Someone taking my Why is Change so Hard? course, had a question. That question - is kind of geeky - and involves understanding rewards, alternate rewards and so forth. That's why I'm posting it here.
Yes - that's actually pretty standard protocol and it does
make eliminating the old behavior easier.
Basically - you stop rewarding the old behavior and simultaneously
reward the desired new behavior. You
still have the resistance, but it's less.
An example would be - if you had a rat that pressed a lever
to get a treat. If you simply make the
lever not work - the rat will escalate and blow out. If you give them an alternate way to get a
treat, they will experience less stress and it will make the transition more
smooth.
Another example - if you have a cat that is scratching
furniture - unless you give them a scratching post - you aren't going to
eliminate the scratching behavior - because it's something that they NEED to
do. So - you reward them positively for scratching in the appropriate place.
With humans - it works the same. Positively reward the alternate behavior, and
remove the reward for the unwanted behavior.
Here is a link to google scholar on rewarding alternate
behavior. The 2nd citation is about
rats. LOL https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,10&qsp=2&q=reinforcement+of+alternative+behavior&qst=br
Here is an example of relevant research
Examined the course of extinction of 1 behavior as a
function of the presence and subsequent absence of reinforcement for
alternative behavior. 4 experiments were conducted, using a total of 102 male
hooded rats in 3 experiments and 30 adult White Carneaux pigeons in the 4th.
Major findings are: (a) Topography and reinforcement schedule for alternative
behavior had little differential effect. (b) High-frequency reinforcement of alternative behavior
increased suppressive effects of extinction, and low-frequency reinforcement
did not. (c) Reinforced
alternative behavior maintained for a relatively long period decreased
subsequent recovery of the original response programed for extinction,
resulting in a substantial saving in total number of extinction responses.
(d) Temporary reinforcement of
alternative behavior produced more permanent suppression in the context of
simple extinction than in the context of SD (change in stimulus) periods
in discrimination learning. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA,
all rights reserved)
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