Allocating your Behavior The Response Allocation Approach Behaviour

Allocating your Behavior

The Response Allocation Approach • Behaviour Regulation – Regulatory systems are a intrinsic homeostatic mechanisms that keep important functions in balance. – Behavioral regulation refers to a system that keeps behaviors in balance • There are many possible activities that you could engage in – Sleeping, eating, drinking, facebook – but these need be kept in balance i. e. optimally distributed • The distribution of behaviors across some time period has to be balanced to ensure survival – Eat when hungry, drink when thirsty or sleep when tired – Note that some of these are mutually exclusive behaviors

The Response Allocation Approach • Response allocation – How an individual allocates their behavior (time & energy) to the available activities at a particular time • Experimental approaches to response allocation – Instrumental conditioning procedures place a constraint on activities • Push the lever to get the food – Everyday activities are also constrained by contingencies • Work to get money – If no restrictions are placed on choice of activities it is referred to as an unconstrained baseline • Lots of fun activities when on vacation but not school work • A relative measure of preferences

The Behavioral Bliss Point • Note "Bliss Point" is a concept in economics regarding optimizing consumption of a product • The unconstrained, preferred, optimal distribution of behavior which varies with circumstances, but is stable across time for a given circumstance. • When instrumental contingencies are imposed – behavior is moved away from the behavioral bliss point – may make it impossible to regain baseline – behavioral bliss point can motivate behavior

The Behavioral Bliss Point • Imposing an Instrumental Contingency See Figure 7. 7 – the bliss point is 60 min facebook and 15 min studying • Unconstrained baseline for these two behaviors – With 1: 1 instrumental contingency imposed • The line on figure 7. 7 • need to study 60 min to get 60 min of facebook • Can not return to the bliss point “unrestricted baseline” – Minimum-deviation model: Attempting to minimize deviations from the behavioral bliss point • Increase studying to 60 minutes to maintain facebook at 60 minutes • Decrease facebook to 15 minutes to maintain studying at 15 minutes • Or somewhere in between – However it is more complicates then this because there a number of alternative activities that can substitute for facebook • Such as music, movies, sleep. etc

FIGURE 7. 7 Allocation of behavior between spending time on Facebook and studying. The open circle shows the optimal allocation, or behavioral bliss point, obtained when there are no constraints on either activity. The schedule line represents a schedule of reinforcement in which the student is required to study for the same amount of time that he or she spends on Facebook. Notice that once this schedule of reinforcement is imposed, it is no longer possible for the student to achieve the behavioral bliss point. The schedule deprives the student of time on Facebook and forces or motivates an increase in studying. The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7 e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Behavioral Economics & Response Allocation • “economics is the study of the allocation of behavior within a system of constraints” Bickle (1995 p. 258) • Instrumental conditioning is similar to economics – “Ability” to make the responses is the “income” • Need to have time and energy available – Number of responses required: “effort” “cost” is the “price” • Schedule of reinforcement determines "price" of the reinforcer – Number of reinforcers earned is the “amount purchased”

Behavioral Economics & Response Allocation • Consumer Demand – Relationship between price and amount purchased • When Price increases the amount purchased decreases depending on demand elasticity – The demand curve and elasticity of demand See Figure 7. 9 • Demand elasticity, degree of curve change, is larger for some items • Curve A - high sensitivity (candy) – moderate price increase greatly reduces amount purchased • Curve C - low sensitivity (gasoline) – moderate price increase reduces amount purchased only a little

The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7 e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015

Example of Elasticity of Demand for Cigarettes • Bickel 2006 • Smokers making responses “pull a plunger” – Could earn 3 puffs on a cigarette, 5 cents or 25 cents – progressive fixed ratio schedule of FR 30, FR 60, FR 100, FR 300, FR 600, . . . eventually FR 6000 • Figure 7. 10 left side comparing cigarettes to 5 cents – Open circles demand curve for money – Closed circles demand curve for cigarettes • Figure 7. 10 right side comparing cigarettes to 25 cents – Open circles demand curve for money – Closed circles demand curve for cigarettes

FIGURE 7. 10 Demand curves for cigarettes (solid circles) and money (open circles) with progressively larger fixedratio requirements. The number of reinforcers obtained, and the fixed-ratio requirements are both presented on logarithmic scales. (Based on Johnson & Bickel, 2006. ) The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7 e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Determinants of the Elasticity of Demand • (1) Availability of substitutes – – When alternatives are available at a reasonable price Online movie instead of going to a movie theaters gives some elasticity however for gasoline not much elasticity because of few alternatives Methadone maintenance program See Figure 7. 11 • as the price of methadone increased amount of drug consumed went down • when an alternative hydromorphone was available at a fixed price demand for methadone was more elastic

Determinants of the Elasticity of Demand • (2) Price range – increase in price has less effect at the low end of the price range – 10 percent increase in price of candy • Cheap candy: increase from 50 to 55 cents at the low end • Expensive candy: increase from $5. 00 to $5. 50 at the high end – This is responsible for the shape of the demand curves see figure 7. 10 • At some point (break point or price point) the work load (price) is too high for amount of reinforcer – similar to increasing the work load for operant schedules • FR 1 to FR 5 at the low end, a five fold increase, not much effect on behavior • FR 40 to FR 80 at the high end, a doubling, much more effect on behavior

Determinants of the Elasticity of Demand • (3) Income level – higher income decreases the effect of price increase – Similar to time and energy available to earn a reinforcer • For instrumental behavior having more time and energy available decreases the effect of higher cost of getting the food – Less likely to make choose substitutes • Children with a small budget switch to healthy food when the price of unhealthy food went up • children with a large budget continue to purchase the more expensive unhealthy but preferred food

Determinants of the Elasticity of Demand • (4) Linked to complementary commodity – hotdog buns are complementary when you buy hotdog • if the price of hot dogs goes up both the sale of hot dogs and hot dog buns go down – consumption of cigarettes and alcohol are complementary • in methadone maintenance programs methadone and cigarettes are complementary – for rats eating dry food and drinking water are complementary

Contributions of the Response Allocation approach and behavioral economics • Thinking about the cause of reinforcement as constraints on the free flow of behavior – instead of thinking about reinforcers as special kinds of stimuli or responses • instrumental conditioning produces a new distribution or allocation of responses • instrumental behavior cannot be studied only in well-controlled operant chambers – to study the complex examples of choice self-control and economic behavior – requires complex models that come from response allocation approach

Contributions of Behavioral Regulation • Changed the concept of a reinforcer • Changed the way instrumental conditioning procedures were viewed • No fundamental distinction between instrumental and reinforcer responses • Optimal distribution of behaviour determined by physiological needs, ecological niche and species-specific response tendencies • Emphasis on a broader behavioral context for understanding instrumental behaviour