Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Mini: Catch 'em Being Good

Transcript

Mini: Catch 'em Being Good · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We do what we do many I am your host, Abraham.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: And I'm Shane.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about all the
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: things that humans and non human animals do and we
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: release these short form discussions in which we take a
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: little topic and take a little bite out of it.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: And that bite is what you hear is the mastication
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of that chew mm.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, here we are with the whrors divores of episodes.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: He's saying orders but in americanized. Just let everyone knows
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I failed French in college, so you know, this is
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: a mini episode. And if you're joining us for the
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: first time, then I hope that you enjoy what you
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: hear today. And if you like to support us, you
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: can do so by leaving us a rating and review,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: like and subscribe, tell a friend, pick up some which
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: at a merged store, or you can join us on Patreon,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: where you'll get some behind the scenes content at free
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: content and early access to our episodes, and you can
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: like talk to us of a little community over there
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: going on, which is cool. Yeah, but yeah, let's get
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: into our topic here. We're talking about a behavior management strategy,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: if you will, which is to say, like the conditions
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: under which you have someone who I think this is
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: commonly applied in situations where you have what you might
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: call problem behavior, is like some people just call behaviors,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: but like we're talking specifically about things that are likely
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: to get kids in trouble, But you can actually apply
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: this to any situation. And the goal here really is
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: just to facilitate a cooperative sort of well working environments.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And I do want to acknowledge that this is not
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: intended to be used for any kind of abuse, so
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: don't take it that way. Yeah, but this is intended
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: to provide a supportive environment that is likely to foster
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: cooperation in a place where it makes sense for cooperation
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: to exist.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's perfect, So let's go ahead in this for
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: a second. So one thing that humans have been struggling
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: with for I don't know the existence of our species
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: is how to effectively and efficiently direct the behavior of others.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: We don't mean to control all their behavior, although some
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: people will be thinking that and would want that. We
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: mean to foster cooperation and encourage appropriate behavior. We want
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: to encourage those behaviors that, like sometimes are called prosocial
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: behaviors or beneficial behavior. Something's going to improve that person's
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: quality of life, the quality of life of folks around them.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: So we are looking at those types of behavior change.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: And so some strategies that people have employed, they have
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: tried to use over time to foster that is, they've
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: tried prayer, they've tried wanting people to behave differently, they've
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: tried chemicals, and most of all, probably I would say,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the most common thing that's been us throughout history is coercion. Unfortunately,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: coercion does get results. It has a myriad of problems
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: that come with it, and is really not worth the cost,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: but it does get results, at least more so than
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: many of the other methods, and very directly more so
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: than some of the other methods that I mentioned. At
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: least there there is a better way.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, prayer doesn't really work now, So people think that
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: coercion is the best way to gain cooperation and encourage
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: appropriate behavior. But some even value coercion is a good thing.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Spare the rods, ball the child, that type of problem.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: But because it is coercive and because it is control
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: through suffering, it does create problems. We really want to
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: try to avoid that if we can.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: But that is like some people like coercion because it
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: is through suffering. It is people who value suffering, right,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: and there are a lot of people out there who
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: value that. They think that that's the right way to go,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: and it's just because that's how they were raised, Like
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: they were raised in a system valued suffering. That you
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: use suffering to control behavior, and so they think that's
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: the way to do it. There is a better way
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: to do it. It is better in the sense like what
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: do you mean by better, Like that's a question we
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: want to ask when someone says the better, it's better,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and that it fosters appropriate behavior. It is effective, like
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: it will get the behavior that you're trying to get,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: and it also builds trust in a positive relationship between people,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: and it has other like beneficial side effects here. There
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: are other strategies and interventions that accomplish the similar goal,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: but the one that we're talking about today, we're just
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: going to dive into just one of them. It's a
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: simple rule called catch them being good.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: That's all it is. That's and the beautiful thing is
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: is it's that's basically just what it sounds like. That's
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: the intervention plan that you that you do you catch
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: them being good, you shift your focus and acknowledgments to
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: the appropriate behavior or the desired behavior, the behavior you
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: want to see improve or like to occur more often,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: and less on the inappropriate behavior, so you're not spending
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: as much time talking about or acknowledging the junk behavior,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: the nonsense behavior, the behavior you don't want to see.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: It is reorienting your attention to notice when things are
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: going well instead of noticing when things are going poorly.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And you can do both, but it's trying to just
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: shift the emphasis, like are you focused more on what's
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: going well or more on what's going poorly? Ads are
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: going poorly? All right, So we're back. We're talking about
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the fact that like catch them being good is just
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: what it sounds like. It's the reason that this saying
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: even came into existence is I think I'm going to
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: check the etymology on this, but I think there's the
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: sort of catch them in the act thing that has
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: to do with catching people being bad, and the alternative
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: that we're suggesting here is instead try and focus on
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: and catch them when they're doing what they're supposed to
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: be doing. Right, So as an example, I once observed
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: this interaction that we would call a session in which
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: a learner was intermittently getting out of their chair. So
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: like this was two people working together at like a table,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: sitting across from one another, and one of them's sort
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: of presenting at practice exercises to work on something, and
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: the learner here just kept getting out of the chair,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and every time they got out of their seat the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: instructor asked them to sit back down. They sort of
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: had to keep prompting them to return to the chair. However,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: even when the learner stayed in their seat for several
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: minutes without trying to get up, the instructor never seemed
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: to notice. They didn't notice that the kid was doing
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: exactly what was being asked of them and what was
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: expected of them to do in that moment, and so
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: simply shifting their focus to noticing that the majority of
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: the time the learner was actually following the rules. And
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: then if the instructor at the time then acknowledged this,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: that actually may have easily reduced the number of times
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: that the learner left their seat and they wouldn't have
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: had to provide frequent corrections for what the learner was
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: doing incorrectly because they wasn't happening right, and that simple
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: shift and focus could have actually prevented them having to
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: then intervene.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: So, and we see this work in other ways too. Right,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: in a situation in which the learner who frequently interrupts
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: the instructor are making the instructor like or makes the
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: instructor have to repeat themselves, the instructor starts rewarding or
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: awarding bonus points as part of some type of incentive
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: system for opportunities in which the instructor was able to
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: deliver their content uninterrupted. So basically, if they go through
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: without being interrupted the learners that are involved, they earn
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: a reward. And after a couple of opportunities in which
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: the learner earned extra points because they had waited for
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: the instructor to finish the number of times they interrupted,
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: the instructor began to decrease signals difficantly, and the instructor
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: didn't even need to point out the times that the
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: learner interrupted, because simply noticing the appropriate behavior was effective
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: in decreasing the interrupting behavior, and it increased waiting for
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: the instructor to finish talking, which is beautiful love when
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: that happens.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And like, these are real examples I'm pulling from, like
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: things that I've actually observed and been a part of
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: and seeing these playoffs. This is not a hypothetical. This
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: actually happened, right, And this is the whole idea of
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: catching them being good. As we mentioned, it's just emphasizing
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: a focus on when things are going well instead of
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: when things are going poorly. And this doesn't mean that
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: you never pay attention to things when they're going poorly,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: or that you never provide feedback or consequences when they do.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: It just means that you're trying to prioritize incentives toward
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: when the appropriate behavior happens. It can be helpful to
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: notice that if you're often providing corrective feedback for some behavior,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: that could be a prompt to you to start looking
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: to see if the appropriate behavior is occurring in the
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: absence of that corrective feedback that you're providing, and you
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: can then try to start shifting your reward to whatever
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: acknowledgments and attention to that behavior more because, like, if
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: you're providing a lot of that sort of guided corrective feedback,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: if you will like that means that like that is
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: a prompt to you that like, all right, I need
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: to be looking for something else instead and see like
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: where I can be shifting my attention and acknowledgments for
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: when things are going as expected. Yeah.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: The thing that I always try to tell people on
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: this is like you're already doing the work. You're just
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: allocating when you do the work, you're putting the work
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: that you're doing in a different place. Yes, Like you're
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: already providing attention here. Take that apply here instead, and
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: then you'll see improvements over across the board. We'll talk
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: about that though.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Some will argue at the end of individual in question
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: is never being good, never doing what it's expected them.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: I've heard this time and time again, and this is
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: almost never or is never the case. If you actually
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: watch for it, you'll will see plenty of instances of
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: appropriate or at least neutral behavior. And while you're arguing
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: that they are never being good, they might be sitting
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: there patiently waiting, i e. Being good, and you may
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: have to start with very small things and things that
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: they're doing well in those moments and then start to
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: kind of like build that momentum towards the larger, more
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: like the behaviors that you are really want to see here.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The people will say that the appropriate behavior
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: occurs so infrequently that there isn't even an opportunity to
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: catch them being good. And in those cases, you may
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: have to engage some alternative strategies to get the appropriate
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: behavior occurring more often so that you can start using
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the strategy of catch and being good. Because, like we said,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: this is one strategy, and there are lots and you
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: can have a lot of things going on simultaneously, so
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: if you do need to kickstart it, you can. But
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I will actually say, like in any instance where someone
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: told me they are never doing the appropriate behavior, like
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: while they're telling me that the kid is often doing
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: an appropriate behavior, and it's like right, right, I have
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: not actually observed a situation in which there was nothing
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge that you could And you might have to
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: start really small. It might be like you sat there
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: while I talked to you, let's read, let's reward that,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: and that might be where you're at, and that's okay,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Like you got to start somewhere, right exactly.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Some may argue that they should be following expectations anyway,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I love this. I love what people say, so that
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: they should be doing it anyway.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And to this we both.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Say, how's that working for you? And it's my favorite
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: question to ask people is that how's that going? Is
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: that working for you?
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Because it is correct to point out that the learner
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: should be following expectations, but we recognize that they aren't,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: and so what we can do about that is start
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: catching them being good by recognizing when they are following
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: those expectations most of the time. Once you've got a
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: good system working in the learner and the learner is
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: almost always doing what it's expected, then you can start
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: to reduce how often you're providing that attention, how much
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: you need to reward the appropriate behavior, and will likely
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: be able to keep up the same momentum with that
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: behavior with doing less work. Like once you kind of
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: start getting it rolling, it's much easier to maintain it
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: than it is to build it from the beginning.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I will actually say, like I have observed
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: plenty of instances where once you've got the ball rolling,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: it's not that hard to actually face doubt how much
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: you're doing in terms of allocating a lot of attention
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: toward those appropriate behaviors. There have been some instances where
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: kids have been in that sort of incentive system long enough,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: but they came to me and they're like, I don't
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: think I need this incentive system anymore. They're like, I
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: could just do what you ask me to do and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: we don't have to like do points or special privileges
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: or anything. I'm like, wow, that's really profound. Okay, sure, yeah,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I'm like love that great. Likely, Yeah, let's move on.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I appreciate the advocacy. Now, there are some who may
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: argue that if you're catching them being good, that all
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: that the individual is going to learn is that all
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: they have to do is misbehave and they're then going
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: to earn additional reward when they're behaving appropriately. Okay, So
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the fallow like what I'm saying, like they're saying essentially
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: like you're just teaching them that, like they can be
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: bad and then be good and get the reward for it, right,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: is the argument. So my response to that is, First,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I've never seen that happen. Second, worst case scenario is
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: like you provide extra reinforcement that you didn't really need
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: to and then just sort is as sort of as
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: we described earlier out over time. It's not a like
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: big lift or catastrophic situation. If you like have to
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: just slightly shift again how you're allocating that sort of
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: attention to acknowledgment and like you don't just need to
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: catch them being good some other way first, like just right,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: you know, figure out where, just reallocate your time a
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: little bit, like figure out when things are going well
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: and do that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Right and free nerds out there if you're wondering what
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: we're doing here. This is a differential reinforcement procedure. This
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: could be a DRI a d R O, a d
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: R L, a d R H a d R blank right,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: it can be pretty much whatever you want or combination
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: of those things. I love seeing chained DR procedures like
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I think that's a lot of fun to see when
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: those when those do like a d R I d
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: R A type of situation, you could have all of
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: that in place if you design it well. But I
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: would just keep it simple too, for the sake of
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: the folks that are trying to implement this. The simpler
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: the better, and you'll probably be more effective at least
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: in implementing it.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly so, all right, I think that's what we
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: have to say about Catch Them Being Good? Is there
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: anything that I'm messtery that you'd like to add before
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: before we wrap up? No, that feels good excellence, all right, Well,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: go forth and shape up those appropriate behaviors by using
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: some amount of compassion and acknowledgment for when things are
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: going well. This will save you. There's quite a bit
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: of research on this, by the way, you can look
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: up John Gottman, George Segui. There's many others I'm forgetting
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: right at the top of my mind, but we'll have
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: some links and references in our notes for this episode
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: as well. But if you'd like to support us, as
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I mentioned, head over to Patreon and full length episodes
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: will read the name there and it helps us be
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: a show. You can also leave us a rating interview,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: and if you like to tell us about your experiences
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: with Catching Them Being Good, you can email us directly
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com, and we wills even sometimes
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: read those emails on the air or when we record.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: I guess and that can be fun too. But I
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: think that that's it, so thank you so much for listening.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: This is Abraham and this is Shane. Why We Do
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: What We Do Mini is Out.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: hope you have an awesome gay