Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist who developed the theory of biological evolution. Biological evolution states that species develop and change over time through a series small variances that increase the species likelihood of survival and reproduction. These small variances are passed down from one generation to the next with the variances that give the most competitive advantage expressing […]
B. F. Skinner said that there are 3 ways that the environment can apply itself upon a living being: Phylogenic, Ontogenic and Cultural. Phylogenic: Natural evolution of a species (aka Darwinism). By a natural process of survival characteristics, each generation is passed characteristics by its predecessors. Phylogenics is a discipline in biology that is the study of the evolutionary history […]
The application of behavioral techniques requires that the practitioner subscribe to a deterministic philosophy that behavior in and of itself is lawful. The lawful nature of behavior means that all behavior is caused by environmental, external events and is entirely predictable. This means that behavior in the world has a cause and is not by accident. Behavior is not random […]
Some behavioral explanations include biophysical, biochemical, developmental, and cognitive.
Antecedent: Something that occurs in the environment right before the behavior of study. Behavior: Any observable and recordable action by a subject. Consequence: The result of the behavior. Positive: When an environmental condition is added to a situation. Negative: When an environmental condition is removed from a situation. Reinforcement: When a behavior has increased due to the positive or negative […]
Extinction: When an observed behavior goes away entirely because of the reinforcement procedure that has been applied to the situation. An extinction burst, occurs when the reinforcement that caused a behavior has been removed, initially there will be an increase in the observed behavior. This is an attempt of the subject to try to obtain the motivational operant by causing […]
Ivan Pavlov’s work is also important to the field of ABA. He worked in the late 1800s to early 1900s in the field of classical conditioning (FK-13-14). Classical conditioning is the process of pairing an unconditioned response with a conditioned response. In the case of Pavlov, he paired the unconditioned response of a bell sound with the conditioned response of […]
The experimental branch of behavior analysis began in 1938 with the publication of B. F. Skinner’s book, The Behavior of Organisms. Skinner used operant conditioning, which uses the consequences of behavior to shape future behavior. Operant behaviors are not elicited by preceding stimuli but instead are influenced by stimulus changes that have followed the behavior in the past. In his […]
