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Behavior Modification Paper

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Abstract Statistics show that the amount in college students that smoke tobacco has increased over time, and many of them find it difficult to quit after some time of smoking. The paper explains the efforts of reducing a student’s amount of smoking throughout a course of four weeks using operant conditioning, using money to reinforce and punish her behaviors.

Smoking a Little Less
A Review of Literature Studies demonstrate that 37% of college students reported to be smokers, 28% of which began to smoke at around the age of 19; and the noted preference of the students is tobacco. According to a prior study, the explanations as to why the students smoked were the following: to fill the craving, the anticipation of being unable to smoke later, to deal with anxiety or emotional distress. As well as to produce positive stimulation, some reported that it was out of habit, as well as using smoking to socialize, and a use to relax from their tasks, or because they had nothing better to do, or as a pass time while waiting. Conversely, 50% of the 37% smoking student population made a failing attempt at decreasing or stopping the behavior to smoke. However, the way in which a student can actually quit smoking, is the person’s will to quit, seeing as to this is a behavior that becomes a part of daily routine of a person. There are many variables that need to be put into perspective, to find the effective manner in order to achieve the goal to decrease the smoking. To decrease the amount of smoking, the student must have a series of punishments as well as reinforcements to either increase the number of times the student abstains from smoking or decrease smoking overall on a weekly basis.

Method
Before the Modification Initially, we begin by observing the daily lifestyle of the student. Wednesday night, she begins by setting up outside the dormitories to study while smoking, which is then repeated for the following nights up until Saturday. At that point, the student meets up with friends at a hookah bar, where she then smokes until her cravings have been satisfied for the time being. Sunday she returns to her usual schedule of smoking outside the dormitories. In addition, it was observed, that she had higher cravings before having to meet deadlines for school.
Modifying Behaviors Using operant conditioning, the student’s punishments and reinforcements are established. Seeing as to how often the student smokes, and how high the cost of smoking is, she was given a weekly budget to spend on whatever she chose. Depending on how she chose to spend the money she was given, she was either rewarded with increasing the amount of her budget, whereas if she spent it on mere smoking, her budget would decrease.
Observations
Week One The student was given the budget of $40 to begin with, to spend on her basic needs; any left over money was used to her liking and recreational purposes. For the first three days, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the student did not spend any of the money. However, Thursday night, the student decided to go study and do homework at a hookah bar, where she spent a total of ten dollars, by splitting the cost with her friend, leaving her with $30. The following night, she made plans with a couple of other friends to go smoking again at a hookah bar that also served food, making her total spending cost at $15, with another $15 to spare. Saturday, the student went to a friend’s house, where she decided to smoke free, deducting five dollars to her budget for the following week. By the time she decided to go back to her dormitory, she had to pump gas in her car because she was running on empty, spending the last of her $15.
Week Two Since the student smoked twice the week before, her budget was reduced five dollars for every time she had smoked the previous week and adding five every time she didn’t smoke, making the second week’s budget a total of $35. At the beginning of the week, the student followed her daily non-smoking routine, school, work, and then homework. By the time it was Wednesday (a designated smoke day) she refrained from smoking, which earned her five dollars for the following week. Thursday, was also a successful day, when given the choice of smoking, or buying food, she had chosen to buy food instead, costing her six dollars, but earning her five for the following week. Yet, coming Friday, the student had decided to go for a late night smoke session with a few of her friends, spending a total of $18, which left her with eleven dollars for the rest of the week. By Saturday, the student had no pending costs that were necessary, so she decided to smoke, since she split the cost with multiple others, she only spent $7 that night, and Sunday she did not do anything with the remaining funds. At the end of the week, she had smoked twice, and abstained three days; thus making her budget for the following week back to the original $40.
Week Three As per usual, she did not smoke on Monday or Tuesday. However, by Wednesday, since she had recovered the $40 she began with, she went back to her usual smoking schedule. Wednesday after finishing with classes for the day, she went grocery shopping, spending a total of $16, with a remainder of $24. Then, later that night she went smoking which cost her $7, and five dollars from the following week’s budget. Thursday evening, she stayed in, and did not spend, earning five dollars to next week’s budget. Friday however, again, she smoked, and spent six dollars by splitting the hookah bill, but reducing another five dollars from next week. That Saturday, she was working on a project that was due Monday, increasing her stress levels, which as well increased her craving for smoking, hence, her trip to the hookah bar, reducing another five dollars, and spent $13 that night, causing her to overdraft from the following week’s budget. She smoked three out of five times that week, which left her with only $35, subtracting from her overdraft, she had a total of $33.
Week Four On the last week of observation, the student had $33 to spend. That Monday, since she had no more funds the week before, she actually planned how she was to spend the money for the week, which was a slight improvement. She spent $20 on gas for vehicle, which left her at $13 for the rest of the week. However, she had to pay her monthly fee for “Netflix”, which is $9, leaving her with only four dollars. For the rest of the week, the student was able to refrain from smoking, however, that Sunday; she spent her last four dollars on smoking at her friend’s house, leaving her with $48 for the following week.
Conclusion
From observations on the student, there was no drastic improvement; nonetheless, there was slow progress on managing her priorities and the amount of times she smoked throughout the week. The use of positive reinforcement with the adding of money to her budget, and the negative punishment of taking away money, was making slow advancement to reducing her smoking habit. The project will be continued until the goal is reached in the cessation of smoking. References
Catley, D., & Grobe, J. E. (2008). Using basic laboratory research to understand scheduled smoking: A field investigation of the effects of manipulating controllability on subjective responses to smoking. Health Psychology, 27(3), S189-S196. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.27.3(Suppl.).S189
Piasecki, T. M., Richardson, A. E., & Smith, S. M. (2007). Self-monitored motives for smoking among college students. Psychology Of Addictive Behaviors, 21(3), 328-337. doi:10.1037/0893-164X.21.3.328
Ng, D. M., & Jeffery, R. W. (2003). Relationships Between Perceived Stress and Health Behaviors in a Sample of Working Adults. Health Psychology, 22(6), 638-642. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.22.6.638
Gerson, P., & Lanyon, R. I. (1972). Modification of smoking behavior with an aversion-desensitization procedure. Journal Of Consulting And Clinical Psychology, 38(3), 399-402. doi:10.1037/h0032907

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