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Mini: Predictor of Future Behavior · 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 we Do what we Do?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Mini.
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We
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  Speaker 1: are a psychology podcast. We talk about all of the
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  Speaker 1: things that humans and non human animals do and in
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: these short form episodes, we do a quick dive into
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a topic, and this one we are taking down the
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  Speaker 1: old wisdom, this maxim of what people say. We're gonna
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We're gonna tear it apart because it's dumb.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I don't have very strong opinions on this.
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  Speaker 3: I know Abraham does, and so I'm excited to dive
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  Speaker 3: into this and maybe you'll convince me to have a
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  Speaker 3: strong opinion on it.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I'm here. I'm here for the ride, is
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  Speaker 2: what I'll say.
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  Speaker 1: Lovely, well, thank you for joining me, and also all
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: of you listeners, thank you for joining us. And if
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: you do end up enjoying what you hear today and
• 0:58
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  Speaker 1: can get some extra perks and stuff. And I'll talk
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: more about this all those things at the end of
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  Speaker 1: today's discussion. But we've got we've got some topics to
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  Speaker 1: tackle a topic, and this discussion is sort of a
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  Speaker 1: recapitulation mini of a argument a point that I made
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  Speaker 1: in an older full length episode. I don't remember which
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  Speaker 1: or where it happened, but I know that we talked
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  Speaker 1: about it at some point, which people who are here
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  Speaker 1: don't care, but boint being that we have talked about
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: about it a little, but I wanted to keep I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to bring around to a actual, an actual discussion
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  Speaker 1: where like that was the focused and the thing that
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  Speaker 1: I keep hearing people say they're employing this maxim the
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  Speaker 1: saying that the best pre dictor of future behavior is
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  Speaker 1: past behavior. This is the thing that people say a lot.
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  Speaker 1: I assume you've heard people say this.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've heard it my entire career.
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  Speaker 3: Like that's like one of the I feel like that's
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  Speaker 3: one of the first like quotes or like phrases that
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  Speaker 3: I heard at the very beginning of my career that
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  Speaker 3: stuck around kind of like you know, you know, jack
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  Speaker 3: of all trades phrases and stuff like that. Like this
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  Speaker 3: is like thing that people say, yeah, yeah, I've heard
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  Speaker 3: of my entire career.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and even from people who have training in
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  Speaker 1: psychology and should probably have a more nuanced view of this,
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  Speaker 1: to say the least, I have heard this come out
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  Speaker 1: of their mouths. So let's just start with the fact
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  Speaker 1: that this idea the best predictor of future behavior is
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  Speaker 1: past behavior. This is incorrect. It is wrong, aggressively so
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  Speaker 1: in fact, and I'm going to tell you why. Now,
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  Speaker 1: So let's dig into this this thing here.
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  Speaker 3: As far as this discussion goes, we couldn't really find
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  Speaker 3: where this actually started. One source found that this sentiment
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  Speaker 3: had been echoed in psychology textbooks for decades, and if
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  Speaker 3: you were to crack open the Complete Idiot's Guide to
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  Speaker 3: Psychology from two thousand and three, you might find the
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  Speaker 3: claim that it is an established scientific fact that past
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  Speaker 3: behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.
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  Speaker 1: So as catchy as saying as that is, it is,
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  Speaker 1: as I mentioned, patently false. Past behavior is not the
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  Speaker 1: best predictor of future behavior. It's actually barely even a
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  Speaker 1: predictor of future behavior. There's a couple things we can
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  Speaker 1: dig into, there's like actual science, but there's also just
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  Speaker 1: a basic logical argument here. So just starting with a
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  Speaker 1: logical argument, let's imagine someone puts their hand on a
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  Speaker 1: hot stove. This idea, this past behavior predicts future behavior,
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  Speaker 1: would say, it would assert, essentially, there's a good chance, nay,
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  Speaker 1: a near scientific certainty, they will put their hand on
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  Speaker 1: that hot stove again. That is what is implied by
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  Speaker 1: this idea. They've did it once, They're gonna do it again.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, sure, Sure. Another example would be if, about Le's call,
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  Speaker 3: a player fake passes a ball and successfully tricks the
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  Speaker 3: opposing team. Are we then to expect that the player
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  Speaker 3: will keep fake passing the ball. Of course, not because
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  Speaker 3: we need because they're going to do something different to
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  Speaker 3: keep up the charade, if you will.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, at least not in that game, and at least
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  Speaker 1: not the very next thing that they do. Right, So
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  Speaker 1: the saying essentially requires that we assume that no one
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  Speaker 1: is ever capable of learning anything, which of course is stupid.
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  Speaker 1: Only RFK Junior is incapable of learning it things, So
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  Speaker 1: like we just on. From a logical perspective, we know
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  Speaker 1: that people learn things, and if people learn things, then
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  Speaker 1: this is inherently wrong from its foundation.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And so I think this brings us to one
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  Speaker 3: of the important pieces that comes with human behavior is
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  Speaker 3: that the things that predict human behavior are the context
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  Speaker 3: or the environment in which the behavior takes place, in
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  Speaker 3: all the constellation of stimula, in circumstances around it, and
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  Speaker 3: the outcome of that behavior. Was it a positive or
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  Speaker 3: negative outcome, was it immediate or delayed? Was it predictable
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  Speaker 3: or unpredictable? Have they done this before? Or you know,
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  Speaker 3: is this a new or novel behavior. So we have
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  Speaker 3: these kind of circumstances where where there's so many other
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  Speaker 3: factors that go along with human behavior that we cannot
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  Speaker 3: simply say that a singular past event is the predictor
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  Speaker 3: for all future behavior or at least future behavior in
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  Speaker 3: that context, right.
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  Speaker 1: And so understanding that the context is really one of
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  Speaker 1: the things that matters in understanding what's likely to happen
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  Speaker 1: again in the future. Is the next time that similar
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  Speaker 1: or exact same context occurs, what happened last time is
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  Speaker 1: going to be much more predictive of what is likely
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  Speaker 1: to happen in this next time. So in the presence
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  Speaker 1: of the hot stove, touching that stove leads to burning
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  Speaker 1: the crap out of your hand, you're pretty unlikely to
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  Speaker 1: touch that stove again. Matter of fact, that behavior was
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  Speaker 1: very predictive, not that the future behavior would not happen again,
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  Speaker 1: but that's because we took a look look at the
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  Speaker 1: context and the outcome of that behavior.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And one behavior that we see often in these
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  Speaker 3: types of situations where the behavior does continue to occur,
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  Speaker 3: and maybe this is where the adage of past behavior
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  Speaker 3: predicts future behavior is the fact that you keep listening
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  Speaker 3: to this podcast despite the fact there are ads.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you've come back, Thank you. We played ads
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  Speaker 1: past things that we've done.
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  Speaker 2: Look at that science work, look at this maximum work.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, So coming back to our examples here, so we
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  Speaker 1: talked about this idea of touching the hot stove. Unlikely
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  Speaker 1: that you're going to do that again if you have
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  Speaker 1: successfully tricked your opponent in a game. Let's go back
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  Speaker 1: to this example with basketball, we did the fake pass, right,
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  Speaker 1: You're actually less likely to try that again, even if
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  Speaker 1: it was successful, because now they might anticipate that move.
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  Speaker 1: So at the very least you'll hold on to it
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  Speaker 1: until later. But if every single time you go to
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  Speaker 1: pass the ball you do a fake pass first, they're
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  Speaker 1: gonna learn to ignore the first thing you do, right,
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  Speaker 1: because it's just predicting the second thing you do. So
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  Speaker 1: in this case, like thinking about the fact that, like,
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  Speaker 1: just because it works, that actually doesn't even mean that
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  Speaker 1: behavior is likely to happen again in that same context.
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  Speaker 1: It actually might suggest it'll happen differently. And that's why
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  Speaker 1: you know, again, it's nuanced, it's contextual, and it's important
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  Speaker 1: to think about those features of it, right.
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  Speaker 2: And so maybe another example to look at is when
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  Speaker 2: you're baking or cooking. Right.
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  Speaker 3: I love to cook. It's one of my favorite things
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  Speaker 3: to do. And I know that when I cook. When
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  Speaker 3: I try a new recipe, I'm going to adjust a
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  Speaker 3: couple of things that I do with the recipe the
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  Speaker 3: next time I make it, because I'll learn what works
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  Speaker 3: what doesn't work. Spice levels, I'll look at seasoning, I'll
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  Speaker 3: look at all these things, and then I'll continue to
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  Speaker 3: mess around with that or play around with that until
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  Speaker 3: I have an established recipe, and then I start to
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  Speaker 3: fall into a routine around that recipe, which leads to
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  Speaker 3: the next part. When does past behavior predict the future behavior?
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  Speaker 3: Here is it when I have successfully baked you know,
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  Speaker 3: x amount of donuts or loaves of bread or whatever
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  Speaker 3: it is, or you know, like whatever it may be
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  Speaker 3: that I'm cooking, Like, at what point in time does
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  Speaker 3: that change? The continue? And also what does that look
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  Speaker 3: like if it does alter or change when I learn
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  Speaker 3: some new version of the recipe, or I have to
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  Speaker 3: use a different oven, or I have to use some
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  Speaker 3: other context to do this behavior and continue to adjust
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  Speaker 3: and readjust again, So it's it's I think, I think
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  Speaker 3: the suggestion and maybe this is where I'm starting to
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  Speaker 3: come around on this, is that past behavior is the
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  Speaker 3: best predictor of future behavior, suggests that behavior is static. Yes,
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  Speaker 3: and it's simply just not the case at all, Like
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  Speaker 3: that's just ultimately what it comes down to.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, our behavior changes. It can sometimes change really rapidly,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes really slowly. But you know, when when does the
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  Speaker 1: past behavior predict future behavior?
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  Speaker 2: Rarely?
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  Speaker 1: Right, but not never, Like it's definitely not the best,
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  Speaker 1: right And like I said, it's hardly a predictor, but
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  Speaker 1: it does sometimes happen. It might be a little more
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  Speaker 1: predictive when it is a high frequency, repeated behavior that
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  Speaker 1: is habitual, like someone who has sort of the habit
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  Speaker 1: of doing something. The routine itself is predictive of future behavior,
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  Speaker 1: not the fact that it ever happened once. But when
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  Speaker 1: we're looking an habitual behavior, I mean it almost is
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  Speaker 1: by definition predictive of that behavior happening again, right, Right,
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  Speaker 1: If the situation is the same from the from the
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  Speaker 1: last time to the next time, or even from the
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  Speaker 1: first to the next time, and the context was at
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  Speaker 1: least neutral, if not maybe even positive, that might be
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  Speaker 1: another situation in which the past would predict the future,
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  Speaker 1: although not because it happened in the past, but because
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  Speaker 1: of that context.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Another example might be the person is relatively unchanged from
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  Speaker 3: time A to time B, which is not common that
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  Speaker 3: people kind of stay unchanged. I think experience just shapes
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  Speaker 3: up so many different things that it's hard to say
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  Speaker 3: that somebody is unchanged from a particular time unless it's
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  Speaker 3: like a pretty close time frame, like it's pretty small time, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: Or this person tends to be consistent in their behaviors,
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  Speaker 3: like so maybe that person just has like preferred routines
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  Speaker 3: and access to consistent reinforcers and schedules of reinforcement and
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  Speaker 3: that type of stuff. And even then that doesn't mean
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  Speaker 3: that that's going to be the same thing forever.
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  Speaker 1: YEA.
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  Speaker 2: That means it could change. It could change still even with.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: That situation where the person is consistent and they are
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  Speaker 3: consistently accessing reinforcers and they have a set schedule and
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: all that stuff.
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  Speaker 1: And again that's not even that common either. It's not static,
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  Speaker 1: even when it's more static than average. Right now, thinking
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  Speaker 1: about like, okay, why does this persist, Why did it
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  Speaker 1: ever exist in the first place, Why would people believe this?
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  Speaker 1: And I think trying to be charitable here in spirit,
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  Speaker 1: I think the idea of the saying is that people
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  Speaker 1: do tend to follow certain patterns of behavior. Sure that
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  Speaker 1: if you see a trend, it maybe predicts a continuation
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  Speaker 1: of that trend. So I think like that's maybe the
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  Speaker 1: general idea of what they're trying to communicate here.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's probably maybe like a layperson way
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  Speaker 3: of saying, like when you're looking at data, the last
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  Speaker 3: data point is a predictor of the next data point,
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  Speaker 3: and then that data point is like a validation of
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  Speaker 3: the previous data point or something like that. Right, So
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  Speaker 3: like I could see that like in description of like
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  Speaker 3: trends and looking at single case data and stuff like that,
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  Speaker 3: Like I could see maybe that's the sentiment behind it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, But to that point, it.
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  Speaker 3: Can be a predictor of future behavior, but it's misleading
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  Speaker 3: because there are too many other variables and can lead
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  Speaker 3: you down the wrong path because you can take a
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  Speaker 3: decontextualized incident and interpret it to indicate there is a
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  Speaker 3: trend when in fact there isn't. So there may be
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  Speaker 3: a change in behavior as a result of changing context.
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  Speaker 3: And that's I think critically important when you start looking
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  Speaker 3: at this. But just because a behavior happened in the
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  Speaker 3: past doesn't mean it's going to happen again in the future.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, Again, it depends all about It depends all on
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  Speaker 1: the circumstances, Like what was the outcome of that behavior?
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  Speaker 1: Will that context ever arise again? Like, let's say me
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  Speaker 1: taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. I'm not just going
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  Speaker 1: to keep doing that if I'm nowhere near the Eiffel Tower, right,
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  Speaker 1: if I go to visit Paris once, like, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: just gonna point my camera in the general direction of
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  Speaker 1: France when I'm back in the United States, hoping I'll
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  Speaker 1: keep getting that picture. So obviously, like your circumstances are
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  Speaker 1: really important here. So it's I think where we maybe
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  Speaker 1: leave you is, don't be married to nonsensical folk wisdom.
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  Speaker 1: Past behavior is not only not the best predictor of
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  Speaker 1: future behavior, it's barely even a predictor of future behavior
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  Speaker 1: at all.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And I think saying these types of things, like
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  Speaker 3: these phrases and using them as like a guiding compass
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  Speaker 3: or anything like that, it's a pretty good predictor that
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  Speaker 3: we're gonna start believing these things, is as guiding compasses
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  Speaker 3: or believing stupid things. Like if we say stupid things,
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  Speaker 3: we're gonna believe stupid things. And so we've got to
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  Speaker 3: be careful with just making sure that we are at
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: least being critical of the things that we say and
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: repeat as far as like you know, maxims, or as
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: far as like key phrases that are often used to
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  Speaker 3: illuminate the benefits.
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  Speaker 2: Or like the power of our science.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, Like, I think it's really important to take
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  Speaker 3: a step back, can go Is this the best way
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  Speaker 3: to describe what's actually happening in these situations? And to
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: give that to somebody who doesn't know anything about behavior analysis.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I sort of mentioned digging into the science.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you look at any any research
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  Speaker 1: at all that's looked at behavior change procedures, and there's
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  Speaker 1: evidence for the fact that behavior will in fact change
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  Speaker 1: over the course of time and given particular contextual variables.
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  Speaker 1: Even behavioral momentum theory specifically identifies conditions under which behavior
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: is likely to change, even though it's talking about momentum,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: like it does predict like when it continues, when it changes.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And then you look at things like even in more
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: sort of clinical research around things like let's just say
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: addiction or other some maybe mental health conditions that someone
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  Speaker 1: might have, there are risk factors that predict what people
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: might do. But the risk factors, again, there's a lot
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: of them, and they kind of are they sort of
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: interact with each other and are contextual, so like changing
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: one thing might change another in a particular way, and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: like there's all this research on that to like how
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: risk factors predict behaviors. But again, even those risk factors,
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  Speaker 1: they're not actually examples of past behavior, and even those
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: which are much better at predicting behavior are not that good,
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  Speaker 1: Like they're okay, they give you like a here's what
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  Speaker 1: we've seen in the past happen in this situation, so
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  Speaker 1: maybe that's like kind of how this will shape up, right,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and like that's better than nothing. But if you just
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: look at the past behavior and try and assume that
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that's going to tell you what to expect in the future,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you're you are going to get it wrong much much
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: more often than you're going to get it right.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: I think it's better to say that it's it's possible,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: it's it's more possible than maybe other situations, or it's
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: likely given the context. But that's probably about as far
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: as you can take that.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you need more data points, you need trend you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: need context so you can understand, like what are the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: features of this?
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, agreed, Okay, great, awesome, we did it. I've
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: come around mini great. I can't wait to unpack the
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: RAT is always right.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's a real we're very related, yeah, and
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: important ethos in the behavior analytic and precision teacher worldview,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: although we don't usually use RAT as the student race
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: of comparison here, but anyway, that's I think what we
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: have to say about this. Is there anything you'd like
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: to add or anything I forgot before we wrap it up?
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: No, that covers it, okay. As I mentioned the.
• 15:22
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  Speaker 1: over there. If you'd like to reach out to us
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and tell us your thoughts on past behavior predicting future behavior,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you can reach us directly at info at WWDWWD podcast
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: dot com. We're also on the social media platforms and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: we would love to talk with you and interact with you,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: so please do that thing.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: But I think that that is what I have to say.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So thank you all for joining us, thank you for
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: listening today, thank you for recording with me today, Shane.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anytime, thank you for having.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Me, and thank you so much to my But I
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: think that's what I've got. So uh, this is Abraham
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and it's a shame. Why we do what we do?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Mini is out.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Bye. You've been listening to Why we do what we do?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.