Modification Assignment: Classical Conditioning Appropriate

Behavior Modification Assignment The target behavior that I want to manipulate and completely change of mine is picking and biting my nails. I have realized that whenever I am nervous or in a stressful situation I seem to bite or pick at my nails. Maybe I do this to keep my mind off the subject of matter when I am nervous or it’s a muscle memory spasm I subconsciously do without knowing. The fact that I pick at my nails or bite is extremely annoying to me because I ruin them and they don’t look pleasing to the eye. I hope I will be able to remove this behavior or even just modify it because I know its bad for my nails. I have tried fixing this behavior in the past by getting my nails painted since I figured I wouldn’t want to waste money by ruining the paint job. It seemed to have helped the cause but I still notice myself fixing my nails or even playing with them. I have put effort towards quitting this behavior in which I posses’ but now I want to completely stop this habit and what a perfect opportunity to start manipulating this disposition. During the first four days of modifying my unwanted …show more content…
For changing my behavior, operant conditioning, which is when I gave myself a negative punishment, seemed to help decrease my behavior. Since I really wanted my reward of candy at the end of the day I didn’t bit my nails. Positive reinforcement is another way that could have helped for influencing my behavior. When I acknowledged that I was not biting my nails and they were placed in my lap, it would have been effective to reward myself. Instead of looking forward to a reward at the end of the day I would have been looking forward to a reward every time I was taking a test. Not only would it manipulate my habit of biting my nails but it would make me look forward to taking a