State the general rule that Skinnerians follow in modifying behavior. Give an example of how this rule could be applied in treating a behavior disorder.
Skinner and their followers have imposed several different behavior modification principles to help individuals with different problems such as psychosis, smoking, drug addiction, alcoholism, juvenile and speech disorders, phobias, obesity, shyness and sexual dysfunction. Thus, he derived a new version of Skinnerian therapy known as behavior therapy by assuming that the individual learn abnormal behavior in the same respect as that of the normal behavior.
Skinner principles of modifying principles have also been used to narrate token economies that are used in a number of psychiatric hospitals. When individuals in such economies behave in adjustable ways, they are reinforced with numerous tokens that can be used for different items such as coffee, cigarettes, candy and the use of television and radio set. Token economies are unnatural and ineffective but it faced a lot of criticism in a logistic manner.
Thus, in context with modifying behavior, he analyzed several treatment processes as a matter of abolishing the reinforcement that helps to maintain the undesirable behavior and also adjust the reinforcement contingencies that builds up desirable behavior in a more rational kind of manner.