The document describes a fictional scenario where Brittani conducts a punishment-based behavior analysis on her boyfriend Adam for the problem behavior of curling his toes. She establishes a baseline finding he curls his toes 16 times per hour. Her initial punishment contingency of making Adam feel guilty when he doesn't come over backfires as he avoids her. She then implements a second intervention making him feel guilty for staying home. After 5 weeks of intervention, the frequency of toe curling decreased significantly. The document raises ethical concerns about using punishment and manipulating someone's behavior against their will.

1. Brittani Rohrig
Featuring: Adam (My Test Subject)

2. Poor Adam
Problem Behavior What’s the Problem?
Adam curls his toes very often,
and puts a lot of pressure on his toes
while he does it.
THIS CAN’T BE HEALTHY!!
It’s time for behavior analysis

3. Reinforcement Contingency
Adam says he’s been doing this awful
behavior since he can remember, so I
have come to believe that is it s form of Reinforcement Contingency
self stimulation.
Before: Behavior: After:
No feeling Adam curls Feeling of
of toes his toes toes curled
curled

4. My Options
Reinforcement or Punishment
I chose to use a punishment contingency
because:
• They have a high success rate
• They are rather fast acting Definitions
• And social validity isn’t applicable. Punishment contingency: Response
because he’s my boyfriend contingent presentation of an aversive
condition resulting in a decreased
frequency of that response
Social Validity: The goals, procedure, and
results of an intervention are socially
acceptable to the client, the behavior
analyst, and society

5. What’s the Punishment?
• Disapproving look?
• Not talk to him for 5 minutes immediately after (penalty)?
• Force him to watch a scene from Twilight?
• Stab his foot with a pencil?
Get out your response cards!
JK
Of course I chose to stab him!
What fun!

6. Baseline
It was rather difficult
gathering sufficient data because I
wasn’t always with him to do so,
and asking him to collect the data
himself would be like asking
someone to count how many times
they blinked.
The data I was able to collect while
he was around showed him curling his toes
an average of 16 times per hour!
Baseline: The phase of an experiment or intervention
where the behavior is measured in the absence of the
intervention

7. Punishment Contingency

8. Pairing Procedure
So as it turns out,
Adam caught on, and the
amount of time he chose to
spend with me decreased
dramatically.
This is probably because he
realized the discriminative
stimulus was my presence, so he
became an advocate for my
absence

9. Punishment-Based Discrimination

10. SD vs. S-delta
Discriminative stimulus (SD):
A stimulus in the presence of which a particular reinforcer is reinforced
or punished. My presence.
S-delta:
A stimulus in the presence of which a particular response is not
reinforced or punished. No presence.

11. Well That just wont do…
Now I had to conduct an intervention to make sure he continues
coming over at a regular rate so that I can continue my experiment. I would
make him feel horrible every time he had the chance to come over, but
didn’t.
Yes. I am evil.

12. However…
Because of his efforts to escape the aversive
condition, the frequency of him coming over did
increase back to where it was before the
intervention.
Mwahahahaaa…

13. Intervention #2
Punishment Contingency
Punishment Contingency
Before: Behavior: After:
No feeling Stays Feels
of guilt home guilty
Escape Contingency
Escape Contingency
Before: Behavior: After:
Feels guilty Goes to my Doesn’t
room feel guilty

14. My Personal Reinforcement
My plan seems to be working, which is reinforcing me to continue
with the intervention…

15. The Sick Social Cycle
In escaping the perpetrator’s (my) aversive behavior, the
victim (poor Adam) unintentionally reinforces that aversive
behavior…
This creates a sort of cycle
The Sick Social Cycle…

16. I don’t have I make Adam I do have
Adam’s feel gulty Adam’s
presence presence
Adam feels Adam goes Adam doesn’t
guilty to my room feel guilty
I make
Adam feel
guilty
Adam stays Adam goes
home to my room
I don’t
make Adam
feel guilty

17. Results
5 weeks of intervention and…
• There was an instance of recover during second week, when he
stopped coming over so much
• I implemented my second intervention immediately
• After 3 weeks Adam only curled his toes 6 times per hour
• On week 4 he curled his toes an average of 2 times in a 5 hour
time span
• The final week I collected data, I only caught him curling his toes 3
times the entire week, and he caught himself doing it before I said
anything
So in other words…

19. That’s What Video Cameras are for…

20. Our Very First Trial…

21. That got me in trouble…

22. Respondent Conditioning
A neutral stimulus acquires the eliciting
properties of an unconditioned stimulus through
pairing the unconditioned stimulus with a neutral
stimulus
Just for fun…

23. Reflex
Pain
Response
Word “Toe!” Reflex
Pain
Response
Word “Toe!” Reflex
Response

24. My Conditioning Procedure

25. And the Product of Conditioning:

26. Disclaimer
No blood was shed during this intervention
Sorry if the sound doesn’t match the video...
In case you were unable to see, he has very fast
reflexes, its quite satisfying actually…
I am NOT a sadist…

27. Special Thanks to
Adam McCormick
It really is with love!

28. Thank You!!!