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I need someone to review and make edits (especially with APA formatting) to the final paper for my psychology class on an experiment that was conducted.
RUNNING HEAD: HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT
1 Healthy Eating Treatment Project
Name
Washington State University HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 2 Abstract
The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not increasing available time to prepare
meals has an effect on frequency of preparing and consuming healthy, home-cooked meals.
This is a within-subject study with one participant which took place over the course of three
weeks with a token economy with a continuous reinforcement schedule. With each week of
treatment, the available time for preparing meals was increased by 5 minutes, starting from
10 minutes. The results of the experiment indicated a positive correlation between the two
variables, as indicated by a significant increase in the frequency of the target behaviour. HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 3 Healthy Eating Treatment Project
Self-control is an individual?s capacity to alter its own responses. It is a deliberate and
conscious effort to exert control over one?s actions, allowing a person to restrain or override a
dominant response to a stimulus. Self-control is extremely important, as it is what allows
humans to rise over animalistic instinct and make informed decisions based on future goals
and consequences. According to the theory of behaviourism, our behaviour is controlled
through events in our immediate environment, so self-control can be tied to these events.
Behavioural modification emphasizes the functional relationship between environmental
effects and behaviour, and it is important to understand how to identify and alter these events
in order to bring about changes in behaviour.
Goal-setting and mindset are two concepts that drive the desire for behaviour
modification and self-control. Goals increase motivation, focus our attention, and encourage
persistence, so setting goals for oneself is an effective way to motivate behaviour
modification. This is accomplished by making a specific statement of a final goal, and then
breaking it into sub-goals that can be tackled individually. The way we approach our goals is
tied to the concept of mindset. A mindset is essentially the way we perceive the world and
there are two types of mindsets that are relevant to self-control and behaviour modification:
fixed and growth. A fixed mindset views ability as a fixed trait, with talent and skill being
things that we are born with. People with this mindset typically respond to failure by giving
up and view intelligence as a ?statistic attribute, [with] poor performance on an intellectual
task [being] primarily attributed to a lack of intelligence? (Vandewalle, 2012) .A growth
mindset views ability as something to be developed, and people with this mindset view
failure as ?a signal of the need for more effort and an improved strategy? (Vandewalle, 2012).
Behavioural dimensions are aspects of behaviour that can be quantified and measured.
These can include the intensity, frequency, or duration of behaviour, as well as other metrics. HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 4 This information is extremely useful, as it is how one gauges the effectiveness of behaviour
modification, as any modifications to behaviour can be observed through changes to
behavioural dimensions. Observing and documenting behaviour is typically done using a
three-stage process to identify behaviours and the events that influence them. The first part is
the antecedent, which is an event that ?sets up? the behaviour. This can be any number of
things, such as waking up tired or receiving a phone call. What is important is that the
antecedent is something in the environment or a situation that causes behaviour to occur. The
behaviour that follows is then informed by a resulting consequence. The consequence can be
anything that occurs as a result of the behaviour, and it alters the chances of repeat behaviour
in some way. These consequences come in the form of reinforcement and punishment, which
can both be positive or negative. Reinforcement increases the likelihood of repeat behaviour,
while a punishment decreases the likelihood. Positive reinforcement/punishment involves the
addition of a stimulus, which is perceived as beneficial or detrimental depending on the type
of consequence. Negative consequences see the removal of stimuli instead. The rate at which
reinforcements are applied is based on the schedule of reinforcement for the particular
treatment plan. These schedules vary based on whether they rely on instances of behaviour
(ratio) or the passage of time (interval), with these values potentially being fixed or variable.
Different schedules can produce different levels of behaviour reinforcement, so it is important
to choose the schedule that best fits the type of behaviour and individual being treated.
Examining responses ?under various schedule arrangements is a core component of many
analyses of operant behaviour? and much of what we know about applied behaviour analysis
comes from ?laboratory research involving the exposure of nonhuman subjects to a variety of
schedule arrangements? (Roane, 2008).
A token economy is a specific system of reinforcement that relies on rewarding tokens
to reinforce behaviour. These tokens themselves are relatively meaningless, but they are used HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 5 to track progress towards the target behaviour and can be exchanged for back-up reinforcers
that motivate behaviour. An example would be rewarding behaviour with fake money that can
be exchanged for some sort of prize in the future. This method of reinforcement can be quite
effective, as it provides an individual with a tangible method for tracking progress, as well as
periodically motivating the individual in a manner that they feel like they have control over. A
key aspect of a token economy is the response cost, which is a form of negative punishment
for undesirable behaviours that compete with the target behaviour. This is introduced after the
token economy has been in place for some time, and usually takes the form of taking back
tokens. It is important that these tokens can be regained through some sort of desirable
behaviour. The response cost serves as an important consequence to offset the reinforcements
provided by the token economy. A 2011 study done in Iran found that token economies had a
noticeable positive effect on academic achievement for students with intellectual abilities,
with the token economy reinforcements having a greater effect than basic social
reinforcement (Ashoori, Mizamani, & Sereshki, 2011).
For my treatment project, I decided to increase the frequency at which I prepare and
consume healthy, home-cooked meals. This is a behavioural deficit that I am hoping to
increase. The goal of this project is to move towards a healthier lifestyle and to reduce my
consumption of heavily-processed foods. This should hopefully help me with improving my
health and lowering my weight.
The operational definition of a healthy meal in this context is a meal prepared from its
starting ingredients (no pre-packaged ingredients that come prepared) that comprises all the
food groups from the Center of Nutrition Policy and Promotion?s food pyramid. My treatment
plan runs on a continuous ratio schedule, meaning that each instance of the desired behaviour
is rewarded. The secondary reinforcer for this experiment is snack food, exchanged for 3
tokens. Eating unhealthy or heavily-processed foods will incur a response cost of 1 token per HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 6 occurrence. This will serve as an effective consequence for undesired behaviour. My
hypothesis is that when I am pressured for time, I am likely to eat something unhealthy due to
the ease of preparation, and work against my goal of healthy eating as a consequence. As
such, it would benefit my treatment project to work towards a more organized schedule that
allows sufficient time to prepare meals each day. HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 7 Method
Participant
I was the only participant in this study. I am 22-year-old male university student who
is slightly overweight at 210 pounds.
Materials
Functional assessment/baseline chart. To determine the antecedents, behaviours,
and consequences, as well as the baseline frequency of behaviour, I used an ABC chart over a
weeklong baseline phase. This baseline phase began on September 26th and ended on October
2nd. Table 1 shows a variety of antecedents, behaviours, and consequences experienced during
this one week.
Treatment chart. I used a treatment chart to keep track of my behaviour frequency
and undesirable behaviours. This tracking was done over a three week period, starting from
October 16th and ending on November 6th. Table 2 shows my behaviour frequency, as well as
all instances of undesirable behaviour and token gain.
Pennies. Pennies were used as the tokens for my token economy during this study.
The pennies were earned on a continuous ratio reinforcement schedule and could be
exchanged for a back-up reinforcer for every 3 tokens.
Procedure
This experiment used a within-subject design on a single participant. The independent
variable was free time (defined as time not spent a particular scheduled task) and the
dependent variable was the number of healthy meals prepared and consumed. The subject
simply planned his schedule with the intent of providing more time in the morning and
evening to prepare and consume healthy meals. In the first week, 10 additional minutes were
allotted for the subject?s morning routine, providing additional time for meal preparation. In HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 8 the second week, this was raised to 15 minutes. Due to extraneous circumstances, this was
not continued into the third week of treatment.
Results
The number of healthy eating behaviours I performed each week increased from a
baseline of -1 to 6 during the peak of the treatment phase. This can be clearly seen by
comparing Table 1 to Table 2. Week 1 of treatment saw an increase in net behaviour
frequency from -1 to 5, while the increase in preparation time from Week 1 to 2 resulted in a
minor increase from 5 to 6 occurrences. Due to extraneous circumstances surrounding a
military simulation event where I spent several days away from home during Week 3, my
results for that week do nothing to support my hypothesis. Overall, the changes to preparation
time resulted in an increase in average frequency of healthy eating from -1 during the
baseline phase to 2.66 during the treatment phase.
Discussion
I believe that my results support my hypothesis, but my findings are not entirely
conclusive. Increasing the amount of available time for meal preparation saw a significant
increase in occurrences of the target behaviour, but additional increases to this available time
did not result in another significant increase. However, I do believe that Week 3 of treatment
would have seen another significant increase if it had been a normal week, free of abnormal
circumstances outside the changes to the independent variable. The main strength of this
study lies in the ease of tracking the target behaviour, as it was well-defined and low in
number. Limiting the participant pool to one person also reduced the influences of
uncontrollable factors outside the experiment, though this also serves as a weakness to the
experiment?s design as well. The limitations of this study seem to lie mostly in its duration.
Two-and-a-half weeks of normal testing were not sufficient for me to gather completely
conclusive results. Additionally, the changes in the independent variable may not have been HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT 9 significant enough from week to week to create significant change. Despite this, I can
reasonably conclude that increasing the available time to prepare and consume healthy meals
has a positive correlation with the number of healthy meals consumed. HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT
10 References
Mirzamani, S. M., Ashoori, M., & Sereshki, N. A. (2011). The Effect of Social and Token
Economy Reinforcements on Academic Achievement of Students with Intellectual
Disabilities. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, 6(1), 25?30.
Roane, H. S. (2008). On The Applied Use of Progressive-Ratio Schedules of
Reinforcement. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 41(2), 155?161.
http://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.2008.41-155
Smith-Nelson, L. J. (2016, Fall). Psychology 328 Lecture. Lecture presented in Washington
State University, Pullman, WA.
Vandewalle, D. (2012) ?A Growth and Fixed Mindset Exposition of the Value of Conceptual
Clarity?, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(3), pp. 301?305. doi:
10.1111/j.1754-9434.2012.01450.x. HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT
11 Tables and Figures
Table 1
Functional Assessment for Healthy Eating Behaviours
Healthy eating is defined as preparing and consuming a home-cooked meal from non-processed ingredients that
includes a proper balance of each food group, as defined by the Center of Nutrition Policy and Promotion. A
change in behaviour will be observed if the frequency of healthy eating increases.
Date/Time
Setting Event Antecendent
Behaviour
Behavioural
Consequence R+, R-, P+,
Dimension
PMonday,
Did not sleep Slept in by
Made a Hot
Reduction in Saved time in R9:10
well
10 minutes
Pocket for
healthy
morning
breakfast
eating
routine
instead of
cooking
Consumed
P+
unhealthy
food, felt bad
Tuesday,
Last class of
Went home
Prepared
Increase in
Significant
P+
5:00PM
day canceled early
wellhealthy
time spent in
balanced
eating
preparation
meal (steak,
potatoes,
Felt good
R+
broccoli,
about eating
fruit for
healthy meal
dessert)
Wednesday,
Ran out of
Went to
Prepared
Increase in
Felt good
R+
6:00PM
food in
grocery store wellhealthy
about eating
apartment
balanced
eating
healthy meal
meal (salad
with chicken
Healthy food Pand fruit,
is expensive
biscuit)
to buy
Thursday,
Did not eat
Spending
Bought
Reduction in Consumed
P+
2:30PM
breakfast
time at the
nachos for
healthy
unhealthy
CUB while
lunch
eating
food, felt bad
hungry
Spent money
eating out
PFriday,
Human vs.
Decided to
Ate dinner at Reduction in Consumed
P+
7:00PM
Zombies
play in
McDonald?s
healthy
unhealthy
event
mission
to save time
eating
food, felt bad Saturday,
6:00PM Sunday,
10:00AM Ran load of
dishes in
dishwasher Slept well Frying pan
unavailable
due to being
washed Woke up
earlier than
expected Baked a
pizza Cooked full,
healthy
breakfast
(Veggie
omelet, toast,
side of fruit) Reduction in
healthy
eating Increase in
healthy
eating Spent money
eating out
Saved
significant
effort in food
preparation
Consumed
unhealthy
food, felt bad
Consumed
healthy food,
felt good PR- P+
R+ HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT
12 Table 2
Tx Phase
The target behaviour of eating healthy meals is operationally defined as the number of nutritious
home-cooked meals that I prepare and consume during a single day.
The primary interfering behaviour observed during the functional assessment is eating heavilyprocessed foods or outside my home.
I will reinforce my behaviour of eating healthy meals on a CRF schedule of reinforcement. This
means that for every time I prepare and consume a healthy meal, I?ll earn 1 token.
I will incur a response cost of 1 token for each time I eat an unhealthy meal.
I would like to increase my target behaviour from 3 times per week to 7 times per week. This means
that, if I reach my goal, I will earn 7 tokens per week.
When I earn 3 tokens, I will ?buy? my backup reinforcer of a snack food, such as a small bowl of ice
cream.
Day/Date
Frequency of
Frequency of
Tokens
Notes:
preparing and
consuming
earned/lost
consuming
heavily-processed
unhealthy meal
or outside food
Monday 17/10
II
Earned 2 tokens
Tuesday 18/10
I
I
Earned 1 token,
Ate lunch at CUB
lost 1 token
due to time
constraints
Wednesday 19/10 II
Earned 2 tokens
Thursday
I
Lost 1 token
Did not eat lunch,
20/10
at dinner at Red
Bento
Friday 21/10
I
Earned 1 token
Saturday 22/10
I
I
Earned 1 token,
Went to friend?s
lost 1 token
home in Moscow
for most of day
Sunday 23/10
I
Earned 1 token
Net tokens earned for week 1: 5 tokens
Will try to do
better next week,
but good first
attempt
Added 10 minutes
to morning
routine
Monday 24/10
I
Earned 1 token
Tuesday 25/10
I
I
Earned 1 token,
Ate lunch in CUB
lost 1 token
Wednesday 26/10 II
Earned 2 tokens
Thursday 27/10
I
II
Earned 1 token,
Slept in, made
lost 2 tokens
Hot Pocket for
breakfast and ate
lunch in CUB
Friday 28/10
I
I
Earned 1 token,
Ate lunch at
lost 1 token
McDonald?s
Saturday 29/10
II
Earned 2 tokens
Sunday 30/10
II
Earned 2 tokens
Net tokens earned for week 2: 6 tokens
Added 15 minutes HEALTHY EATING TREATMENT PROJECT
13
for morning
routine
Monday 31/10
Tuesday 1/11 II
I I Wednesday 2/11
Thursday 3/11 II
I II Earned 2 tokens
Earned 1 token,
lost 1 token
Earned 2 tokens
Earned 1 token,
lost 2 tokens Friday 4/11 II Lost 2 tokens Saturday 5/11 II Lost 2 tokens Net tokens earned for week 3: -1 token Ate lunch in CUB
Spent most of day
driving to Seattle
and on a plane.
Ate fast-food for
lunch and dinner
Attending a
military
simulation event,
mostly ate
military rations
and protein bars
Attending
military
simulation event,
still eating
military rations
Not surprised by
this week?s
results, due to
extraordinary
circumstances.
Completely
unable to prepare
meals in the field
Solution details
Solution #000176154
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