What Are Behavior Modification Treatment Methods?

Behavior modification treatment methods involve redirecting behavioral patterns toward socially expectable conduct. Behavior modification methods can involve a single strategy or combine a variety of methods to bring about a desired behavior. Examples of behavior modification strategies are negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement, managing environmental influences, goal setting, and conditioning.

Negative Reinforcement

• Negative reinforcement involves ensuring a patient is unpleasantly informed that her behavior is inappropriate. The goal is to have the patient modify her behavior to that which is considered appropriate.
  The severity of negative reinforcement can range from a mild reprimand to incarceration. For example, a person recovering from substance abuse may be unpleasantly reminded how his past behavior caused heartache in the lives of those he loves. Those reminders are to encourage him to remain loyal to a treatment program designed to prevent him from regressing into substance abuse.

Positive Reinforcement

• Positive reinforcement involves rewarding, praising, and/or helping to cultivate a positive self-image. A reward treatment strategy is not to be confused with bribery or flattery. For example, flattery is not authentic, as opposed to complimenting a legitimate and noteworthy talent of a person.

Managing Environmental Influences

• Managing environmental influences is a behavior modification treatment method involving lessening or removing the stimulus causing unwanted behavioral patterns. For example, dieters in a weight-loss program may remove temptations from their environment. For instance, a dieter may remove a moist chocolate cake from his home so that he is less tempted to make a late-night tiptoe visit to his refrigerator.

Goal Setting

• Goal setting involves identifying and remaining devoted to specific activities essential to reaching an objective. Goal setting as a behavior modification strategy essentially replaces undesirable behaviors with activities and behaviors that are more desirable. For example, a weight-loss program involving jogging 45 minutes a day achieves two things: (1) the act of jogging is a healthy behavior appropriate for a weight-loss goal, and, (2) food is obviously not being consumed during jogging.

Conditioning

• Conditioning is a combination of a variety of methods. Classical conditioning involves having a person associate his undesired behavior with a manufactured external event. For example, encouraging a child's parents to express shame when a child is caught stealing is both conditioning the child to behave in honest ways and also a means of negative reinforcement.