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Week 9

The Challenge of New Behaviors

A Look at the Behaviorist Perspective

2Announcements

Thank you Anna and Kathleen!

Quick questions after class

Make a time to meet your TF or anyone on the team for particular puzzles

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Review and Preview

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Part 1. The challenge of new knowledge and ideas

The Pandora questions / Theory One and other fundamentals of learning / Understanding / Transfer / Learning with others

Part 2. The challenge of better thinkers and learners

The critical mind, academic and critical literacy, story of knowledge / The dispositional mind, visible thinking / The proactive mind, self-theories

Part 3. The challenge of new behaviors

Behaviorism / Beliefs and mental models / Will and intentions

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Preview

A look at the behaviorist

perspective, the first session on “the

challenge of new behaviors”

1. The challenge of behavioral change

2. Behaviorism basics

3. A case: The Horse Whisperer

4. Behaviorism regained: is it the “dark side of the force?”

5. Horsing around with your project

6. Rapid review and looking ahead

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Learning Goals

Understand some of the challenges of behavioral change in contrast with conceptual change

Understand how to apply behaviorism with imagination as a practical and humane tool of behavioral change

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The challenge of behavioral change

Goal: Appreciate the importance and difficulties of behavioral change through the Pandora Questions

8Why worry about behavioral change?

When behavior is the/a bottom line Moral development

Teaching practices

Family relations

Organizational change

Etc.

The problem of the idea-action gap Good talk vs. good walk

Espoused theories vs. theories in practice

9Behavioral versus Conceptual LearningA Pandora Comparison

1. What’s worth learning?

2. What makes it hard to learn?

3. How is it best learned?

4. How well is the learning going?

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Behaviorism

Basics

Goal: Good initial sense of behaviorism from review and handout and application to follow

11Why bother with behaviorism?

Behaviorism has a bad name.

Yes, limited explanatory power for complex cognition

But a powerful conceptual tool for understanding and effecting behavioral change

12The short short story of behaviorism

Behavior is shaped by reinforcement

through events closely associated with the behavior

during or right after

that shift the probability of response in future situations.

Reinforcers

Primaryvs.

Conditioned

Positivevs.

Negative

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Learn to unpack your imagination around behaviorism. It’s not mechanical. It requires creativity to use effectively.

Learn to apply behaviorism responsibly from a humane stance, rather than manipulatively.

Behaviorism

And

Teaching

14When you’re up to BAT…

Emphasize positive reinforcement

Rely on intrinsic rather than extrinsic reinforcers when can

Use conditioned reinforcers

Use shaping

Use desensitization

Maintain established behaviors with occasional reinforcement

Eliminate undesirable behaviors while avoiding strong negative reinforcement

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A case

The Horse Whisperer

Goal: Understand behaviorism in action by analyzing a case

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What principles are at work in the ‘horse whisperer?’

Emphasize positive reinforcement

Rely on intrinsic rather than extrinsic reinforcers when can

Use conditioned reinforcers

Use shaping

Use desensitization

Maintain established behaviors with occasional reinforcement

Eliminate undesirable behaviors while avoiding strong negative reinforcement

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Behaviorism regained

Is it “the dark side of the force?”

Goal: Understand more about the debate behind behaviorism and the readings through a few comments and reflection

19Behaviorism lost

Discredited by cognitive psychology

Thought to be mindless

Thought to be manipulative

Thought to be mechanical

And so it can be. BUT...

20Behaviorism regained

Re cognitive psychology: depends on what you’re trying to explain and do. Still one of the best ways to change behavior. Widely used in animal training and in dealing with retarded learners. And widely and unfortunately neglected when it matters.

Mindless: well, that depends on whether hard core or soft core behaviorism. Karen Pryor: “Do animals think...of course they do, form time to time, as do people.” Reinforcement is a form of communication.

Manipulative: well, that depends on whether it's coercive or unrecognized. One minute manager urges that people should be in on the game. Karen Pryor urges partnership.

Mechanical: No, requires imagination. As Karen Pryor says.

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From horsing around with behaviorism to…

Horsing around with your project

Goal: Understand behaviorism in action better by making connections with your design project through Quick Design

22How does your project shape up, and how could it shape up better?

Emphasize positive reinforcement

Rely on intrinsic rather than extrinsic reinforcers when can

Use conditioned reinforcers

Use shaping

Use desensitization

Maintain established behaviors with occasional reinforcement

Eliminate undesirable behaviors while avoiding strong negative reinforcement

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Rapid Review and Looking Ahead

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Learning Goals

Understand some of the challenges of behavioral change in contrast with conceptual change

Understand how to apply behaviorism with imagination as a practical and humane tool of behavioral change

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Beyond

these walls

Look for how reinforcement controls your behavior in all sorts of subtle as well as blatant ways

Look for how you control your own behavior by administering reinforcements – and how you might do so more.