Behavioral_and_Social_Cognitive_Approaches_to_Forming_Habits

Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits John Smith Jr. PSY/250 June 16, 2011 Brian Garavaglia Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits This paper will be analyzing the formation of habits using the behavioral and social/cognitive approaches. In This paper the subject to analyze is one of my habits. It will state how that habit started and what role models if any I had for this habit. It also will discuss the people who influenced the adoption of this habit. The paper will also state whether or not I still continue doing said habit and has there been a time when I have attempted to break this habit. The paper will finish by using the behavioral personality theory to explain why I have this habit. I will describe components of social/cognitive theory that explain why the habit formed. I will develop a plan that applies operant conditioning to change this habit and finally state, which theory between behavioral and social/cognitive best explains my personality. The habit that I will discuss is the habit I have of playing with and folding my ears into themselves. To the best of my knowledge I developed this habit at a very young age of around four to five. I had an aunt named Elaine who is deceased that would play with my ears. She would play with my ears all the time, especially when I was upset up something and the sensation I would receive from her touching my ears would always calm me down. I believe I developed this habit as a way to handle stress and intense situations. Whenever I am feeling stressed, angry or tensed I would start to play with my ear and that would help relieve the feelings of stress, and anger and place me back into a start of relaxation. When I enter puberty I noticed that playing with my ears would relieve most of the sex tension that I was experiencing as an adolescent. I will probably credit my brother and cousins as the people who influenced the adoption of the habit. Were as I was playing with my ears to relieve stress and gain other satisfaction from it my brother and cousins were amused that I could fold my ear into itself and hold it there they would asks me to do it all the time, which made it even more comfortable for me to play with my ears because it was excepted by my peers. This habit is still very much a part of my life and the reason why I continue to do it is for the same reasons that I started doing it. I also do it for a variety of other reasons including boredom, deep concentration, deep thought, and just the feeling I get when playing with my ears although I only play with the right ear now as opposed to playing with both ears when I was younger. I have tried to start this habit two times. The first time was when I was in the Marine Corps I got in trouble a couple times for playing with my ears while on security watch. That lead me to attempt to quit playing with my ears cold turkey but I did not work because every time I felt bored, lonely, nervous, or stressed I would go back to playing with my ears. The second time was about three years ago when my ears begin to bruise because of my playing with them. When I was younger my ears never showed and signs of damage resulting from my playing with them so I thought that since I was older now and they started to show damage that it was time to stop playing with them but I notice that as soon as they would heal from whatever damage they had that I would always go right back to playing with them. So now I come to the realization that I will be playing with my ears until I die. Using the behavioral personality theory I feel that I have this habit do to the reinforcements that I received growing up from my aunt, my cousin and my friend. B.F. Skinner a leading behavioral psychologist believed that the consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again. That thinking leads me to believe that the reason I adopted this habit is that it was positively reinforcement. Growing up whenever I would play with my ears no one would ever say anything negative about it so there was never a stigma placed playing with my ears. When trying to describe the components of social/cognitive theory that explain why this habit formed we must first understand what the social/cognitive theory is. The Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) was created by Albert Bandura, a professor at Stanford University, beginning in the 1960s and perfected and published in 1986. Born out of the Social Learning Theory (SLT), SCT addresses the behaviors of animals and what drives them to behave in certain ways. The first component of the social/cognitive theory that explains why this habit formed is the learning component. In the learning component I would have learning from my aunt that by playing with my ears will feel good and ease the feeling of stress and anxiety that I was feeling. The next component is the cognitive process. Bandura stated that there is also the element of a mental process involved in learning to be successful in the stated learned behavior. A cognitive process is what people use to construct their own view of reality and how they perceive and cope with the world around them. The next component is self-efficacy. To follow through with a learned activity or experience, a person must believe in him or herself and feel as though he or she possesses the capacity to go through with the activity. The final component of the social/cognitive theory is self regulation. Once a behavior has been learned, the person must use self-regulation to ensure he or she continues this behavior when confronted with external factors. Self-regulation concerns how the person fights off suspected threats to a learned behavior. If I were to develop a plan to change this habit that applies operant conditioning I would first determine which environmental conditions will give me a negative reinforcement when this habit is performed. Something like whenever I play with my ears I would get a stinging sensation that would only stop when I took my hand off my ear. I find that between the behavioral and social/cognitive theories that the behavioral theory best explains my personality. I find that most of my personality traits come from something that was learned from my environment growing up. The traits that I keep growing up were the ones with positive reinforcement and the traits that I left behind were the ones with negative reinforcement. In conclusion this paper discussed I habit I have with playing with me ears. I discussed where this habit started, the person that’s responsible for the adaptation of this habit. I have discussed why I continue to do said habit and have there ever been time when I tried to break this habit. I used the behavioral personality theory to explain why I have this habit and I describe the components of the social/cognitive theory that explain why this habit formed. I finished this paper by developing a plan applying operant conditioning to change this habit and chose between behavioral and social/cognitive theories which one best explains my personality. References: (2011). Profile of Major Thinkers. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com (1999-2011). Social Cognitive Theory Components. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com (2005-2011). Psychology Study Guides. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com Howard S. Friedman and Miriam W. Schustack, (2009). Personality: Classic Theories and Modern Research (4th edition.). : Aallyn &Boackon.