Behavior modification techniques are strategies used in a psychological intervention to change a person’s behavior and make them more adaptive. There is a wide variety of these techniques, which the professional will use depending on their experience and patient profile.
Modification techniques used in therapy
1. Systematic desensitization
It is a cognitive-behavioral technique proposed by Joseph Wolpe and aimed at reducing anxiety responses and avoidance behaviors when faced with feared stimuli. It is one of the first behavioral modification techniques.
Wolpe built on work on fear conditioning, theorizing that just as fear is conditioned, it can be eliminated. Through this technique, stimuli that provoke an anxiety response are associated with responses that are incompatible with it, such as relaxation.
This is what is known as counterconditioning: after several associations between these incompatible responses, new learning would occur. Thus, the situation that caused anxiety will stop doing so when the incompatible response occurs. In systematic desensitization there is a decrease in the anxious response. The key aspect for extinction of the response is the lack of reinforcement.
2. Exposure techniques
Behavioral technique whose objective is to systematically confront situations that generate anxiety, avoidance or escape responses.
The person is exposed to these feared stimuli gradually until the anxiety or excitement decreases when seeing that the consequences they expect to happen do not occur.
Continuous and prolonged exposure to feared stimuli educes the fear and anxiety response. It constitutes a key technique for intervention in anxiety disorders. There are different types of exposure techniques such as live exposure, imagination exposure, group exposure, self-exposure or exposure through virtual reality.
3. Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the concentration of attention and consciousness, or full consciousness, and one of its clearest references is meditation.
Meditation or the use of cognitive or physiological relaxation procedures configure various techniques to achieve various physiological and emotional deactivation effects. This full attention consists of a process of observing one’s own body and mind, allowing experiences to happen, accepting them as they are presented, without evaluations.
The essential elements are acceptance of both the positive and the negative, concentration on the present moment, feeling everything without that need and seeking control. With this technique, you do not want to reduce or control discomfort, fear, anger, etc., but rather you want to experience these feelings and emotions. It is a renunciation of control of emotions, thoughts and feelings.
4. Molding
Also called learning by successive approximations, it is a technique based on operant conditioning. It consists of reinforcing the successive approaches that the individual makes during the intervention until reaching the final behavior, in addition to extinguishing the previous responses that he or she has been giving.
When carrying out the behavior, stimuli are used that promote the initiation of a response in a person who shows difficulties in doing so. They can be verbal, physical, environmental or gestural stimuli.
Shaping requires that while new behaviors are reinforced, previous behaviors are extinguished, presenting the reinforcer only when the specific behavior of the stage in which the individual is found is emitted.
5. Chaining
It is used to establish new behaviors in subjects, based on operant conditioning and which is used when learning, especially daily activities.
Complex behaviors can be decomposed into simpler behaviors, working on each one separately and each simple behavior acting as a discriminative stimulus for the next one and as a reinforcer for the previous one. Its procedure consists of the formation of a behavior through combinations of a sequence of simple steps, in which the subject advances as the previous step is mastered.
6. Time out
It is found within the operant conditioning techniques and consists of the reduction of behaviors by removing the person from the situation in which they are obtaining the reinforcer that maintains them.
To carry it out, it is necessary to have identified the reinforcer that maintains that behavior and to be able to remove the person from the environment in which it is reinforced. The application of this technique produces a rapid reduction in behavior, but for it to be effective it requires that the person leave the area in which the stimulus is obtained, using it only in specific periods of time.
Furthermore, the decrease in this behavior is due to the history and reinforcement program that has maintained it, as well as the intensifying value of the situation. It is mainly used with children, mainly in educational contexts. It can also be used with people of any age.
7. Response cost
It is similar to negative punishment, since it is a procedure that consists of removing a stimulus that acts positively for the person. For its application, powerful incentives must be identified that can be withdrawn immediately after carrying out that behavior, applying it systematically and continuously.
It is expected that the negative consequences of withdrawing a reinforcer are more important than the possible positive effects of the stimuli that are maintaining the behavior. This procedure produces very rapid effects, but it can also produce emotional responses and facilitate aggressive behaviors.
It is necessary to be able to withdraw the reinforcer in a manner consistent with the emission of the behavior to be eliminated. To do this, it is necessary that the person has reinforcers that are effective for the intervened subject.
It is also advisable to resort to positive reinforcement of more appropriate behaviors and alternatives to the problem behavior. This will prevent the appearance of negative emotional behaviors.
8. Token economy
This technique is a system for organizing external contingencies that aims to control the context in which it is being carried out. The word economy refers to the fact that this method works as an economic system in which the person charges or pays with tokens depending on whether or not they perform certain behaviors.
The tokens act as conditioned and generalized reinforcers, using vouchers, bills, stickers or plastic tokens. The person obtains these tokens when he emits the desired behavior, functioning as a temporary bridge between the emission of that behavior until obtaining the subsequent incentive.
These tokens act as secondary stimuli that will later be exchanged for primary reinforcers or rewards, which can range from material objects to carrying out activities or obtaining certain privileges. It is a technique that is carried out above all in institutionalized centers, in educational contexts, in sports environments and in different community settings.
9. Behavioral contracts
Written and formal document that specifies the behaviors that a person or group of people agrees to develop, and the consequences that will be obtained for carrying them out or not. It does not require as much control at a contextual level nor does it require the implementation of new generalized reinforcers, such as the token economy.
In addition, there are various forms of contracts, such as negotiated or non-negotiated, verbal or written, individualized or standard, public or private contracts. It is mainly used in family and couples therapies.
The target behavior or behaviors must be clearly defined in the contract, as well as the duration and time at which they must occur. The consequences will also be specified, both for issuance and non-issuance, the evaluation criteria to carry out a control, as well as the start and duration of the contract. It contains the demands of the parties expressed through specific behaviors. It specifies the relationship between behavior and rewards or punishments and allows the environment to be controlled effectively.
10. Self-control techniques
These techniques aim to strengthen people so that they are able to regulate their behavior on their own through strategies and procedures to achieve established goals. At the beginning of the intervention, training is carried out to provide the necessary information on how these strategies work and thus become aware of the active role that the individual plays in obtaining and achieving their achievements.
To notice progress, the person must be committed and aware of the change process and their abilities to achieve those objectives. The therapist will have a supporting role, and at first will be more present, but then will have less and less weight, gradually removing this help.
The steps to follow in this technique would be to promote commitment to change, specify and evaluate the problem, plan objectives, design and apply change strategies and promote maintenance and possible relapses.
11. Satiation
The satiation technique is based on the excessive presentation of a reinforcer in a short period of time so that the individual generates an aversion for it inside. That is, weaken its reinforcement.
For example, if a child only wants to eat sweets and protests if other food is given, the application of this technique would be to feed him only sweet products. Finally he will end up hating sweets and this would complete the behavior modification technique.
12. Extinction
With this technique, the positive or negative stimuli that supported the individual’s reinforcement are omitted until it gradually disappears. This is a methodology widely used with young children.
For example, if a child does not want to bathe and every time it is his turn he screams or cries, his parents will usually scold him, punish him, or even hit him. This would be the child’s reinforcer, since all he wants is to get the attention of his parents.
Therefore, with this technique you should act in a completely opposite way, ignoring the child and any of his unpleasant ways of acting when showering. Eventually, this behavior will end up disappearing, since the child will understand that it is of no use to him.