Behavior Change Research Project

Doll 1 Jenna Doll PSY 2700-102 Dr. Yarbrough November 16, 2017 Behavior Change Modification Project The target behavior that I selected to modify was my constant overt behavior of chewing my fingernails when I am within a classroom setting. Prior to this project, I had no recollection of how prevalent and frequent this behavior was, until a peer brought to my attention that I excessively chew on my fingernails in class. This behavior was not only exorbitant, but also was not sanitary, by directly placing my fingers in my mouth after touching various surfaces throughout the day, I was exposing myself to countless germs and increasing my potential to become sick. Once I targeted my behavior, I began to consciously acknowledge the prominence of this behavior and how it had shifted from an innocent habit into an obsessive behavior. My desired outcome of my behavior change program wasn’t to exterminate the target behavior all together, which realistically would not be a long term solution; instead, I aimed to reduce the behavior as significantly as possible. After identifying my target behavior, I developed an operational definition, defining nail chewing to be, “anytime an individual is placing one or more fingers into ones mouth, either by chewing on the fingertips, or on the finger nail itself, with direct contact to the teeth.” I selected the term nail chewing because I discovered that not only was I constantly biting down on my fingernails with my teeth, but also on my fingertips. It was important for me to specify the target behavior to “fingernails” in addition to “fingertips,” in order to guarantee that my nail chewing behavior could be recorded precisely and accurately.

Doll 2 The target behavior occurred most within the confines of the classroom setting, therefore I decided that the best setting to measure the frequency of the nail chewing behavior would be during class periods. Therefore, I chose to record the frequency through a fixed interval schedule which was my Behavior Change Psychology class which meets from 12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday. I selected to keep track of the frequency of the behavior in order to hopefully see the most significant change in the reduction of the behavior after an intervention had been set in place. I measured significant change in terms of a reduction of at least ten less frequencies of the target behavior than the baseline average of 79. Thus, for ten class periods while taking notes I would tally on notebook paper how many times my behavior of nail chewing fit my operational definition. I tallied my data in bits of five in order to easily total the frequency at the end of each class period and gage the severity of my baseline data. The design of my data recording consisted of an A-B format which features the baseline data in addition to the data once an intervention has been put into place. I chose this particular design because I was able to specifically focus on the prevalence of the target behavior and the direct reduction that was achieved with the simple addition of an intervention strategy. The data I collected proved sufficient significant change after implementation, therefore the simple A-B design was able to present such findings adequately. My initial aim was to significantly reduce the target behavior, which the A-B graph format clearly and precisely demonstrated without over complicating the results of the obvious shift of frequency. Implementing an intervention strategy that would successfully reduce the prominence of the behavior excess meant that I had to utilize a course of action that would decrease the likelihood that the behavior would occur again. Therefore, I decided to implement negative punishment which acts to remove a pre-existing stimulus which I characterized to be my

Doll 3 mountaineer mango smoothie from cascades that I get after each Behavior Change class period. Thus, if I did not see a significant difference in the frequency of nail chewing, which was a difference of five times, my negative punishment was that my mountaineer mango smoothie privileges were taken away for the day. This strategy was an effective tactic because the preexisting stimulus was fairly immediate being that it directly followed the recording period of class time, therefore if the behavior was significantly reduced I was rewarded quickly. The mountaineer mango is also my favorite smoothie on campus, thus it was a stimulus that was directly suited for my preferences and resulted in stronger drive to reduce the target behavior.

Nail Chewing Intervention

Baseline

90 80 70

Frequency

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Class 1

Class 2

Class 3

Class 4

Class 5

Class 6

Class 7

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Class 10

I recorded four class periods of baseline data where the average frequency was 79 times per class period. However, after my smoothie intervention I saw the frequency of my target behavior drop almost by half coming out to an average of 42.5 for the remaining six class periods. My graph displays on the vertical-axis the dependent variable which was the frequency

Doll 4 of my target behavior, in comparison to the horizontal-axis which displays the independent variable of recording sessions. In terms of critically evaluating my plan I would say that my intervention to achieve my goal of significantly reducing my target behavior of nail chewing was rather successful, however is only relative to the class period of Behavior Change. My data proves that before implementing negative punishment my behavior was as high as 82 tallies per one class period, meaning that my behavior of nail chewing occurred at least every minute of class time. However, this astounding frequency was greatly reduced by more than my goal of a 10 number significant difference and resulted roughly in a quadruple difference. I think my plan was successful because I specifically tailored it to an extrinsic and immediate reinforcement, mountaineer mango smoothies, that I strived to achieve throughout the implementation stage of the program. Areas within the program that I would change if I had the project to do over would include implementing punishment strategies for other classes, not solely Behavior Change which only reduces the target behavior for that specific class period, but not the remaining four courses. An issue that would have eventually occurred if the program had been facilitated further would be that the cold winter weather would affect my desire to drink a smoothie thus, I would begin to slack on how hard I wanted to enforce my target behavior modification. As a result, the desired behavior would begin to extinguish overtime, and the implementation of the behavior change plan would have to be re-evaluated.