Breanne Gilbert: Case Study

The subject of this paper is Breanne Gilbert, a twenty-two year old Hispanic female. Breanne is the firstborn daughter and oldest child of four to her parents. She was born and raised in San Diego, California before moving to Texas and transferring to Houston Baptist University in 2013. She is a full time student, works part time as one of Second Baptist Church’s college ministry interns, and interns for Hospice Plus. The target behavior of this modification is the number of alarms needed to wake Breanne. By the time she hits the later alarms during her week, she ends up being late to or missing commitments such as class or meetings in addition to a general feeling of unpreparedness. She determined the cause for this behavior are the time

For this method, the introduction of a loud noise that would increase in loudness with each unanswered alarm was attached to the clock. This modification method also followed a fix-ratio method: for each alarm that was not responded to, the loud noise would sound and get louder. By waking up to earlier alarms, Breanne avoided the louder noise that would have followed with each successive alarm. This is similar to the positive punishment conditioning that occurred in the Skinner’s Box, where the lack of pressing the level resulted in a loud noise sounding (Demorest). The duration of this method was for the one, seven day week following the first method’s

For the first method, using positive reinforcement, there were two main limitations when conducting the behavior modification. For Breanne, coffee was already a component in her normal daily functioning, although it often isn’t introduced into her diet until later in the day. Likewise, one study on drug-related pairings, in which caffeine is included, finds that context affects drug-based reinforcement. Exposure to such context-specific reinforcements across several days produces a “drug-seeking behavior,” especially when concerning stimulants that are a commonality in the modern diet (Itzhak). With the second method, the main limitation that arose would be the potential of habituation towards the loud noise. This was already seen as an issue with the original target behavior, as identified by the subject. Another limitation present in the behavior modifications was the external factor of the fluctuation in the work load and business of the subject’s schedule between the conduction of the chosen methods of behavior