Operant Conditioning: The Influence Of Sleep On A Couch

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Over the past several years, my brother has developed a habit of consistently falling asleep on the couch in my basement. This is problematic because this causes him to treat the basement as if it is his room, “hogging” the basement and leaving no room for anyone else to sit on the couch. Therefore, the target goal of this behavioral intervention is to reduce the weekly percentage rate that my brother falls asleep on the basement couch from 100% to 70% or less. Pre intervention data Day Rate Duration Locus Thursday 1 5-7 hours Couch Friday 1 5-7 hours Couch Saturday 1 7-10 hours Couch Sunday 1 7-10 hours Couch 100% average 6-8.5 hours This pre intervention data was collected over a four-day period. Every morning at the start of data collection, I would observe the rate …show more content…

Operant conditioning is used in my experiment, as I am presenting a consequence as a result of the behavior of sleeping on the couch. This is not a form of classical conditioning, as I am not pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response. Nor am I teaching a correct behavior. I am clearly attempting to decrease the rate of a behavior by presenting a punishment after a behavior. I found that operant conditioning was the best approach for my experiment, as operant conditioning involves increasing or decreasing voluntary behaviors by presenting reinforcement or punishment after the behavior. In this case, I am attempting to decrease or stop my brothers’ behavior. On the other hand, classical conditioning involves an outcome where the subject is conditioned to elicit an involuntary response to a neutral stimulus, while there was an initial response present to an unconditioned stimulus. My brother is presenting a voluntary behavior that I am trying to decrease; therefore, operant conditioning is the most appropriate method to