Behavior Modification

Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence, Apr 06, 2001

Behavior modification is based on the principles of operant conditioning, which were developed by American behaviorist B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). In his research, he put a rat in a cage later known as the Skinner Box, in which the rat could receive a food pellet by pressing on a bar. The food reward acted as a reinforcement by strengthening the rat's bar-pressing behavior. Skinner studied how the rat's behavior changed in response to differing patterns of reinforcement. By studying the way the rats "operated on" their environment, Skinner formulated the concept of operant conditioning,through which behavior could be shaped by reinforcement or lack of it. Skinner considered his discovery applicable to a wide range of both human and animal behaviors and introduced operant conditioning to the general public in his 1938 book The Behavior of Organisms .

This famous urban legend was perpetuated by photo that appeared in Life magazine of behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner's two-year old daughter standing up in a glass-fronted box. The box was, in fact, a climate-controlled, baby-sized room that Skinner built, called the "aircrib." The aircrib was made of sound-absorbing wood, had a humidifier, an air filter, and was temperature-control led by a thermostat. Dissatisfied with traditional cribs, Skinner built the box to keep his new daughter warm, safe, and quiet without having to wrap her in clothes and blankets. Skinner was quoted in New Yorker magazine as saying his daughter "...spent most of the next two years and several months there, naked and happy." Deborah was so happy in the box, Skinner reported, that she rarely cried or got sick and showed no signs of agoraphobia when removed from the aircrib or claustrophobia when placed inside. The box-like structure and people's misunderstandings about behavioral psychology contributed to the misconception that Skinner was experimenting on his daughter and also probably prevented the crib from becoming a commercial success. People got the impression that Skinner was raising his child in a box similar to the kind he used to study animal behavior-with levers for releasing food.

Today, behavior modification is used to treat a variety of problems in both adults and children. Childhood disorders for which behavior modification has been successfully used include obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), phobias , enuresis (bedwetting), and separation anxiety disorder (SAD). One behavior modification technique widely used with children is positive reinforcement, which encourages certain behaviors through a system of rewards. Rewards can include items the child wants, such as toys or comic books, or privileges, such as half hours allotted to play video games or watch television. They can be earned in small increments through a system of tokens, such as stickers or stars, that can eventually be exchanged for a specific reward. For example, a child in treatment for social phobia may earn a star for each day he or she greets a certain number of people, or a child with separation anxiety may earn a sticker for not crying when left with a babysitter. In behavior therapy, it is common for the therapist to draw up a contract with the child setting out the terms of the reward system. This positive reinforcement technique has been used to treat a wide variety of disorders in children, ranging from minor adjustment or developmental problems to autism.

In addition to rewarding desirable behavior, behavior modification can also discourage unwanted behavior, through either negative reinforcement, or punishment, such as removal of television privileges, or the removal of reinforcement altogether, called extinction. Extinction eliminates the incentive for unwanted behavior by withholding the expected response. A widespread parenting technique based on extinction is the time out, in which a child is separated from the group when he or she misbehaves. This technique removes the expected reward of parental attention.

According to a November/December 1995 Psychology Today article, about 300 children were raised in cribs similar to the kind Skinner designed. The writers of the article tracked down about 50 of the people and reported positive results. The parents who used these aircribs liked its safety and convenience, and the children raised in them all exhibited normal health. Skinner's daughter Deborah, far from being mentally unstable (reportedly one of the rumors), married a professor and is a successful artist in England.

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