Module Overview

Welcome to Module 11. Before writing a plan proposal, we need to tackle the issue of rule-governed behavior and the behavioral contract. We will also address how to handle mistakes that could be made.

 

Module Outline

• 11.1. Rule-Governed Behavior
• 11.2. Mistakes – Did I Do That?
• 11.3. If-Then Statements…Again
• 11.4. The Behavioral Contract

 

Module Learning Outcomes

• Clarify the importance of explicitly stating rules in your behavior modification plan.
• Clarify how mistakes can cause problems for the best designed behavior modification plan.
• Demonstrate the use of if-then statements as types of rules.
• Explain the use of the behavioral contract in behavior modification.

 

---

11.1. Rule-Governed Behavior

 

Section Learning Objectives

• Explain the function of rules in behavior modification plans.
• Exemplify rules that can be developed.

 

Though we have already established goals much earlier in this course, we now need to know how we will go about achieving these goals. Rules will aid with this by adding order, predictability, and reliability to our plan. Really, this is not new. We are already used to having rules govern all aspects of our life. Young children are given rules as to when they can play video games, need to go to bed, what chores to do to earn allowance, when to go to school, what homework to complete, when they can eat lunch or leave for the day, etc. Adults are governed by rules too. We are told when we can pass through the traffic light, how fast we can drive, when our credit card bill is due and how much, who we pay rent to, what we can take on a plane with us, what time we need to be at work, what time the store opens up, etc. Failure to follow rules often leads to a punisher of some type…for both children and adults. Though you may not be punished in the same way in your behavior modification plan, you likely will face consequences for not following your clearly established rules. This may take the form of not receiving tokens to cash in, being reminded of your goal by your significant other via a prompt, feeling guilt over eating that dessert or not making it to the gym, being thirsty because you forgot your water bottle, etc.

How these rules might look in a behavior modification plan:

• • Target Behavior – Drink more water (behavioral deficit currently)
  • Behavioral Definition – Drink 8 oz. of water (1 behavior)
  • Goals:
    • Drink 8 oz. of water each day (7 behaviors)
    • Drink 16 oz. of water each day (14 behaviors)
    • Drink 32 oz. of water each day (28 behaviors)
    • Drink 48 oz. of water each day (42 behaviors)
    • Final Goal – Drink 64 oz. of water each day (56 behaviors)
  • Criterion: Drink the specified amount of water for two weeks, upon which time move to the next goal.
  • Possible Strategies:
    • Present Cue for Desired Behavior (DB) – Have a water bottle by your bed when you wake up in the morning.
    • Reducing Effort for making DB – Carry your water bottle with you to school
    • Establishing Operation for DB – Having a water bottle filled with cold water with you when you go to the gym
    • Verbal Prompt – Your best friend reminds you to drink water
    • Self-Instructions – Write yourself motivational statements about the benefits of drinking water, such as having a nice skin complexion. Look at your pros of changing the behavior, both short and long term, from Planning Sheet 2.
    • DRO – Provide reinforcement when you do not drink tea or soda.
    • Overcorrection – Positive practice – if you do drink tea or soda, make sure you drink more water the next day.
    • Self-praise – Congratulate yourself on a job well done.
    • Token Economy or General PRs – If you do a great job with your water consumption for the day, give yourself tokens to be traded in later or award yourself extra Netflix time as a standalone reinforcer.
    • Social Support – Your friend is helping you and possibly delivering the reinforcers and punishers upon review of your ABC charts and journal.
  • Temptations:
    • You love soda when you are at a restaurant.
    • You also like to drink tea and usually would make it at home and take it with you to school.
    • Your boyfriend or girlfriend also loves tea and soda and so you need to be aware of this temptation.
  • General Rules:
    • I will drink 8 oz. of water from one of my pre-bought water bottles or a Contigo cup. (This way I know I am drinking the correct amount.)
    • I will carry a water bottle to school with me each day I have class.
    • I will take a drink at the end of each class as I leave (at the minimum; I can drink during class too if I wish).
    • I will have my water for the day drank by dinner time so it can run through my system during the day and evening and I am not waking up during the night to use the bathroom.
    • I will award myself 10 tokens for each 8 oz. of water I drink (and other rules associated with the token economy).
    • I will give myself an additional 2 tokens each time I go for a day at school without drinking water and soda (DRO linked to the token economy).
    • If I do drink soda or tea outside of times that I am allowed to (i.e. cashing in tokens) then I will drink an extra 8 oz. the next day to correct for this (linked to positive practice).

Etc. As you can see, your fully developed plan includes these rules as a final step. Though they may already be stated in other places, such as with the token economy, be sure that you list all rules in one place…and together. You should have a clear list made up and not need to search through all aspects of your plan to find them.

Again, it is important that the rules you write not be vague. They should clearly state what you are expected to do. At the same time, do not make them impossible to achieve. If we are trying to drink more water, we might state that we can never drink soda again. This is an extreme and a soda on occasion is okay. It’s like the cliché, ‘All things in moderation.’ 

 

Note on Writing Formal Plan Rules:

When you write your rules, it is a good idea to have a section heading for each major class of rules to add organization such as:

• Behavioral Definition and Goals Rules
• Method of Recording Rules
• Strategies Rules – you will have numerous rules in this section, and several alone for the token economy.
• Temptations and Mistakes Rules
• General Rules – as a separate section or integrated above depending on the plan

Feel free to use other categories if you want, but the rules will be written in bulleted format under each section. If developed for another person (i.e. a child or client) be sure to go over the rules with this person to ensure they understand and consider any input they offer.

 

---

11.2. Mistakes – Did I Do That?

 

Section Learning Objectives

• Identify types of mistakes you might make.
• Propose steps you can take to prevent mistakes.

 

Mistakes happen. That’s part of life. The key is not to beat yourself up when you do and to spend a little time now trying to anticipate mistakes you might make. So, what are some?

• Improperly Using a Strategy – Hopefully you have been given enough information in this textbook and through your instructor that you properly use the 30ish strategies that have been offered to change your behavior. If not, you will have to fix the issue if you are not too far into your plan. Don’t attribute your plan’s lack of success, if that is occurring, to poorly selected strategies if you are not using at least one correctly. Note the issue and then work to rectify it. But know that if you are using a strategy correctly, and it just is not helping you out, that is not a mistake. It is simply a strategy that you don’t need. Some students find that the token economy is not very helpful or motivational. This is not a mistake. There are cases, though, when students do not set it up correctly and so this is a mistake. You might also employ the differential reinforcement procedures incorrectly and if you do, fix them once you realize. You might choose to present a cue for the desirable behavior such as laying your clothes out next to your bed. This is a great strategy, but what if you wake up at o’dark thirty in the morning when your room is pitch black and you don’t have light until you make it to the bathroom (good luck and watch your toes…and furniture). In this case, the idea of seeing your clothes and being reminded to go the gym is good, but where you place your clothes is the problem. Instead of next to your bed place them in the bathroom. The strategy was not mistaken, just the placement of the workout clothes. So be careful how you interpret issues with your strategies.
• Method of Recording – You might choose to use your phone to record desirable behaviors as you make them, such as recording each time you drink 8oz. of water. This is great, but if you don’t remember to actually open the app to do so, the recording method is flawed. Maybe you prefer to make hash marks in your school notebook instead. This low-tech method may work better for you. You will ultimately want to record on ABC charts but carrying them around may be cumbersome and bothersome. Hence, having an intermediary recording step is fine, as long as you use it.
• Remembering to Record – What if you have the perfect recording tool but cannot remember to record. You leave your ABC chart by your bed and remember to use it before going to sleep, but you need to remember exactly how many cups of water you drank. Having a log during the day helps and keeps you both honest and accurate. But if you do not use it, then you are operating off memory which can be flawed. If you cannot remember to record, program reminders on your phone as a type of cue. You might even ask a friend or roommate to help you remember to record what you drank for the day. This verbal or gestural prompt goes well with social support.
• Be Mindful of Antecedents and Consequences – Once you do record, be as thorough as you can, recording the antecedent and consequences of making the desired or undesired behavior. Most of the time we want to record what we drank, did, thought, etc. but adding detail beyond the behavior is critical in case your plan is not working. There could be another factor we were not aware would cause us a problem when designing our plan. Thorough recounting of the events before and after the behavior can help.

No matter what you do, if you make a mistake, DO NOT punish yourself for the error. In my experience teaching this subject, many students use contingent exercise or an overcorrection procedure as a solution to the problem. These are not solutions and to really understand the mistake, we need to know why we made it in the first place. Once we know this, we can make changes, so it is not a factor, or as much of a factor, in the future. And by fixing the issue we are also earning reinforcers, thereby making the desired behavior more likely.

Before moving on, I think it is important to point out that though we might give in to a temptation and this is technically a mistake on our part, mistakes and temptations are not intended to be synonyms for one another. How are they different then?

• Mistakes – Are literally errors we might make such as forgetting to record our behavior for the day, using a strategy incorrectly, choosing the wrong recording method, or setting up our token economy wrong. They can lead to our data being skewed and could cause us to redo our entire plan if not caught early enough or if serious enough.
• Temptations – Anything that might cause us to engage in the problem or undesirable behavior. They will not necessarily derail our plan entirely and with some careful thinking, we can devise a plan to deal with them. They might be people, places, things, or situations that are may temporarily take our eye off the prize but they are short-lived. Though not ideal, they are not mistakes in the sense discussed above.
• Both mistakes and temptations can be planned for. If we anticipate that we might forget to record our data, we can program reminders on our phone as a cue or have a friend remind us via prompting. If we anticipate having problems in certain situations, places, or when with certain people, we can take steps now to avoid or minimize the effects of temptation. But both can arise without warning too. We might later realize that though our token economy was set up correctly we chose the wrong reinforcers. Or we might meet a new friend or significant other during the plan or encounter an extreme stressor such as the loss of a loved one, that completely derails the most perfectly laid out plan.

 It is important that we realize what the cause of our failure is, should this occur. Most people committed to a behavior modification plan attribute failure to something wrong with themselves – either not being committed enough, faulty personality traits, low self-control, etc. They overlook the fact that the reason for their plan’s failure might not be located in themselves, but in their environment. Hence, they should be making a situational attribution when they are making a dispositional one. This could lead them to completely abandon the plan for good, when all they had to do was remove these situational or external temptations.

Keep this in mind as if your plan does encounter a roadblock, you will be asked to look for these situational factors.

 

---

11.3. If-Then Statements…Again

 

Section Learning Objectives

• Review the use of If-then Statements for temptations and mistakes.
• Describe how to develop if-then statements to use in your plan as a type of rule.

 

As already noted, we are engaging in rule-governed behavior. When we discussed temptations in Module 5, we also noted the use of if-then statements. Those apply here as well; they are also rules. Unlike rules that specify when we work out, what we drink water in, or foods we can eat, these specify what we will do when faced with certain temptations, or even if we make a mistake. So, as you write your rules list, be sure you keep these in mind too.

We already had some if-then statements in our list in Section 11.1, though they were not written as so. Consider: ‘I will award myself 10 tokens for each 8 oz. of water I drink.’ You can rephrase this as, ‘If I drink 8 oz. of water, then I will award myself 10 tokens.’ Other aspects of your token economy, DRO procedure, self-praise, etc. will work the same. These rules as if-then statements tell you what you receive if you engage in the correct behavior.

In terms of temptations and mistakes, you might use if-then statements as follows:

• Temptation – If I am at a restaurant and offered a soda, then I will remind myself of my goal via a self-instruction.
• Temptation – If I am going out with friends later that night, then I will drink a protein drink so that I am not hungry.
• Temptation – If I wake up and play games on my phone and do not make it to the gym, then I will leave my phone in my school bag in the future.
• Mistake – If I forget to drink water, then I will ask my roommate to remind me.
• Mistake – If I forget to record how many water bottles I drank during the day, then I will program reminders on my phone.
• Mistake – If I use the DRO procedure incorrectly, then I will figure out what I did wrong and implement it correctly going forward.

You can use these if-then statements as some of your rules and in conjunction with others such as ‘I will drink 8 oz. of water from one of my pre-bought water bottles or a Contigo cup.’ This rule cannot be written as an if-then statement but is a rule all the same. All rules described in Section 11.1 and 11.3 add predictability, order, and reliability. There is no guesswork which will hopefully make your plan’s success more likely.

 

---

 

11.4. The Behavioral Contract

 

Section Learning Objectives

• Describe the behavioral contract and its contents.
• Exemplify what a behavioral contract looks like.

 

And now to the last formal topic before we can write our plan proposal – the behavioral contract. This is a written agreement between two people in which at least one of the two have agreed to engage in a specific level of the target behavior. A behavioral contract should at least include the following:

• Statement of the target behavior
• The behavioral definition
• Your goals and timetable for these goals if you have one
• What recording method will be used
• Strategies that will be used
• Anyone who is part of the plan as social support
• The rules related to when the behavior will be made and how it will be reinforced or a problem behavior punished. You might include rules related to how temptations and mistakes will be dealt with, though this can just be left in your plan itself. The rules can be scattered throughout the contract. You will have them grouped together in your plan.
• You also clearly state who will deliver the reinforcers and punishers, or who will serve as the contract manager. This person should not gain directly from your failure, such that if you do not meet your goals they are to receive some coveted baseball card in your possession.

Behavioral contracts may involve just one person changing a behavior, called a one-party contract, or two parties. In the case of the latter, there could be an issue between roommates in which Roommate 1 wants Roommate 2 to clean up after themselves while Roommate 2 wants 1 to pay their part of the rent on time so as not incur late fees.

Whether you are dealing with a one-party or two-party contract, it is a form of public commitment and should increase the desired behavior. The consequences for making (or not making) the target behavior are clearly established meaning this is also a form of rule-governed behavior. Interestingly, since the expectations of all involved parties are clearly stated, not meeting the agreed upon terms should create a state of anxiety which is aversive and leads to engaging in the target behavior to escape the anxiety. In the future, the desired behavior will occur to avoid this anxiety. Again, the important word is should. Some people don’t feel the anxiety for one reason or another.

Behavioral contracts can take different forms, and Figure 11.1 shows an example of one that I used with my nutritionist a few years back. Notice that the rules governing my behavior, the dispensing of reinforcers and punishers, the role of my contract manager, etc. are listed throughout. Also, my goal is restated as well as my behavioral definition and timetable. Some of my strategies are described briefly as well as my recording method. Again, there are different ways to do this and this is one example.

Key features:

• My wife was my contract manager, but it was developed with my nutritionist too.
• End goal and timeframe – “The end goal is to see my weight fall from 270 lbs. to 220 lbs. and I want this to occur by December 31, 2014.”
• Subgoals – “I will lose weight at a rate of about 10 lbs. every two months. As such, to drop 50 lbs every two months will require approximately 10 months as written in my plan. Making the goal only 10 lbs. allows for some mistakes to be made.”
• Recording Method – “I will initially record the behavior on the Fitbit app on my phone. I can back this information up in my Excel spreadsheet each night.”
• Token Economy – “If I complete the pre-defined behaviors, then I will receive tokens.”
• Rule for Tokens – “I will be able to use my tokens (stars on a dry erase board) in exchange for the reinforcers listed in Table 2. I must have the required number of tokens in order to “purchase” a reward.” This is vague in the behavioral contract as the token economy was fairly complex and to list all behaviors and reinforcers would have been far beyond the scope of the contract. References were made to see the appropriate tables.
• Temptation Statement – “In the event I succumb to temptation, I will have a response cost to punish the undesirable behavior.” This is an if-then statement though not written as such.

This plan involved four different behaviors I was trying to change and weight loss was one of them, involving the nutritionist and my wife. The other three behaviors – drinking water, reducing calories, and getting 8 hours sleep – were detailed in the plan itself. I only had the one contract for this one aspect of my plan. Since your plan will only include one behavior, your contract should cover the plan in full. There is no need to include a tremendous amount of detail as interested parties can look at your proposal, and later your final paper, if questions arise.

 

 

---

Module Recap

Module 11 completed our discussion of all relevant content to be able to develop, propose, and then implement a plan. We discussed the need to have clearly stated rules, identify mistakes that could be made so they can be planned for, and the function of a behavioral contract.

So, what’s next? We will discuss how to implement your plan in Module 12 and then in Module 13 we will discuss how to evaluate and adjust your plan. Assuming all has gone well, we will move into maintenance phase and discuss how to avoid relapse in Module 14.

If you have any questions, be sure to ask your Instructor now.

 

---

4th edition