Behaviour Modification Case Study: Replacing
note-leaving behaviour with underpants-on-head behaviour
Needs Assessment:
Subject displays antisocial behaviour by leaving handwritten notes requesting that birdseed not be
left on a local parkbench. Subject does not seem to have any qualms about littering or
being an overbearing control freak. It would be ultimately desirable for the
subject to cease this note-leaving behaviour completely however success will be
defined as 'uncontrolled screaming at the sight of birdseed'.
Implementation:
Over a period of 20 non-consecutive weeks, on
unscheduled Saturdays, the subject's handwritten notes were replaced with
birdseed.
Observations:
After 7 weeks escalation behaviour was noted: larger
printing, underlined capitols, stapling, or tacking notes to the bench. No note was left on week 11; instead the bench was
occupied for at least 1.5 hours by Clint Eastwood.
Weeks 12-18 showed a marked decrease in the severity
of the tone of each note, classified by the use of lowercase letters, writing
in blue as opposed to red marker; notes written on the backs of anti-acid
cartons in lieu of children's cereal boxes.
Week 19 showed the return of notes demonstrating strong emotion: subject used black and red marker on the same note; multiple notes were tacked to each end of the bench.
On week 20 a trail was discovered leading away from
the bench, ending behind a tree where evidence found supports the hypothesis
that the subject may have spent several hours there on separate occasions.
Conclusions:
As the behaviourist has never, to her knowledge,
seen or interacted with the subject in any way other than those described
above, it will be hard to determine the absolute success of this endeavor.
However, based on the observations over the final 8 weeks of this study, it
would be reasonable to assume that the subject is now very close to scaling a
tree and urinating on passers by.
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