Behavior Principles in Everyday Life

1
Behavior Principles in Everyday Life

• Chapter 15
• Thinking, the Self, and Self-Control

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Thinking Is Behavior

• Early behaviorists focused their attention mostly
  on overt behavior the external behavior that us
  easy to see and hear, measure objectively with
  laboratory instruments, and analyze
  scientifically.
• As behavior theory and research have advanced,
  increasing attention has been given to covert
  behavior such as thinking, feeling, reasoning,
  awareness of meaning, awareness of self and
  identity, perceived self-efficacy, and
  self-control.
• Scientific studies indicate that covert behavior
  can be explained by the same principles that we
  explain overt behavior.

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Thinking Is Behavior Cont.

• Thinking is a form of behavior.
• Thinking is the behavior of the brain.
• Our awareness is mostly occupied with sense
  perceptions of our body and the current
  environment along with internal dialogue or
  inner conversation that we carry on with
  ourselves inside our heads.

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Operant Conditioning of Thoughts

• Speaking and thinking are both verbal behavior.
  One is overt (outward), the other is covert
  (inward).
• Homme labeled thoughts as coverants to designate
  their status as covert operants.
• The research on coverants indicates that these
  operants of the mind are acquired and
  maintained in much the same manner as overt
  operants are.
• Models. People learn many coverants from
  observing and listening to others.

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Operant Conditioning Of Thoughts Cont.

• Rules. Rules also affect the acquisition and
  maintenance of coverants.
• Verbal Prompts. Thoughts are sometimes influenced
  by verbal prompts.

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Operant Conditioning Of Thoughts Cont.

• Reinforcement and Punishment. Thoughts have been
  modified by any type of reinforcement or
  punishment that seems to have a contingent
  connection to them. First, a thought can be
  modified by primary reinforcers or punishers when
  the coverant leads to overt actions that produce
  reinforcement or punishment. Second, thoughts can
  be modified by secondary reinforcers and
  punishers from either inside or outside the body.
  

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Pavlovian Conditioning of Thoughts

• Although thinking is a behavior, thoughts also
  function as stimuli. Through Pavlovian
  conditioning, thoughts can be become conditioned
  stimuli (CSs) that can, in turn, elicit
  conditioned responses, including emotional
  responses.

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Positive Thoughts

• Thoughts associated with positive and rewarding
  events can become CSs that
• (1.) elicit pleasurable emotional responses and
• (2.) function as secondary positive reinforcers.

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Negative Thoughts

• Thoughts associated with pain and punishment can
  become CSs that
• (1.) elicit aversive emotional responses and
• (2.) function as conditioned punishers.

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Worry and Self-Torment

• There are several patterns of conditioning that
  reinforce worrying more strongly than the pain of
  the negative thoughts can punish and suppress
  worry habits.
• (1.) First, worry is often negatively reinforced
  by the escape from or avoidance of major
  problems.
• (2.) Second, positive social reinforcement can
  strengthen habits of worrying.
• (3.) Third, negative social reinforcement can
  heighten worries.

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Thoughts Condition Thoughts

• Through Pavlovian conditioning, the CSs in one
  train of thoughts can condition other thoughts.
• If thoughts about topic X function as CSs for
  pleasurable emotions, other thoughts that precede
  and predict positive thoughts about X will also
  become increasingly pleasurable.
• If thoughts about topic Y function as CSs for
  painful emotions, other thoughts that precede and
  predict negative thoughts about Y will become
  increasingly painful.

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SDs and Thoughts

• Because thoughts are operants, they come under SD
  control.

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The Stream of Consciousness

• Thinking has been described as a stream of
  consciousness a constant flow of images,
  ideas, flashbacks, fantasies, and other thoughts.
• There are two situations that tend to produce
  rational chains of thoughts.
• (1.) First, the stream of consciousness may be
  rational when the SDs from sense perceptions
  appear in a rational order.

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The Stream of Consciousness Cont.

• (2.) Second, people who have been rewarded for
  speaking or writing with well-reasoned words may
  learn how to think rationally. Once people learn
  the skills for organizing complex and confusing
  material into rational verbal accounts, the
  stream of consciousness and words may be
  rational, even when the perceived SDs are not in
  logical order.
• No one has a stream of consciousness that is
  completely rational all the time.

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The Stream of Consciousness Cont.

• Everyone learns some skills for reasoning and
  rational thinking, but it takes special
  conditions for people to learn to use reasoning
  frequently and systematically in a wide variety
  of circumstances.
• Rationality is not a personality trait or global
  skill that automatically generalizes to work in
  all facets of life.
• Rational thoughts and words are not essential for
  the performance of many skillful and useful
  behaviors.

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The Stream of Consciousness Cont.

• When a person with tacit knowledge gets an idea
  or thinks of a solution to a problem without the
  help of a rational series of mental steps, the
  thought may be described as an intuition.
• Naturally, not all nonrational, intuitive
  thinking is correct, but neither is all rational
  thinking. Both intuitive and rational thinking
  can either be right or wrong. However, intuitive
  thinking has several limitations not found in
  rational thinking.

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Rational Choice

• Rational choice involves
• (1.) listing all the alternative behaviors that
  we might do in a choice situation,
• (2.) assembling accurate information on the
  immediate and delayed consequences (reinforcers
  and punishers) associated with each of these
  behaviors, then
• (3.) carefully evaluating all the pros and cons
  of each alternative trying to avoid biases.

18
Attaching Meaning

• How does a person learn to attach meaning to
  certain things, but not to others?
• Any element in our stimulus collage can become an
  SD or CS for meaningful responses via operant or
  Pavlovian conditioning.
• These stimuli be they SDs or CSs are called
  referents (the things being referred to), and
  the meaningful responses include
• (1.) verbal operants,
• (2.) nonverbal operants, and
• (3.) conditioned emotional responses.

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Attaching Meaning Cont.

• The meanings we attach to any given referent be
  it an object, behavior, or thought are
  conditioned by the consequences linked with the
  referent.
• Whenever a person learns to respond to the
  referents of a word with appropriate responses of
  all three types verbal, nonverbal, and
  emotional other people are likely to agree that
  the person has learned the true meaning of the
  concept.

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The Self

• When a person learns to do self-observation and
  self-description describing his or her own body
  and behavior in terms of I, me, and myself
  the person comes to develop a self-concept.

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Toward a Sense of Identity

• A person acquires a sense of identity when he or
  she learns self-descriptions that
• (1.) hold true over a broad range of situations
  and
• (2.) reveal consistent patterns of interests and
  behaviors.

22
Self-Control

• Self-control consists of any productive behavior
  either overt or covert that we do at one time
  to control our later behaviors and increase our
  chances of success in those later behaviors.
• Self-control skills are learned from models,
  rules, prompts, and reinforcement. This learning
  begins early in life, and additional skills can
  be added at any age.