Psychology and Education

Matthew Lynch published in Behavior Management, Psychology and Education August 19, 2023

What is a Secondary Reinforcer?

This is an outcome that people appreciate simply because of its link to a primary reinforcement. Secondary reinforcement includes the process of conditioning or learning to understand its association with the primary reinforcement. For instance, food is a primary reinforcer, and money buys food. Therefore, in this case, money is a secondary reinforcer, and its value is relative to food, which is the primary reinforcer. While a primary reinforcer is biological in nature, a secondary reinforcer becomes reinforcing after being associated with a primary reinforcer, such as treats, money, or praise.

Key advantages of secondary reinforcers include:

More convenient to utilize than primary reinforcers
Fit better in natural environment situations
They can be utilized to expand the interest of a person
Utilizing a token economy system can expand the time between new reinforcers’ presentations without the person losing interest

Therapists, teachers, and parents often utilize token economies to motivate clients and kids to engage in adaptive behaviors. While they don’t have any reinforcement value, such tokens can be utilized to buy primary reinforcers such as candy, soda pops, and other privileges. Once the association has been formed, the tokens themselves become reinforcing.

Secondary reinforcement is stronger than primary reinforcement because it isn’t tied to biological needs. For instance, if a dog isn’t hungry, it’s unlikely to listen to its trainer’s commands if it’s used to food being a reward. Likewise, if a kid has just had a large piece of cake, he/she isn’t going to practice the musical instrument in exchange for candy. The child may do it in exchange for a star on the chart (secondary reinforcer) that can be exchanged for candy later.

Any organism would do activities that finally help it survive effectively. However, humans look forward to making their lives better apart from survival. Bring complex organisms, both mentally and physically, humans depend mostly on reinforcement that’s in some way connected to their healthy survival.

Even though humans are omnivores, they don’t go hunting in the forest or graze on grasslands. Humans have different methods to acquire food. They work, for which they receive money. Money buys food that satiates hunger, thus helping survival. So, money is the secondary reinforcer.

Here’s another example that can help one understand secondary reinforcers. Humans feel sleepy due to tiredness. Before going to bed, they brush their teeth, wish good night to others at home, say a bedtime prayer, and then go to sleep. The process becomes a ritual and is connected to the behavior of sleeping. So, even if one isn’t tired someday and doesn’t feel sleepy, performing the ritual will involuntarily hint to the body that it’s time to sleep, and the body will prepare itself to sleep. Therefore, in this case, the ritual is a secondary reinforcer.

Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiment is a famous example of conditioned or secondary reinforcement. In the experiment, Pavlov rings a bell and immediately gives food to his dog to which it salivates. After repeatedly performing this exercise, the dog learns to connect the bell to food and salivates when it’s rung (even when food isn’t given).

Matthew Lynch published in Behavior Management, Psychology and Education August 18, 2023

What is a Primary Reinforcer?

This is an outcome that satisfies a basic necessity. A primary reinforcer refers to a stimulus that’s biologically vital to an organism, such as sleep, water, food, safety, sex, pleasure, and shelter. It results in involuntary responses, such as drooling, recoiling, and trembling. A primary reinforcer is also called an unconditioned stimulus or unconditioned reinforcer. These reinforcers help in the survival of species in the long run. Here’re detailed examples of two primary reinforcers.

Safety: When one touches a scorching iron, the person’s hand recoils automatically to avoid burning. This is a protective mechanism. The primary reinforcer is the scalding touch that reinforces automatic hand withdrawal.

Hunger: When an infant is hungry, it cries. The caretaker then feeds it to satisfy the hunger. This is a survival reflex that doesn’t need learning. Here, the primary reinforcer is the hunger that reinforces the crying.

Although primary reinforcers are intrinsic drives that occur naturally, they might influence persons depending on their experiences and genetics. For example, some individuals can tolerate more temperature than others. When they touch a hot object, their withdrawal reflex might not be triggered unless it’s scalding. The ability to tolerate higher temperatures might be inborn or because of repeated encountering in the past.

Advantages of primary reinforcers include:

One doesn’t need to learn using them as they come naturally
The desire to get them doesn’t go away

Disadvantages of primary reinforcers include:

They don’t represent natural environment situations
A person’s response to them might fade or satiate over time
One must use a secondary stimulus to make a primary reinforcer more effective

Primary reinforcers are the most fundamental types of reinforcers responsible for fulfilling different biological drives in organisms. For example, to survive, animals need to eat, and to eat, they need to hunt. Food reinforces the behavior of hunting, thus making it a rewarding process. Working all day makes one sleepy, and sleep helps the person relax, so sleep is a primary reinforcer. A hungry person who is promised food for completing the work is more intrinsically motivated to do it than somebody working for free movie tickets.

Behavior chaining stands for the occurrence of basic individual responses resulting in complex behavior. It involves both primary and secondary reinforcers. Every individual response is reinforced and followed by another until the complex behavior is achieved.

Behavioral psychologists consider behavior a result of learning. Operant conditioning is among the three behavioral models of learning. It was first mentioned by Edward Thorndike and developed by B.F. Skinner. According to them, depriving someone of a primary reinforcer like the food until a particular behavior is performed will notably increase that behavior. Kids who receive a sweet or a toy after throwing a tantrum will increase their acrimonious behavior. If kids only receive attention from their parents when they’re being scolded, that attention can reinforce the misbehavior.

It’s important to understand that what constitutes reinforcement might differ from one person to another. For example, in a classroom setting, one student might find a treat reinforcing while another might be unresponsive to it.

Matthew Lynch published in Psychology and Education August 9, 2023

What are Prosocial Behaviors?

These are character traits that reflect care, regard, and respect for the concerns of other humans. Prosocial behaviors include many actions such as sharing, helping, cooperating, and comforting.

Apart from the obvious benefits that prosocial actions offer the recipients, they can have several positive effects on the helper. These include:

Mood-boosting effects: According to research, individuals who engage in prosocial actions are more likely to have better moods. These people also tend to experience pessimistic moods less frequently.

Stress-reducing effects: Research has also shown that engaging in prosocial actions helps reduce the negative emotional impacts of stress. Helping others might be an excellent way to mitigate the effect of stress in one’s life.

Social support benefits: Research has found that social support can leave a strong impact on different aspects of wellness, including lowering the risk of depression, loneliness, and alcohol use.

According to psychologists, there’re different reasons why individuals engage in prosocial behaviors. These include:

Personal benefits: Prosocial actions are often viewed as being compelled by different factors, including reciprocal benefits (doing something good for someone so that the person might one day return the favor), egoistic reasons (doing things to enhance one’s self-image), and more altruistic reasons (doing things purely out of concern for another person).

Evolutionary influences: Evolutionary psychologists often describe prosocial behaviors concerning the principles of natural selection. Scientists have shown some evidence that individuals are often more likely to help others to whom they’re closely related.

Reciprocal behavior: According to the norm of reciprocity, when individuals do something beneficial for another person, that person feels compelled to return the favor. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that this norm developed because individuals who understood helping others may result in reciprocal kindness were more likely to reproduce and survive.

Socialization: In many cases, prosocial behaviors are nurtured during childhood and adolescence as parents encourage kids to help others, share, and act kindly.

Experts have identified different situational variables that contribute to prosocial behaviors. These include:

Fear of embarrassment or judgment: People sometimes fear offering assistance only to find out that their help was unwarranted or unwanted. They simply take no action to avoid being judged by the bystanders.

The number of individuals present: The more the number of individuals around, the less personal responsibility individuals feel in a situation. This is called the diffusion of responsibility.

How other individuals respond: Individuals also tend to look to other people to respond in these situations, especially if the event involves some level of ambiguity. People become less likely to respond if no other person seems to be reacting.

While prosocial behavior is generally presented as a single dimension, some research proposes that there’re different types. These are distinguished based on why they’re produced. These include:

Proactive: These actions cater to self-benefitting purposes.

Reactive: These actions are performed in reaction to individual needs.

Altruistic: These actions are meant to aid others without anticipating personal gain.

Researchers also propose that these prosocial behaviors are generally likely to be influenced by differing factors. For instance, proactive actions were identified to often be influenced by popularity within a group and status-linked goals.

Matthew Lynch published in Psychology and Education August 8, 2023

What is a Psychosocial Crisis?

Erikson explained this as a group of crucial problems which persons must sort as they walk through every one of the eight stages of life. Each crisis comprises a choice or dilemma that carries both risks and advantages, in which one alternative or choice is generally considered healthier or more desirable.

Crises of infants and preschoolers: Infants face a crisis about trust and mistrust. They’re happiest if they can sleep, eat, and excrete according to their physiological schedules, irrespective of whether those schedules are suited to the caregiver. As young infants cannot influence or control a caregiver’s scheduling needs, they face a quandary about how much to trust or mistrust their caregivers’ helpfulness.

Once this crisis is resolved, a new one forms over autonomy and shame. The toddlers might now trust their caregivers, but the trust contributes to a desire to establish autonomy by taking care of fundamental personal needs like feeding, dressing, or toileting. However, given a kid’s lack of experience in those activities, self-care is risky at first. Then the kid’s caregiver risks overprotecting the kid and criticizing the early efforts unnecessarily, thus causing the kid to be ashamed of those efforts.

Eventually, during kids’ preschool age, the autonomy exercised during the earlier period becomes more extended, elaborate, and concentrated on things and individuals other than the kids and their fundamental physical needs. Their desires and projects develop a crisis of initiative and guilt because they realize that acting on desires or impulses can sometimes negatively affect others.

Crisis of childhood: Once into elementary school, children are faced with becoming worthy and competent in the eyes of teachers and classmates. To achieve their esteem, they must develop skills that require sustained and somewhat focused effort. The challenge generates the crisis of industry and inferiority.

Crisis of adolescence: As kids develop lasting attitudes and talents due to the crisis of industry, they start to face new questions that generate the crisis of identity and role confusion. Describing identity is riskier than it might appear because some attitudes and talents might be poorly developed, and some might even be undesirable in others’ eyes. Conflicts in resolving these crises might generate a personal misunderstanding of an individual’s talents and attitudes.

Crises of adulthood: People continue psychosocial development beyond the school years by encountering additional crises. For instance, young adults encounter a crisis of intimacy and isolation. This is about the risk of developing close relationships with some selected persons. Whether the relationships are homosexual, heterosexual, or not sexual at all, their qualities are sustainability and depth.

A person risks feeling isolated without them. Once they resolve the crisis on the side of intimacy, they encounter a crisis of generativity and stagnation. This is a characteristic of the majority of adulthood and is about contributing to or caring for society, particularly to its younger generations. Generativity involves making life creative and productive so that it matters to others. One sure-fire method for some to accomplish this feeling is raising kids, but there’re also lots of other methods to contribute to others’ welfare.

Matthew Lynch published in Psychology and Education August 7, 2023

What is Psychosocial Theory?

These are a group of ideas and principles that is worked in a way a social context is related to psychological development. It is common to associate Erik Erikson with this theory.

The psychosocial theory comprises the following eight stages.

Trust vs. mistrust: This stage starts at birth and continues to around 18 months of age. Infants depend solely upon their caregivers. Therefore, if caregivers are sensitive and responsive to their infants’ needs, it helps them develop a sense of trust. Indifferent caregivers who don’t fulfill their babies’ needs might cause the infants to develop feelings of mistrust, anxiety, and fear and consider the world unpredictable.

Autonomy vs. shame and doubt: This stage happens between 11/2 and 3 years of age. If kids are allowed to grow at their own pace at this stage, they can acquire self-confidence and self-reliance. However, if parents are overprotective, inconsistent, or overcritical, the kids might doubt their ability to control their world and themselves.

Initiative vs. guilt: The third stage occurs during preschool, between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Children can develop initiative via social interactions and by directing play and other activities. If their pursuits don’t succeed or are criticized, feelings of guilt and self-doubt might arise.

Industry vs. inferiority: It occurs between the ages of 5 and 12 years. At this stage, children start to compare themselves with peers. They learn to be protective and acknowledge the assessment of their efforts. In turn, they may develop a sense of pride and accomplishment in their academic work, social activities, sports, and home life. If children feel they don’t measure up, they might develop feelings of incompetence or inferiority.

Identity vs. role confusion: A person develops a sense of self by trying out different social roles between the ages of 12 and 18. An adolescent who successfully develops a positive, cohesive identity will have a powerful sense of identity. Adolescents who are pressured into an identity or don’t search for an identity might develop a poor sense of self and experience role confusion.

Intimacy vs. isolation: This stage occurs between late adolescence and early middle age. A powerful sense of self has to be developed in adolescence to develop intimate relationships with others. Adults who don’t have a positive self-concept might experience loneliness or emotional isolation.

Generativity vs. stagnation: This stage occurs between the ages of 40 and 65. People have a positive objective of generativity during this stage. In most cases, this leads to procreation alongside the fulfillment of social and parental responsibilities, while failure leads to superficial involvement in the world.

Integrity vs. despair: The final stage occurs during old age when an individual reflects on life. A person can either form a feeling of satisfaction in life or despair over wasted time and missed opportunities.

Erikson’s theory also comes with limitations. One major downside of the theory is that the exact processes for resolving conflicts and moving from one stage to another aren’t well described. It fails to describe exactly what kinds of experiences are required at every stage for effectively resolving the conflicts and moving to the next stage.

Matthew Lynch published in Behavior Management, Psychology and Education August 2, 2023

Egocentric: Everything You Need to Know

This is the state of believing that the whole world is to be understood only from one’s point of view, in the most self-centered way. The term originated within Jean Piaget’s theory of childhood development. Egocentrism stands for one’s inability to comprehend that another person’s opinion or view might differ from the person’s own.

Egocentric people may find it hard to maintain meaningful relationships for a prolonged time or to connect with others. The bias toward self may lead to an egocentric person struggling within their intimate relationships, at home, and at work. The key reason for these struggles is the lack of capacity to imagine or empathize with somebody else’s perspective other than their own. This may adversely impact things such as trust, emotional attachment, intimacy or closeness, collaboration, teamwork, and decision-making.

For an egocentric person, life can feel anxiety-producing and isolating. When living with a cognitive bias, egocentric persons might believe that all eyes are on them, and others observe every decision or move they make. This can produce a huge amount of pressure for these people, causing anxiety around their social interactions and decision-making. Even when these people wish to connect with others, they might not understand how to do that or might make efforts to connect and feel confused about why the efforts fail.

According to research, adults usually have egocentric shortcomings in the following manners:

Curse of knowledge: It happens when those who’re experts in their fields talk above individuals around them on those topics. They forget that they’ve got a greater level of knowledge than those around them.

False consensus effect: It happens when individuals overestimate how much other individuals share their preferences or perspectives. The former group tends to think that others will see things their way or agree with them.

Illusion of transparency: It occurs when individuals feel that others can clearly observe their emotional condition in a given situation. For instance, they may think that others can observe how anxious they feel when giving a presentation at work.

Spotlight effect: It occurs when individuals overestimate how much others observe their behaviors or presence. They might enter a room and feel like others are watching their every move when, in reality, those people care casually interacting with one another and might not notice them at all.

Being self-focused may benefit when people feel disrespected or try to stick to their values. However, when an egocentric mindset adversely impacts their everyday behavior, it can trigger problems.

Matthew Lynch published in Psychology and Education July 26, 2023

Educational Psychology: Everything You Need to Know

This is a domain of psychology that has to do with studying teaching and learning. In other words, it’s the study of how students learn and covers instructional processes, teaching methods, and individual differences in learning. The objective of educational psychology is to understand the way students learn and preserve new information.

This domain of psychology isn’t limited to the learning process of early childhood and adolescence. Instead, it covers the emotional, social, and cognitive processes too, which are involved in learning throughout an individual’s entire lifespan.

Educational psychology integrates several other disciplines, including behavioral psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive psychology. Some major perspectives in educational psychology are:

The Behavioral Perspective

This perspective works on the theory that students will learn when they are rewarded for “good” behavior and reprimanded for “bad” behavior. For instance, teachers could give students tokens as a ‘reward’ for learning that they can exchange for popular items such as toys or candy. Though behavioral perspective can encourage learning in some cases, it has been criticized for its failure to consider aspects like emotions, attitudes, and inherent motivations for learning.

The Developmental Perspective

The emphasis of this perspective is on how students attain new skills and knowledge as they grow intellectually. By focusing on how students think at various stages of development, it becomes easier for educational psychologists to understand what they are capable of achieving at each point of their growth. This helps educators create instructional materials and methods best-suited to particular age groups.

The Cognitive Perspective

This considers how beliefs, memories, motivations, and emotions contribute to the learning process. The cognitive perspective supports the idea that students learn due to their intrinsic motivation, not because of external rewards. Its objective is to understand how students learn, think, process, and remember information. Thus, educational psychologists focusing on this perspective try to understand how students become inspired to learn, how they retain information, and how they find solutions to problems, among others.

The Constructivist Approach

This approach focuses more on the cultural and social influences that impact students’ learning. Those following the constructivist approach believe that what students already know creates the biggest impact on how they learn new information. In other words, this approach suggests that new knowledge can only be acquired and understood in terms of knowledge that students already possess.

Experiential Perspective

According to this perspective, a student’s own life experiences determine how he understands new information. The experiential perspective is similar to cognitive and constructivist perspectives as it considers the learner’s thoughts, experiences, and feelings.

Matthew Lynch published in Mental Health, Psychology and Education May 11, 2023

19 Hacks to Help Students Who Suffer From Anxiety

Are you looking for hacks to help students who suffer from anxiety? If so, keep reading.

1. Minimize the emphasis on competition. Repeated failure and frustration may cause the learner to take part in nervous habits.

2. Urge the learner to practice self-control learning activities designed to let them gain composure before continuing a learning experience (e.g., placing hands on desk, sitting with feet on the floor, making eye contact with the instructor, etc.).

3. Move materials used for tactile stimulation (e.g., pens, paper clips, loose change, etc.) away from the learner’s reach.

4. Draft an agreement with the learner stipulating what behavior is required (e.g., not engaging in nervous habits) and which reinforcement will be implemented when the agreement has been met.

5. Assess the appropriateness of the task to ascertain (a) if the task is too easy, (b) if the task is too complicated, and (c) if the duration of time scheduled to finish the task is sufficient.

6. Teach the learner to use techniques such as crossing their arms and legs, clinching their fists, and webbing their hands when they are engaging in nervous habits.

7. Organize their surroundings so the learner does not have time to take part in nervous habits.

8. Minimize stimuli that may cause the learner to take part in nervous habits (e.g., noise, movement, etc.).

9. Make the appropriate adjustments in their surroundings to prevent the learner from experiencing stress, frustration, nervousness, etc.

10. Find the situations in which the learner is likely to take part in nervous habits. After you have identified these situations, think of ways to minimize their occurrences.

11. Teach the learner to pay attention to the source of information by keeping eye contact, keeping hands free from other learning materials, and reducing other nervous habits.

12. Talk regularly with the learner to lessen nervous behavior.

13. Select a peer tutor to work directly with the learner to prevent stress, frustration, anxiety, etc.

14. Minimize situations that may contribute to nervous behavior (e.g., testing situations, timed learning activities, competition, etc.).

15. Consider using an adaptive behavior management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

16. Click here to learn about six bonus strategies for challenging problem behaviors and mastering classroom management.

17. Consider using a socio-emotional learning app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

18. Consider using an emotional intelligence app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

19. Consider using a school counseling app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

Matthew Lynch published in Mental Health, Psychology and Education February 11, 2023

20 Strategies to Help Students Who Suffer From Anxiety

Are you looking for strategies to help students who suffer from anxiety? If so, keep reading.

1. Connect with parents (e.g., notes home, phone calls, etc.) to disseminate information about the learner’s progress. The parents may reinforce the learner at home for not engaging in nervous habits at school.

2. Maintain a calm/pleasant atmosphere.

3. Let the learner squeeze a tennis ball or rolled up towel to decrease engaging in nervous habits.

4. Let the learner take a break to regroup when they are becoming nervous.

5. Refrain from a discussion of topics that are sensitive to the learner (e.g., divorce, death, unemployment, alcoholism, etc.).

6. Provide a full schedule of learning activities. Keeping the learner occupied should prevent the learner from engaging in nervous habits.

7. Allow the learner some physical learning experience while performing tasks.

8. Give the learner an alternate learning experience designed to result in productive behavior (e.g., drawing, cutting, using a calculator, working with a peer, etc.).

9. Urge the learner to create an understanding of themselves and those around him/her. Urge the learner to periodically step back and ask themselves, “Am I fidgeting and being overactive?”

10. Teach behaviors that promote self-control. Let the learner gain their composure before continuing a learning experience (e.g., placing hands on desk, sitting with feet on the floor, making eye contact with the person who is talking, etc.).

11. Praise the learner for demonstrating appropriate behavior: (a) give the learner a concrete reward (e.g., classroom privileges, passing out learning materials, 10 minutes of free time, etc.) or (b) give the learner an informal reward (e.g., praise, handshake, smile, etc.).

12. Praise the learner for demonstrating appropriate academic/social behavior based on the duration of time they can be successful. As the learner shows success, slowly increase the duration of time required for reinforcement.

13. Let the learner keep a tiny object in their pocket that is appropriate to handle at all times and would not disturb others (e.g., foam, rubber, or fabric ball; buckeye; worry stone; etc.).

14. Get the learner to create an understanding of the consequences of their behavior by writing down or talking through problems that may happen due to their nervous habits (e.g., perceived as unmannerly, avoided, etc.).

15. Attempt several groupings in the classroom to ascertain the situation in which the learner is most comfortable.

16. Consider using an adaptive behavior management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

17. Click here to learn about six bonus strategies for challenging problem behaviors and mastering classroom management.

18. Consider using a socio-emotional learning app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

19. Consider using an emotional intelligence app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

20. Consider using a school counseling app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

Matthew Lynch published in Parental Involvement, Parenting, Psychology and Education July 26, 2021

A Guide to Negative Reinforcement

There are four types of operant conditioning identified by B.F. Skinner: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. Both types of reinforcement have the goal of increasing the desired behavior, while both types of punishment aim to diminish certain behaviors.

In this article, we will focus on negative reinforcement.

Negative reinforcement has the same goal as positive reinforcement, which is to increase a specific behavior. Whereas positive reinforcements use rewards and tokens to encourage the repetition of a behavior, negative reinforcement has to do with the removal of unpleasant stimuli.

An Example

A young boy always leaves his dirty clothes on the floor as soon as he changes out of them after coming home from school. Parents nag their child to put his dirty clothes in the laundry basket immediately after changing clothes. Every time the child forgets to put his clothes away, he gets nagged. To avoid getting nagged again, the child will put his dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Time will come when this will become a habit. The child will no longer have to be nagged just so he can remember to put his dirty clothes away.

In this example, the unpleasant stimuli is the parents’ nagging, while the desired behavior is putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket.

Negative reinforcement is not punishment

People often get these two mixed up, but it’s understandable because of the connotation of the words “negative” and “punishment.”

When talking about “negative” and “positive” in the context of reinforcement and punishment, negative refers to taking something away while positive refers to adding something (a reward, a token, etc.).

Conclusion

Negative reinforcement can be an effective way to increase or encourage behaviors. Consistency and timing of applying the reinforcement are key to seeing the repetition or increase of a behavior. Deliver negative reinforcement as soon as you observe the child perform the behavior you want to increase. Most people gravitate toward positive reinforcement because it explicitly rewards the child for good behavior; however, the proper use of negative reinforcement can be just as effective. It is up to you, the adult, to determine which one to use.