Applications of Behavioral Principles Syllabus

PSY 380/Applications of Behavioral Principles

Jeanne M. Slattery, Ph.D.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. -- Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 - 1963)

While we faculty often see what we teach as relevant, students may see it as abstract and unconnected to the real world. This course is designed to help you apply the ideas you have learned or are learning in other courses to your own lives. As we go through this course, you should apply these ideas immediately and directly to an issue that you have decided to address behaviorally. My belief is that your ability to effect change in your own lives will increase your own effectiveness in your work as caseworkers, therapists, parents and people.

Objectives

Although we will look at principles from a variety of areas within Psychology, many of our techniques will be cognitive and behavioral in orientation. These areas provide a strong foundation from which to produce change. Our objectives include learning to:

Apply cognitive-behavioral and other psychological techniques to produce change in your own lives and begin to understand the processes by which this can be done with others.
Create change processes using your knowledge of the problem research on a "problem" (e.g., stress, pain, parenting or depression).
Take accurate and objective behavioral measures as well as to set objective and realistic behavioral goals.
Write your methodology to produce change, results of the change process, and discussion of these objectively and according to APA format, becoming more comfortable with this style of thinking and writing.
Work with the class and several fellow students, recognizing one's own abilities to contribute to others' change processes, as well as how to gain helpful contributions from others, learning how to modify writing and plans from these.

As several of our objectives require significant writing as well as collaborative review and revision of this writing, this course has been approved for a Writing Intensive (W) flag within the major.

Steps to the Goal

Text. To facilitate these goals we will use Watson & Tharp's (1997) Self-directed behavior: Self-modification for personal adjustment (7th ed.) as well as a number of readings that I will make available at appropriate times and places later in the course. The APA publication manual (4th ed.) is optional, but will be helpful with many of your assignments.

Exams. We will have two exams which will cover material from the text, lectures and discussions, handouts, videos, and other materials. Exams will be both multiple choice and essay in format. Primary goals of testing will be to determine that you understand the content and are able to apply the course material. Make-ups can be taken at a mutually convenient time until exam time. If you miss an exam without informing me, exam format will be at my discretion.

Self-change project and poster. Approximately 2/3 of your grade will come from a self-change project and poster. For this project you must choose a goal for self-modification, as well as a comprehensive plan for change that considers the behavior in context with its antecedents and consequences. This process will be broken into a number of parts to assist you with the project. The final project will be presented to the class as a poster presentation -- written in APA format as described in the APA publication manual (4th ed.). All posters should include a title, an Abstract, brief Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. I will have one or more of my own posted in my office as examples over the course of the semester. Please use the handouts on grading to guide your paper development. Your poster is worth 100 points. Late posters earn a penalty of 10% of this total, 25% if the presentation is missed. Your grade is not dependent on making effective self-change -- it is easy to make change with trivial problems and more difficult to do so with meaningful ones -- but demonstrating good thought processes about the conditions related to change. I am doing a similar project and have posted an old one on the web.

Intermediate writing projects. This project could be an overwhelming one, however I am asking you to break it up into five shorter assignments spread out over the semester prior to your final paper. These are your: (a) Goal Statement (10 pts.); (b) Baseline Observations (20 pts.); (c) Outline of Methodology (20 pts.); (d) Literature Review (50 pts.); (e) Results and discussion (50 pts.). On the due dates, assignments will be shared with your peer group and critiqued. You should ask for feedback on both content as well as writing and presentation style. Effective critiques will address both strengths and weaknesses of an assignment.

Peer review.We will work together to assist each other in making change -- as a class and in groups. Recognizing problems in a clearly defined context of antecedents and consequences, and identifying successful strategies for changing problematic behaviors, is a difficult process alone. However, it is sometimes easier to see these patterns with someone else -- if only because you are able to be more objective rather than only subjective. Furthermore, this process most closely models the way you would be working on a job or making change in your own life. That is, effective change is always assisted and supported by the people around us.

This process is a novel concept for many. Therefore, I will help you find ways to structure it and make it useful. You will also receive a portion of your grade (75 pts.) from this process, as a function of: (a) class participation (50 pts.) and (b) peer reviews (25 pts.). Your ability to effectively use the peer reviews you receive is also indirectly embedded in the grading for your final paper. Your final papers must be given to your peer reviewer one week prior to the due date or you will be docked 10% of the paper's grade.

Grading how your group worked together is at best a subjective process. I look at things like time on task, how group members talk about the work being done by other members, attendance in group, as well as written and verbal feedback on how the group is performing. Make my job easy for me by keeping notes on the content and process of group interactions.

E-Mail. While I am not requiring you to get an e-mail address and communicate with me by e-mail, I would strongly encourage you to get an address and give it to me. I will answer your questions, share others' concerns (or excitement), or inform you of any changes in the course as they occur. I also send mailings via e-mail (1) to interested students about psychologically relevant activities, graduate school, school, etc., and (2) a word a day to help you strengthen your vocabulary. If you want to be added to either list, let me know.

Letters of Recommendation

Psychology is a career that generally requires at least a master's to enter and "practice." If you haven't begun thinking about this process yet, you should now! Many of you will probably consider asking me for a letter. These are some of the things I consider as I write my letters:

performance in class the nature of questions raised and answers given
attitude and motivation, including persistence and attendance
quality of writing or analysis in your writing
ability to continue to perform even as you experience stressors in your life
other relevant interactions we have had and how you have performed there, including with Psi Chi, on research with me, or on departmental and university committees

Be aware of these and present your best face. I am not asking that you be "perfect," instead that you demonstrate a willingness to think, learn and profit from experience, as well as an ability to behave professionally.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Clarion University is mandated by federal and state laws to report crimes occurring on campus or in campus-related functions. In order to comply with these laws, I am required to report information about university-related crimes to Public Safety. If you tell me of a crime that meets university criteria (especially assaults, sexual assaults, robbery, or hate crimes), I will report it. I am not required to identify either victims or witnesses by name. I will, of course, inform you before making a report.

GRADES

Grades will be determined as the percentage of the available points earned. These will come from three sources: (a) the sum of the percentages from your tests (200 pts.); (b) the number of points earned from your poster (100 pts.); (c) the number of points earned from intermediate writing assignments (150 pts.); (d) the number of points earned from class participation (50 pts.), and (e) the number of points earned for your work doing peer reviews (25 pts.). The total earned can be compared with the following scale:

Grade	Percentage Earned	Points earned
A	90 - 100%	472 and up
B	80 - 89%	420 - 471
C	70 - 79%	367 - 419
D	60 - 69%	315 - 366
E	less than 60%	314 and down

I do not expect that a certain number of students fail and I would be happy if the class received only As and Bs. To meet this goal I will be happy to help you when you need it. If you have test anxiety or if this course raises issues which you want to work on, but that are beyond the scope of this class, call the Counseling Center (2255).

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

8/28 - 9/6 Thinking about problems in context

Ch. 1

1/29 - 2/4 Defining behavior and goals

Rough of goal statement due 9/11
Goal statement due 9/15

Ch. 2

8/18 - 9/20 Self-observations

Ch. 3

9/22 - 10/2

General learning principles

Ch.4

Rough of baseline observations due 9/22
Baseline observations due 9/29

10/4 - 10/11

Recognizing (and changing) problematic thought processes and other antecedents controlling behavior

Chs. 5

Rough of methodology due 10/6
Methods due 10/9
Test 1 (Chs. 1-5, Prochaska) on 10/11

10/16 - 10/20

Looking at the behavior itself

Ch. 6

3/19 - 3/29

What happens next?

Consequences

Ch. 7

Rough of literature review due 10/27

11/3 - 11/8

Writing the paper, graphing results, APA format

Literature review due 11/3

Rough of results & discussion due 11/6

11/10 - 11/27

Lapse, relapse, & termination

Chs. 8 - 10
Interview with Marlatt

Results & discussion due 11/13
Rough draft of poster due 12/1

11/29 - 12/1

Working with others: What should we think about?

Posters due 12/4, 12/6. & 12/8 (luck of draw)

12/11 Test 2 (Chs. 6-10, Marlatt interview)

Page by jms
URL= http://psy1.clarion.edu/jms/syllbt.html

Last updated September 9, 2000