General Psychology

Remembering the Pre-Aversive Stimulus

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / 1 Comment

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There are some terms and concepts from behavioral psychology’s past that have found themselves buried in time. Tucked away in a journal here or there but largely forgotten. The older research that tracked rates of behavior following “noxious stimuli”, for example- A phrase we don’t use anymore.  Time has also changed the fascination with respondent conditioning and effects that just two (or more) paired stimuli somewhere along the line could change responding for a lifetime. Powerful principles, which with progress now seem so mundane. Somewhere in there, we have the pre-aversive stimulus.

The pre-aversive stimulus had a great role in early behavioral science animal research to describe responding patterns, but the concept easily applies to humans as well. A pre-aversive stimulus, simply put, is the stimulus that reliably precedes an aversive stimulus. Have you ever heard the term avoidance responding? Some people may call that “escape-maintained behavior” in the field but it is effectively just that- engaging in behavior (responding) to avoid a stimulus that was aversive in the past. Running away. Getting away. Dodging it. What signals that, then? The pre-aversive stimulus. It goes even further. Just through respondent conditioning, the pre-aversive stimulus can take on features of the aversive stimulus and become a conditioned aversive stimulus itself. Then there’s another pre-aversive stimulus that could reliably precede that, and with enough second-order conditioning, you could get messy (over)generalization and find all sorts of related stimuli as aversive. Generalized Anxiety Disorder theoretically works on this same principle. It’s not hard to see how this kind of thing can tangle up a person’s life- whether they are able to realize it and vocalize it or not.

 

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Wait! Isn’t a pre-aversive stimulus just a kind of SD?

Let’s not jump to any conclusions and mistake a pre-aversive stimulus for an SD just yet. They have some things in common. They’re both stimuli (but so is almost everything else). They can both be considered antecedent stimuli when we look at the framework of the avoidance responding that sometimes follows them. They signal something. All good comparisons- but here’s a big distinction if you don’t remember: A discriminative stimulus (SD) signals reinforcer availability for a specific type of response.

The per-aversive stimulus does not necessarily have to.

In some situations, you could conceptualize a case for negatively reinforced behavior, but that might muddy the definitions of both terms being used concurrently. They speak to different phenomena even though they could describe one particular stimulus. The big difference is that the cue for available reinforcement is not necessary for a pre-aversive stimulus. It is simply a stimulus that has commonly preceded something aversive, or bad.

Example: An individual has been stung by a wasp before. Maybe several times if they were unlucky. Prior to the stinging, they heard the buzzing around a wasp nest.

That buzzing could likely become a pre-aversive stimulus, and through respondent conditioning, a conditioned aversive stimulus itself in the future.

In the research, pre-aversive stimuli tended to evoke “anxiety” in respondents- which was quasi-operationalized to the term conditioned emotional response (CER), also called conditioned suppression. That’s an important distinction to keep in mind. Here, a pre-aversive stimulus appears to suppress or decrease responding- not signal reinforcement for a response like an SD would.

Like freezing near a wasp nest when buzzing is heard. The usual comfortable walking pace (response) is suppressed in the presence of the buzzing sound (pre-aversive antecedent stimulus).

 

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Anxiety! Conditioned Emotional Responses! Conditioned Suppression!

Respondent conditioning research has some fascinating lessons that are just as relevant today as they were decades ago. Sometimes in the day to day practice of behavior analysis- things get oversimplified for the sake of ease of practice.

Behavior goes up? Reinforcement is at work.

Behavior goes down? Punishment is at work.

To a degree, those definitions work. Even with our wasp nest example earlier, those initial stings could absolutely punish some future walking behavior. But we can’t forget about the little things- the little preceding stimuli that have so much to do with the actual phenomenon. The buzzing didn’t punish the walking. Don’t forget the antecedents. Don’t forget the respondent conditioning. Taking the time to examine just one more step explains the process so much more clearly.

What conditioned pre-aversive stimuli appear to evoke conditioned emotional responses in your day to day life? Do you see conditioned suppression of behavior, as a result, that would have otherwise been there? What pre-aversive stimuli could be “tagging on” to the effects of an aversive stimulus you’re aware of? Does it evoke any avoidance behavior?

Too simple? Laurence Miller ‘s (1969) work on compounding pre-aversive stimuli might whet your broader research appetite. Citation below.

Thoughts? Comment! Question! Like!

 

References:

Coleman, D. A., Hemmes, N. S., & Brown, B. L. (1986). Relative durations of conditioned stimulus and intertrial interval in conditioned suppression. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,46(1), 51-66. doi:10.1901/jeab.1986.46-51
COOPER, JOHN O.. HERON, TIMOTHY E.. HEWARD, WILLIAM L. (2018). APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS. S.l.: PEARSON.
Miller, L. (1969). Compounding of pre-aversive stimuli1. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,12(2), 293-299. doi:10.1901/jeab.1969.12-293
Ormrod, J. E. (2016). Human learning. Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson.
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http://www.pexels.com, photographer Hubert Mousseign

A Dad’s Role in ABA Therapy

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / Leave a comment

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Don’t let the title fool you into thinking about this as a division. A father’s role in therapy is the same as a mother’s role in therapy, or any guardian in therapy. Responsibility, respect, love, and contribution. That should be a given. But sometimes it’s not always treated that way.

A recent intake for a client stuck with me. In this intake we were discussing prior ABA services for the child, and how parent training was done, how programs were generalized, and what seemed to fit best with their prior therapy experiences. It’s good to get an idea of these things. Parent participation is important in therapy. Incalculably important. In this particular one, the father mentioned their prior BCBA tended to discard his suggestions on targets, or socially relevant behavior goals. This caused a second or two of an awkward pause where the mother jumped in with a humorous aside about how the BCBA got along much better with her. The thing is, you could see that the way the professional handled that situation limited the father’s future enthusiasm to engage with the process. Some people could often mistake that as the “Dad being distant” cliche, and everything continues as these expectations play out. The problem is, we had a parent interested in a process, who had a voice, and that voice was silenced (ignored) and guided to a false consensus.

There are sometimes these unspoken things, or expectations, in parent roles. Some are traditional things that stick around, some are just artifacts of a bygone era that do more harm than good. Rooting those kinds of things out and making more functional alternatives tend to help the whole process along, relationship wise, responsibility wise, and makes people all together wiser about how they’re behaving and what the expectations are for how therapy will work. Parenting is sometimes rule governed after all. In therapy, professionals, like BCBAs, can sometimes make unspoken rules with unintended consequences. Inferences here. Ignoring something there. The feeling I was getting from this situation above was that there was not an equal input in the last experience with ABA therapy. So, with a little back-stepping to basics, I wrote down all the suggestions both parents had for goals, and funny thing was, Dad said more, and the Mom was surprised. We all learned something. It sounds like a small thing, but imagine what a trend like this could have been long term.

I suggest some very simple ground rules, which should be very obvious:

A client’s mother can have great ideas about therapy goals.

A client’s father can have great ideas about therapy goals.

Any other suitable guardian can have great ideas about therapy goals.

The client themselves can have great ideas about therapy goals.

 

Sometimes these suggestions don’t make sense to us as professionals, sometimes they aren’t age appropriate, sometimes they don’t fit current skill levels, but we don’t just ignore them and silence the people who are invested in the client’s well-being and growth. The whole point here is that there should not be this great distinction between what the Mom can contribute, and what the Dad can contribute. Once we assume one has better ideas, or more time, or more commitment, we do a disservice. Situations may play a role in what happens in actual practice, but those are going to be based on actualities, and not preconceptions. Preconceptions acted on as though they are obervations are not behavior analytic.

Now, there also may be things that we notice between male parents and female parents that are a little different. Sometimes these things are stereotypical. Sometimes the interests follow expectations that we see generalities of in our daily life. We need to make sure we don’t assume too much with these. Treat every situation as though you will be proven wrong. Treat every situation as though you will learn something. Assuming too much is where we always get it wrong. Overlooking things is not scientific.

Data Point of One (Personal Experience Talking)-  On a case, I had a father once who had a different view point on some social goals. There are some situations where the current social goals put the client in what the father called a “weak position” to their peers, based on some peer interactions that had gone a bad route.  At face value, we could either say “NO! The client is expressing themselves! That’s good! What happened wasn’t their fault! Get out of here with that victim blaming!” or, we could take a minute and understand the meaning and sentiment of that worry. The client could be taken advantage of. Social hierarchies exist. Kids take advantage of other kids. Kids hurt other kids. The specific operant behaviors we were teaching here might actually be reinforcing peer aggressive/hurtful verbal behavior. It’s possible. We should probably take a look. Behavior does not occur in a vacuum. It ended up being more complicated than that, but the analysis was warranted. It helped.

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Both parents can contribute. No matter the gender, no matter the outlook, most of the time if you find a parent who cares about their child enough to attend meetings, put the time into the trainings, and are enthusiastic about transferring and generalizing skills, you’ll find someone who can make a contribution to the growth and progress that can not be underestimated. The more hands on deck to getting the client the skills the better. We want more people on our team. We want more people showing love to the client to get them where they can thrive. A large support structure that loves and cares for an individual can make all the difference. We as professionals don’t get to decide who gets a voice and who doesn’t. That’s the lesson.

 

Comments? Questions? Thoughts? Leave them below.

 

Photos: http://www.pexels.com

Behavior Analysis and Personality Psychology

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / Leave a comment

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Applied Behavior Analysis and Personality Psychology at first glance have very little in common. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) comes from the behaviorist tradition of the purely observable, and Personality Psychology features variables that are often seen within the individual and outside of direct measurement. As time moves on in the field of psychology, and the behavioral fields specifically, there is a call for greater breadth and understanding from practitioners across more than one domain. Behaviorism as a field of psychology is alive and well, but sometimes practitioners can pigeonhole themselves (pardon the pun) into the strict traditionalist ideas of the early 20th century, leaving the cognitive revolution and relevant psychological progress aside.

Few people realize, that this is not too a large gulf to bridge.

The topic of personality and temperament in individuals was touched on by B.F Skinner himself in “Science and Human Behavior” (1951) and “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” (1971), but as many would suspect, the meaning of the word personality was operationalized to a series of observable concepts such as “response tendencies”. These tendencies of responding were used to explain how individuals varied in their sensitivity to stimuli. It stands to reason that everyone in their life has come across another individual who was not impacted by a stimulus in the same way as themselves. This is a basic part of humanity. This is the reason we need to clinically perform preference assessments. Individual differences occur regardless of standardized stimuli. No matter how precisely we form a potential reinforcer, no matter how accurate the degree of the amount, or intensity, or even how carefully a schedule is arranged; one person may respond differently to it than another. And that is not including motivating operation factors like deprivation and satiation. Sometimes people are affected by different things in different ways, and they respond to different things in different ways.

Personality Psychology concerns itself with these individual differences. It is a field that is interested in the unique differences of the thinking, behaving, and feeling of individuals. Personality Psychology studies traits or factors based on the similarities and differences of individuals. Some feature traits such as Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism (Eysenck Personality Inventory), Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (The Big Five). Others add in the traits of Honesty and Humility (HEXACO). Although there are many different theories on how these personality traits are formed, are measured, and are predictive; they still aim to explain something that strict observation of antecedent or consequence stimuli appears to miss. Behaviorists and practitioners of Applied Behavior Analysis may look at these things and pump their brakes. After all, it seems like a challenge to align the methods found in Personality Psychology to the dimensions of behavior analysis that Baer, et al. constructed in 1968. How does personality fit into a strictly behavioral framework? What about making personality framework conceptually systematic? Or could an experimenter even demonstrate control in a way to be analytic? Baer, Wolf, and Risley themselves said that a self-reported verbal behavior could not be accepted as measurable unless it was substantiated independently. How do we do it, then?

First, we may want to take a step back and work on defining what we are looking at. Behaviorists and ABA practitioners are used to a functional analytic approach which aims to identify exactly that; functional relationships between the environment and clinically targeted behaviors. Personality Psychology, on the other hand, is a little more topographical in how traits are defined. They look at classifying traits by what they present as, how they appear, and reports of how people act, and think, with less emphasis on that environment link. One of the great researchers to bridge these two ways of studying personalities, tendencies, and behavior, was Jeffrey Gray who looked at the personality inventories and questionnaires of Hans Jürgen Eysenck, and developed a theoretical model which related these personality and temperament factors to behavioral inhibition (behaviors likely to be inhibited where cues of punishment or lack of reinforcement are found), and behavioral activation (behaviors likely to be activated in the presence of possible reinforcement or cues of no punishment). Here, personality traits of extraversion and introversion, for example, were related to dimensions of anxiety or impulsivity which could be easier to define and study behaviorally. Gray (1981) was interested in how these traits could explain “sensitivity” (higher responding) or “hypo-responsiveness” (lower responding) to punishment and reinforcement stimuli.

Would someone who was rated higher in extraversion/low-anxiety respond a certain way to social positive reinforcement?

Would someone who was rated higher in introversion/high-anxiety respond a certain way to social negative reinforcement?

These are some questions that might pique the interest on both sides of the fence, both Behavior Analytic, and Personality Psychology. Take any one of those personality traits above, and you may find similar ways to study it behaviorally. The literature on this type of work is impressive. Gray’s work which began in the 1970s, went on for over 30 years. There is a wealth of literature on the topic of his theoretical models, and the topics of the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) which relates factors that impact a reduction of responding, and Behavioral Activation System (BAS) which relates factors that impact an increase in response activation, from Gray’s work in 1981. In 2000, Gray & McNaughton presented a third theoretical system called FFFS (fight-flight-freeze system) to explain responses to unconditioned aversive stimuli in which emotionally regulated states of “fear and panic” play a role in defensive aggression or avoidance behaviors. These took into account neuropsychology and went even further to suggest links to conflict avoidance in humans in day to day life. The literature on this is absolutely fascinating in how it finds a way to bring behavioral analytic concepts to a new arena.

Could it be possible for one day to see Personality Psychologists talking about reinforcement and punishment sensitivity? How about Behavior Analysts talking about traits when considering consequence strategies? At the very least, it’s a conversation that neither field might have had without knowing. We can only hope to gain from stepping outside of traditional boundaries and broaden our intellectual horizons.

Comments? Questions? Thoughts? Leave them below!

References:

Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some
current dimensions of applied behavior anlysis. Journal of
applied behavior analysis, 1(1), 91-97.

Big Five personality traits. (2018, April 19). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Farmer, R. F. (2005). Temperament, reward and punishment sensitivity, and clinical disorders: Implications for behavioral case formulation and therapy. International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy,1(1), 56-76. doi:10.1037/h0100735
Gray, J. A. (1981). A Critique of Eysenck’s Theory of Personality. A Model for Personality,246-276. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-67783-0_8
Gray, J. A., & McNaughton, N. (2000). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hans Eysenck. (2018, April 14). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Eysenck

HEXACO model of personality structure. (2018, April 22). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEXACO_model_of_personality_structure

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York: Macmillan.
Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Knopf.
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Beyond Good, Evil, Freedom, and Dignity

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / 2 Comments

BF.NA comparison of concepts from B.F Skinner’s “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” and Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”.

 

There was something about these two books that piqued my interest, and it was not until reading them again, together, that I saw that the similarities went beyond the titles. For those who have not been introduced to these individuals and their contributions; Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th-century philosopher known for dealing with topics of existentialism and nihilism, and Burrhus Frederic (B.F) Skinner was a 20th-century psychologist and behaviorist interested in the natural science of behavior. Aside from the similarities in their names, and the names of the titles of their two works, few parallels have been drawn between these figures. I think there is a great deal of overlap, conceptually, between these two books, and although the conclusions of both authors diverge quite differently, the path and observations on the world and history are strikingly alike.

When it comes to B.F Skinner, I have been interested in the academic and philosophic lineage of his work, and existentialist philosophers have never been a reference or topic I’ve noticed before. Pragmatism, yes, and Roy A. Moxley (2004) did an amazing piece on the influences of Charles Sanders Pierce & John Dewey on Skinner’s conceptualization of the three-term contingency and broader behavioral selectionist theory. No Nietzsche. Not even once as far as I could tell. It raises some questions with me, then, in how these two books are so similarly constructed. Both seem to tackle a very similar topic, broad as it is, the actions of people, and their morality (which comes very close to dignity, in Skinner’s usage, in my estimation). They start with Western history and philosophy and even reference the same ancient Greek precepts as foundations to build their arguments and points from. Both appear to lead up to their current history and take into account their contemporary issues when presenting their philosophical conclusions. I am not a professional book reviewer or a literary scholar, so this process of literature exploration is outside of my wheelhouse, but I would like to lay out some pieces from both of these works to open the door comparatively. Both of these authors picked the right word “Beyond”. Both works present a series of presuppositions in their contemporary times and aim to progress past them rationally.

Skinner and Nietzsche: The Problems of Their Times

Context is important when reading and interpreting both of these authors. They were both big thinkers. Brilliant. Both wildly controversial. That tends to mean they had opinions, unpopular ones, but ones that they put out into the world rigorously supported by the assertions in their work.

Nietzsche was born in 1844, in Germany, and served in the Franco-Prussian war where he received grievous injuries that he never recovered from. “Beyond Good and Evil” was written after that. After the war, he wrote on the contemporary topics that he believed were essential to human progress and critiqued entrenched falsehoods that he believed were subverting people’s potential and lives. Morality was a big subject for him. Unlike other existentialist philosophers of his time, he was not so backseat and uncertain about it. He proposed that morality was separate from the Western religious belief systems and structures that were entrenched in society, and believed that willpower had the power to transcend these societal limitations. Traditional morality (societal and religious), to him, was making people weak. They needed to improve themselves, with their own morality and their own will, to be strong. In “Beyond Good and Evil” (1886), Nietzsche suggests that the words “Good” and “Evil” were malleable concepts that change over time, and were not fixed. Fear was a motivator for morality, he proposed, and that there was a mistake in believing that “mass morality” or the moral beliefs of the groups/society had any higher importance than an individual’s personal morality. Hold onto that thought.

Skinner’s work in “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” (1972) came from a very different time historically. In the 1970’s, the Cold War raised probabilities of worldwide escalation and catastrophe. In the first chapter alone, Skinner broached the topics of overpopulation, global starvation, nuclear war, and disease. Skinner did some philosophical work himself, but his main focus was as a psychologist and behaviorist interested in focusing on psychology as a natural science, to see human behavior as measurable and observable, and aim scientific pursuit as a “technology of behavior” to solve the problems of our time. In many ways, it was a utopian idea, and he expands on that vision in his fictional work “Walden Two”. Engineering society with this science was within humanity’s grasp. Skinner looked broadly at the ills of the world, and believed that there were some pieces of cultural and societal misunderstanding that was holding it back. Like Nietzsche, his observations strayed away from metaphysical interpretation. Skinner believed that natural sciences like physics and biology had made the leaps that psychology had not. People were still hung up on antiquated interpretations of human behavior. To Skinner, it was the environment and history of reinforcement/punishment that could be used to describe human action. He believed that mentalistic concepts such as “inner capacities” were circular, and lead to no useful distinction of a phenomenon or process that could benefit scientific discovery. Human behavior could be shaped by environment, and act on the environment as an operant. His work aimed to remove the ideas of absolute human freedom, and dignity in the sense of viewing the human being as the “fully autonomous man”; these were not practical representations of human behavior to Skinner. Full autonomy, free choice, with no input from the environment was nonsensical, which begged the question as to how free will was actually free when it was under the control of environmental stimuli, to begin with. Conceptualizing human behavior under the contingencies that Skinner proposed, including reinforcement and punishment, removes those antiquated and pre-scientific distinctions, and by removing them, people would no longer be under any false illusions and could take control of their behavior.

 

Where They Come Together, and Where They Differ

Both Nietzsche and Skinner’s line of thought come from a disagreement with the broader idea of humanity by contemporary society. For Nietzsche, it was a societal and religious misunderstanding of morality. For Skinner, it was a societal and historical pre-scientific misunderstanding of human behavior. Both “Beyond Good and Evil” and “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” do touch on similar points by their end: human behavior and morality. Both authors hit the same nail in two very different ways, both using historical context to do so and their own interpretation and findings from their own work and lives. There are some interesting divergences too, mainly on the topic of science and empirical materialism. B.F Skinner was very much interested in the material world and observable findings, which nearly 100 years prior, Nietzsche also had to deal with. In Nietzsche’s time, the late 19th century, these concepts were still budding, but rational observation of the world and the field of psychology was relatively recent in the form of psychoanalysis. He describes some of his ideas on the topic of science and the metaphysical soul in “Beyond Good and Evil”:

“Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of “the soul” thereby, and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypotheses—as happens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly touch on the soul without immediately losing it. But the way is open for new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis; and such conceptions as “mortal soul,” and “soul of subjective multiplicity,” and “soul as social structure of the instincts and passions,” want henceforth to have legitimate rights in science. In that the NEW psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have hitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of the soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into a new desert and a new distrust—it is possible that the older psychologists had a merrier and more comfortable time of it; eventually, however, he finds that precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENT—and, who knows? perhaps to DISCOVER the new.

Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength—life itself is WILL TO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent RESULTS thereof. “- Nietzsche (1886)

You can see here that Nietzsche is still strongly proposing that even in the area of science, psychology, and the soul, that willpower is an overlooked and undeniably important factor. I do find an interesting subpoint in there, in the process of invention and discovery by new psychologists, which nearly a century later would include Skinner himself. Although Nietzsche was strongly against the idea of science reducing everything to material reality, and I believe would take strong opposition to Skinner’s ideas on mentalistic representations of “soul” and morality, there is a great deal they share in their ways of tackling broader problems of their time, and interpretations of humanity as open to the future and unfixed. Humanity, to them, was not something that is and always will be the same. For very different reasons, Skinner and Nietzsche had a strange optimism of humanity in the wide and open possibility that either willpower, for Nietzsche, or contingencies for Skinner, could do for humanity as a whole.

B.F Skinner took a look at human morality himself in “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” when exploring the concept of cultural control, or behavioral control from the contingencies of a broader group, which included cultural, or rule-governed behavior and walked the line of evolution in both cultural and biological aspects both effecting one another to form a morality that was also “created” in a sense by evolution and sensitivity to cultural factors of control. Biological evolution making us sensitive to the evolution of cultural contingency. It’s a point that packs a punch.

“The practical question, which we have already considered, is how remote consequences can be made effective. Without help a person acquires very little moral or ethical behaviour under either natural or social contingencies. The group supplies supporting contingencies when it describes its practices in codes or rules which tell the individual how to behave and when it enforces those rules with supplementary contingencies. Maxims, proverbs, and other forms of folk wisdom give a person reasons for obeying rules. Governments and religions formulate the contingencies they maintain somewhat more explicitly, and education imparts rules which make it possible to satisfy both natural and social contingencies without being directly exposed to them.

This is all part of the social environment called a culture, and the main effect, as we have seen, is to bring the individual under the control of the remoter consequences of his behaviour. The effect has had survival value in the process of cultural evolution, since practices evolve because those who practise them are as a result better off. There is a kind of natural morality in both biological and cultural evolution. Biological evolution has made the human species more sensitive to its environment and more skilful in dealing with it. Cultural evolution was made possible by biological evolution, and it has brought the human organism under a much more sweeping control of the environment.”-Skinner (1972)

Two very different views, both denying a common cultural interpretation or framework for psychology, human behavior, and morality, but leaving a wide berth for future change, that in a sense is within humanity’s realm of control. I found those two shades of interpretation to be incredibly interesting, especially in morality. Remember that Nietzsche was well aware of the impact of “group morality”, and advised against its importance over the individual’s morality. Skinner also makes a nod to group forms of morality and seems to believe we are uniquely and biologically sensitive to it. I would love to have heard a conversation between the two of them on that. This is just the tip of the iceberg too. I suggest anyone who found their interest piqued to read both works and come to conclusions of your own.

By Christian Sawyer, M.Ed., BCBA

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Leave them below!

 

References:

Moxley, R. A. (2004). Pragmatic selectionism: The philosophy of behavior analysis. The Behavior Analyst Today, 5(1), 108-125.

Nietzsche, F. N. (2007). Beyond good and evil. Place of publication not identified: Filiquarian Pub.

Ozmon, H. (2012). Philosophical foundations of education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Knopf.

 

Image Credits: Wikipedia

Overcoming the Fear of Failure

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / 1 Comment

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This is a topic I see very often in clinical practice. Not only that, but it affects everyone at one point in their lives. When I am working on skills with my clients who are able to vocalize and express these fears, I see a pattern inherent to everyone who has ever encountered something new. In Applied Behavior Analytic research, sometimes we like to operationalize this phenomenon as “aversion”, or “presentation of an aversive novel stimulus”. Whatever we call it, it is the same thing. Engaging in something new and uncomfortable in a goal directed way is a challenge that we have to confront. Clinically, I prefer to have the individual guide their own process and become aware of their own specific aversions and behaviors. It makes the practice of confronting these stimuli as self-initiated, and self-guided as possible.

I prefer the word confront because it has a better ring to it than “desensitization”. When it comes to coming face to face with a stimulus or situation where we have to either perform or adapt, confront just seems to carry the operant theme more than the passive “desensitizing”. Failure is a scary and aversive thing.  We can define it as a condition where our operant behaviors are unsuccessful. Efforts which are not reinforced. It’s perfectly natural to want to avoid a contingency with no reinforcement. When we face something we are afraid of, or a new situation where we might not be sure we can succeed; we are facing that fear of failure. Maybe it is a fear of not being able to complete a required activity of success, or putting yourself out there socially and being received amiably. There is something universally human to that kind of hesitation. In ABA we call that an “escape-maintained” behavior, and when the behavior serves no real purpose to protect us, it tends to hold us back. When failure is that fear, then we tend not to even try.

In clinical practice, be it Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) or any other Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) the advice is all the same; it takes presentation (and sometimes repeated presentation) of that stimulus in a controlled situation until that aversive situation becomes neutral. This is called controlled exposure. That is where the real progress happens. When someone meets that situation, faces it, and can come through the other side fearing it less (or finding it less aversive), it is a step in the right direction. You may also hear the term “graduated exposure”, which denotes the concept of fading in stimuli or related stimuli in from least to most in order to acclimate in steps. A common example is if someone is scared of spiders or animals, they would be shown a picture first across the room, and gradually get closer to the picture before moving on to any examples of the real deal. Habituation is the term commonly used for becoming used to something, to the point where the stimulus becomes tolerable, if not neutral.

These same principles can be used when actively trying to overcome a fear of failure too. Generally, we come across things that are new to us. These can be either unconditioned stimuli (things we are “naturally” fearful of) and conditioned stimuli (things we have learned to be fearful of). Public speaking in front of large groups is an example of an unconditioned stimulus (for some, but it can be conditioned for others) while taking tests is a common example of a conditioned stimulus. Both present a challenge that we have to act on (engage in operant behavior) in order to be reinforced. Be it someone you are helping in clinical practice, or yourself, you can use these same foundational principles of graduated exposure. If the situation is not reinforcing in itself, keep in mind that you can always improvise your own reinforcement (reward) in order to make adapting easier. Using reinforcement alongside challenging situations can make them less aversive through a process called conditioning. The act of practicing this process on yourself is called self-management.

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Consider these steps when trying to formulate your own graduated exposure:

  1. Find the situation which you feel is important to engage in or achieve (Target).
  2. Break it down into it’s smallest components (Task Analysis). 
  3. Pinpoint which part, exactly, is causing the most aversion or fear (Aversive Stimulus). 
  4. Document, to the best of your ability, the behaviors you engage in along the way (Data Recording/Self-Monitoring). Do these behaviors help, or do they hinder? 
  5. Practice engaging with a facsimile or similar situation where the stimulus or stakes are not so high (ie. If public speaking is the target try practicing a speech in front of 1 person first). 
  6. Reinforce (reward) any toleration or approximation of success! This is the most important step. 
  7. Gradually shape these practice simulations to simulate the “real” objective as closely as possible. 
  8. Do not rush it. Challenge yourself, but be mindful that this is a process, not a race.

Take it slow. Document everything you can. Learn. Improve. The process is where the fear of failure is overcome. Often it takes more than one contact with the situation to get accustomed. I’ve used this process on myself more times than I can count. As a person who has found large exams, public speaking to crowds, public competition, and even engagement in new and unfamiliar situations; the end-goal is all the same. It is something that is worth facing because the outcome is a socially important, or beneficial to us. The aversion, or fear, is not helpful or adaptive. Facing these situations and designing the process oneself is empowering.

Self-Management is one of the greatest strategies in ABA. If someone can find a way to manage their own behavior successfully then it is the ideal situation. Self-monitoring and self-management also have the unique bonus of being able to handle what Behaviorists call “covert behaviors” (thoughts, etc). Covert behaviors are things that are not visible to outside observers but are still able to be tracked and recorded by the person experiencing them. Accuracy and specificity is important here, and can vastly improve a personal insight into their own patterns of behavior. This doesn’t have to be a single person job either! Even though someone can monitor their own behavior, they can also bring trusted friends/family/cooperators into the process of reinforcement and help to keep them on track.

Independence, and knowledge about yourself, while overcoming a challenge.

What could be better?

 

Comments? Questions? Leave them below!

 

References:

  1. Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (1987). Applied behavior analysis. Columbus: Merrill Pub. Co.
  2. Wood, S. E., Wood, E. R., & Wood, E. R. (1996). The world of psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Photo Credits:

  1. pexels.com Pexels Stock Photos

 

Is the intelligence barrier real for occupation training?

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / Leave a comment

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This post is more speculative, and an exploration into current research, than a tried and true ABA topic I usually expound on. I saw something that struck me this morning on Twitter. The claim that an individual with an IQ less than 80 could not be trained to functionally work in society. I know for a fact this is not the case, because I’ve seen and worked on it, but I wanted to get my sources down to confront this Tweet.

It was harder than I expected.

I wanted a single consensus of an answer, but unfortunately could not find one. I think I know why, and the answer does not specifically have to do with the IQ scores of the participants, it has to do with how that training is done in relation to the population. We’ll touch on the details of that below.

I have personally worked on hundreds of Applied Behavior Analytic cases, with a broad range of ages, abilities, intelligence, and skills. I have seen more success than I have plateaus. I’ve seen employment aids and training work. The challenge of the process is certainly true, but I dislike the idea of firm impossibilities. This may influence how I first took affront to that Tweet. The research is vast, but the narrative I’ve come to understand does not simply allow an IQ score to determine a cut off for functionality in the workplace. Not exactly. Let’s look at the research I was familiar with:

 

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Rusch & Hughes (1989) in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis-  “An Overview of Supported Employment”. They used the common term “Supported Employment” for individuals with disabilities and were focused mainly on those individuals sustaining paid work. The paid work part was fairly important to them, and I’d argue that maintaining paid employment is a reasonable counter to the claim that training is ineffective with the target populations. This study did explore the “place and train” model, which later studies found to be less than optimal, but the findings here did find a measure of success. Some individuals did benefit from these methods. That’s the important finding. They were able to sustain paid work in society. Their terminology for intelligence scoring is a little outdated in this study. We use the term Intellectual Disability these days. They used the terms “mentally retarded”- “mildly”, “moderately”, and “profoundly” specifically. Looking up the diagnostic criterion used at the time, we can see that Rusch and Hughes had the following distribution:

Out of 1,411 individuals with disabilities sustaining paid employment, 8% of these individuals fell within the “mentally retarded” category with IQ scores below 70.

  • 10% of these individuals fell within IQ score ranges of 20-25 (“profoundly mentally retarded”)
  • 45% of these individuals fell within IQ score ranges of 35-55 (“moderately mentally retarded”)
  • 38% of these individuals fell within IQ score ranges of 50-70 (“mildly mentally retarded”)
  • <8% of these individuals fell within IQ score ranges of 70-80 (“borderline mentally retarded”)

So, even with outdated “place and train” models, this study does give us some information on some level of effectiveness that supported training can meet the criterion and disprove the Tweet, and this was as of 1989 referencing successes from decades prior. There are a place for individuals with a vast range of intelligence scores in society. Problem solved, right?

Wait just a minute. There are some challenges in the training process that can not be overlooked. Challenges that might just hint at why people believe that supported training does not work. We see in Rusch and Hughes the successes of certain methods for a small amount of the population. Since then, we’ve seen some longitudinal studies that have raised more questions than they’ve given us answers, and raised more challenges than we thought were there.

 

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Conroy & Spreat (2015)- Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities

Conroy and Spreat titled their study a “Longitudinal Investigation of Vocational Engagement”, and were interested in how individuals with intellectual disabilities remained employed during a 15 year period from 1999-2004.

An important point I want to bring up first is the concept of Self-Determination, which is the point which all people have to make choices about their lives. An individual, no matter their situation, can make choices about their own lives freely. That includes employment. So when we speak about supported employment, this is due to the individual wanting to work, and maintaining that employment freely.

What Conroy and Spreat were studying were vocational attendance, and quality-of-life data. They found a similar trend in individuals receiving both residential supports and day-to-day supports:

“The overall amount of vocational, prevocational, and nonvocational activities changed sharply during the 15‐year period. Vocational and prevocational activity declined, while nonvocational engagement more than doubled, both in numbers of people and hours. During the same time period, the number of employed individuals consistently declined, as did the total number of hours worked.”- (Conroy and Spreat, 2015)

So we see a trend here where worked hours decrease over time, and nonvocational engagement increased with the studied population. Why could that be? According to Conroy and Spreat, it was due to “segregated forms of vocational activity”. These individuals were not in society working side by side as we saw in the older “train and place” method with Rusch and Hughes, they were doing workshops and prevocational activities separately. Those factors, according to Conroy and Spreat, seemed to have a large effect on the downturn of worked hours.

Again, I see a theme here. The individuals themselves had no innate limitation to working those hours, but the vocational training and workshops appeared to play a role in either the disinterest in maintaining employment, or maybe it was not a good fit for those individuals for that particular skill. That system of separating out workshops and prevocational skills from inclusion with the broader population just did not seem to be effective. So, what is an alternative?

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Lattimore & Parsons (2006)- Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis article titled “Enhancing Job-Site Training of Supported Workers With Autism: Reemphasis on Simulation” was a great find. It had everything I was looking for. I wanted to seek out a (evidence based) reasonable solution that had individuals in the work place (job-site), engaging with the broader population, and had a degree of success. But, they came up with a challenge (and solution to) I had not seen before: Job-Site training alone is sometimes insufficient for quick skill acquisition. Simulation (prevocational training, like what we see used in Conroy and Spreat) added in to the job-site supports seemed to be the key to speeding that acquisition up.

“Job-site training occurred in a small publishing company during the regular work routine, and simulation training occurred in an adult education site for people with severe disabilities. Two pairs of workers received training on two job skills; one skill was trained at the job site and the other was trained using job-site plus simulation training. Results indicated that for 3 of the 4 comparisons, job-site plus simulation training resulted in a higher level of skill or more rapid skill acquisition than did job-site-only training. Results suggested that job-site training, the assumed best practice for teaching vocational skills, is likely to be more effective if supplemented with simulation training”- (Lattimore and Parsons, 2006)

In this study, adults with severe disabilities (the DSM-V IQ score for this population is 25-40) were tested in conditions where on-site community employment training and support were given. Interestingly, both were effective, but skill acquisition was much faster when simulation (off site training) was provided as well. This combination was a fascinating read for me, because it tied some of the factors that the previous two studies saw as challenges.

There is a mountain of research out there, and this just scratched the surface, but this exploration did seem to reinforce my original anecdotal belief that an IQ score alone is an insufficient barrier, and shows an ignorance to the power of effective training and applied behavioral therapy. This is a complex problem, and one I might not have been able to boil down into a single tweet, but one I am happy to see researchers coming up with solutions to every day.

 

Thoughts? Comments? Leave them below.

 

Sources:

Lattimore, L. P., Parsons, M. B., Reid, D. H., & Ahearn, W. (2006). Enhancing Job-Site Training of Supported Workers With Autism: A Reemphasis on Simulation. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 39(1), 91-102.

Rusch, F. R., & Hughes, C. (1989). Overview of supported employment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 22(4), 351-363. doi:10.1901/jaba.1989.22-351

Spreat, S., & Conroy, J. W. (2015). Longitudinal Investigation of Vocational Engagement. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 12(4), 266-271. doi:10.1111/jppi.12136

 

Image Credits: http://www.pexels.com, http://www.pixabay.com

Behavior is like Dinosaurs: Behavioral Selectionism Theory

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / 1 Comment

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Selectionism is a mind-blower when it comes to the conceptual and philosophical framework of behavior analysis, behaviorism, and even psychology as a whole. Like the Lawfulness of Behavior, it was also a concept B. F Skinner wrote about, but there are countless contributions from prior philosophical works that contributed to its conceptualization.

Think of it like this; Behavior is like dinosaurs. Or humans. Or rabbits. Anything alive really. It only keeps “happening” (continuing to exist) if it can adapt in its environment. It is selected either by adaptation or consequences, thus the term Selectionism.

What we are going to be drawing parallels to here is the work of Charles Darwin in evolution. Adaptation. Survival of the fittest. He introduced a concept to the world called “natural selection”, in which species were selected through random traits that served to aid them in survival. This was his theory of evolution. He describes this discovery:

“In October 1838, that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work.” (Darwin, 1887)

But what does that mean for behavior? These same things that apply to evolution, and continuation of species, Skinner believed also apply to how our behaviors are shaped and maintained. Our behaviors are very much like living creatures, and we can even see terminology in behavioral science that hearkens back to it. Take these examples:

Dinosaurs that survived through cataclysm and successfully reproduced are said to have adapted. This is Darwinian terminology, and is called phylogenic adaptation. It involves a species. All the little dinosaur survivors who eventually passed on their genetic traits and “became” birds.

An operant behavior, that undergoes reinforcement, is more likely to happen again under the same antecedent conditions in the future. That is to say, a behavior that “works”, is more likely to happen again. It is a foundation of learning. This is called ontogenic adaptation, and happens within a single lifetime.

Do you see the parallels? Dinosaurs that survived the cataclysm passed on their genes. A behavior that successfully achieves or gets something, happens again in the future in those same conditions, most likely.

Now this isn’t just unidirectional. It can also be stopped. For both theories, the term extinction is used.

Dinosaurs that did not adapt through cataclysm and could not pass on their genes eventually died out. Their species underwent extinction. There were no more of those dinosaurs.

An operant behavior, which does not receive reinforcement, is less likely to continue in the future and eventually becomes extinguished. It undergoes extinction. If it does not work under those antecedent conditions, repeatedly, it “dies out” in very much the same way. That behavior does not occur again in those situations.

The choice of those words were not just coincidental. When B.F Skinner was formulating his theories of human behavior that went beyond simple stimulus-response conditions, he wanted to explain how certain behaviors came about, maintained, and eventually were lost. We see this within a single individual’s lifetime, and it seems like common sense: If it doesn’t work, you just don’t keep doing it. Now this may happen at varying rates of loss, which is why the terminology of behavior focuses on a scale of reduction in probability rather than complete loss immediately, but it follows the same route of “passing on” due to “usefulness”.

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Do you remember those words phylogenic and ontogenic used above? Phylogenic regarding species, ontogenic regarding individual. This terminology can also describe behavior. You could say a phylogenic behavior, is one that all human beings have. It is a species-wide set of behaviors. The “nature” part of nature and nuture. So, blinking, for example is a phylogenic behavior. It is also a reflex, but one humans in general share. It would not take any learning to acquire or shape. Now, an ontogenic behavior, one shaped through reinforcement in a lifetime, say writing a great speech, is something that not all human beings would have from birth. It was learned through successive experiences of language being reinforced, then public speaking being reinforced, then the combining of the two to make a solid speech. Behavior shaped within a lifetime. Behavior can also take on shaping from broader aspects of contingencies in our society, or metacontingencies in culture as well. Culture, rules, laws, other people, can shape our behavior as well through these same processes.

Skinner would describe this in his book “Science and Human Nature”:

“Reflexes, conditioned or otherwise, are mainly concerned with the internal physiology of the organism. We are most often interested, however, in behavior which has some effect upon the surrounding world. Such behavior raises most of the practical problems in human affairs and is also of
particular theoretical interest because of its special characteristics. The consequences of behavior may “feed
back” into the organism. When they do so, they may change the probability that the behavior which produced them will occur again. The English language contains many words, such as “reward” and “punishment,” which refer to this effect, but we can get a clear picture of it only through experimental analysis.” (Skinner, 1953)

Behaviors, are a lot like dinosaurs. The most fit, and adaptive, survive. We often call this process learning. We learn to do things better. Behaviors, skills, what have you, continue and shape themselves because they are reinforced (rewarded), and become more successful, and continue to receive reinforcement under those right conditions. If they don’t, they undergo extinction. Just like dinosaurs.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Give them to me.

Sources:

COOPER, JOHN O.. HERON, TIMOTHY E.. HEWARD, WILLIAM L. (2018). APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS. S.l.: PEARSON.
Darwin, C. (1958). The autobiography of Charles Darwin (N. Barlow, Ed.). New York: Norton. (Original work published 1887)

Skinner, B. F., & Skinner, B. F. (2012). Science And Human Behavior. Riverside: Free Press.

Image Credits:

http://www.pixabay.com Stock Photos

Extra Life Case Study: Massed vs. Spaced Trials in the Acquisition of Skilled Motor (Video Game) Tasks

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / Leave a comment

For this article, we have a special purpose; to bring awareness to a fantastic non-profit organization called Extra Life, whose goal is to raise donations for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, which gives much needed funding to families who need it. (Donation links at the bottom of the page!)

Today, the topic is video games; which is the main focus of Extra Life’s audience. To bring some psychological expertise, and applied behavior analytic focus to this topic, we had two volunteers come up to test their mettle on (arguably) one of the most difficult video games to master and beat: “I Wanna Be The Boshy”. On the surface, a very simple looking game. Move a character with a keyboard or analog stick, along treacherous environments without touching obstacles, enemies, or projectiles. That is, until you realize how impressive the reaction time needs to be in order to progress through the levels; upwards of 2-5 responses per second. Each mistake, has a punishing restart to the beginning of the level or section, relying on the player’s skill to not only learn the pattern of motor responses to complete each section, but enter them reliably with perfect timing and order.

5
I WANNA BE THE BOSHY!

In many cases, this game requires months to beat (rare cases excluded). With this time frame, we were able to watch recordings of our two players (etanPSI & LonestarF1) via a streaming service named Twitch, which provided the video of game-play that could be reliably studied and analyzed for the target behavior skills necessary to master and beat this game.

For this particular study, we chose the target behavior of successive correct responses, and used frequency data as our metric to gauge progress through the levels. For example, one correct response may navigate a particular jump, a second may require maneuvering for a landing, and a third for another jump to a moving obstacle, all within 1.5 seconds, totaling 3 successive correct responses for that particular challenge. On average, during our tracked trials, a particular level or challenge requires a minimum of 43 successive correct responses in one minute of play, order to continue.

3
Analyzing the Players Behavior

If we want to understand the game from a behavior analytic, and psychological point of view, we need to discuss some terms:

Reinforcement: Think of reinforcement as a rewarding stimuli, that has the benefit of increasing the target behavior in the future. A reward which is successful in making a response (game playing, etc) happen more often, is called a reinforcer.

  • In this specific case, success following a trial serves as a conditioned reinforcer for the player, where beating a section, or a boss, is reported as the goal and achievement to be earned.

Responses: This is what the person does. Any behavior that follows a specific target stimulus, is considered a response.

Punishment: These are the opposites of reinforcement. They are consequences that decrease the likelihood of a behavior of occurring in the future.

Frequency (and Rate): Frequency and rate respond to behavior that occurs over a set amount of time. For example, if our general target is 43 correct responses in 1 minute of time, then we would want our rate of successive correct responses to near that amount to give us the greatest chance of success.

Discrete Trials: A discrete trial is often used in a clinical condition where a discriminative stimulus (SD) precedes a response, which is then reinforced when that response is the target behavior. The good thing about video games, is that each level, or screen, can be considered a discrete trial; as correct responses are reinforced with continuing the game, while failures (and punishing stimuli) cause it to be repeated.

Massed Trials: Massed trials refers to the use of discrete trials in close proximity after each other, so that no interrupting behavior occurs between them. In other words, repetition. For our gaming example, this would be restarting immediately after each failure to continue to the original starting point of the previously failed trial.

Spaced Trials: Spaced trials refer to a training condition where each discrete trial is separated by a pause, where various behaviors and stimuli unrelated to the next discrete trial may be engaged with. Think of this like a break condition. The player can take a breather, talk to the fans, take a drink of water. All of these things occur between trials, so that there is a gap between them.

2
The Experiment

Our friendly experiment required our players, etanPSI and LonestarF1 to attempt to engage in 30 trials in both conditions. The first condition would be Massed Trial, which involved 30 complete repeats without any interruption between trials. Successes could continue on to the next section, but repeats would require the trial to begin again without any (controllable) pause or break. The second condition would be Spaced Trials, where our players would be required to take at least a few seconds between trials, to chat, breathe, take a drink of water, or any other free-operant behavior in that gap. We did not limit our players to a specific time limit on these, but on average, they ranged between 10-30 seconds. We would then compare the two to see which appeared to give the players the best improvement benefit.

Our players reported themselves to be motivated to beat the game, and the challenge of proceeding through the game served as conditioned reinforcers. This free-operant preference assessment appeared to have some validity, as these players put themselves through over 60-270 trials per recorded play period, well above our 30 (60 with both conditions) trial requirement for the experiment. The players were free to agree to the conditions of the experiment, or deny them as they felt appropriate. Tracked periods that did not meet the criterion for the experiment were discarded, and the next session which did was counted. We called it “Science Mode”, when the players were agreeing to the experiment terms. Over all, 80% of Massed Trials tracked fit the experimental criterion, and 62% of Spaced Trials tracked fit the criterion. This provided us with a breadth of data to work with in getting a general idea of the factors which may be in play which attribute to their specific learning styles and abilities in completing the game itself. By the end of the tracked periods, both players had successfully completed the game, and beaten the final boss.

During this period, both players went through high rates of failure conditions, where successive conditions of failure within 10 responses were common when they impacted enemy projectiles, environmental hazards, or incorrect landings. This was a common function of the game’s difficulty, which had a degree of punishment effect on responding. In more cases than not, these conditions did not cause either etanPSI or LonestarFI to quit the game completely, but instead lead to a naturally chosen pause between situations to either breathe, react with a verbalization, or take a moment to process. In the conditions where Massed Trials were being tracked, these series of 30 responses were discarded, but when Spaced Trials were being tracked, these series were kept if they held to the same spaced pattern for following responses.

Our target goal for this experiment was to see how they remained within the average number of successive responses (43) per minute, that had been tracked from successful win conditions previously. Our range for their responses were tracked between 20 and 60, on a Standard Celeration Chart. By tracking the average of 30 tracked responses, (some as low as 1, others as high as 77 per minute), we were able to place the average within these intervals on to a chart and compare them to same, or close-proximity day responses from both conditions.

Previous research by Fadler, et al., and others they referenced (Foos, et al (1974), Rea et al, (1987), suggests that Spaced Trial is the superior method of skill acquisition, but it was noticed during etanPSI and LonestarFI‘s play styles that Massed Trials were preferred. Cursory investigations of other players showed the same. Faster restarts appeared to give higher rates of reinforcement, which in turn lead to success within a single day’s time that might not have been possible if play had been delayed or discontinued. It did appear that during this period, higher rates of repetition of these pattern based motor behaviors, did effect the end result of success.

In their article “The acquisition of skilled motor performance: Fast and slow experience-driven changes in primary motor cortex” Karni, et al (1998), suggests that there are different types of learning stages, and that experience driven changes to the brain effect two different types of learners in different ways; “We propose that skilled motor performance is acquired in several stages: “fast” learning, an initial, within-session improvement phase, followed by a period of consolidation of several hours duration, and then “slow” learning, consisting of delayed, incremental gains in performance emerging after continued practice. This time course may reflect basic mechanisms of neuronal plasticity in the adult brain that subserve the acquisition and retention of many different skills.” which they demonstrated in their study as well. We will not go too deeply in to biological factors in this article (since we did no MRI’s on our players), but if you have interest the article is cited below. However, this “fast learning” does appear to coincide with our conceptual Massed Trial format of learning, and the within-session improvement phase may be a factor in what we are seeing in the results of etanPSI and LonestarF1.

7
The Results

The results from our experiment was astounding. We found a clear favor in both the player’s preferred style of trial, and the ability for their skills to improve with it. Both players ranged in similar failure (0-1) and win (~43) successful responses per minute, and both in cases leading to successes against particularly difficult bosses exceeded these by going over 70 successive correct responses per minute!

With etanPSI we were also able to see some situations where both spaced and massed trials, interspersed, had a greater degree of success than when they were split by 30 consecutive trials each. When he was able to engage in repetitive environment/platform based difficulties, Massed Trial was more successful, but when dealing with alternating projectile challenges from game bosses, Spaced Trials were useful to mitigate the punishing effects of failure conditions. Higher volume vocalizations, high intensity percussive maintenance to gaming instruments, and broader vocabulary, appeared to lend a restorative effect to attentiveness and responding rates to the following massed trial conditions.

Capture

A Dpmin-11EC Standard Celeration Chart from our experiment.

In both conditions, we were able to see consistent Acceleration of gained successive correct responses per minute, from Massed Trials, which may have also been in part to the increase in difficulty as the players progressed, requiring higher outputs of responses. Nevertheless, the players did rise to the occasion and appear to hold to improvement in responding and pattern recognition & responding, over the course of 30+ trials per day. Where many had failed and given up, these two players had not only succeeded, but excelled at an incredibly difficult game.

4
The Fun!

Now that you know the story of our fun experiment, here’s where you can donate and thank our amazing players for their time and skill, as well as help the lives of countless children receiving medical services through a hospital on the Children’s Miracle Hospital Network! 100% of all donations go directly to charity, and are tax deductible! Help our player’s team to exceed their goal and change lives!

Donate to our amazing experiment volunteers!

etanPSI’s Extra Life Page

LonestarFI’s Extra Life Page

Like the science? Donate to the behaviorist!

Chris S’s Extra Life Page

References:

  1. Karni, A., Meyer, G., Rey-Hipolito, C., Jezzard, P., Adams, M. M., Turner, R., & Ungerleider, L. G. (1998). The acquisition of skilled motor performance: Fast and slow experience-driven changes in primary motor cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95(3)
  2. Wimmer, G. E., & Poldrack, R. A. (2017). Reinforcement learning over time: spaced versus massed training establishes stronger value associations
  3. The Precision Teaching Learning Center.- http://www.precisiontlc.com/ridiculus-lorem/

Photo Credits: etanPSI & Lonestar F1 http://www.twitch.tv

Illusory Superiority Bias- Is everyone else actually a “sheep” or “asleep”?

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / Leave a comment

hands-people-woman-meeting

As surprising as this may seem, research has shown that people tend to have a high opinion of themselves and their own intelligence when comparing themselves to others. You may have heard phrases like:

  • I’m actually smarter than most people.
  • Everyone else can’t understand this like I do.
  • I know so much more more about this than that group.
  • Everyone is brainwashed but me and a few others.
  • My group is always smarter and better at making decisions than the other one.
  • Those people are asleep! They need to get “woke” like me.

This type of interpretation is called a “bias”, and more specifically, an “Illusory Superiority Bias”, coined in 1991 by Van Yperen and Buunk. You may see these types of biases come in to play when an individual looks out on the broader group, and perceives them as less intelligent or less able to comprehend a specific point or idea that is familiar or important to the individual. This effect even applies between broader groups of people where an “in-group” is comparing themselves favorably to a supposedly ignorant “out-group”.  The problem is- a bias is an interpretation, a cognitive lens for viewing information which distorts it to fit a self-serving narrative. It is self-affirming, and to some people that superiority is very desirable and reinforcing.

The Illusory Superiorty Bias is not a person’s representation of other people, or other groups based on information, but rather a “a self-other asymmetry effect”, a substantial shift in how positive and negative factors are attributed to themselves and others. It is a cognitive filter for information, a prejudice, and distorts the interpretation of information that does not fit the narrative. Why do people exhibit it? We will dive in to some research that can help us explain this outspoken phenomenon. [1][4][5]

 

Two factors; Egocentrism and Focalism

To look at this bias (or biases) for what they are; researchers Windschitl et al. have devised a series of scenarios, level playing fields, in order to gauge the phenomena of people over-estimating their intelligence and ability compared to others. Given a “Shared Circumstance”; Person A and the “Others” having the exact same information or exact difficult situation, how likely would Person A expect themselves to deserve or perform better?

What Windschitl et al, predicted, and showed evidence of, were two different factors that effected these perceptions; Egocentrism, and Focalism. 

They described Egocentrism as “the notion that the self figures more prominently in decision making than do others“, in other words, decision making is decided more on factors being related to the person themselves. If Person A experiences _____, then it has a larger impact on their decisions than if they see Group B experiencing ____. [2][5]

Windschitl et al, described Focalism as “the tendency of people to focus on information relevant to one outcome and fail to adequately consider evidence or consequences relevant to other possible outcomes”. If Person A is dealing with _____ in relation to an objective, they focus much more heavily on those factors than external factors that may be playing a role with others relating to that same objective. [2][5]

Let’s run with some hypothetical examples of these to show just how an Illusory Superiority bias might look under these influences:

Egocentric-Influenced Superiority Bias: “Why am I on hold? My issue is so frustrating. They should answer me first!”

Focalism-Influenced Superiority Bias: “I’m actually the one that is going to get this job over the other 100 people, because my resume has this accomplishment, and I did this too.”

In both scenarios, the phone call for help, and the job interview; those situations were equally relevant to others going through the same thing, but these biases interpreted the situations, and the outcomes of those situations, favoring the individual. The individual’s perspective is what is deeming “importance” to themselves over others, and not a quantifiable factor. It is also important to note that in both of these  situations of biases; looking at the issue or situation from the other people’s perspective was not considered a first option. [2][5]

Let’s apply this to situations where this bias could have an impact on engaging with others on broader or social issues. If an individual viewing the world through the lens of illusory superiority, dialogue depending on seeing another’s view point is already off the table. Cognitively speaking, an egocentric influence would make seeing this issue from the other side as less important, and a focalism influence would only see the point through a non-objective evaluation on the self’s relation to the topic. The danger here would be getting entrenched in a view point where no others would be considered, because they would instantly be of less value to the individual.

 

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Group Dynamics; it’s not just an individual.

It may not just be situations where a person perceives themselves as superior over others; there is also evidence that a hierarchy based on similar view-points and “in-groups” can emerge from this bias. The person may perceive themselves as highly favorable in a positive trait (like intelligence, or ironically empathy), and others that agree with them also are perceived as higher in these positive attributes. The “out-groups” and people who do not agree, however, are seen as lesser in these qualities, regardless of any actual measure. It is a prejudice. This kind of hierarchy looks something like this:

Person A- “I am very very intelligent and important”

In-Group Agreeing with Person A- “We are very intelligent and important”

Out-Group Disagreeing with Person A- “These people are unintelligent and not worth my time.”

Horsney, et al. showed with their piece of research on the topic that superiority bias also plays a role in interpersonal groups and inter-group domains. When this bias was exhibited, people tended to evaluate themselves with higher positive traits than others, but also gave similarly evaluated positive traits to people within their familiar group. This effect tends to explain how the Egocentric bias view stated above can be extended to other people that the person is familiar with or is associated with. [3]

In the author’s words; “that self-concept consists of not only one’s personal self but also the social groups to which one belongs and that people are motivated to view both levels of self in a relatively positive fashion. When evaluating the self relative to others, people demonstrate a wide range of self-serving biases. People consider themselves to be less likely than others to experience negative events in the future. People believe themselves to be less influenced than others by negative media messages but more influenced by pro-social messages . Finally, people attribute positive personality traits more to themselves than to other people in general.  Illusory superiority exists on dimensions as diverse as honesty, attractiveness, persistence, independence, and sincerity, and the bias gets larger as the trait is seen to be more desirable.” [3]

In other words, this bias can take place in groups as well, and the more favorable or desirable that trait is, the more the bias can take place. A person, or people, exhibiting this bias feels that they are not susceptible to misinformation, they are more honest, aware, hard-working, genuine, truthful, than others. Think of a positive trait. They would feel more likely to have it than the others outside of their group. That is what a bias is capable of, and how it can shape someone’s decision making. [3][5]

 

Breaking the Bias

The Illusory Superiority bias is a hindrance to the person or persons exhibiting it. It cuts them off from others, and paints “out-groups” as lesser than themselves. That judgement interferes with both learning and dialogue. The first step to breaking a bias, is of course, knowing it exists. Recognition of those biases taking place in the mind can lead a person to take steps to break them. Identifying those thoughts that perceive others as lesser, and challenging them.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below.

References:

  1. Hoorens, V. (1995) . Self-Favoring Biases, Self-Presentation, and the Self-Other Asymmetry in Social Comparison. Journal of Personality, 63, 793-812.
  2. Windschitl, P. D., Kruger, J., & Simms, E. (2003). The Influence of Egocentrism and Focalism on People’s Optimism in Competitions: When What Affects Us Equally Affects Me More. Journal of Attitudes and Social Cognition.
  3. Hornsey, M. J. (2003). Linking Superiority Bias in the Interpersonal and Intergroup Domains. The Journal of Social Psychology, 143(4), 479-491.
  4. Hoorens, V. , & Buunk, B. P. (1993). Social comparison of health risks: Locus of control, the person-positivity bias, and unrealistic optimism. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 23, 291–302
  5. Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1986). Psychology of intergroup relations. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.

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The Subtle Cues of Flirting Behavior

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / 2 Comments

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Flirting is interesting, complicated, exciting, and has had almost everyone guessing at one point in their lives. It’s used to spark interest in new acquaintances, keep flames going in long-term relationships, and has its own unique language. We have touched on some of the body language of attraction before in Love, Psychologically , but here we will go deeper. Looked at from an evolutionary psychology standpoint, researchers Alberts and Trost in 2006 could not find a universal behavior that contained all of the “signals of attraction”  used by every group of peoples, every where on Earth. No one thing contains how everyone does it, but there are patterns to be seen. There seem to be collections of behaviors that seem to aggregate in certain “styles” of flirting when people are attracted and interested. In 2014 two researchers, Hall and Xing, narrowed these down to 5 specific types of “Flirting Styles”. [1], [2]

Hall and Xing were able to compile a list of behavioral indicators of flirting we can look at below. Each style of flirting takes from these indicators on the list and presents them in very unique ways. Here are the common indicators they they had found:

Behavioral Indicators What they look like
Affirmation (nodding) Nodding yes during partner’s interactions.
Arms open An “open posture”:
Asking questions Asking questions about the partner.
Breast presentation Lifting or expanding the presentation of the chest during interactions.
Complimenting Giving compliments to the partner.
Conversational fluency Smooth conversation which is not choppy, short, or overlapping. (1-5 scale).
Disclosure Presenting information about oneself.
Expressiveness Animated or expressive tone or facial movements.
Falling into the chair Leaning or falling back in to the chair during interactions.
Flirtatious glances Eyebrow flashing, half smiles/lowered eyes, winking, sideways looks/smiles during interactions.
Gazing (direct/away) Looking steadily or intently at the other person (1-5 scale).
Joyful smiling/laughter Animated smiling or laughter in response to partner’s interactions.
Leaning forward/back Leaning forward in proximity to the partner, or away.
Leg crossing Legs either open in posture, or crossed (on thigh, at ankle, or at knee).
Lips- self bite, self licking Bringing the lips into the mouth, biting one of the lips, or licking of the lips.
Moving closer Closing proximity to the partner during interactions.
Palming Revealing the inside of the palm and wrist (instinctive vulnerability).
Pitch Raising or lowering of the voice’s pitch during interactions (1-5 scale)
Playing with objects Playing with objects in hand during interactions with partner (1-5 scale)
Self-depreciating comments Presenting information about oneself in self-depreciating way.
Self-touching Running fingers though their own hair, touching of the cheeks/face/neck, during interactions.
Shoulder shrugging Lifting of the shoulders in a shrug during interactions with their partner.
Teasing tone A tone of voice that is teasing or playful during interactions.

Do any of these seem familiar? Many of these were tracked by “count”; the more the behaviors occurred, the more likely they showed a style of active flirtation. You may have also noticed that a few of these behavioral indicators were tracked on a 1-5 scale by the researchers. These were studied within a range of how much of the behavior was exhibited, versus the opposite (leaning in vs. leaning away, etc). To further the example; leaning in may be a sign of attraction, while leaning away may be a sign of disapproval. Playing with an object in hand may be a sign of nervousness or shyness at lower rates, but a sign of disinterest and distraction at higher rates. Almost all flirting styles used the collection of these behaviors. We are going to focus on the differences between these styles below.[2]

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The Five Styles:

The five styles of flirting that Hall and Xing discovered were: The Physical Flirt style, the Traditional Flirt style, the Sincere Flirt style, the Polite Flirt style, and the Playful Flirt style. They discovered that while these styles are good predictors for what behavioral indicators are used together, these styles are not entrenched in stone. A person may use more than one style depending on context. Playful might work in a public situation, while Sincere might work in private. Context, sex, and even culture, matters. Men tended to rely on different behavioral indicators than their female partners during experiments. People, overall, tend to rely on a single style for the most part, but are able to exhibit more than one style when context demands it. Each participant studied reported high physical attraction to the partner prior to interactions. Here is an overview and summary of what they found out about each style. [2]

 

physical-flirt

The Physical Flirts-

The Physical Flirts use their body language to present their “solicitation signals” and attraction to their partner. They let their body do the talking. They rely on physical closeness and touching to get their points across and are more likely to engage in physical touching and closing proximity during interactions. Both males and females had a higher level of conversational fluency with their partners than other styles, and asked fewer questions to their partners during the interactions. Females  used affirmative nods more often at the start of interactions, used breast presentation higher in the beginning and ends of interactions, and exposed their palms more throughout. Males tended to move closer to their partners, complimented their partners less than other Flirt Styles, and used flirtatious glances less than other styles. [2]

 

traditional-flirt

The Traditional Flirts-

The Traditional Flirts tend to follow cultural gender roles for romantic interactions to a high degree. They rely more on male lead presentations of attractions, and female receptiveness to those interactions. These flirts tend to follow a “cultural script” and both have expectations of how the “solicitation signals” and signs of attraction are supposed to take place. Both males and females engaged high rates of affirmation nodding during the start of interactions, and are more likely to expose their palms and hands during the end of the interaction. Females were more likely to expose their palms and hands throughout the entire interaction, and more likely to tease in the beginning of the interaction. Males leaned forward more often for the full duration of their interactions, and raised their voice pitch higher during the first half of their interactions. Males also engaged in higher rates of crossing their legs during the interaction. [2]

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The Sincere Flirts-

The Sincere Flirts are looking to build an emotional connection first and foremost. Unlike “Physical Flirts”, sexual chemistry through touch is not their first objective. Both males and females were less likely to tease during interactions (especially during the end), and self-touch (hair flip, touching their own face). Their hands were nearer to their partner but were not touching. They also engaged in higher rates of flirtatious gazing than other styles. Females were more likely to exhibit flirtatious gazing across the entire interaction, and exposed their palms and wrists through the entire interaction. Males used a higher pitched voice throughout their interaction and crossed their arms and legs more often. Males also leaned in towards their partners during the end of their interactions. [2]

polite-flirt

The Polite Flirts-

Polite Flirts adhere to strict social and cultural rules during interactions, but unlike Traditional Flirts, these are not strictly sex/gender based. Modesty and manners are held in high regard during exchanges. They appear to be slower to interact during the beginning of interactions, but showed strong conversational fluency throughout. Both males and females engage in less self-touching for the entire interaction, and use lower pitched voices. They also ask fewer questions of their partner in the first half of their interactions. Males used affirmative nodding during the middle of interactions more, and also moved closer during the middle of interactions. They also tended to fall into their chairs, and play with items (briefly) during interactions. Females followed similar patterns, and tended to tease less during the end of interactions. [2]

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The Playful Flirts-

Playful Flirts tend to not seek out interactions for the sake of relationships, but report their interactions are more for self-interest (self esteem boosts, etc), and the fun of it. Both males and females tend to protrude or present their chests during the initial parts of interacting, self-touch less, and both tease and compliment higher during the start of interacting. Females tend to ask fewer questions, but use more flirtatious gazing during the first half of their interactions. Females also shrugged more throughout. Males tended to use an open leg posture (opposite of crossing legs) during interactions. [2]

 

Examining the Flirting Styles and Behavioral Profiles.

What do you think? Do you fall into one of these categories? Have you used any of these behavioral indicators yourself? Hall and Xing (2014) had some more to say on the profiles of the types of people who used each style.

They observed that the people who used the Physical Flirt style were more willing to flirt, had greater abilities in getting their flirting noticed, and showed higher confidence while flirting. They did note some areas that were “conceptually inconsistent” with this behavioral profile. Mainly, why did they compliment and flirtatiously gaze less? It’s a question for further research. [2]

They observed that the people who used the Traditional Flirt style were heavily influenced by a “sexual script”. Men were to be the aggressors, and women should be more passive during the interactions. Opening palms and wrists by females appeared to show greater interest during the interactions and signaled an invitation for courtship that could not be expressed verbally without breaking the social contract that both partners adhered to. [2]

The Sincere Flirt style users tended to focus on genuine interests, high self-discloser on both sides, and judged their interaction based on focused attention from their partners. This was a strong feature of their interactions. They appeared to use one behavioral indicator throughout interactions and stick to it as a sign of interest in their partner. [2]

The Polite Flirt style users were more rule-governed in how they conducted their interactions. Time played a role in how they engaged. They were slow during the start of interactions, used behavioral indicators more during the middle, and less as the interaction was closing. Affirmative nodding was a common behavior for both males and females. Both appear “distant” or “reserved” during their interactions, but they reported high attraction to each other afterwards on disclosure forms. [2]

The Playful Flirt style users often used both direct and indirect behavioral indicators throughout. Both males and females frequently presented their chests and used subtle coy gazes throughout, and contrasted each other during interactions when two Playful Flirts would engage. It was speculated by Hall and Xing that a Playful flirt would start coy to attract another Playful flirt before the more overt behavior indicators were exhibited. [2]

Do these profiles remind you of anything you might have experienced before? Leave questions and comments below!

 

References:

  1. Trost, M. R., & Alberts, J. K. (2006). How men and women communicate attraction: An evolutionary view. In K. Dindia & D. J. Canary (Eds.), Sex differences and similarities in communication (2nd ed., pp. 317–336). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  2. Hall, J. A., & Xing, C. (2014). The Verbal and Nonverbal Correlates of the Five Flirting Styles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 39(1)

 

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