Habit reversal training (HRT) is a multicomponent behavioural treatment package originally developed to address a wide variety of repetitive behaviour disorders.
Behavioural disorders treated with HRT include tics, trichotillomania, nail biting, thumb sucking, skin picking, temporomandibular disorder (TMJ), lip-cheek biting and stuttering. It consists of five components: awareness training, competing response training, contingency management, relaxation training, and generalisation training.
Research on the efficacy of HRT for behavioural disorders have produced consistent, large effect sizes (approximately 0.80 across the disorders). It has met the standard of a well-established treatment for stuttering, thumb sucking, nail biting, and TMJ disorders. According to a meta-analysis from 2012, decoupling, a self-help variant of HRT, also shows efficacy.
In case of a tic, these components are intended to increase tic awareness, develop a competing response to the tic, and build treatment motivation and compliance. HRT is based on the presence of a premonitory urge, or sensation occurring before a tic. HRT involves replacing a tic with a competing response—a more comfortable or acceptable movement or sound—when a patient feels a premonitory urge building.
Controlled trials have demonstrated that HRT is an acceptable, tolerable, effective and durable treatment for tics; HRT reduces the severity of vocal tics, and results in enduring improvement of tics when compared with supportive therapy. HRT has been shown to be more effective than supportive therapy and, in some studies, medication. HRT is not yet proven or widely accepted, but large-scale trials are ongoing and should provide better information about its efficacy in treating Tourette syndrome. Studies through 2006 are “characterized by a number of design limitations, including relatively small sample sizes, limited characterisation of study participants, limited data on children and adolescents, lack of attention to the assessment of treatment integrity and adherence, and limited attention to the identification of potential clinical and neurocognitive mechanisms and predictors of treatment response”. Additional controlled studies of HRT are needed to address whether HRT, medication, or a combination of both is most effective, but in the interim, “HRT either alone or in combination with medication should be considered as a viable treatment” for tic disorders.
Comprehensive Behavioural Intervention for Tics
Comprehensive Behavioural Intervention for Tics (CBIT), based on HRT, is a first-line treatment for Tourette syndrome and tic disorders. With a high level of confidence, CBIT has been shown to be more likely to lead to a reduction in tics than other supportive therapies or psychoeducation. Some limitations are: children younger than ten may not understand the treatment, people with severe tics or ADHD may not be able to suppress their tics or sustain the required focus to benefit from behavioural treatments, there is a lack of therapists trained in behavioural interventions, finding practitioners outside of specialty clinics can be difficult, and costs may limit accessibility. Whether increased awareness of tics through HRT/CBIT (as opposed to moving attention away from them) leads to further increases in tics later in life is a subject of discussion among TS experts.
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Decoupling is a behavioural self-help intervention for body-focused and related behaviours (DSM-5) such as trichotillomania, onychophagia (nail biting), skin picking and lip-cheek biting.
Outline
The user is instructed to modify the original dysfunctional behavioural path by performing a counter-movement shortly before completing the self-injurious behaviour (e.g. biting nails, picking skin, pulling hair). This is intended to trigger an irritation, which enables the person to detect and stop the compulsive behaviour at an early stage.
A systematic review from 2012 suggested some efficacy of decoupling, which was corroborated by Lee et al. in 2019.
Whether or not the technique is superior to other behavioural interventions such as habit reversal training awaits to be tested. Decoupling is a variant of habit reversal training.
Covert conditioning is an approach to mental health treatment that utilises the principles of applied behaviour analysis, or cognitive-behaviour therapies (CBTs) to help individuals improve their behaviour or inner experience. This method relies on the individual’s ability to use imagery for purposes such as mental rehearsal. In some populations, it has been found that an imaginary reward can be as effective as a real one. The effectiveness of covert conditioning is believed to depend on the careful application of behavioural treatment principles, including a comprehensive behavioural analysis.
Some clinicians include the mind’s ability to spontaneously generate imagery that can provide intuitive solutions or even reprocessing that improves people’s typical reactions to situations or inner material. However, this goes beyond the behaviouristic principles on which covert conditioning is based.
Therapies and self-help methods have aspects of covert conditioning. This can be seen in focusing, some neuro-linguistic programming methods such as future pacing, and various visualisation or imaginal processes used in behaviour therapies, such as CBTs or clinical behaviour analysis.
Therapeutic Interventions
“Systematic desensitisation” associates an aversive stimulus with a behaviour that the client wishes to reduce or eliminate. This is achieved by imagining the target behaviour followed by imagining an aversive consequence. “Covert extinction” attempts to reduce a behaviour by imagining the target behaviour while imagining that the reinforcer does not occur. “Covert response cost” seeks to reduce a behaviour by associating the loss of a reinforcer with the target behaviour that is to be decreased.
“Contact desensitisation” intends to increase a behaviour by imagining a reinforcing experience in connection with modelling the correct behaviour. “Covert negative reinforcement” attempts to increase a behaviour by connecting the termination of an aversive stimulus with increased production of a target behaviour.
“Dialectical behaviour therapy” (DBT) and “Acceptance and commitment therapy” (ACT) uses positive reinforcement and covert conditioning through mindfulness.
Effectiveness
Previous research in the early 1990s has shown covert conditioning to be effective with sex offenders as part of a behaviour modification treatment package. Clinical studies continue to find it effective with some generalisation from office to natural environment with this population.
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Behaviour management, similar to behaviour modification, is a less-intensive form of behaviour therapy. Unlike behaviour modification, which focuses on changing behaviour, behaviour management focuses on maintaining positive habits and behaviours and reducing negative ones. Behaviour management skills are especially useful for teachers and educators, healthcare workers, and those working in supported living communities. This form of management aims to help professionals oversee and guide behaviour management in individuals and groups toward fulfilling, productive, and socially acceptable behaviours. Behaviour management can be accomplished through modelling, rewards, or punishment.
Research
Influential behaviour management researchers B.F. Skinner and Carl Rogers both take different approaches to managing behavio.
Skinner claimed that anyone can manipulate behaviour by identifying what a person finds rewarding. Once the rewards are known, they can be given in exchange for good behaviour. Skinner called this “Positive Reinforcement Psychology.”
Rogers proposed that the desire to behave appropriately must come before addressing behavioural problems. This is accomplished by teaching the individual about morality, including why one should do what is right. Rogers held that a person must have an internal awareness of right and wrong.
Many principles and techniques are the same as in behaviour modification. However, they are considerably different and administered less often.
In the Classroom
Behaviour management is often applied by a classroom teacher as a form of behavioural engineering, in order to raise students’ retention of material and produce higher yields of student work completion. This also helps to reduce classroom disruption and places more focus on building self-control and self-regulating a calm emotional state.
American education psychologist, Brophy (1986, p.191) writes:
Contemporary behavior modification approaches involve students more actively in planning and shaping their own behavior through participation in the negotiation of contracts with their teachers and through exposure to training designed to help them to monitor and evaluate their behavior more actively, to learn techniques of self-control and problem solving, and to set goals and reinforce themselves for meeting these meetings.
In general, behaviour management strategies are effective at reducing classroom disruption. Recent efforts have focused on incorporating principles of functional assessment.
Such strategies can come from a variety of behavioural change theories, although the most common practices rely on using applied behaviour analysis principles such as positive reinforcement and mild punishments (like response cost and child time-out). Behavioural practices like differential reinforcement are often used. These may be delivered in a token economy or a level system. In general, the reward component is considered effective. For example, Cotton (1988) reviewed 37 studies on tokens, praise, and other reward systems and found them to be effective in managing student classroom behaviour. A comprehensive review of token procedures to match children’s level of behavioural severity is found in Walker’s text “The Acting Out Child.”
Behaviour management systems have three main parts:
Whole group;
Table group; and
Individual.
Examples may include marble jars for the class, prize charts for tables, and a grid chart with 25 spaces for individual students. Many types of charts can be found to use in each situation.
Effective behaviour management depends on using tools that are appropriate to each situation. One effective tool is the High Card/Low Card system. To use a high card, the educator or instructor uses strong intervention to address the issue. Some examples of High Cards are:
Sending a student to the office.
Keeping a student after school hours.
Calling home to the student’s parent.
A Low Card approach is a less invasive way to address a behavioural issue and may include:
Speaking to a student privately.
Making eye contact during the issue.
Changing the seating arrangement.
Some student behaviours must be addressed immediately and could cause a teacher to interrupt teaching in order to resolve the issue. This is known as a direct cost situation. This typically arises in extreme behaviour situations like physical disputes between students, loud outbursts in class, or disrupting the class disrespectfully.
Purkey proposed a visualisation way to keep track of the methods used to manage student behaviour. He called it the “Blue-card, orange-card theory”. Blue cards help reinforce good behaviour and ways to encourage a student. Orange cards, in contrast, are things that may be critical, discouraging, or demeaning. Some examples of blue cards might be bringing up the good things a student has done before focusing on the behaviour that needs to change, therefore reminding the student that they have worth and causing them to feel encouraged. An orange card could list ways to critique a student’s work in front of the class, which would lower their feelings of self-worth, providing an example of what to avoid. Teachers can be aware and provide students with required critique and feedback, while reinforcing their self-image. Purkey’s theory helps teachers understand how they can edit behavioural management specifically in the classroom.
In Supported Living
When bringing behavioural management in relation with supported living the purpose of this is to keep a person’s dignity. Most of the time, residents have some behaviour that is meant to be improved in order for them to live a more normal life. Our main goal of the behavioural management is to help them become as independent as possible. Of course, it is important to recognise that not every resident will be back to being completely independent.
There are a lot of ways to help residents be more independent and we will look at some of those here.
It is important we first take a look at each resident’s history. Many of them will have gone through an experience that may have started the behaviour change in the first place. Some examples of these are child abuse, trauma, anxiety, depression, etc.
Once a person is in the behaviour management process, we have to consider their behaviour daily. We should also be meeting with them regularly in order to keep accurate data of their behaviour. In this way we can look back and make modifications to what they need during the behaviour management process.
Each resident will be different and need a variety of attention. But it is important to consider what will be needed in order to get to their success. The main goal of the behaviour management is to address the behaviour issue in order to keep them independent.
When with a resident there are a variety of behaviours you may come into contact with. You will not only need to know what to do in each situation but also how to act. Your behaviour is crucial to the progress of their behaviour. There may be situations when yourself can not handle the behaviour and will need to lead to a bigger solution. Redirecting them to a psychologist, psychiatrist, hospital, or a behaviour management centre may be beneficial.
Building Prosocial Behaviour
Behavioural management principles have used reinforcement, modelling, and punishment to foster prosocial behaviour. This is sometimes referred to as behavioural development, a sub-category of which is behaviour analysis of child development. The “token economy” is an example of behavioural management approach that seeks to develop prosocial behaviour. In this model, socially appropriate behaviours are encouraged and reinforced since these are equivalent to points that can be exchanged for rewards. Examples of situations and behaviours where tokens can be earned include attending groups, taking medication, and refraining from aggressive behaviours, among others.
Several studies have been done in this area to discover effective methods of building prosocial behaviour. Midlarsky and colleagues (1973) used a combination of modelling and reinforcement to build altruistic behaviour. Two studies exist in which modelling by itself did not increase prosocial behaviour; however, modelling is much more effective than instruction-giving (such as “preaching”). The role of rewards has been implicated in the building of self-control and empathy. Cooperation seems particularly susceptible to rewards. Sharing is another prosocial behaviour influenced by reinforcement. In a Harvard study, it was proven that acts of kindness and expressing gratitude in the classroom can cause better behaviour and increased mood overall.
Reinforcement is particularly effective in the learning environment if context conditions are similar. Recent research indicates that behavioural interventions produce the most valuable results when applied during early childhood and early adolescence. Positive reinforcement motivates better than punishment. Motivation to behaviour change is also less damaging to the relationship.
More controversy has arisen concerning behaviour management due to the role of punishment in forming prosocial behaviour. However, one study found that sharing rates of children could be increased by removing factors that caused a failure to share. The socialisation process continues by peers with reinforcement and punishment playing major roles. Peers are more likely to punish cross-gender play and reinforce play specifically to gender.
Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment are all forms of operant conditioning. Reinforcements are an attempt to change behaviour, either positively or negatively. Positive reinforcement attempts to increase a behaviour by adding something the target wants (e.g. awarding good behaviour with a treat). Negative reinforcement is attempting to increase behaviour by removing something unwanted from the target. (e.g. a child’s room is messy and their mother nags them to clean it up, they will eventually try to keep it clean to stop the mother from nagging them). Punishment is trying to decrease behaviour, either by using negative or positive stimuli. Positive punishment is when one adds an unwanted stimulus to decrease the target’s behaviour (e.g. spanking a child when they behave badly). Here, spanking is being added to decrease undesired behaviour. Negative punishment is when one removes something the target enjoys or likes to decrease their undesired behaviour. (e.g. a child comes home past curfew every weekend, so if their mother bans them from watching TV when they are past curfew, the child will eventually try to come home on time). This is negative punishment because the child likes to watch TV, so when the mother takes that away from them, they dislike the consequence. Thus, they will be more likely to come home in time to avoid having that privilege taken away.
Abraham Maslow is a very well-known humanist psychologist, known for his work on the hierarchy of needs, in which he states that humans must have one level of needs satisfied before attaining the next level. There are five needs that are being satisfied in sequence: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualisation. Maslow also claims that humans’ needs are never completely fulfilled and that this affects how people behave (e.g. if a person’s needs are never fully satisfied, then they might not always behave well, even if they do receive a treat for good behaviour). A related concept, the “Hawthorne Effect”, involves the manipulation of behaviour of somebody being observed. For example, if someone is being studied in an experiment, that person might perform better or work harder because they are aware of the attention they are receiving. It is this effect of observation that is called the “Hawthorne Effect”. This is interesting because if a child who is behaving very poorly, no matter what, is put in an experiment, they might increase their good behaviour. After all, they are receiving attention from the researcher. The point of operant conditioning in behaviour modification is to regulate the behaviour. This method uses different techniques and ties them all together to monitor behaviour. It can lead to problems, however, when talking about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs because in this model Maslow goes on to explain how no one’s needs are fully met. The highest point on Maslow’s pyramid is self-actualisation which Maslow argues is the goal in which we do not reach. This can pose a problem when it comes to behaviour modification because one might think if that individual can not reach that ultimate goal, why try at all. Self-actualisation is the goal in which humans have this sense of belonging or accomplishment. Humans have an inherent need to achieve goals and attain self-satisfaction; when we do not attain those goals and needs, we feel dissatisfied. When a person does not meet that top goal, that person might feel a void, discouraged because they cannot seem to reach that ultimate step. Using these behavioural modifications or techniques, people can teach themselves how to better attain these goals.
Managing Defensive Behaviour
Understanding and dealing with defensiveness is an important personal skill. Following are some of the strategies:
Recognize that defensive behaviour is normal, as “defensive behaviours are intended to reduce a perceive threat or avoid an unwanted threat,” It is normal for one to be defensive when they feel that something is their fault. These actions are attempted in order to avoid blame or change of action.
Never attack a person’s defences. Do not try to “explain someone” to themselves by saying things like, “you know the real reason you are using that excuse is that you cannot bear to be blamed for anything.” Instead, try to concentrate on the act itself rather than on the person.
Postpone action. Sometimes it is best to do nothing at all. People frequently react to sudden threats by instinctively closing off and hiding their feelings. When given time the person will be able to give a more composed reaction or answer. These feelings often come from being overloaded, especially in the workplace where overload can have a taxing effect on a person’s ability to meet task expectations.
Recognize human limitations. Do not expect to be able to solve every problem that comes up, especially the human ones. More importantly, remember that a layman should not try to be a psychologist. Offering employees understanding is one thing; trying to deal with deep psychological problems is another matter entirely.
Knowing personal limits and expectations is important in helping others with defensive behaviour. Being able to have effective self-observation is important because if there is no solid idea of one’s feelings, then trying to help others will come across as too aggressive or too reserved. A smart way to start this change is by asking oneself a couple of different questions, such as “what am I feeling”, “what am I thinking”, “how else can I think about that,” etc. Then proceed to automatically notice if the feelings are winding up or down to act accordingly.
An effective strategy to dealing with defensiveness is the SCARF model which was developed by an Australian neuroscientist named David Rock. The five letters stand for status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Understanding each domain will help explain the fight or flight response when someone is faced with a stressful situation; and focus on each individuals’ skills.
Status threats relate to how important the threat is to others and ourselves, looking at how the situation will help lift or put down the other people involved and forget about ego(s).
Certainty threats deal with predicting the future such as when someone says “I never get told anything in this company.” It is actually them asking to be kept in the loop about decisions that are being made.
Autonomy threats are based on the control throughout a situation; if someone is having this threat they will feel like they have not had any say or input and become frustrated as a result. In these situations, giving that person a choice is the best option.
Relatedness threats deal with how comfortable someone feels around other people. In this case, the leader of the group needs to make sure that everyone is feeling included and important. Making sure that everyone’s voice is heard and they are important individuals.
Finally, the fairness threat is the perception of both parties that the exchange of content and relation is fair and equal. No one wants to feel like they are putting in 80 percent while the other side is only putting in 20%.
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A social relation is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals within and/or between groups. The group can be a language or kinship group, a social institution or organisation, an economic class, a nation, or gender. Social relations are derived from human behavioural ecology, and, as an aggregate, form a coherent social structure whose constituent parts are best understood relative to each other and to the social ecosystem as a whole.
Brief History
Early inquiries into the nature of social relations featured in the work of sociologists such as Max Weber in his theory of social action, where social relationships composed of both positive (affiliative) and negative (agonistic) interactions represented opposing effects. Categorising social interactions enables observational and other social research, such as Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (lit. ‘community and society’), collective consciousness, etc.
Ancient works which include manuals of good practice in social relations include the text of Pseudo-Phocylides, 175–227, Josephus’ polemical work Against Apion, 198–210, and the deutero-canonical Jewish Book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, 7:18–36.
More recent research on social behaviour has demonstrated that newborn infants tend to instinctually gravitate towards prosocial behaviour. As obligate social apes, humans are born highly altricial, and require an extended period of post-natal development for cultural transmission of social organisation, language, and moral frameworks. In linguistic and anthropological frameworks, this is reflected in a culture’s kinship terminology, with the default mother-child relation emerging as part of the embryological process.
Forms of Relation and Interaction
According to Piotr Sztompka, forms of relation and interaction in sociology and anthropology may be described as follows: first and most basic are animal-like behaviours, i.e. various physical movements of the body. Then there are actions—movements with a meaning and purpose. Then there are social behaviours, or social actions, which address (directly or indirectly) other people, which solicit a response from another agent.
Next are social contacts, a pair of social actions, which form the beginning of social interactions. Symbols define social relationships. Without symbols, our social life would be no more sophisticated than that of animals. For example, without symbols people would have no aunts or uncles, employers or teachers-or even brothers and sisters. In sum, symbolic integrations analyse how social life depends on the ways people define themselves and others. They study face-to-face interaction, examining how people make sense out of life, how they determine their relationships.
Physical Movement
Meaning
Directed Towards Others
Await Response
Unique/Rare Interaction
Interactions
Accidental, Not Planned, But Repeated Interaction
Regular
Interactions Described by Law, Custom, or Tradition
A Scheme of Social Interactions
Behaviour
Yes
Action
Yes
Maybe
Social Behaviour
Yes
No
Yes
Social Action
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Social Contact
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Social Interaction
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Repeated Interaction
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Regular Interaction
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Regulated Interaction
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Social Relation
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
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Behaviour therapy or behavioural psychotherapy is a broad term referring to clinical psychotherapy that uses techniques derived from behaviourism and/or cognitive psychology. It looks at specific, learned behaviours and how the environment, or other people’s mental states, influences those behaviours, and consists of techniques based on behaviourism’s theory of learning: respondent or operant conditioning. Behaviourists who practice these techniques are either behaviour analysts or cognitive-behavioural therapists. They tend to look for treatment outcomes that are objectively measurable. Behaviour therapy does not involve one specific method, but it has a wide range of techniques that can be used to treat a person’s psychological problems.
Behavioural psychotherapy is sometimes juxtaposed with cognitive psychotherapy. While cognitive behavioural therapy integrates aspects of both approaches, such as cognitive restructuring, positive reinforcement, habituation (or desensitisation), counterconditioning, and modelling.
Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) is the application of behaviour analysis that focuses on functionally assessing how behaviour is influenced by the observable learning environment and how to change such behaviour through contingency management or exposure therapies, which are used throughout clinical behaviour analysis therapies or other interventions based on the same learning principles.
Cognitive-behavioural therapy views cognition and emotions as preceding overt behaviour and implements treatment plans in psychotherapy to lessen the issue by managing competing thoughts and emotions, often in conjunction with behavioural learning principles.
A 2013 Cochrane review comparing behaviour therapies to psychological therapies found them to be equally effective, although at the time the evidence base that evaluates the benefits and harms of behaviour therapies was weak.
Brief History
Precursors of certain fundamental aspects of behaviour therapy have been identified in various ancient philosophical traditions, particularly Stoicism. For example, Wolpe and Lazarus wrote,
While the modern behavior therapist deliberately applies principles of learning to this therapeutic operations, empirical behavior therapy is probably as old as civilization – if we consider civilization as having started when man first did things to further the well-being of other men. From the time that this became a feature of human life there must have been occasions when a man complained of his ills to another who advised or persuaded him of a course of action. In a broad sense, this could be called behavior therapy whenever the behavior itself was conceived as the therapeutic agent. Ancient writings contain innumerable behavioral prescriptions that accord with this broad conception of behavior therapy.
The first use of the term behaviour modification appears to have been by Edward Thorndike in 1911. His article Provisional Laws of Acquired Behaviour or Learning makes frequent use of the term “modifying behavior”. Through early research in the 1940s and the 1950s the term was used by Joseph Wolpe’s research group. The experimental tradition in clinical psychology used it to refer to psycho-therapeutic techniques derived from empirical research. It has since come to refer mainly to techniques for increasing adaptive behaviour through reinforcement and decreasing maladaptive behaviour through extinction or punishment (with emphasis on the former). Two related terms are behaviour therapy and applied behaviour analysis. Since techniques derived from behavioural psychology tend to be the most effective in altering behaviour, most practitioners consider behaviour modification along with behaviour therapy and applied behaviour analysis to be founded in behaviourism. While behaviour modification and applied behaviour analysis typically uses interventions based on the same behavioural principles, many behaviour modifiers who are not applied behaviour analysts tend to use packages of interventions and do not conduct functional assessments before intervening.
Possibly the first occurrence of the term “behavior therapy” was in a 1953 research project by B.F. Skinner, Ogden Lindsley, Nathan Azrin and Harry C. Solomon. The paper talked about operant conditioning and how it could be used to help improve the functioning of people who were diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia. Early pioneers in behaviour therapy include Joseph Wolpe and Hans Eysenck.
In general, behaviour therapy is seen as having three distinct points of origin: South Africa (Wolpe’s group), the United States (Skinner), and the United Kingdom (Rachman and Eysenck). Each had its own distinct approach to viewing behaviour problems. Eysenck in particular viewed behaviour problems as an interplay between personality characteristics, environment, and behaviour. Skinner’s group in the United States took more of an operant conditioning focus. The operant focus created a functional approach to assessment and interventions focused on contingency management such as the token economy and behavioural activation. Skinner’s student Ogden Lindsley is credited with forming a movement called precision teaching, which developed a particular type of graphing program called the standard celeration chart to monitor the progress of clients. Skinner became interested in the individualising of programs for improved learning in those with or without disabilities and worked with Fred S. Keller to develop programmed instruction. Programmed instruction had some clinical success in aphasia rehabilitation. Gerald Patterson used programme instruction to develop his parenting text for children with conduct problems. (see Parent management training.) With age, respondent conditioning appears to slow but operant conditioning remains relatively stable. While the concept had its share of advocates and critics in the west, its introduction in the Asian setting, particularly in India in the early 1970s and its grand success were testament to the famous Indian psychologist H. Narayan Murthy’s enduring commitment to the principles of behavioural therapy and biofeedback.
While many behaviour therapists remain staunchly committed to the basic operant and respondent paradigm, in the second half of the 20th century, many therapists coupled behaviour therapy with the cognitive therapy, of Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and Donald Meichenbaum to form cognitive behaviour therapy. In some areas the cognitive component had an additive effect (for example, evidence suggests that cognitive interventions improve the result of social phobia treatment.) but in other areas it did not enhance the treatment, which led to the pursuit of third generation behaviour therapies. Third generation behaviour therapy uses basic principles of operant and respondent psychology but couples them with functional analysis and a clinical formulation/case conceptualisation of verbal behaviour more inline with view of the behaviour analysts. Some research supports these therapies as being more effective in some cases than cognitive therapy, but overall the question is still in need of answers.
Theoretical Basis
The behavioural approach to therapy assumes that behaviour that is associated with psychological problems develops through the same processes of learning that affects the development of other behaviours. Therefore, behaviourists see personality problems in the way that personality was developed. They do not look at behaviour disorders as something a person has, but consider that it reflects how learning has influenced certain people to behave in a certain way in certain situations.
Behaviour therapy is based upon the principles of classical conditioning developed by Ivan Pavlov and operant conditioning developed by B.F. Skinner. Classical conditioning happens when a neutral stimulus comes right before another stimulus that triggers a reflexive response. The idea is that if the neutral stimulus and whatever other stimulus that triggers a response is paired together often enough that the neutral stimulus will produce the reflexive response. Operant conditioning has to do with rewards and punishments and how they can either increase or decrease certain behaviours.
Contingency management programs are a direct product of research from operant conditioning.
Current Forms
Behavioural therapy based on operant and respondent principles has considerable evidence base to support its usage. This approach remains a vital area of clinical psychology and is often termed clinical behaviour analysis. Behavioural psychotherapy has become increasingly contextual in recent years. Behavioural psychotherapy has developed greater interest in recent years in personality disorders as well as a greater focus on acceptance and complex case conceptualisations.
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy
One current form of behavioural psychotherapy is functional analytic psychotherapy. Functional analytic psychotherapy is a longer duration behaviour therapy. Functional analytic therapy focuses on in-session use of reinforcement and is primarily a relationally-based therapy. As with most of the behavioural psychotherapies, functional analytic psychotherapy is contextual in its origins and nature. and draws heavily on radical behaviourism and functional contextualism.
Functional analytic psychotherapy holds to a process model of research, which makes it unique compared to traditional behaviour therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy.
Functional analytic psychotherapy has a strong research support. Recent functional analytic psychotherapy research efforts are focusing on management of aggressive inpatients.
Assessment
Behaviour therapists complete a functional analysis or a functional assessment that looks at four important areas: stimulus, organism, response and consequences. The stimulus is the condition or environmental trigger that causes behaviour. An organism involves the internal responses of a person, like physiological responses, emotions and cognition. A response is the behaviour that a person exhibits and the consequences are the result of the behaviour. These four things are incorporated into an assessment done by the behaviour therapist.
Most behaviour therapists use objective assessment methods like structured interviews, objective psychological tests or different behavioural rating forms. These types of assessments are used so that the behaviour therapist can determine exactly what a client’s problem may be and establish a baseline for any maladaptive responses that the client may have. By having this baseline, as therapy continues this same measure can be used to check a client’s progress, which can help determine if the therapy is working. Behaviour therapists do not typically ask the why questions but tend to be more focused on the how, when, where and what questions. Tests such as the Rorschach inkblot test or personality tests like the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) are not commonly used for behavioural assessment because they are based on personality trait theory assuming that a person’s answer to these methods can predict behaviour. Behaviour assessment is more focused on the observations of a person’s behaviour in their natural environment.
Behavioural assessment specifically attempts to find out what the environmental and self-imposed variables are. These variables are the things that are allowing a person to maintain their maladaptive feelings, thoughts and behaviours. In a behavioural assessment “person variables” are also considered. These “person variables” come from a person’s social learning history and they affect the way in which the environment affects that person’s behaviour. An example of a person variable would be behavioural competence. Behavioural competence looks at whether a person has the appropriate skills and behaviours that are necessary when performing a specific response to a certain situation or stimuli.
When making a behavioural assessment the behaviour therapist wants to answer two questions: (1) what are the different factors (environmental or psychological) that are maintaining the maladaptive behaviour and (2) what type of behaviour therapy or technique that can help the individual improve most effectively. The first question involves looking at all aspects of a person, which can be summed up by the acronym BASIC ID. This acronym stands for behaviour, affective responses, sensory reactions, imagery, cognitive processes, interpersonal relationships and drug use.
Clinical Applications
Behaviour therapy based its core interventions on functional analysis. Just a few of the many problems that behaviour therapy have functionally analysed include intimacy in couples relationships, forgiveness in couples, chronic pain, stress-related behaviour problems of being an adult child of a person with an alcohol use disorder, anorexia, chronic distress, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, insomnia and obesity.
Functional analysis has even been applied to problems that therapists commonly encounter like client resistance, partially engaged clients and involuntary clients. Applications to these problems have left clinicians with considerable tools for enhancing therapeutic effectiveness. One way to enhance therapeutic effectiveness is to use positive reinforcement or operant conditioning. Although behaviour therapy is based on the general learning model, it can be applied in a lot of different treatment packages that can be specifically developed to deal with problematic behaviours. Some of the more well known types of treatments are: Relaxation training, systematic desensitization, virtual reality exposure, exposure and response prevention techniques, social skills training, modelling, behavioural rehearsal and homework, and aversion therapy and punishment.
Relaxation training involves clients learning to lower arousal to reduce their stress by tensing and releasing certain muscle groups throughout their body. Systematic desensitisation is a treatment in which the client slowly substitutes a new learned response for a maladaptive response by moving up a hierarchy of situations involving fear. Systematic desensitization is based in part on counter conditioning. Counter conditioning is learning new ways to change one response for another and in the case of desensitisation it is substituting that maladaptive behaviour for a more relaxing behaviour. Exposure and response prevention techniques (also known as flooding and response prevention) is the general technique in which a therapist exposes an individual to anxiety-provoking stimuli while keeping them from having any avoidance responses.
Virtual reality therapy provides realistic, computer-based simulations of troublesome situations. The modelling process involves a person being subjected to watching other individuals who demonstrate behaviour that is considered adaptive and that should be adopted by the client. This exposure involves not only the cues of the “model person” as well as the situations of a certain behaviour that way the relationship can be seen between the appropriateness of a certain behaviour and situation in which that behaviour occurs is demonstrated. With the behavioural rehearsal and homework treatment a client gets a desired behaviour during a therapy session and then they practice and record that behaviour between their sessions. Aversion therapy and punishment is a technique in which an aversive (painful or unpleasant) stimulus is used to decrease unwanted behaviours from occurring. It is concerned with two procedures: 1) the procedures are used to decrease the likelihood of the frequency of a certain behaviour and 2) procedures that will reduce the attractiveness of certain behaviours and the stimuli that elicit them. The punishment side of aversion therapy is when an aversive stimulus is presented at the same time that a negative stimulus and then they are stopped at the same time when a positive stimulus or response is presented. Examples of the type of negative stimulus or punishment that can be used is shock therapy treatments, aversive drug treatments as well as response cost contingent punishment which involves taking away a reward.
Applied behaviour analysis is using behavioural methods to modify certain behaviours that are seen as being important socially or personally. There are four main characteristics of applied behaviour analysis. First behaviour analysis is focused mainly on overt behaviours in an applied setting. Treatments are developed as a way to alter the relationship between those overt behaviours and their consequences.
Another characteristic of applied behaviour analysis is how it (behaviour analysis) goes about evaluating treatment effects. The individual subject is where the focus of study is on, the investigation is centred on the one individual being treated. A third characteristic is that it focuses on what the environment does to cause significant behaviour changes. Finally the last characteristic of applied behaviour analysis is the use of those techniques that stem from operant and classical conditioning such as providing reinforcement, punishment, stimulus control and any other learning principles that may apply.
Social skills training teaches clients skills to access reinforcers and lessen life punishment. Operant conditioning procedures in meta-analysis had the largest effect size for training social skills, followed by modelling, coaching, and social cognitive techniques in that order. Social skills training has some empirical support particularly for schizophrenia. However, with schizophrenia, behavioural programs have generally lost favour.
Some other techniques that have been used in behaviour therapy are contingency contracting, response costs, token economies, biofeedback, and using shaping and grading task assignments.
Shaping and graded task assignments are used when behaviour that needs to be learned is complex. The complex behaviours that need to be learned are broken down into simpler steps where the person can achieve small things gradually building up to the more complex behaviour. Each step approximates the eventual goal and helps the person to expand their activities in a gradual way. This behaviour is used when a person feels that something in their lives can not be changed and life’s tasks appear to be overwhelming.
Another technique of behaviour therapy involves holding a client or patient accountable of their behaviours in an effort to change them. This is called a contingency contract, which is a formal written contract between two or more people that defines the specific expected behaviours that you wish to change and the rewards and punishments that go along with that behaviour. In order for a contingency contract to be official it needs to have five elements. First it must state what each person will get if they successfully complete the desired behaviour. Secondly those people involved have to monitor the behaviours. Third, if the desired behaviour is not being performed in the way that was agreed upon in the contract the punishments that were defined in the contract must be done. Fourth if the persons involved are complying with the contract they must receive bonuses. The last element involves documenting the compliance and noncompliance while using this treatment in order to give the persons involved consistent feedback about the target behaviour and the provision of reinforcers.
Token economies is a behaviour therapy technique where clients are reinforced with tokens that are considered a type of currency that can be used to purchase desired rewards, like being able to watch television or getting a snack that they want when they perform designated behaviours. Token economies are mainly used in institutional and therapeutic settings. In order for a token economy to be effective there must be consistency in administering the program by the entire staff. Procedures must be clearly defined so that there is no confusion among the clients. Instead of looking for ways to punish the patients or to deny them of rewards, the staff has to reinforce the positive behaviours so that the clients will increase the occurrence of the desired behaviour. Over time the tokens need to be replaced with less tangible rewards such as compliments so that the client will be prepared when they leave the institution and won’t expect to get something every time they perform a desired behaviour.
Closely related to token economies is a technique called response costs. This technique can either be used with or without token economies. Response costs is the punishment side of token economies where there is a loss of a reward or privilege after someone performs an undesirable behaviour. Like token economies this technique is used mainly in institutional and therapeutic settings.
Considerable policy implications have been inspired by behavioural views of various forms of psychopathology. One form of behaviour therapy, habit reversal training, has been found to be highly effective for treating tics.
In Rehabilitation
Currently, there is a greater call for behavioural psychologists to be involved in rehabilitation efforts.
Treatment of Mental Disorders
Two large studies done by the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University indicate that both behaviour therapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) are equally effective for OCD. CBT is typically considered the “first-line” treatment for OCD. CBT has also been shown to perform slightly better at treating co-occurring depression.
Considerable policy implications have been inspired by behavioural views of various forms of psychopathology. One form of behaviour therapy (habit reversal training) has been found to be highly effective for treating tics.
There has been a development towards combining techniques to treat psychiatric disorders. Cognitive interventions are used to enhance the effects of more established behavioural interventions based on operant and classical conditioning. An increased effort has also been placed to address the interpersonal context of behaviour.
Behaviour therapy can be applied to a number of mental disorders and in many cases is more effective for specific disorders as compared to others. Behaviour therapy techniques can be used to deal with any phobias that a person may have. Desensitisation has also been successfully applied to other issues such as dealing with anger, if a person has trouble sleeping and certain speech disorders. Desensitisation does not occur over night, there is a process of treatment. Desensitisation is done on a hierarchy and happens over a number of sessions. The hierarchy goes from situations that make a person less anxious or nervous up to things that are considered to be extreme for the patient.
Modelling has been used in dealing with fears and phobias. Fears are thought to develop through observational learning, and so positive modelling, when a person’s behaviour is imitated, can used to counter these effects. In a systematic review of 1,677 papers, positive modelling was found to lower fear levels. Modelling has been used in the treatment of fear of snakes as well as a fear of water.
Aversive therapy techniques have been used to treat sexual deviations, as well as alcohol use disorder.
Exposure and prevention procedure techniques can be used to treat people who have anxiety problems as well as any fears or phobias. These procedures have also been used to help people dealing with any anger issues as well as pathological grievers (people who have distressing thoughts about a deceased person).
Virtual reality therapy deals with fear of heights, fear of flying, and a variety of other anxiety disorders. VRT has also been applied to help people with substance abuse problems reduce their responsiveness to certain cues that trigger their need to use drugs.
Shaping and graded task assignments has been used in dealing with suicide and depressed or inhibited individuals. This is used when a patient feel hopeless and they have no way of changing their lives. This hopelessness involves how the person reacts and responds to someone else and certain situations and their perceived powerlessness to change that situation that adds to the hopelessness. For a person with suicidal ideation, it is important to start with small steps. Because that person may perceive everything as being a big step, the smaller you start the easier it will be for the person to master each step. This technique has also been applied to people dealing with agoraphobia, or fear of being in public places or doing something embarrassing.
Contingency contracting has been used to effectively deal with behaviour problems in delinquents and when dealing with on task behaviours in students.
Token economies are used in controlled environments and are found mostly in psychiatric hospitals. They can be used to help patients with different mental illnesses but it does not focus on the treatment of the mental illness but instead on the behavioural aspects of a patient. The response cost technique has been used to successfully address a variety of behaviours such as smoking, overeating, stuttering, and psychotic talk.
Treatment Outcomes
Systematic desensitisation has been shown to successfully treat phobias about heights, driving, insects as well as any anxiety that a person may have. Anxiety can include social anxiety, anxiety about public speaking as well as test anxiety. It has been shown that the use of systematic desensitisation is an effective technique that can be applied to a number of problems that a person may have.
When using modelling procedures this technique is often compared to another behavioural therapy technique. When compared to desensitisation, the modelling technique does appear to be less effective. However it is clear that the greater the interaction between the patient and the subject he is modelling the greater the effectiveness of the treatment.
While undergoing exposure therapy, a person typically needs five sessions to assess the treatment’s effectiveness. After five sessions, exposure treatment has been shown to provide benefit to the patient. However, it is still recommended treatment continue beyond the initial five sessions.
Virtual reality therapy (VRT) has shown to be effective for a fear of heights. It has also been shown to help with the treatment of a variety of anxiety disorders. Due to the costs associated with VRT in 2007, therapists were still awaiting results of controlled trials investigating VRT, to assess which applications demonstrate the best results.
For those with suicidal ideation, treatment depends on how severe the person’s depression and sense of hopelessness is. If these things are severe, the person’s response to completing small steps will not be of importance to them, because they do not consider the success an accomplishment. Generally, in those without severe depression or fear, this technique has been successful, as completion of simpler activities builds their confidences and allows them to progress to more complex situations.
Contingency contracts have been seen to be effective in changing any undesired behaviours of individuals. It has been seen to be effective in treating behaviour problems in delinquents regardless of the specific characteristics of the contract.
Token economies have been shown to be effective when treating patients in psychiatric wards who had chronic schizophrenia. The results showed that the contingent tokens were controlling the behaviour of the patients.
Response costs has been shown to work in suppressing a variety of behaviours such as smoking, overeating or stuttering with a diverse group of clinical populations ranging from sociopaths to school children. These behaviours that have been suppressed using this technique often do not recover when the punishment contingency is withdrawn. Also undesirable side effects that are usually seen with punishment are not typically found when using the response cost technique.
“Third Generation”
Since the 1980s, a series of new behavioural therapies have been developed. These have been later labelled by Steven C. Hayes as “the third-generation” of behavioural therapy. Under this classification, the first generation of behavioural therapy is that independently developed in the 1950s by Joseph Wolpe, Ogden Lindsley and Hans Eysenck, while the second generation is the cognitive therapy developed by Aaron Beck in the 1970s.
Other authors object to the term “third generation” or “third wave” and incorporate many of the “third wave” therapeutic techniques under the general umbrella term of modern cognitive behavioural therapies.
This “third wave” of behavioural therapy has sometimes been called clinical behaviour analysis because it has been claimed that it represents a movement away from cognitivism and back toward radical behaviourism and other forms of behaviourism, in particular functional analysis and behavioural models of verbal behaviour. This area includes acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioural analysis system of psychotherapy (CBASP) (McCullough, 2000), behavioural activation (BA), dialectical behaviour therapy, functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP), integrative behavioural couples therapy, metacognitive therapy and metacognitive training. These approaches are squarely within the applied behaviour analysis tradition of behaviour therapy.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may be the most well-researched of all the third-generation behaviour therapy models. It is based on relational frame theory. As of March 2022, there are over 900 randomised trials of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and 60 mediational studies of the ACT literature. ACT has been included in over 275 meta-analyses and systematic reviews. As the result of multiple randomised trials of ACT by the World Health Organisation (WHO) now distribute ACT-based self-help for “anyone who experiences stress, wherever they live, and whatever their circumstances.” As of March 2022, a number of different organizations have stated that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is empirically supported in certain areas or as a whole according to their standards. These include: American Psychological Association, Society of Clinical Psychology (Div. 12), The WHO, The United Kingdom National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Australian Psychological Society, Netherlands Institute of Psychologists: Sections of Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation, Sweden Association of Physiotherapists, SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices, California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, and the US Veterans Affairs/Department of Defence.
Functional analytic psychotherapy is based on a functional analysis of the therapeutic relationship. It places a greater emphasis on the therapeutic context and returns to the use of in-session reinforcement. In general, 40 years of research supports the idea that in-session reinforcement of behaviour can lead to behavioural change.
Behavioural activation emerged from a component analysis of cognitive behaviour therapy. This research found no additive effect for the cognitive component. Behavioural activation is based on a matching model of reinforcement. A recent review of the research, supports the notion that the use of behavioural activation is clinically important for the treatment of depression.
Integrative behavioural couples therapy developed from dissatisfaction with traditional behavioural couples therapy. Integrative behavioural couples therapy looks to Skinner (1966) for the difference between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behaviour. It couples this analysis with a thorough functional assessment of the couple’s relationship. Recent efforts have used radical behavioural concepts to interpret a number of clinical phenomena including forgiveness.
A review study published in 2008, concluded that at the time, third-generation behavioural psychotherapies did not meet the criteria for empirically supported treatments.
Organisations
Many organisations exist for behaviour therapists around the world. In the United States, the American Psychological Association’s Division 25 is the division for behaviour analysis. The Association for Contextual Behavioural Science is another professional organisation. ACBS is home to many clinicians with specific interest in third generation behaviour therapy. Doctoral-level behaviour analysts who are psychologists belong to American Psychological Association’s Division 25 – behaviour analysis. APA offers a diploma in behavioural psychology.
The Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies (formerly the Association for the Advancement of Behaviour Therapy) is for those with a more cognitive orientation. The ABCT also has an interest group in behaviour analysis, which focuses on clinical behaviour analysis. In addition, the Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies has a special interest group on addictions.
Characteristics
By nature, behavioural therapies are empirical (data-driven), contextual (focused on the environment and context), functional (interested in the effect or consequence a behaviour ultimately has), probabilistic (viewing behaviour as statistically predictable), monistic (rejecting mind–body dualism and treating the person as a unit), and relational (analysing bidirectional interactions).
Behavioural therapy develops, adds and provides behavioural intervention strategies and programs for clients, and training to people who care to facilitate successful lives in various communities.
Training
Recent efforts in behavioural psychotherapy have focused on the supervision process. A key point of behavioural models of supervision is that the supervisory process parallels the behavioural psychotherapy provided.
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Emotional contagion is a form of social contagion that involves the spontaneous spread of emotions and related behaviours. Such emotional convergence can happen from one person to another, or in a larger group. Emotions can be shared across individuals in many ways, both implicitly or explicitly. For instance, conscious reasoning, analysis, and imagination have all been found to contribute to the phenomenon. The behaviour has been found in humans, other primates, dogs, and chickens.
Emotional contagion is important to personal relationships because it fosters emotional synchrony between individuals. A broader definition of the phenomenon suggested by Schoenewolf is “a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes.” One view developed by Elaine Hatfield, et al., is that this can be done through automatic mimicry and synchronisation of one’s expressions, vocalisations, postures, and movements with those of another person. When people unconsciously mirror their companions’ expressions of emotion, they come to feel reflections of those companions’ emotions.
In a 1993 paper, Psychologists Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo, and Richard Rapson define emotional contagion as “the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person’s [sic] and, consequently, to converge emotionally”.
Hatfield, et al., theorise emotional contagion as a two-step process: First, we imitate people (e.g. if someone smiles at you, you smile back). Second, our own emotional experiences change based on the non-verbal signals of emotion that we give off. For example, smiling makes one feel happier, and frowning makes one feel worse. Mimicry seems to be one foundation of emotional movement between people.
Emotional contagion and empathy share similar characteristics, with the exception of the ability to differentiate between personal and pre-personal experiences, a process known as individuation. In The Art of Loving (1956), social psychologist Erich Fromm explores these differences, suggesting that autonomy is necessary for empathy, which is not found in emotional contagion.
Etymology
James Baldwin addressed “emotional contagion” in his 1897 work Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development, though using the term “contagion of feeling”. Various 20th century scholars discussed the phenomena under the heading “social contagion”. The term “emotional contagion” first appeared in Arthur S. Reber’s 1985 The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology.
Influencing Factors
Several factors determine the rate and extent of emotional convergence in a group, including membership stability, mood-regulation norms, task interdependence, and social interdependence. Besides these event-structure properties, there are personal properties of the group’s members, such as openness to receive and transmit feelings, demographic characteristics, and dispositional affect that influence the intensity of emotional contagion.
Research
Research on emotional contagion has been conducted from a variety of perspectives, including organisational, social, familial, developmental, and neurological. While early research suggested that conscious reasoning, analysis, and imagination accounted for emotional contagion, some forms of more primitive emotional contagion are far more subtle, automatic, and universal.
Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson’s 1993 research into emotional contagion reported that people’s conscious assessments of others’ feelings were heavily influenced by what others said. People’s own emotions, however, were more influenced by others’ nonverbal clues as to what they were really feeling. Recognising emotions and acknowledging their origin can be one way to avoid emotional contagion. Transference of emotions has been studied in a variety of situations and settings, with social and physiological causes being two of the largest areas of research.
In addition to the social contexts discussed above, emotional contagion has been studied within organizations. Schrock, Leaf, and Rohr (2008) say organisations, like societies, have emotion cultures that consist of languages, rituals, and meaning systems, including rules about the feelings workers should, and should not, feel and display. They state that emotion culture is quite similar to “emotion climate”, otherwise known as morale, organizational morale, and corporate morale. Furthermore, Worline, Wrzesniewski, and Rafaeli (2002) mention that organisations have an overall “emotional capability”, while McColl-Kennedy, and Smith (2006) examine “emotional contagion” in customer interactions. These terms arguably all attempt to describe a similar phenomenon; each term differs in subtle and somewhat indistinguishable ways.
Controversy
A controversial experiment demonstrating emotional contagion by using the social media platform Facebook was carried out in 2014 on 689,000 users by filtering positive or negative emotional content from their news feeds. The experiment sparked uproar among people who felt the study violated personal privacy. The 2014 publication of a research paper resulting from this experiment, “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks”, a collaboration between Facebook and Cornell University, is described by Tony D. Sampson, Stephen Maddison, and Darren Ellis (2018) as a “disquieting disclosure that corporate social media and Cornell academics were so readily engaged with unethical experiments of this kind.” Tony D. Sampson et al. criticise the notion that “academic researchers can be insulated from ethical guidelines on the protection for human research subjects because they are working with a social media business that has ‘no obligation to conform’ to the principle of ‘obtaining informed consent and allowing participants to opt out’.” A subsequent study confirmed the presence of emotional contagion on Twitter without manipulating users’ timelines.
Beyond the ethical concerns, some scholars criticised the methods and reporting of the Facebook findings. John Grohol, writing for Psych Central, argued that despite its title and claims of “emotional contagion,” this study did not look at emotions at all. Instead, its authors used an application (called “Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count” or LIWC 2007) that simply counted positive and negative words in order to infer users’ sentiments. A shortcoming of the LIWC tool is that it does not understand negations. Hence, the tweet “I am not happy” would be scored as positive: “Since the LIWC 2007 ignores these subtle realities of informal human communication, so do the researchers.” Grohol concluded that given these subtleties, the effect size of the findings are little more than a “statistical blip.”
Kramer et al. (2014) found a 0.07%—that’s not 7 percent, that’s 1/15th of one percent!!—decrease in negative words in people’s status updates when the number of negative posts on their Facebook news feed decreased. Do you know how many words you’d have to read or write before you’ve written one less negative word due to this effect? Probably thousands.
Types
Emotions can be shared and mimicked in many ways. Taken broadly, emotional contagion can be either: implicit, undertaken by the receiver through automatic or self-evaluating processes; or explicit, undertaken by the transmitter through a purposeful manipulation of emotional states, to achieve a desired result.
Implicit
Unlike cognitive contagion, emotional contagion is less conscious and more automatic. It relies mainly on non-verbal communication, although emotional contagion can and does occur via telecommunication. For example, people interacting through e-mails and chats are affected by the other’s emotions, without being able to perceive the non-verbal cues.
One view, proposed by Hatfield and colleagues, describes emotional contagion as a primitive, automatic, and unconscious behaviour that takes place through a series of steps. When a receiver is interacting with a sender, he perceives the emotional expressions of the sender. The receiver automatically mimics those emotional expressions. Through the process of afferent feedback, these new expressions are translated into feeling the emotions the sender feels, thus leading to emotional convergence.
Another view, emanating from social comparison theories, sees emotional contagion as demanding more cognitive effort and being more conscious. According to this view, people engage in social comparison to see if their emotional reaction is congruent with the persons around them. The recipient uses the emotion as a type of social information to understand how he or she should be feeling. People respond differently to positive and negative stimuli; negative events tend to elicit stronger and quicker emotional, behavioural, and cognitive responses than neutral or positive events. So unpleasant emotions are more likely to lead to mood contagion than are pleasant emotions. Another variable is the energy level at which the emotion is displayed. Higher energy draws more attention to it, so the same emotional valence (pleasant or unpleasant) expressed with high energy is likely to lead to more contagion than if expressed with low energy.
Explicit
Aside from the automatic infection of feelings described above, there are also times when others’ emotions are being manipulated by a person or a group in order to achieve something. This can be a result of intentional affective influence by a leader or team member. Suppose this person wants to convince the others of something, he may do so by sweeping them up in his enthusiasm. In such a case, his positive emotions are an act with the purpose of “contaminating” the others’ feelings. A different kind of intentional mood contagion would be, for instance, giving the group a reward or treat, in order to alleviate their feelings.
The discipline of organisational psychology researches aspects of emotional labour. This includes the need to manage emotions so that they are consistent with organisational or occupational display rules, regardless of whether they are discrepant with internal feelings. In regard to emotional contagion, in work settings that require a certain display of emotions, one finds oneself obligated to display, and consequently feel, these emotions. If superficial acting develops into deep acting, emotional contagion is the by-product of intentional affective impression management.
In Workplaces and Organisations
Intra-Group
Many organisations and workplaces encourage teamwork. Studies conducted by organisational psychologists highlight the benefits of work teams. Emotions come into play and a group emotion is formed.
The group’s emotional state influences factors such as cohesiveness, morale, rapport, and the team’s performance. For this reason, organizations need to take into account the factors that shape the emotional state of the work-teams, in order to harness the beneficial sides and avoid the detrimental sides of the group’s emotion. Managers and team leaders should be cautious with their behaviour, since their emotional influence is greater than that of a “regular” team member: leaders are more emotionally “contagious” than others.
Employee/Customer
The interaction between service employees and customers affects both customers’ assessments of service quality and their relationship with the service provider. Positive affective displays in service interactions are positively associated with important customer outcomes, such as intention to return and to recommend the store to a friend. It is the interest of organisations that their customers be happy, since a happy customer is a satisfied one. Research has shown that the emotional state of the customer is directly influenced by the emotions displayed by the employee/service provider via emotional contagion. But this influence depends on authenticity of the employee’s emotional display, such that if the employee is only surface-acting, the contagion is poor, in which case the beneficial effects will not occur.
Neurological Basis
Vittorio Gallese posits that mirror neurons are responsible for intentional attunement in relation to others. Gallese and colleagues at the University of Parma found a class of neurons in the premotor cortex that discharge either when macaque monkeys execute goal-related hand movements or when they watch others doing the same action. One class of these neurons fires with action execution and observation, and with sound production of the same action. Research in humans shows an activation of the premotor cortex and parietal area of the brain for action perception and execution.
Gallese says humans understand emotions through a simulated shared body state. The observers’ neural activation enables a direct experiential understanding. “Unmediated resonance” is a similar theory by Goldman and Sripada (2004).[citation needed] Empathy can be a product of the functional mechanism in our brain that creates embodied simulation. The other we see or hear becomes the “other self” in our minds. Other researchers have shown that observing someone else’s emotions recruits brain regions involved in:
(a) experiencing similar emotions; and
(b) producing similar facial expressions.
This combination indicates that the observer activates:
(a) a representation of the emotional feeling of the other individual which leads to emotional contagion; and
(b) a motor representation of the observed facial expression that could lead to facial mimicry.
In the brain, understanding and sharing other individuals’ emotions would thus be a combination of emotional contagion and facial mimicry. Importantly, more empathic individuals experience more brain activation in emotional regions while witnessing the emotions of other individuals.
Amygdala
The amygdala is one part of the brain that underlies empathy and allows for emotional attunement and creates the pathway for emotional contagion. The basal areas including the brain stem form a tight loop of biological connectedness, re-creating in one person the physiological state of the other. Psychologist Howard Friedman thinks this is why some people can move and inspire others. The use of facial expressions, voices, gestures and body movements transmit emotions to an audience from a speaker.
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In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealisations are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse.
Sigmund Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity and civilisation, allowing people to function normally in culturally acceptable ways. He defined sublimation as the process of deflecting sexual instincts into acts of higher social valuation, being “an especially conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities, scientific, artistic or ideological, to play such an ‘important’ part in civilized life.” Wade and Travis present a similar view, stating that sublimation occurs when displacement “serves a higher cultural or socially useful purpose, as in the creation of art or inventions.”
Nietzsche
In the opening section of Human, All Too Human entitled “Of first and last things”, Nietzsche wrote:
There is, strictly speaking, neither unselfish conduct, nor a wholly disinterested point of view. Both are simply sublimations in which the basic element seems almost evaporated and betrays its presence only to the keenest observation. All that we need and that could possibly be given us in the present state of development of the sciences, is a chemistry of the moral, religious, aesthetic conceptions and feeling, as well as of those emotions which we experience in the affairs, great and small, of society and civilization, and which we are sensible of even in solitude. But what if this chemistry established the fact that, even in its domain, the most magnificent results were attained with the basest and most despised ingredients? Would many feel disposed to continue such investigations? Mankind loves to put by the questions of its origin and beginning: must one not be almost inhuman in order to follow the opposite course?
Freud and Psychoanalytic Theory
In Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, erotic energy is allowed a limited amount of expression, owing to the constraints of human society and civilisation itself. It therefore requires other outlets, especially if an individual is to remain psychologically balanced. The ego must act as a mediator between the moral norms of the super-ego, the realistic expectations of reality, and the drives and impulses of the id. One method by which the ego lessens the stress that unacceptably strong urges or emotions can cause is through sublimation.
Sublimation (German: Sublimierung) is the process of transforming libido into “socially useful” achievements, including artistic, cultural, and intellectual pursuits. Freud considered this psychical operation to be fairly salutary compared to the others that he identified, such as repression, displacement, denial, reaction formation, intellectualisation, and projection. In The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), his daughter, Anna, classed sublimation as one of the major ‘defence mechanisms’ of the psyche.
Freud got the idea of sublimation while reading The Harz Journey by Heinrich Heine. The story is about Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach who cut off the tails of dogs he encountered in childhood and later became a surgeon. Freud concluded that sublimation could be a conflict between the need for satisfaction and the need for security without perturbation of awareness. In an action performed many times throughout one’s life, which firstly appears sadistic, thought is ultimately refined into an activity which is of benefit to mankind.
Sexual Sublimation
Sexual sublimation was according to Freud a deflection of sexual instincts into non-sexual activity, based upon a principle akin to the conservation of energy in physics. There is a finite amount of activity, and it is converted, in a mechanistic fashion like a mechanical engine, from sexual activity to non-sexual. One such example is the case of Wolf Man, a case in which a young boy’s sexual attraction to his father was redirected towards Christianity and eventually led the boy to obsessional neurosis in the form of uncontrollable sacrilegious reverence. Freud travelled to Clark University to speak about instances of sexual sublimation, but he was not wholly convinced of his own theories. 20th century psychological thought by the likes of Melanie Klein has largely relegated the idea and replaced it with subtler ideas. One such idea is that the sexual desires are not made totally non-sexual, but rather transformed into a more appropriate desire.
Although superficially valid, with anecdotal examples from non-psychologists of civilizations at large and specific great achievers repressing sexual urges (e.g. Renoir “painting with his cock”, Wayland Young stating that “love’s loss is empire’s gain”, Lawrence Stone’s view that Western civilisation has achieved so much because of sublimation, and the claims by biographers of many people from Higgins on Rider Haggard to Sinclair on George Grey), it is ill-defined[11] and comes with the caveats that it rarely happens in practice, that many things attributed to it are actually the results of something else, and that it is most definitely not some quasi-physical transfer of some sort of “sexual energy” in the modern psychoanalytical view but rather an internal thought process.
Jung
C.G.Jung argued that Freud’s opinion:
…can only be based on the totally erroneous supposition that the unconscious is a monster. It is a view that springs from fear of nature and the realities of life. Freud invented the idea of sublimation to save us from the imaginary claws of the unconscious. But what is real, what actually exists, cannot be alchemically sublimated, and if anything is apparently sublimated it never was what a false interpretation took it to be.
In the same article, Jung went on to suggest that unconscious processes became dangerous only to the extent that people repress them. The more people come to assimilate and recognise the unconscious, the less of a danger it becomes. In this view sublimation requires not repression of drives through will, but acknowledgement of the creativity of unconscious processes and a learning of how to work with them.
This differs fundamentally from Freud’s view of the concept. For Freud, sublimation helped explain the plasticity of the sexual instincts (and their convertibility to non-sexual ends) – see libido. The concept also underpinned Freud’s psychoanalytical theories, which showed the human psyche at the mercy of conflicting impulses (such as the super-ego and the id). In his private letters, Jung criticised Freud for obscuring the alchemical origins of sublimation and for attempting instead to make the concept appear scientifically credible:
Sublimation is part of the royal art where the true gold is made. Of this Freud knows nothing; worse still, he barricades all the paths that could lead to true sublimation. This is just about the opposite of what Freud understands by sublimation. It is not a voluntary and forcible channeling of instinct into a spurious field of application, but an alchymical transformation for which fire and prima materia are needed. Sublimation is a great mystery. Freud has appropriated this concept and usurped it for the sphere of the will and the bourgeois, rationalistic ethos.
Lacan
Das Ding
The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s exposition of sublimation is framed within a discussion about the relationship of psychoanalysis and ethics within the seventh book of his seminars. Lacanian sublimation is defined with reference to the concept Das Ding (later in his career Lacan termed this objet petit a); Das Ding is German for “the thing” though Lacan conceives it as an abstract notion and one of the defining characteristics of the human condition. Broadly speaking it is the vacuum one experiences as a human being and which one endeavours to fill with differing human relationships, objects and experiences, all of which are used to plug a gap in one’s psychical needs. Unfortunately, all attempts to overcome the vacuity of Das Ding are insufficient in wholly satisfying the individual. For this reason, Lacan also considers Das Ding to be a non-Thing or vacuole.
Lacan considers Das Ding a lost object ever in the process of being recuperated by Man. Temporarily the individual will be duped by his or her own psyche into believing that this object, this person or this circumstance can be relied upon to satisfy his needs in a stable and enduring manner when in fact it is in its nature that the object as such is lost—and will never be found again. Something is there while one waits for something better, or worse, but which one wants, and again Das Ding “is to be found at most as something missed. One doesn’t find it, but only its pleasurable associations.” Human life unravels as a series of detours in the quest for the lost object or the absolute Other of the individual: “The pleasure principle governs the search for the object and imposes detours which maintain the distance to Das Ding in relation to its end.”
Lacanian Sublimation
Lacanian sublimation centres to a large part on the notion of Das Ding. His general formula for sublimation is that “it raises an object … to the dignity of The Thing.” Lacan considers these objects (whether human, aesthetic, credal, or philosophical) to be signifiers which are representative of Das Ding and that “the function of the pleasure principle is, in effect, to lead the subject from signifier to signifier, by generating as many signifiers as are required to maintain at as low a level as possible the tension that regulates the whole functioning of the psychic apparatus.” Furthermore, man is the “artisan of his support system”, in other words, he creates or finds the signifiers which delude him into believing he has overcome the emptiness of Das Ding.
Lacan also considers sublimation to be a process of creation ex nihilo (creating out of nothing), whereby an object, human or manufactured, comes to be defined in relation to the emptiness of Das Ding. Lacan’s prime example of this is the courtly love of the troubadours and Minnesänger who dedicated their poetic verse to a love-object which was not only unreachable (and therefore experienced as something missing) but whose existence and desirability also centred around a hole (the vagina). For Lacan such courtly love was “a paradigm of sublimation.” He affirms that the word ‘troubadour’ is etymologically linked to the Provençal verb trobar (like the French trouver), “to find”. If we consider again the definition of Das Ding, it is dependent precisely on the expectation of the subject to re-find the lost object in the mistaken belief that it will continue to satisfy him (or her).
Lacan maintains that creation ex nihilo operates in other noteworthy fields as well. In pottery for example vases are created around an empty space. They are primitive and even primordial artifacts which have benefited mankind not only in the capacity of utensils but also as metaphors of (cosmic) creation ex nihilo. Lacan cites Heidegger who situates the vase between the earthly (raising clay from the ground) and the ethereal (pointing upwards to receive). In architecture, Lacan asserts, buildings are designed around an empty space and in art paintings proceed from an empty canvas, and often depict empty spaces through perspective.
In myth, Pan pursues the nymph Syrinx who is transformed into hollow reeds in order to avoid the clutches of the god, who subsequently cuts the reeds down in anger and transforms them into what we today call panpipes (both reeds and panpipes rely on their hollowness for the production of sound).
Lacan briefly remarks that religion and science are also based around emptiness. In regard to religion, Lacan refers the reader to Freud, stating that much obsessional religious behaviour can be attributed to the avoidance of the primordial emptiness of Das Ding or in the respecting of it. As for the discourse of science this is based on the notion of Verwerfung (the German word for “dismissal”) which results in the dismissing, foreclosing or exclusion of the notion of Das Ding presumably because it defies empirical categorisation.
Empirical Research
A study by Kim, Zeppenfeld, and Cohen studied sublimation by empirical methods. These investigators view their research, published 2013 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, as providing “possibly the first experimental evidence for sublimation and [suggesting] a cultural psychological approach to defense mechanisms.”
Religious and Spiritual Views
As espoused in the Tanya, Hasidic Jewish mysticism views sublimation of the animal soul as an essential task in life, wherein the goal is to transform animalistic and earthy cravings for physical pleasure into holy desires to connect with God.
Different schools of thought describe general sexual urges as carriers of spiritual essence, and have the varied names of vital energy, vital winds (prana), spiritual energy, ojas, shakti, tummo, or kundalini.
In Fiction
One of the best-known examples in Western literature is in Thomas Mann’s novella, Death in Venice, where the protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous writer, sublimates his desire for an adolescent boy into writing poetry.
In The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, sublimation is presented as the source of the Neo-Victorians’ dominance: “…it was precisely their emotional repression that made the Victorians the richest and most powerful people in the world. Their ability to submerge their feelings, far from pathological, was rather a kind of mystical art that gave them nearly magical power over Nature and over the more intuitive tribes. Such was also the strength of the Nipponese.”
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In psychology, certain seemingly-maladaptive human behaviours superficially appear to be attempts to confirm one’s own self views (i.e. self-esteem, self-concept, or self-knowledge), even when this self-view is negative or inaccurate. Raison oblige theory (ROT) instead explains these behaviours as consequences of a rational obligation to accept information only inasmuch as it concurs with one’s current self-views.
Developed by Aiden P. Gregg (2006), the theory seeks to supplant William Swann (1983)’s self-verification theory (SVT), which takes the observed behaviours at face value. Both theories provide viable accounts of observed evidence. However, what SVT identifies as confirmation-attempts, raison oblige theory instead considers attempts to accurately and honestly convey one’s self-views to others.
Empirical Phenomena
ROT analyses what is conventionally considered self-verifying behaviour: any action which ultimately coincides with and reinforces existing self-views. Thus a person with positive self-views attempts to seek positive information, which verifies their own positivity. Likewise, people with negative self-views, including those diagnosed with depression, show a preference for negative information.
The latter case has been observed in a wide variety of contexts, including (feigned) psychological studies, romantic partnerships, college roommates, and social groups. More generally, a preference for people who share one’s self view and avoidance of those who do not has been empirically replicated many times (e.g. Swann et al. 1992;Gregg 2007).
A number of conditions appear to influence the likelihood of engaging in self-verification: the importance (Swann & Pelham 2002), extremity, and certainty[10] of a self-view, as well as a perceived threat to identity (Swann et al., 2002), the intelligence of an evaluator, or the importance of the interactional partner (Swann, De La Ronde & Hixon 1994).
Origins
This collective evidence discussed above is often interpreted self-verificatory motive (e.g. Giesler et al., 1996). However, as Gregg (2007) pointed out, the evidence is hardly conclusive. Just because the actions appear to be self-confirmation does not mean that they are in fact motivated so. Similarly, self-defeating behaviour such as drug abuse does not certify a motive to self-defeat.
These philosophical difficulties are often explained away with the concept of affect: a person wants to act according to their best interests, but they also seek immediate relief from negative affect. Gregg (2007) argues that these epicycles make the theory unparsimonious.
Underlying Assumptions
Gregg (2007) argues that psychologists too often overlook rational cognition, when seeking to explain behaviours they observe. Given the traditional emphasis on self-enhancement, self-improvement and self-assessment motives, the naïve student might assume the effects of rationality small. But “rationality is pervasive and motives merely qualify it” (Gregg 2007).
In support, Gregg notes that, in the absence of rationality, we likely would not adhere to self-views at all. Instead, people would choose a self-view they liked, and behave accordingly. Grandiose delusions would dominate self-assessment, and analogous pathologies dominate self-enhancement and self-improvement.
But those behaviours are not observed. Instead, every healthy person is aware of reality and adheres to an unspoken set of rules of reason permitting them to act consistently with the physical world around them.
Consequently, Gregg argues that a psychologist’s first explanation for observed behaviour ought be some form of rational cognition. Until this supposition is shown false, and the only question left is to justify or interpret why the act is rational. Raison oblige theory extends this binding to self-view as well.
Hypothetical Situation
Consider the choice between interaction with person (A), who shares my self-views, and person (B), who does not. Empirical evidence suggests that I would opt for person A.
ROT explains this choice in terms of whether I can earnestly believe the information so gained to be a true representation of myself. Despite the desire for positive information to be true, I will ignore it if I cannot subjectively believe it.
Importantly, this “bubbling” behaviour does not demonstrate a motivational need to do so (Gregg 2007).
Common Pathological States
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem has a very strong influence on a person’s self-view. A person with high self-esteem is more likely to have a positive self-view, whereas a person with low self-esteem is more likely to have a negative self-view. Many studies that seemingly provide evidence for a self-verifying motive use self-esteem as an independent variable to demonstrate that people confirm a self-view that corresponds to their level of self-esteem.
However, one can argue that this behavioural evidence is circumstantial and that the correlation does not demonstrate motivation.
If a person with low self-esteem confirmed a self-view congruent to that of low self-esteem, it does not necessarily provide evidence for motivation to confirm a self-view.
ROT claims that people are aware of their self-views and believe them to be accurate. As a result, they answer questionnaires honestly, and report their self-views as they truly see them due to an obligation to reason.
People may not want self-verifying information to be true of them and may want others to view them positively rather than negatively.
Further research needs to be undertaken to fully investigate the relationship between self views and self-esteem. (see. Gregg, 2007)
Do people with low self-esteem want critical feedback to be true; are they motivated?
Do people with low self-esteem actually want their self view to be accurate, or would they prefer a more positive self view?
ROT predicts that people with low self-esteem are bound by reason to confirm their existing self view but that they do not necessarily like it (Gregg & De Waal-Andrews, 2007). If a motivation to self-verify were present then people with low self-esteem would not care about what their self-view was, they would instead focus on actively trying to confirm it.
Depression
Depression is accompanied by very low self-esteem and has therefore been a topic of strong interest for those investigating self verifying behaviours. Depression is always accompanied by low self-esteem but having low self-esteem does not necessarily mean you are depressed.
It argued that those suffering with depression, or with generally low negative self-views, will actively seek negative feedback in order to confirm their self-view; they find it more favourable. Giesler et al. (1996) tested this prediction by classifying participants into three separate groups; high self-esteem, low self-esteem and depressed individuals. When offered a choice of positive or negative feedback, depressed individuals chose to receive negative feedback 82% of the time, suggesting a strong desire to negatively re-affirm their self view. The seeking of negative feedback in order to self-verify has thus been argued to maintain a depressive state.
ROT challenges this interpretation and suggests that the observed behaviour and maintenance of depressive state is caused by an obligation to confirm a depressive self-concept. This particular study, and many others like it can be reinterpreted using ROT. The choice of negative feedback reflects the obligation to choose information consistent with an honestly held self view.
Correlations do not equal causation; The evidence for SVT assumptions of motivation drawn from studies on depression could be circumstantial and therefore do not provide explicit proof of a motive to self-verify.
Depression, Motivation and Desire
Motivation is interlinked with desire. I am hungry therefore I am motivated to eat food; I want to eat.
In SVT studies of depressed persons they are asked whether they would like to receive favourable or unfavourable feedback on their personality. In concurrence with SVT and ROT predictions they chose the unfavourable feedback due to a negative self-view. These studies demonstrate that self-enhancement striving has been overridden by a separate cognitive process.
If a person with high self-esteem confirms their self-view this may not be self-verification as this is more likely to be due to the self-enhancement motive. Therefore, SVT and ROT studies tend to focus on depressive participants who’s verification of negative information can not be attributed to self-enhancement.
However, Recent findings show that people with depression and high self-esteem both want to receive favourable feedback more than critical feedback.
This suggests that people do not want to receive feedback that confirms their self-view. A lack of desire implies that motivation is not responsible for self-verification.
Gregg & De Waal-Andrews (2007) also show that the lower a participant’s self-esteem, the less they anticipated liking critical feedback, and the less keen they were for it to be true, supporting ROT predictions.
Relationships
One example that is well explained by Raison Oblige Theory is why people stay in abusive relationships. According to Rusbult and Martz (1995) more than 40% of women who seek help from a shelter when being abused by their partner then return to living with their partner and remain in the abusive relationship.
Self-verification theory would explain this by the abused partner’s need to self-verify that the way they are being treated is deserved, in order to establish an accurate self-concept (Swann & Ely, 1984).
However the alternative explanation from Raison Oblige Theory is that an abused individual will rationalise the situation they are in and come to the conclusion that they themselves are in some way causing the abuse. This leads to the honest belief that they deserve the abuse and causes feelings of worthlessness. This results in the abused individual remaining loyal to their partner and failing to seek help, as they believe the abuse is their fault and that they need to improve in some way in order that the abuse will stop. Raison Oblige Theory also explains that the abused partner feels that they will gain no benefit from leaving an abusive relationship, as they see the abuse as their fault. This also explains why the abused individual may defend their partner should anyone outside the relationship become aware of the abuse.
Evidence
Motivation and Affect
Behaviour does not always reflect motivation:
We do things we do not want to do but are obliged to do (e.g. giving up leisure time to do work)
We voluntarily refrain from doing things that we want to do (e.g. making up qualifications to secure a job we want)
These examples demonstrate that behaviour does not always reflect motivation. However, they do demonstrate a cognitive overruling of desire/motive.
Motivation incurs negative affect when conditions are not met; I want to improve, I fail; I feel bad.
Striving to self verify should have an influence on affect.
A person with a negative self view should therefore be less disturbed by critical feedback than a person with high self-esteem.
Depressed:
Critical feedback negatively influences their self enhancing motive but bolsters their self verification motive.
High self-esteem:
Critical feedback negatively influences their self enhancing motive(ego) and their self verification motive.
High self-esteemed people should be more emotionally disturbed by critical feedback than depressed people. However, this is not the case (Jones, 1975; Taylor & Brown, 1988).
Obligation to Ratiocinate
Day to day examples of obligation to reason; Grandiose delusions are rare.
We accept new self views after a change in appearance or capabilities; we rationalise changes and challenges.
People are reasonable in thought, without reason grandiose delusions would have prevented the existence of our species; I can’t be killed; I can fight this mammoth alone; I can attack this man without consequence; I am the best person in the world.
The Effect of Rationality on Motivation
Self-assessment is bound to rational perception;
I believe what is subjectively possible.
Assessment is based on accurate perception, not subjective desire: Grandiose delusions are rare.
Self-enhancement is bound to rational perception;
The above-average effect is bound to the limits of subjective plausibility (Gregg, 2007).
specific compared traits succumb to the effect much less because people are aware of their ability compared to others. Commonly held traits can be exaggerated due to a larger latitude of comparison.
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C. Sue Carter is an American biologist and behavioural neurobiologist. She is an internationally recognised expert in behavioural neuroendocrinology. In 2014 she was appointed Director of The Kinsey Institute and Rudy Professor of Biology at Indiana University. Carter was the first person to identify the physiological mechanisms responsible for social monogamy.
Background
Carter studied biology at Drury College in Springfield, Missouri. She completed a PhD in Zoology at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Carter is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
She is married to Stephen Porges, and has two children: Eric Carter Porges (currently a graduate student at the University of Chicago in Integrative Neuroscience) in Jean Decety’s Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, and Seth Porges (currently an editor at Maxim magazine in New York City, and previously an editor at Popular Mechanics magazine).
Academic Achievements
Carter studies social bonding, male and female parental behaviour, the social control of stress reactivity and the social control of reproduction, often using animal models such as the socially monogamous prairie vole. Carter’s research focuses on neuropeptide and steroid hormones, including oxytocin, vasopressin, corticotropin-releasing hormone, and oestrogen. Her research program has discovered important new developmental functions for oxytocin and vasopressin, and implicated these hormones in the regulation of long-lasting neural and effects of early social experiences. She also has a long-standing concern regarding the consequences of medical manipulations for human development and parent-child interactions, including the use of “pitocin” – a synthetic version of oxytocin – to induce labour and consequences of breastfeeding for the mother and child.
Most recently she has been examining the role of oxytocin and vasopressin in mental disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, anxiety and depression. Carter is also known for research on the physiological basis of social behaviour, including studies that implicated oxytocin, vasopressin and hormones of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (“stress”) axis in the traits of monogamy including pair-bond formation. She pioneered the physiological study of socially monogamous mammals, including the prairie vole. In collaboration with zoologist Lowell Getz, Carter documented the occurrence of social monogamy in prairie voles. Her studies in rodents helped to lay the foundation for the studies of behavioural and developmental effects of oxytocin and vasopressin in humans which are in progress. In collaboration with psychiatrist Margaret Altemus she conducted some of the first studies documenting the importance of breastfeeding in the regulation of maternal physiology.
Honours
Carter is a Fellow and Past-President of the International Behavioural Neuroscience Society and a recipient of the Matthew J. Wayner-NNOXe Pharmaceuticals Award for distinguished lifetime contributions to behavioural neuroscience.
Criticism
Author and LGBT activist Dan Savage claimed the announcement of Carter’s appointment to Director of the Kinsey Institute was “packed with bad news for anyone interested in sex research and/or conducting sex research (particularly those conducting sex research at the Kinsey Institute)” and “Carter’s pseudo-scientific/pseudo-empathetic moralizing plays right into the hands of the kind of conservative politicians who have been trying to kill the Kinsey Institute for decades.” Savage criticised Carter’s view that, “I think human sexuality must be viewed in the context of relationships,” countering, “Not all human sexuality exists in the context of relationships. You can argue, if you’re a moralist, that human sexuality should only be expressed in the context of a relationship. But that is a moral position, not a scientific one.”
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