Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Operant Conditioning

 

    So i decided to shape the behavior of my mom. I started by leaving dishes out so that she would tell me to clean them up and then i would. I did this experiment a couple of times over the past couple days. The main factor in the environment is the dishes or dish that were left out in the kitchen. The behavior was telling me to clean them up. The consequence was me actually cleaning them up for her a positive reinforcer.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Shaping Behavoir

My brother, Nick, and my sister, Calitlyn, enjoy playing instruments. Nick plays the clarinet while Cailtyn plays the flute. They are both in concert band and have lessons outside of school, so they do a lot of practicing. When they both practice at the same time, it becomes distracting and loud and I have a hard time concentrating on homework. When they both started practicing on Friday, I asked them to shut their bedroom doors to block some of the sound because I was trying to read for English. Later on when they went to practice, Nick asked me if I was still working on homework. I wasn't, so he was able to play while keeping the door open. The next day I was working on math, and Caitlyn wanted to practice her instrument. She knew I was working on homework, so she shut the door without me asking her to.
The environment in this experiment was whether or not I was working on homework. The behavoirs in this experiment were were whether or not my siblings would shut their bedroom door. If I wasn't doing homework, they could leave their doors open. If I had homework to do, they would shut their doors. The concequence would be that I would not bother them by asking them to shut their doors. Therefore, I would be able to concentrate on my homework. As a result, they now check to see if I am doing homework before they start practicing.

Kristen Bianchi

Operant condition dog experiment

My experiment was that I wanted to train my one year old black lab to shake hands. Her reward for this would be a dog cookie. I would give her one twice a day. First, I would have her sit, which she is trained to do, then I would say "shake". If she didn't do it, then I would pick up her right front paw and say the word "shake". Then i put it down and try it again. If she doesn't do it the second time, I pick up her paw again and say shake and actually do the motion and then give her the cookie so she knows she gets rewarded for shaking. I would also use my older dog who is trained to do it. I have my older dog shake first so she sets an example. I have tried since friday to get her to do this. We have had no success but I know were getting close. The environment is my kitchen without any body else in it so she doesn't get distracted. The behavior is shaking my hand. The reinforcemnt is the cookie and also praise for doing this task. I know if i keep working at it, eventually i will see success. I know I am close because her behavior when I tell her this changes from hyper to clam. Also I notice she shifts her weight to one side as if she was raising a paw. These characteristics are very similar to my older dog.
 
 
 
Jacob Chernesky
 
 

experiment

Well, I am not sure if this counts or not but I am pretty sure that what I have done is in a way a form of operant conditioning.
 
The cat in my house likes to go "exploring" a lot. My door is usually shut, although everytime I leave it open it seems as if the cat has a sensor that goes off which leads it to my open door into my room. I don't like this. At first I would simply pick up the cat and walk it outside my door and gently drop it. I believe since there was no real negative consequence to the cat entering my room, this lead to the other dozens of times in which the cat entered my room. I have recently changed my tactics though. Now instead of picking up the cat and getting clawed at in the process, I simply whip it with my key chain. After the first few good connections on my cat, I have noticed an immediate change in its behavior. Now instead of it running and hiding in my room, it simply gazes up at me in fear and sprints out of my room and hides. It gets even better though. As I am not a big fan of the cats, also I don't like when it is near me so now even outside my room when I see it it runs in fear of me. The fear of a little pain completely changes the way my cat is around me, which is benefitial to me in every way as no more cat in room, and no more cat getting in way.
 
 
Brendan McKeown

shaping the behavoir of my dog

Christa Walsh

Since it's only my parents and I at home, I decided to try to shape the behavior of my dog. We have a 3 1/2 year old shih tzu named Misty and she loves food, especially people food. Therefore, we have a real problem with her begging. We usually give in to her, so that is why she keeps begging, so I decided to try to make her stop begging by correcting her and disciplining her when she starts to beg.

I tried my experiment 2 times this weekend. Once at breakfast, which I eat at my kitchen table and once while I was eating a snack on the couch. At breakfast, when she starts to beg by whining or sneezing, I would make her sit, say NO and firmly give her a gentle hit on the top of her head. I stayed consistent and kept correcting her at the first sign of begging. Pretty soon, she was getting discouraged, so she just say there silent like she is supposed to. After she sat still with no begging for a few minutes I reinforced this behavior by giving her a little piece of food.

The next time I tried my experiment was much different because Misty tends to beg worse while she is on the couch because she can sit right next to us and see the food right in front of her. When she started to beg, I tried to same correction, but it wasn't working that well, so I decided I needed to separate her from the food. After placing her on the ground, I continued the correction and it worked much better. She even eventually became uninterested in the food a little.

There were two behaviors I reinforced in this experiment. Begging was punished by scolding and a head tap. Not begging was positively reinforced by rewarding her with a small piece of food. 

The environment was very important because both time I was eating by myself. If my parents are eating at the same time as I am, Misty tends to beg a lot more because she gets frantic trying to beg from everyone at once. Probably if there had been other people in the room, she wouldn't have been as responsive to the consequences because she would've been distracted by other food. Other environmental factors were whether I was eating at the table or couch which I already said makes a difference, the fact that she was hungry, and the fact that everything else about the situation remained the same for except for the begging and consequences.

shaping behavior- Kayla Eddy

Well, i wasn't quite sure what to do for this experiement, but after thinking about it i quickly came to an idea.  I realized i had kind of been doing it for a few days now.  In the morning, instead of taking the bus, my brother drives both of us to school. Lately he has been late getting up so we get to school right when the 5 minute bell rings.  Usually in our brother-sister relationship it is usually whatever he says, goes (since he is older and i'm not one who deals with confrontation well).  It didn't really bother me when we would get there 10- or even 5 minutes before the 5 minute bell rang, but now that we are later, it is a little annoying.  I figured that yelling at him wouldn't make him go any faster, if anything it would make him want to go slower just to prove he didn't care.  So i came up with the idea of waking him up every 2 or 3 minutes (instead of every 5 minutes).  And then after he got up i would let him know how much time i was going to take until i was ready to leave.  It kind of sounds bossy when i put it this way, but really it benefits both of us to get to school on time.  A few times, when i did it right, he seemed to be quicker and we would get to school before all of the traffic.  So i guess the behavior was my brother waking up late and the consequence was being almost late for school.  But when i changed the environment from saying nothing to pretty much giving instruction, i shaped his behavior and that changed the consequence to getting to school from 5 to 10 minutes earlier than before.

operant conditioning the silent treatment

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in my experiment i tested what would happen if I didn't talk to people when=
they asked me a question (@ school) and then i would talk if they repeated=
the question. =0A=0Amost people were very annoyed by having to repeat them=
selves but they knew if they were gonna get an answer then they would have =
to do it again. it was really hard to do for some people especially my teac=
hers and girlfriend. No one asked me why i wasn't talking (2x) so i couldn'=
t explain it to them iguess i'll tell them tommorow . i chose school becaus=
e there are so many people to interact with here and there is more people t=
o see how there responses compare and differ.=0A=0A=0A=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=
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Jeremy Mattas=0A=0A=0A
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<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>in my experiment i tested what would happen if I didn't talk to people when they asked me a question (@ school) and then i would talk if they repeated the question. </DIV>
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<DIV>most people were very annoyed by having to repeat themselves but they knew if they were gonna get an answer then they would have to do it again. it was really hard to do for some people especially my teachers and girlfriend. No one asked me why i wasn't talking (2x) so i couldn't explain it to them iguess i'll tell them tommorow . i chose school because there are so many people to interact with here and there is more people to see how there responses compare and differ.</DIV>
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<DIV>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jeremy Mattas</DIV></div><br>

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shaping behavior- Danielle Chapman

My brother never used to hold the door for people behind him or open doors for women. I think that this is really rude and get mad at him every single time. Even though he's only 12, I think he should know to do it by now. We ended up being out together a few times this weekend, and every time that we were, I would tell him that he needed to hold the door. When he would, I would thank him giving him positive reinforcement. The environment was the stores that we were in. They were all similar, and all contained strangers for him to practice with. After me pointing it out a few times, he began to do it on his own. The consequence was simply me, or someone that he didn't know, noticing his politeness and giving him praise for it.  I also told him that polite guys opened the door for girls, which I think almost pressured him into thinking that he should do the same. I'll have to pay more attention next time we're out together to see if it actually changed his mind set.


Sunday, November 23, 2008

shaping behavior - LYDIA WITSCHEL

This assignment was sort of difficult to do over a period of a short time, however i was some what successful.  The behavior that i chose to shape was my brother's behavior toward me.  My brother is nine years old and we get along for the most part pretty well however sometimes he comes in my room and stands in front of the t.v. when I'm watching it, especially when he knows my favorite show is on.  Usually what i do is the first in a loud and forceful tone tell him to "move!" and if he doesn't i continue yelling and eventually either yell to my mom or chase him around the house which I've realized is exactly the reaction that he wants just because he's bored and wants something to do.  
The environment of this is my brother being bored, because when he is not in that mind set of having nothing to do around 8 at night he knows what he can do to get a rise out of the whole family by just preforming a specific behavior.  The behavior that my brother does is standing in front of my television which is a negative stimulus to me therefore making the consequence me screaming and chasing it.

I wanted to shape this behavior by changing the consequence.  I was only able to see this one time in action, and to my surprise it worked.
When he came in and stood in front of my t.v. i just continued to look at the magazine i had in my hand pretending to be more interested in it, rather than the television.  When my brother realized that I didn't seem to care if I saw what was on the t.v. or not he slowly backed away and looked at me with a "now what?" look on his face.  I just smiled and started asking him questions about his day, so rather than losing it completely I showed interest which is all he was really looking for in the first place.  
 This was cool to see how even a small consequence and reinforcement changed a behavior.  With my positive reinforcement of showing interest in what he had done in the day and treating him like something more than a pest, his behavior changed in a split second, I will definitely continue to use this tactic it works great and doesn't take a lot to do.




LYDIA WITSCHEL 

Thursday, November 20, 2008

HW

* Homework: In class today we talked about your "identity" as being a product of your relationships. I drew a diagram on the board showing how we might think about Jamie's identity (the girl from the Made video). I want you to think about your own identity and the relationships that are part of it. Then choose one of these relationships and write a 2-3 paragraph blog post about it. How does your relationship with the person you chose to write about affect your life? What sort of things do you do together? How often? Where? How would it affect you if this person had to move to Alaska (no cell coverage!) with their family?

My relationship with girl(not revealing name). This girl is easily my best friend. No matter what she is their to back up every decision that I make. She is there when I call, always willing to talk to me, and above all understands me better than almost anyone else. I rely on this girl to make me feel better when Im down or even just make me feel even happier when Im perfectly fine.
This girl I can do anything with. There is almost no pressure when we hang out so we can do almost anything. The best part about this girl is that most of the time she wants to do whatever I want because she says that shes happy if Im happy. This girl is amazing we hang out in school all the time, and out of school only once and a while unfortunately.
If this person were to move to Alaska with no cell phone coverage that would be a serious problem for myself. I love this girl and not having her their would drive me crazy. She is the one person who is always there for me and puts up with everything I do, honestly I don't even know why this girl even talks to me yet I stay up late texting her anyways. If she moved to Alaska I don't know what I would do without her.
 
 
Brendan McKeown

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Monday, November 17, 2008

Identity Homework

 

One of my connections is with my dad. He lives four hours away in western New York. I see him 2 or 3 times a month over the weekend. We usually go shopping or try to do something fun. I usually end up going to his house for the weekend. It gets annoying sometimes when I have to go out there to see him when I have plans with other people.

If he moved to Alaska and I wouldn't be able to get a hold of him at all I think it would have little affect on my life. I only see him once in a while anyway so my life would go on perfectly normal. It would actually make my life slightly easier because then I wouldn't have to worry about going out there and my weekends would be free. I would have so much more free time.

 

Bridget Rudgers


Sunday, November 16, 2008

identity

My best friend Laura has a huge impact on my identity.  I met her about two years ago and i honestly can't remember how we became such close friends but all of a sudden we were hanging out everyday possible and still do. I can tell her absolutely anything and we help each other with any problem we have. Throughout our friendship both of us have had serious issues and would confided in each other no matter what the situation was. Over the summer i basically lived at her house even though we only live twenty minutes away. We would go out and do something random and fun almost every day. We both love shopping and camping so we end up doing things like that every weekend. We're also both really into movies and music so we always call each other when we have a couple hours of free time in order to watch a movie or something.
    If Laura moved to Alaska i would probably become clinically depressed. Not really, but I would be extremely sad and don't think i'd be the same person. It's not like a depend on her, but shes always there for me and it would be really hard to get through things without her. If she did move we would most likely visit each other at least every two months or somehow figure out a way to talk everyday.

Becky Wesley

step sister

Matt Schreiner
Block 1 BDF
Step sister.

The relationship with my step sister plays a very important role in my life. When we're around each other we are able to always make each other laugh no matter what. She's one of the very few people that can truly level with me on things that aren't considered your everyday humor. I'm able to talk to her about things going on in my life that I wouldn't normally talk to a parent about. Besides the sentimental aspect of our relationship we're always making each other laugh, singing, and sometimes dancing around the house together as odd as that may sound. On average I probably see her about 3-5 times a month at my dads house when she stops by to do things for her up coming wedding in June of 09'.
If my step sister were to move to Alaska I would have one less person to vent to about what's going on in my life. She manages to give me insight on what she's experienced in her teenage years, and how to handle things that are new to me. In a sense I geuss I would lose a bit of my sense of humor by not having her around.

identity homework

My relationship with my best friend affects my life in many ways, no matter what I do I think about how this person may react, or feel about the decision I made.  Sometimes I don't do certain things or act certain ways because I know how they will react.  Being best friends with this person also has made me happier because knowing that there is at least one person that you know you can trust with just about anything is a really good feeling.  When we're together we usually hang out and watch movies, go to other people's houses together, go to the mall, and no matter what were doing we're making each other laugh hysterically.  We hang out every weekend for the most part unless we have other commitments such as sports, school things, or family things.  If my best friend moved to Alaska that would be awful.  I would have no one to make me laugh as much as her, and also she's the one person who I relate to the most with anything.  I would have more trouble going to parties because I wouldn't have her there with me to feel more comfortable, I wouldn't have anyone to shop with me every weekend for hours, and I would have no one to talk to with like I talk to her.

Identity

A relationship in my life that's important is my friendship with Becky.   We have known each other for probably about 8 years since we go to the same church.  Becky is really nice and friendly to everybody.   I know i can trust her by telling her anything and know that she won't judge me.  This past summer we went on a mission trip to Costa Rica together.  It's amazing how much you get to know someone even more when you are spending every waking moment with that person for 10 days.  I have to say that before the trip we weren't as close, but now we really are.  We don't go to the same school, but she lives close enough that we hang out whenever we can.  We talk on the phone a lot, but sometimes if we are having a really busy week and don't have time to talk much we write little notes to each other. We almost always see each other in church, youth group, and other youth events such as small groups, Alpha (a class at my church), and youth retreats.  We hang out outside of church too.  Just this past week we went shopping.  I think an important aspect of our friendship is that it doesn't matter where we hang out, we always have fun.  It's funny because we both like speaking spanish a lot, so we talk to each other in spanish (as much as we know of that language).
Whenever i am having a stressful week or day i can talk to her and just get things sorted out.  She one of those people where you can be your total self around them- goofy, funny, and just weird.  I think that's also an important thing, that in today's crazy world we can just hang out with someone and relax, not caring if you don't look good that day.  Along with those things, Becky and i share a common belief.  Our relationship with God is just as important to me as it is to her- its major.  Plus the mission trip is huge common ground.  If Becky were to move to Alaska i would miss her a lot.  I would still talk to her as much as i could, but i know my life wouldn't be the same as it is with her living 10 minutes away.  Church and all church events would still be fun, but not as fun, if she wasn't there.  School life wouldn't change much since she goes to Shen, but everything else would.  Becky is one of those friends where you can never find another one like her. 





Identity

My best friend Olivia and I are very close. She lived in Burnt Hills until about four years ago, when she moved two and a half hours away. We continue to talk on the phone every day and every chance that I get I like to go to her house to visit. I miss her a lot, but when we do get the chance to see each other it's like she has never left. The two of us practically share a brain in some respects, which makes her the best one to go to for advice. We know everything about each other and are parts of each others families after so many years. Even though we do have a lot of the same values and ideas, our tastes are completely different when it comes to a lot of things too, like guys and food, among other things. This makes some of our talks very interesting, but no matter what we are always there for each other.
When we get together, it doesn't matter what we do. Since we talk so much on the phone, when we see each other we can skip the catching up. I know a lot of her new friends, so when I go there we hang out with them, and when she comes here we try to get our old friends together, but sometimes this is hard for her. I like going there better than having her come here because it is a perfect place to just get away from everything Burnt Hills for a little while. Over this past summer, we went to the Dave Matthews concert, went to and watched a lot of movies, and dyed each others hair. We also like to go to our old elementary school and go on the swings.
If she moved to Alaska, I'm sure I would still go out to see her and her family. The distance thing doesn't really affect our friendship. Having no cell service would be a bummer, but a lot of the time we talk more than texting or being on the computer or anything so as long as she had a phone I think we'd be okay.

Identity

An important relationship in my life is my relationship with my cousin Brady. We've known each other all of our lives since we are related. Our dads own a drafting company together so we see his family often. We never became good friends though until 2005 when I lived with his family for three weeks while my brother was in the hospital and my parents were staying with him. Brady let me use his room while offering to sleep in his brother's room on the floor. Ever since that we've been good friends because we have so much in common.

When we hang out, Brady and I love to play Monopoly. He has over 10 different types of Monopoly so we always love trying out new versions. We also both work for our dads' company during the summer so it's fun to see him at work often while I'm working even though we do different jobs. Brady and I also go to the same church and are involved in the same youth group so that gives us opportunities to hang out at least once a week. We go on our church retreats together where we always have an awesome time doing fun things like playing spoons. We are also in our youth worship band together where I play the piano and he sings so we have a blast doing that. I really appreciate that Brady and I share the same beliefs because we know we can talk to each other about what we're going through and trust the advice from each other. We can encourage each other to focus on what's really important in life, our relationship with God.

Brady and I also have gone to visit our Aunt and Uncle for the last 3 years in New Jersey and we always have so much fun while we're there. We hang out at the beach, play games and just have a fun time with our aunt and uncle and without our parents. Lastly, Brady and I go to the same school and we are in the same physics and gym class and lunch so I usually see him in those classes and we talk during that time.

If Brady and his family moved to Alaska my life would be very different. I would not have an always friendly face at church and youth group, band practice would not be as colorful and physics would be even more boring. I really enjoy being friends with Brady because he can always make me laugh and he always includes me and looks out for me. We would probably still talk on facebook like we usually do, but we couldn't text like we usually do or talk in person or on the phone. I would miss him a lot if he and his family moved away. I am very blessed to have an awesome cousin like Brady.

relationships and identity

Michael Koester has been one of my best friends since 3rd grade. Being friends with him has affected my life a lot. He has helped me through many relationships and gives good adivce, for the most part. He has a weird sense of humor and is very sarcastic. We mostly talk on AIM or at school. We only talk on the phone to make plans. I have become close with his entire family and I hang out at his house a lot, sometimes when he isn't there. His mom is like my second mom, and she is always there for me. Our families have become really close, and sometimes my dad hangs out at Mike's house more than I do.
I go over to his house at least once a week. We watch movies, play guitar hero, go on facebook, play Apples to Apples, prank call people, eat, jump on his trampoline, and do other stuff. He is Italian and his mom makes really good Italian food, so I like to go to his house for dinner. I also sleep over at his house probably once every few months. We usually don't hang out at my house because my parents don't like having people over.
Mike actually did go to Alaska a few years ago, but only for a couple weeks over the summer. If he were to move there permanently we would still talk online because although there might not be cell coverage, I'm pretty sure there is internet connection.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Test Post

This is a test post, e-mailed.