percentage. In the post-modification, it was observed that the on screen-time increased greatly unlike in the modification stage where the fixed ration schedule was used. Without the positive punishment, in this case, the participant continued with her normal addiction habits in the post-modification stage (Eder et al., 2017, pp.1204). Therefore, a positive punishment is effective in altering the behavioral change of individuals.
Limitations
Had there been a positive punishment like a fine the results could have been effective. The absence of a positive fine made the participant to continue with her habits similar to those before the behavioral change program was conducted. The experiment clearly outlines the importance of positive punishment as it could have made the participant stick to the new changes in the on screen-time.
There was no therapist to help in the implementation of behavior modification program on the participant. Without the therapist, the participant had a hard time to undergo the transition on her own, therefore, the accuracy of the findings could have been made inaccurate (Wright et al., 2017). The therapist could have guided the participant through the transition period while encouraging the participant on the importance of avoiding binge watching.
There was no experimenter around to supervise the participant to make sure she upholds the instructions of the experiment for the purposes of collection of accurate data for analysis. This factor could be a big distortion to the outcome of the program as there is no certainty that the instructions and data collected was accurate. The nature of a human mind has been reported to work accurately with the addition of external forces that are very effective in driving motives. (Malott, 2015).
The experimental results of this program have a limitation having only been done on one participant. Human behavior and characters are very dynamic therefore the results from one participant can be totally inaccurate.
The post-modification period given was very short, only seven days. This period should be a little longer than the time it was allocated to this program. Seven days are not enough and it could not be well established whether the experiment worked out or not.
References
Eder,J., Andreas, D., David, E., and Thorsten, W. (2017). Shocking action: Facilitative effects of punishing electric shocks on action control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146, 1204.
Evans, R., Steven, O., Julie, W., and Brian, T. (2018). Evidence-based psychosocial treatments for children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 47, 157-198.
Furukawa, G., Emi, A., Brent, S., Paula, J., and Stephanie,T. (2017). Evidence for increased behavioral control by punishment in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 58, 248-257.
Gardner, W. (2017). Behavior modification in mental retardation: The education and rehabilitation of the mentally retarded adolescent and adult. Routledge.
Lee, I. Sean, P. (2018). Young tourists’ perceptions of authenticity, perceived value and satisfaction: the case of Little India, Singapore. Young Consumers, 19, 70-86.
Merelle, A., Saskia, K., Annet, M., Miriam, C., Theresia, L., Cornelia, M., Danielle, V., and Dike, v. (2017). Which health-related problems are associated with problematic video-gaming or social media use in adolescents? A large-scale cross-sectional study. Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 14.
Malott, R. (2015). Principles of behavior. Psychology Press.
Mayer, J. Paulo, C., and Marcus, B., (2018). Punishment and the potential for negative reinforcement with histamine injection. Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 109, 265-379.
Rayborn, A., and Tim, K. (2018). Jessica Jones, Scarred Superhero: Essays on Gender, Trauma and Addiction in the Netflix Series. McFarland.
Strauss, A. (2017). Psychological modeling: Conflicting theories. Routledge.
Vanderschuren, H., Louk, M., Maryse, S., and Johanna, L. (2017). unishment models of addictive behavior. Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 13, 77-84.
Wright, M., Jesse, H., Gregory, K., Michael, E., and Monica, R. (2017). Learning cognitive-behavior therapy: An illustrated guide. American Psychiatric Pub.
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