Order Description
emphasis on basic research and theory as to the ways in which the environment interacts with behavior. Basic research and theory are ultimately of interest because they inform the development of applications.
For this extra credit activity, your task is to consider how basic research principles can be applied to address some problem behavior affecting either the individual or society as a whole. You are free to choose any subject that interests you, but do not pick a topic that is already described in the readings or in one of the assigned activities. The topic you select also should significantly differ from the focus of the papers you wrote for this course.
1. Describe the problem behavior.
2. Describe the factors responsible for this problem. Your description should be well grounded in the concepts covered in this course (for example, your response may include a description of the specific contingencies of reinforcement and punishment that drive the problem behavior).
3. Describe how the problem can be prevented, mitigated, or eliminated using behavior-analytic principles. Again, your description should be well grounded in the concepts covered in this course. Your description of the procedure that should be used should also be relatively detailed (e.g., it is insufficient to simply say that the inappropriate behavior would be punished and an appropriate alternative behavior would be reinforced).
4. Identify and describe an instance in which researchers have attempted to address the problem behavior you selected using behavior-analytic principles. A good place to find such work is in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (https://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/jabaindx.asp).
I recommend searching for articles in this journal using Google Scholar. Start with the following link:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=110&hl=en&as_publication=Journal+of+Applied+Behavior+Analysis&as_sdt=0,35
Then type one or more additional search terms that will help you locate articles.