Behavior Analysis
LECTURE
1
THE ABC’S OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
Lecture structure
Tuesday
–
Wednesday -
lecture
exercises and tests
Behavior Analysis
 BA is a young field – about 50 years old
 Because its so young people are still arguing about its
definition
 We are going to go with a simple and short definition
Behavior Analysis is the science of
behavior change.
Behavior Analysis
 In other words, the main focus of behavior analysis is
how and why behavior changes.
 However there is a more conventional definition that
most behavior analysts would find satisfactory
Behavior analysis is the study of
functional relations between
behavior and environmental events
Behavior Analysis
 This, more difficult definition, requires that you
understand 3 concepts;

Functional relations,

Behavior

Environmental events
Functional Relations
A functional relation is the tendency of one event to
vary in a regular way with one or more other events
 The simplest sort of functional relation is ‘if x, then y’. This means that if
event X occurs, then event Y occurs. The two events are connected so that
you can reliably predict that whenever X occurs, Y occurs.
 For example, if I flick the light switch off, the rooms becomes dark
 Science can be defined as the search for functional relations among events.
Our job, as behavioral psychologists, is to spot the functional relations
between peoples behavior and the environment.
 But what do we mean by behavior?
Behavior
 Someone might suggest that behavior is ‘what people do’
 However, our definition is more precise that this;
Behavior: anything a person does that
can be observed
 Why?

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound
when it hits the floor?
 Psychology is a science.
 This means, if we cant observe it then it doesn't’t exist.
Behavior
 What about thinking and feeling?

These are behaviors, but they are different because they can only be
observed by the person experiencing them.
 This distinction between actions and thoughts/feelings is
important

For example: You can walk across the room and drink some beer, or
you can think about walking across the room and drinking some beer
 Both are behaviors, but what's the major difference?

In one case, you drink the beer
 Thoughts and feeling don’t have the same effect on the
environment that actions have.
 Actions usually have measurable effects, making it
possible for other people to observe them. Thoughts and
feelings don’t.
Behavior
 For this reason we have two definitions of behavior:
Overt Behavior: behavior that can be observed by
someone other than the person performing it
Covert Behavior: behavior than can be observed only
by the person performing it.
Behavior
 There is also another way of classifying behavior that
divides into two categories:

Respondent behavior

Operant behavior
Respondent behavior
Respondent behavior is behavior that is most readily
influenced by events that precede it
 It can also be referred to as reflexive behavior.
 Respondent behavior is the kind of behavior people
usually describe as involuntary or reflexive
 It is behavior that is preceded and readily produced by a
specific environmental event
 Examples include:



The flow of acids into the stomach in response to food
Blinking an eye when a speck of dust hits it
Emotions such as anger fear and love may cause physiological
responses i.e. heart rate, breathing patterns, sweating
Operant behavior
Operant behavior is behavior that is readily influenced by
events that follow it
 Example; if you picked up a hot iron, then the behavior
of picking up the hot iron and burning yourself will affect
the probability of repeating that behavior in future.
 Operant behavior includes the majority of behaviors that
we can think of
 Behaviorists often talk about the respondent / operant
distinction by saying that respondent behavior is elicited
(no choice), whereas operant behavior is emitted (choice)
Review
Overt
Operant
Respondent
Covert
Behavior
 Every persons behavioral repertoire is composed of some
combination of these 4 types of behavior
A behavioral repertoire is all the things an individual is
capable of doing at any given moment
 Anything you can do is part of your behavioral repertoire.
Something you used to do but don’t anymore is no longer
part of your behavioral repertoire.
 The concept is important because much of BA is about
changing behavioral repertoires.
Environmental events
 Remember our definition of BA
Behavior analysis is the study of functional relations
between behavior and environmental events
 In behavior analysis were looking for informative
relationship between our behavior (respondent,
operant, covert and overt) and environmental events.
 What is an environmental event?
Environmental events
An environmental event refers to any event in a
persons environment that can be observed
 Environmental events are the kinds of things we
usually refer to as experience
 But remember here that were talking about physical
events, that have some sort of measurable effect
 Behavior analysts are interested in the effects of
events in the external environment on behavior.
Environmental events
 As human beings we are great at spotting and
describing environmental events, in many different
ways; colour, shape, size brightness etc
 However one feature of experience deserves
comment here; the temporal relation of the event to
the behavior
 The word temporal means having to do with time, so
were talking about the relationship, in time, of
environmental events to behavior.
Environmental events
 Most environmental events can be thought of as
falling into two categories, depending on their
temporal relation to the behavior:
Antecedents are environmental events that occur
before a behavior
Consequences are environmental events that occur
after the behavior
The ABC’s of behavior analysis
 Antecedents
- Behavior - Consequences
 Behavior analysis is the search for functional
relationships among behavior, and its antecedents
and consequences


Certain antecedents will make a behavior more likely to occur,
and other may make it less likely to occur
And certain consequences may make the behavior they follow
likely to occur again, whilst others may make the behavior
unlikely to be repeated
 But more about this later!
Learning history
 The effects of antecedents and consequences are
cumulative
 In other words, all of our past environmental events
(experience) will influence a persons present
behavior
 This means that we each bring our own unique
learning history to every situation
Learning history: all the environmental events
(antecedents and consequences) that have affected the
persons behavior up to the present
Applied behavior analysis
 So those are the basics of behavior analysis, however
were much more interested in a field called Applied
Behavior Analysis
Applied behavior analysis is the attempt to solve behavior
problems by providing antecedents and/or consequences
that change behavior
 In other words;


BA is concerned with understanding how environmental events
change behavior;
APA is concerned with using environmental events to change
behavior is desirable ways
 Our focus in this course on APA; solving behavior
problems by altering antecedents and consequences
Behavior problems
 Some problems are adaptive

Isn't is good to be scared of snakes? They can kill us right?
 Behavior becomes problematic when the fear impacts on
a persons life, and their actions
 It can be difficult to engage in a task when your thinking
about an unpleasant experience
 Lets look at some common problems and see if we can
find solutions to them
Behavior problems
Problem
Afraid of snakes
Obsessed by bad thoughts
Too shy
Cant read
Solution
Behavior problems
 Much of the time, behavior problems occur either
because a behavior is occurring too much, or because
a behavior is occurring not enough
 The job of the behavior analyst is to change the
frequency of behavior
 As an example, the chief difference between a good
student and a poor student has to do with how often
each performs desirable and undesirable acts
The medical model
 Behaviorists maintain that troublesome behavior is
the problem, and that altering the frequency of the
behavior will solve the problem
 The medical model, on the other hand, views the
problem as being beneath the surface.
Medical model: the view that behavior problems are
merely the symptoms of an underlying disorder
 This model is more or less accepted by most
psychologists, teachers social workers and many
other that deal with behavior problems
Problems with the medical model
 Its definitions are measured by frequency of
behavior, rather than underlying causes

For example, if you take away inappropriate speech from an
autistic person then you have literately made them less autistic
 It promotes labeling of people with psychological
disorders which then affects the way they feel about
themselves, as well as the way other people feel
about them
 BA focuses on observable behavior, rather than a
mysterious, comorbid and unseen disorders
However
 Behavior analysis is difficult
 Solving behavior problems is harder than it looks. Always
remember Daniels Dictum here;
Daniels Dictum: if you think this stuff is easy, you're doing
it wrong!
 As you learn about reinforcement and extinction and
shaping and all the rest of it you will think its easy. It will
sound easy.
 However, this course merely prepares you for greater
training in BA, rather than the ability solve complex
behavior problems in the real world.
Flash cards
Lets go over some flash cards!
You will be tested on these every few weeks. This will
be 25% of your final grade!
Flash cards
 Behaviour Analysis:
 study of functional relations between environmental events and behavior
 science of behavior change
 Functional relation:
 tendency of one event to vary in a regular way with one or more other events
 Behavior:
 anything a person does that can be observed
 Overt behavior:
 behavior that can be observed by someone other than the person performing it
 Covert behavior:
 behavior that can be observed only by the person performing it
 Respondent behavior:
 behavior that is most readily influenced by events that preced it; reflexive
behavior
 Operant behavior:
 behavior that is readily influenced by events that follow it
Flash cards
 Behavioural repertoire:
all things an individual is capable of doing at any given
moment
Environmental event:
 any event in a person's environment that can be observed
Antecedents:
 environmental events that occur before a behavior
Consequences:
 environmental events that occur after a behavior
Learning history:
 environmental events (antecedents and consequences) that
have affected a person's behavior up to the present





Flash cards
 Applied behavior analysis:
the attempt to solve behavior problems by providing
antecedents and/or consequences that change behavior
 Medical model:
 view that behavior problems are merely symptoms of
an underlying psychological disorder
 Symptom substitution:
 idea that if a behavior problem is solved without
resolving the underlying psychological disorder,
another behavior problem will take its place
 Daniel's dictum:
 if you think this stuff is easy; you're doing it wrong
