PSYC 3610H Chapter Notes - Chapter 23: Binge Eating, Reinforcement

• School: Trent University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3610H
• Professor: Shawn Carter

Document Summary

Functions of behavior: the reason a behavior occurs, 4 main functions of beh: attention, escape/avoidance, tangible, automatic/sensory. Functional behavior assessment: a variety of approaches that attempt to identify the antecedents and consequences for problem behaviors, functional analysis, observational. Implication: treatment should be based on the function of the beh. not its form. Guidelines for conducting a functional assessment: define the prob beh in behavioral terms, identify antecedent events that reliably precede the prob beh, identify consequences that immediately follow the prob. Causes of problem behaviors: causes can be divided into 2 categories: operant & Respondent/elicited: operant, maintained by social positive reinforcement, beh. are dev/maintained by the social attention they evoke. Indicators: whether attention reliably follows the beh. , whether the person looks at the caregiver just before the beh. , and whether the individual smiles just before the beh: treatment: involving social reinforcement, maintained by internal self-stimulatory positive reinforcement.