Behaviorism Case Study

1. Is Haley's fear of men most likely due to classical or operant conditioning? Justify your response (yes, it will all be hypothetical as we do not have enough information in this case) using terminology, definitions, and examples.

I would say classic conditioning because of issues that have happened in her life in the past. Say she has had a father pass away and she saw the incident in which he died. Because of this incident she views all men as scary because of the way she saw her father die. It was scary to her and that is what she does not want to see anything like this again. She is generalizing men to her father and his pain and how it made her feel. She may not fear men for being men, but because her father was a man and she sees every man like she last saw her father.

2. How might you explain Meredith's aggressive behaviors from the perspective of operant conditioning?

She may see her mother as being a push over and too nice. At home a man or some other person may have taken advantage of Meredith's mother while Meredith was watching the whole thing. In response to this the mother said " Meridith there is no reason anyone should treat you like this, never let anyone take advantage of you!" The discrimination we are seeing here is that Meredith is everyone taking advantage of her in any instance so in return she does not let her guard down to any one. She chooses to be mean and aggressive to show she can and will not be taken advantage of.

3. What strategies from Behavioral theory might a teacher use in working with Haley? Be specific and describe how each strategy could be used.

I think that Haley needs some kind of cueing to help her see that what she is doing is not acceptable. She may not receive anything that represents shaping at home and she thinks that everything is acceptable and that consequences are few. By cueing her into the rules and using reinforcement to do so she will see eventually that it is not an acceptable behavior in the classroom. At that pint there can be a contingency contract to help her stay focused on the acceptable behaviors in school.

4. What strategies from Behavioral theory might a teacher use in working with Meredith? Be specific and describe how each strategy could be used.

Fading may be an option with Meredith, she is not wanting to be taken advantage of and shows she is the tough guy so that she won't have the opportunity to be taken advantage of. She does not want to feel vulnerable to anyone. This will be hard in her situation, but by using the Premack Principle she can start to see that reinforcers are not being applied when she does these things. It is even deeper with her though, she needs to feel that she is trusted and that she is not vulnerable. We might try applied behavior analyse to help her modify the behavior she is demonstrating to different behavior that may deal with never being taken advantage of. When she sees that there are better ways of dealing with her vulnerability, she will be able to see that the actions she has been doing are incorrect. We would need to help her see that by just having a good self esteem she will not be taken advantage of. This is a difficult case and is very delicate in finding the way to head off her emotions that may be causing the behavior.