Problem
First, take a close look at one aspect of your own behaviour - such as study habits, exercise, health habits, or interaction skills - and identify a target behaviour that you would like to modify. Choose either an undesirable behaviour that you would like to eliminate or a desirable behaviour that you would like to strengthen. Find ways you can use reinforcement and punishment, or unconditioned and conditioned stimuli to improve your chances of success. Monitor your behaviour for a few days and respond to the following questions:
A. What is the behavior you want to change?
B. Why do you think the problem exists in the first place?
C. Why do you want to change the behavior and what benefits will change bring?
D. Create a program proposal incorporating relevant conditioning principles. These might include: the use of positive and negative reinforcement, schedules of reinforcement, punishment, shaping, modeling, primary and secondary reinforcers, extinction, stimulus generalization/discrimination, and so on. Toward the end of the week, reflect on the following questions:
E. Was the program successful or unsuccessful?
F. What are the plausible explanations for this outcome?
G. If it was successful, propose a brief plan to maintain the change. If not, propose an alternate plan that can be carried out in the future.