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Speaking Behaviorese · Why We Do What We Do

0:03
You're listening to Why we Do what we Do? Welcome to Why We Do
0:16
what we Do. I am your jargony host Abraham, and I'm your layperson
0:22
host Shane, and you are here on the rare Friday recording. Yeah.
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Yeah, not one that we do very often. We usually have our planned
0:30
dates and those happen, and sometimes things move around. But we are a
0:34
psychology podcast. Nevertheless, we talk about psychology things, and sometimes we really
0:38
talk about just the way that psychology talks about things as a way we can
0:43
go about it. Yeah, here's an episode about how we talk about talking.
0:47
Yeah, we're about to talk about how we talk. That's what we're
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gonna do. That's right, Yeah, exactly. It's really quite meta,
0:53
and we are going to be invoking a lot of what are called neologisms.
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And I was I was thinking, you know, we sometimes do a vocab
1:03
on the show. Is that a voecab? I don't know, it's like
1:04
the whole show, but sure, very extinctly. A neologism is a made
1:12
up word, right, Like that's just it's one that was created for some
1:17
purpose. If that isn't the definition of every word, ever, isn't that
1:19
fun? Like? You know, according to thor Odinson, all words are
1:25
made up, yes, and I mean I think it's more it's more meant
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to be things that are like not just made up on the spot where you
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just like put string a few syllables and vowels together and make a word,
1:38
but more instead a word that is it's sort of coined as an expression or
1:44
phrase or word that is then used for some purpose. And that's what we're
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talking about, because if you're joining us for the first time, welcome.
1:49
We wanted to unpack some psychological terms today, why we use them, and
1:55
essentially the distinction between the intention and effectiveness of technical and jargon leavy language inside
2:02
of any profession, but specifically psychology related to instead speaking in a way that
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everyone can sort of understand, which is often I think part of the mission
2:13
of this podcast. Anyway. Yes, one of my favorite facts and I
2:15
told somebody the other day this fact, and they were upset that I knew
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this thing. They were like, why do you know that? Because I
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was thinking, you know, the English language has something like five hundred thousand
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words in it, like just everyday words that we use, and it has
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that's more words than any other language in the world. Right as far as
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like current stands, so USA, USA, as far as that goes.
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But then there's also an extra five hundred thousand words just dedicated to jargon.
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So the English language has over a million words. Half of them are jargon.
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Wow, half of them are like specific the technical language. So so
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half of them are neologisms. Yeah, so important. That's what I'm saying
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here is like logisms are important because it makes up half of our language.
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Indeed. Okay, So this episode, like all episodes, comes out on
3:07
a Wednesday, And because we have a schedule and we don't just record these
3:12
live and then they just exist in the world, we plan them out.
3:15
We know that this Wednesday comes out on it's February twenty eighth, and February
3:20
twenty eighth has some key holidays, and one of them is car Keys and
3:23
Small Change Day, So happy car Keys and the Small Change Day. This
3:28
day is also known as Jangly Pockets Day. I feel like that sort of
3:30
thing. It's also Floral Design Day. So if you grew up in a
3:35
space where all of your wallpaper in your house was from the seventies and it
3:39
was all floral print, because that's how I grew up. Yes, that
3:43
is a day that you celebrate, you celebrate your wallpaper. It's also a
3:46
National Chocolate Soup fl a Day, and yes, more days like that please,
3:51
Yes, more dessert days please. It's also Global Scouse Day with the
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scouse. I don't think I've ever read the word scouse until this moment.
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Well, let's see scouse. Apparently it's some kind of Scandinavian stew lob scouse.
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It's eaten by sailors and locals. Okay, so it's global and local,
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that's yeah. Natives of Liverpool are officially known as Liverpoodlians, but they
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are also called scousers, and the name comes from scuse, a stew.
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So it's maybe National Liverpool People Day, Global Liverpool People Day, yeah sorry,
4:30
yeah, the world, all the world. Much like the Barbie movie,
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it is National Pink Day, so go watch the Barbie movie. Yes,
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please do, try and track down some pink paint, yeah, if
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you can, because there was a global shortage of pink pink because of that
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movie, which is one of my favorite facts about that. It's also Inconvenience
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Yourself Day. I live that every day. Yeah. I think this is
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meant to be less of sort of a self imposed I made poor choices,
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and now I have trouble getting around than it is going out of your way
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to help somebody else. Sure, you know, make their life convenient.
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Sure, if you inconvenience yourself, maybe someone else will convenience them inconvenience themselves
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for your convenience. Yeah. I like that International Repetitive Strain Injury Awareness Day.
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Avoid those repetitive strain injuries. They're bad. Uh huh yep. So
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of all the places that I've been that I've worked and I've received training on
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this exact thing, I've only received it in one place, and that was
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Starbucks. Okay, Starbucks explicitly trained staff about like, hey, don't do
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the same thing over and over and over again. You will hurt yourself.
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It's like, okay, okay. Yeah. It's also National Public Sleeping Day.
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No. Yeah, so I don't know how you feel. I can
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fall asleep anywhere because I'm I am just tired all the time, but I
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don't want to, right. I know someone who recently had their stuff stolen
5:45
by falling asleep on a train, So oh yeah, don't like that.
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Yeah, sleeping in public is a really good way for bad things to happen,
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to facilitate bad things happening. So I generally, yeah, I agree,
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I can fall asleep anywhere. I'm gonna go through these a little bit
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quicker. It is National Science Day. Should spend time on that, because
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it's not Science Day. Every day should be National Science Day and National two
6:04
Thory Day and American Saves Week. Yes, it's also Fair Trade Fortnite,
6:12
which is fun. It's Make Mind Chocolate Week. It's also National Eating Disorders
6:15
Awareness Week, National Green Week, National Invasive Species Awareness Week, and we
6:20
did an episode on that. I know, it's so fun, and National
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Pastry Week. There's so many good things happening this week. So there's chocolate,
6:28
there's environmental stuff, there's disorder awareness, there is environmental awareness. There's
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a lot of really cool things happening this week. Man, Okay, And
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we are already like several minutes into this podcast and have barely even talked about
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our episode discussion du jore, which, as we mentioned, is jargon,
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and specifically because we are both trained behavior analysts, this is behavior jargon.
6:51
And yep, we'll speak more generally about other professions. But if you like
6:56
what you here today and you like to support the show, you can join
6:58
us on Patreon. You can pick up some merch you can leave us a
7:00
rating and review. You can give someone the best gift you can give them,
7:03
which is share a episode of this podcast with them. Maybe this one.
7:08
Maybe this is the best episode we ever do. It might be it's
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the worst. Maybe it's someone in the middle. Yeah, well, yet
7:13
to be seen. Anything's possible. At this stage, we are just a
7:16
stem cell of an episode. We have so much potential. We are Schroderer's
7:20
episode. Yeah, we are simultaneously the worst and the best at the same
7:25
time until you observe it. Oh beautiful. Okay, So we'll go ahead
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as I'll talk more about how you can support us at the end of this
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discussion, but let's for now go ahead and dive into our topic. And
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first, as I said, we're talking about technical language jargon versus more lay
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common language you might hear. And so we'll start by talking about what technical
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language is. And I think that that's relatively intuitive for most people, but
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just is essentially unpacking that That means language that is used that has a narrow
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definition, referring to only a specific set of things, and is usually specialized
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to a trained group of people who know what that language means and how to
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use it relative to that community and in the narrow sense for which that language
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was developed or defined. Yeah, So a big part of technical language is
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making sure that that language is precise, right. I think an easy way
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to look at is like in the scientific community, technical language is designed to
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describe precise things, precise phenomena, precise processes, so that it is understood,
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it is understood by every member of the community, and there could be
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definitions for research purposes, for textbook purposes, for training purposes, and that
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there is like kind of a standard of practice around whatever that term or that
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technical language is, yes, exactly, And so that means that we're all
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pretty clear when we hear a term what that term means, if we've all
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been trained to understand the meaning of that term in a specific way. Most
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of the time when we're learning language as we're growing up, we're kind of
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just taking it in from the world around us, sure, right, And
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that means that we're applying meaning to it based on how people around us use
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those things, which is why you will go to some places in the same
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country that that like people live in the same country as you, but further
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away, and they'll use terms in a way that maybe is slightly different than
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what you're used to. So I've heard, for example, in the South,
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every type of soda is coke. You just call soda coke. That's
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Georgia. That's not the South, that's Georgia. That's Georgia, Georgia specific.
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Okay, all right, Georgia. I thought this was a more universally
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southern, but okay, so Georgia. And then so if you'll go to
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a restaurant and they'll say, like, what kind of coke do you want?
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Or you might ask you what to drink and you'll say coke and they'll
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say what kind, And then you might say like pepsi, which is not
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even the same company. But that's sort of like how that let language got
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shaped up. Sure, or some people will call it pop instead of soda,
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which is wrong. Right. You'll hear these sort of like different languages
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occur, and that's just how we're sort of grown up around language. But
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when we're talking about these specific, defined sort of terms, they're very highly
10:13
specific, and we intentionally define what they're going to mean, so that when
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we're speaking within our scientific community or any other community, that we can understand
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what those words mean, just as if we had sort of grown up around
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them, right, And so then that brings us to uh, as you
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mentioned before, we are behaviorists by training, by trade, and by definition,
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and so because of that, we speak this beautiful thing called behavior ease,
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as we like to call it. And that's basically just saying the technical
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language we are. What we're discussing here is the technical language that is used
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in behavior analysis. So things like positive and negative reinforcement, things like motivating
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operations, things like discrimative stimuli and contrived motivations, and all the things that
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we tend to talk about single subject designs like those are all technical terms that
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we use inside of ours. And if you ever talked to a behaviorist and
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you ask them to give you some technical terms, they will rattle off everything
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in the Cooper Book. Because we are all living walking Cooper books with that
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knowledge. It's like ready, we're just waiting for somebody a scientist, to
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be like, what is it that you do? And we're like, oh,
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you'd never ask, so like that's uh, you know, that's kind
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of what behaviors is. Though. It's like the technical language of behaviorism and
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of behavior analysis. That is true for some of us, right at least
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to be that close to like that precise and large of a swath. But
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yeah, it's funny because behaviors is not actually even an an accepted word for
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our jargon. But I've heard people say it and call it that. Yeah,
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we sort of just made that up, So I think people would hear
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it who are in the community and know what we mean when we say that.
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But it is not a technical term. It is it is barely a
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neologism, right, it's just for fun, okay. So anyway, an
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important distinction about this kind of language is this is not just like high level
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vocabs. Matter of fact, you couldn't even crack open a dictionary and find
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the kinds of definitions for the terms that we use and how we use them,
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because they're very specific to our field. And that's true of many fields,
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where they'll have a term that's that's unique just to how they use it,
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where they've maybe adopted another term into their language that already had meaning elsewhere.
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So this is not the same as just having a giant vocabulary. It
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is kind of it can be relearning certain words. It can be applying new
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meaning to existing words or additional meaning to existing words. There's some portmanteaus,
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which is when people talk about mashing up words, that's just the portmanteau.
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So like brunch is a portmanteau of breakfast and lunch, right, you just
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push them together. So anyway, this is not high vocab, and it's
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also not just new words specifically, it is a whole new way of speaking,
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right, because sometimes it's not just even that the word has a precise
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definition, but it is then how you use that word in a sentence that
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is unique to that word. And an example of this that we would use
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that you would see inside of this behavior ease so called behavior eas is that
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we will say, for example, with reinforcement, you reinforce behavior. You
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do not reinforce the person. So if you were saying that you reinforced something,
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it would be behavior, and you don't reinforce them. You don't reinforce
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him or her, you reinforce their behavior. Right, So it's not just
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even that reinforce has its own specific word, it is how it's used in
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the sentence that is also somewhat unique and very specific right to the language.
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Right, it's not just the word, it's the context and like contextual use.
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I mean that really and that does change a lot of what we talk
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about. I have a question for you, though, do you think that
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I mean, we're talking about behavior eas and we're talking about kind of the
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technical language that we use. Do you think that advertisers also have technical language?
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To answer your question, baby, I would suspect yes, like,
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yeah, there's probably I don't want to give them that kind of credit because
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I don't like what they do, but I do think that they probably have
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like a very specific they have term for yeah, like processes that are involved
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in that there is like you know, torture them while they're still alive is
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probably a term they use a lot. That means something very specific, and
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that just means put in as many ads as you possibly can. Sure,
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the main villain of Ready Player one, his whole thing was he wanted to
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control the virtual world to put more ads in it. Like if you don't,
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I don't know if you remember that, like, but that's what he
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wanted to do. He wanted to put more ads on the screen. I
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think it was very generally to can just control the whole universe. But a
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lot of it was making more money through things like yeah, exactly. Anyway,
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so we were talking about technical language, and as I said, this
14:52
is not unique to behaviorism. Obviously, every professional and technical field and even
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really just like even specific technical training, they'll have terms and words that they
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use in their own way. So as an example, I'll just tell a
15:05
quick personal story. I like going to the dentist. This is I think
15:09
unique to me among many other people, and of one, I like having
15:15
my teeth cleaned. I like making sure I'm not developing cavities, like all
15:18
of those things. I actually like going to the dentist. I have a
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really really good dentist too within episode recommendation, doctor David White. If you're
15:26
in northern Nevada. He's got several offices across the top of the state.
15:31
Great name for a dentist too. Anyway, that is my dentist. And
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when I went there, I had some pain in around some teeth and I
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wanted to be able to effectively say what that was like where it was occurring,
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and so I looked up online the different numbers of your teeth and what
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and like the different names of the position. So like if you say lingual.
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That means on the inside of the tooth, like by where your tongue
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is right, you sort of see the cognate. They're lingual and sort of
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thinking tongue right, And so you know, I looked up the number and
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the terms so that I could communicate it and that was an effective way.
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And they were very surprised when I said, you know, it's like number
16:08
seventeen lingual. They're like, oh, like, we know what you mean
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when you say that. And it was specifically so that I can communicate in
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a way that would help them help me. So it was selfish, but
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I wanted to know it. Also. I really appreciate that story because I
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think, yeah, it's nice to learn the language of the people that you're
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working with and collaborating with. But I, on a very personal level,
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I think that you are a very cool person. And I also think that
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it's really nice to see that you are super nerdy, because that's one of
16:37
the nerdiest things I've ever heard and I do. I do that too,
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and so it just it feels good that we match values on that. So
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hell yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for being the coolest nerd
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that I know ah, thanks. Yeah, So when we talk about this
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too, I think there's some things to talk about in terms of behavioral terms.
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And for the folks that are our behaviorists, you'll know these terms.
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These are familiar, and for folks that are not, that are kind of
16:57
entering that world, these might be four to you, or you might have
17:00
a different connotation or meaning for these words. So some terms that commonly come
17:03
up and behaveor analysis include things like man's extinction, reinforcement, topography, and
17:10
all of those things could mean something. Mans by themselves are kind of like
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their own thing. Like if I say man, you're like, yeah,
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what does that even mean? And right, it's a shorthand for command or
17:19
demand and we know that, right, But things like extinction have its own
17:23
connotations, reinforcement has its own connotation, and topography has its own connotation outside
17:27
of behavior analysis. But inside behavior analysis they mean such specific things processes,
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they mean definitions, they mean descriptions of specific phenomena that occur within that that
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behavioral space. Yeah, there's I think some of the most idiosyncratic of the
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neologisms that came out of behaviorism specifically came out of Skinner's analysis verbal behavior because
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you've got Man's tax introverbals, autoclinics, duplex codex exactly, yes, metanimical
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tax all kinds of fun terms that were developed inside of that taxonomy of language
18:06
that he developed, and a lot of the other terms were sort of repurposed
18:08
from existing words. So there's like discriminative stimulus. That's a word that,
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like those words both existed outside of behavior analysis, but used together, they
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mean something pretty unique relative to what other people, right would think that they
18:22
mean. So, just for our super nerds out there, discriminative stimulus means
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a stimulus that is associated with the increased it signals the availability of reinforcement and
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the increase in likelihood that a behavior will occur with respect to that stimulus because
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of a past history of reinforcement in the presence of that stimulus. That's right,
18:44
trying to pull in both my Skinner definition and my Jack Michael supplementation to
18:48
that definition. I love it. The thing too, is like a behavior
18:52
analysis does that a lot, right, conditioned stimuli, unconditioned stimuli, like
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you'll hear neutral stimulus is like especially in responding conditioning and all that. Like
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all of those things like by themselves those words being different things, and when
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you come and bring them together, they are their own thing. But you
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know behavior antals too, And something that's important to understand about behavior is is
19:11
that we love acronyms. If you've ever talked to a behaviorist, I can
19:15
guarantee that you have heard at least an acronym sometime in that conversation because we
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use them so often, and we use them for different reasons. I mean,
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when you go and read The Behavior of Organisms, you can, or
19:26
like even Schedules of Reinforcement or any of these books by Skinner, you realize
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that a lot of what he was doing was taking language that existed, creating
19:34
new definitions, and then creating shorthand for them, because he was really putting
19:38
together kind of like equations for behavior and understanding like linear processes for how behavior
19:44
worked. And so when you have things like VR schedules like or FR schedules
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for folks that are out here and behavioris you've heard DROs dras, You've heard
19:53
these terms and you know what they mean. But this is just a short
19:56
way that we can communicate those technical terms two people that have the shared language.
20:02
Yeah, and that's true of many many fields most fields will say that
20:06
they're just riddled with acronyms, and it is specifically because it allows you to
20:11
get a lot of words that all have technical definitions packed into one like two
20:15
or three syllable maybe more shorthand that is very effective at communicating something. So
20:22
if I say differential reinforcement of alternative behavior, that is way more syllables in
20:26
language than simply saying DRA right. You know, as you mentioned, a
20:30
variable interval schedule of ten minutes is much longer and less efficient than saying VI
20:37
ten right. So a lot of acronyms are adopted across the board. Sometimes
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they're only actually used in writing, and we don't say them like a lot
20:45
of people will abbreviate extinction is ext but they'll always say extinction. That makes
20:49
sense. Yeah, so there's a lot. There's a lot in there.
20:52
But all fields that I'm aware of have quite a few acronyms, and many
20:56
of them will joke and or boast about how many acronyms they have because that
21:02
then has them create this shared language. And sometimes what's really funny is you'll
21:06
even see sentences where most of the words are acronyms, and it's just a
21:10
series of all uppercase letters, and you're like, that doesn't even look like
21:14
a language right now. But then like for folks that speak the jargon and
21:17
know the jargon and the technical terms, then you're like, yeah, I
21:18
understand exactly what that means. There's a meme that's going around. I've seen
21:22
a few times that talks about like a BCBA doing an FBA where they assess
21:27
SCT using a VR sketu. You're like, and it's like it does that
21:30
all the way through, and you're like, I know exactly what they're talking
21:33
about, but nobody outside of behavioral analysis whatever. It's it's like you would
21:37
need like a codex to unpack it, right because it looks like it's just
21:41
a bunch of letters, you know. But that's what technical jargon in shorthand
21:45
really does. It makes efficient communication for folks that speak the language, but
21:49
also isolates people that don't. Yes, okay, there's also these sort of
21:55
mid level terms, and so there are a lot of a lot of professions
21:57
that use these mid level terms. Again, they don't have to be necessarily
22:00
professional, Like I bet you could walk into any space where people work together
22:06
and it's like that's kind of their career and regardless of like how I mean,
22:11
it's still profession I guess, But I guess I'm trying to say,
22:12
like, it's not like an elite thing. This isn't like because people went
22:15
and got a lot of they got PhDs. I think any place where there's
22:19
a community of people who do work together, they're going to adopt this.
22:23
But anyway, these mid level terms are that. That is what it sounds
22:26
like, and I think that's something you actually don't hear about very often in
22:30
the technical fields. I'm talking about what those mid level terms are, but
22:33
it's kind of what it sounds like. As I said, it's it is
22:36
a theoretically specific so it's like it means something within the philosophy, but it's
22:41
not a technical term, right. It really hasn't been assigned a very specific
22:45
definition or is used in a very specific way by the people inside of that
22:51
community. They also just they know kind of what it means and how to
22:55
use it, and it also tends to be one that is more readily understood
22:59
by outside audience. So it's you can kind of think of it as like
23:02
midway between the heaviest technical jargon and then totally colloquial lay speech, right,
23:07
Like, it doesn't have that much of a technical definition, but it is
23:11
used in a theoretically specific way, right. So some examples of these terms
23:15
that come up often are momentum, function, mastery, environment, motivation.
23:21
I was just describing environment to somebody the other day because they were asking about
23:26
he was concerned about their child's executive functioning skills, and they're like, how
23:29
does ABA differ for somebody with executive functioning skills? I was like, well,
23:33
it doesn't really differ, but like it's something that you would account for,
23:36
but what really you look at is like how the environment acts upon the
23:38
behavior and different environmental arrangements to support any of those concerns there and then some
23:45
collaboration there, you know. And so I was kind of breaking it down
23:47
like that, and I used the environment multiple times and I had to stop
23:49
and explain, like, yeah, the environment is everything outside of the organism,
23:53
and everything inside of the organism that influences or shapes or triggers or suppresses
23:59
behavior. Like, oh, I get it now, h Like, what
24:02
does climate change have to do with this? Yeah? Exactly. And so
24:03
it was one of those things where I realize that that is so in strength
24:07
in my repertoire, right, or it's so I use it so often,
24:10
right, I'm fluent in that skill, because even saying in strength in my
24:12
repertoire is a behavior behavior ease, right as a behavior ease, yea.
24:17
Yeah. So like I had to like stop and explain it to him.
24:19
I was like, this is what I mean by that, and he's like,
24:21
oh, okay, I get it. And this guy's like a pretty
24:22
sharp dude, and just it was just one of those things that I just
24:26
I glossed over it, thinking, oh, I'm you know, I can
24:29
have this conversation, realizing that that was not going to work. Yeah,
24:32
I mean people use that in these different terms in their own ways, and
24:34
actually, I mean I think it's worth going through a few of these.
24:37
So momentum. This one's kind of fun because there is kind of a very
24:41
technical way to use momentum in behavior analysis, specifically when talking about behavior momentum
24:48
theory, which is a whole quantitative model that exists, and yet most people
24:52
still use it simply to refer to an ongoing sequence of behaviors, often corresponding
24:59
to an ongoing sequence of reinforcement for those behaviors such that you know, likely
25:03
to continue to get responding with or without that reinforcement or because of it.
25:07
Then, so they're sort of just saying it is an ongoing likelihood that it's
25:11
going to occur sort of, But again, it's not really defined in a
25:15
super technical way. It's sort of used in a theoretically specific way, but
25:18
not really defined. And another one too, like motivation is one that I
25:22
think is used quite often outside of behavior analysis and inside it. But like,
25:26
what we're talking about when we're talking about motivation are usually specific context or
25:30
circumstances, right Like we're talking about usually a satiation deprivation or an aversion state
25:36
that we have to kind of like pay attention to and how that influences behavior.
25:40
But outside of that, when people talk about motivation, they are most
25:42
often talking about, you know, intrinsic or extrinsic motivation from their lay person
25:48
experience, right Like, they're like, this person's not motivated to do this,
25:49
d da da da da yah. And it's like that one I think
25:52
is one of my favorites because we're we're so close to having a shared language
25:57
and talking about this, we are so close to everybody really understanding what that
26:03
is, and we're just missing the mark entirely because behavior analysts go, well,
26:07
actually it's motivating operations blah blah lah, and just just misses the mark
26:11
on that. Like, I'm not saying every behavior analyst like, but there
26:14
is like that piece where you know, somebody who knows that language and or
26:18
has a really good understanding of that particular concept may push somebody away because they're
26:22
over using technical language. Motivation is one where most behavior analysts don't use that,
26:30
even motivating operations in their sort of day to day outside of like publishing
26:36
or like conferences. I think that that that is one that if they do
26:40
use it, they use it in a colloquial way, probably to communicate with
26:44
like the families of people who work with I barely use that. I'll say
26:47
mo, yeah, but I usually mostly in teaching, Like, I don't
26:49
really say it in any other spaces. I was trying to think of a
26:52
space where I would, but I don't. I really don't. I genuinely
26:56
don't say it outside of just teaching. Yeah. And that's why I included
27:00
it on this list, is because even though we do use like motivating operation
27:04
as a technically specific term. I don't think we use motivation like it's sort
27:08
of in that gray area. Another couple in here, like function, that's
27:12
one that means different things to a lot of people, but it means something
27:15
very specific to behavior analysts because this refers to the relation between a behavior of
27:22
some type and the reinforcement or punishment contingency that is associated with that behavior,
27:27
Right, And so we use it in that way. What is the function
27:30
of the behavior means what reinforcement is it producing? Basically, right, and
27:36
on what's schedule? To an extent, I spend a lot of time working
27:37
in that like a practical space, and so I'm not going to families and
27:41
talking about function, function, function or motivation or extinction or topography. I'm
27:47
not usually doing that. What I'm doing and said is I'm saying, you
27:51
know, what's the reward, what's the result of this behavior? What's the
27:53
you know? And I always try to use lay person terminology inside that space
27:56
because like a lot of times, families I work with don't have that shared
28:00
language, and it makes therapy way more difficult than it needs to be if
28:04
we are not using a shared language with the folks that we're serving. Now
28:10
so we've been talking about like why what all these terms are and how we
28:15
use them and to that extent and sort of enumerating some examples of common maybe
28:18
common ish jargon heavy terms inside of behavior analysis. And it's sort of worth
28:25
unpacking why people do this and why they should or shouldn't, or under what
28:30
conditions they should or shouldn't, or under what conditions you should or shouldn't skip
28:36
ads. We're back from the advertisers people inside of behavior analysis, and I
28:48
think in many technical fields, but definitely I hear this a lot from behavior
28:52
analysts. They'll exclaim how important it is that behavior analysts should use plane easy
28:59
to understand language when they're when they're communicating, right, Sure, and there's
29:02
a really good reason for this. And so it's more than packing sort of
29:04
the pros and cons. Should we always be using that plain language? Should
29:08
we not always be using it? And sort of what what is the benefits
29:12
to using technical jargon and what are the drawbacks to using technical jargon all the
29:17
time. We kind of mentioned it before, but like some of the pros
29:19
include the community at large, the whatever community we're talking about that uses the
29:23
technical language, they have a shared language it's specific, it's clear, and
29:27
it's parsimonious. And what we mean by that is that that the language it's
29:30
being used is the simplest term for that thing, and we know when you
29:36
say this word, it means that thing and only that thing in this context.
29:40
Right. And that's one thing I like talking about when we talk about
29:42
things like omnibus terms, like things like competitives and aversives, because like when
29:47
we talk about that, it's like you could use those terms, but there
29:48
are better terms, because there are more specific terms to describe the thing that
29:52
you're trying to describe, Right. And I think that's one of the best
29:55
things about having that technical language if you are inside of a shared community that
30:00
uses that language. So I think the pro really has to account for what
30:03
does it look like inside the community versus outside of the community, Right,
30:07
And as you're sort of alluding to, a major advantage to using technical speak
30:12
is that it carries a lot of information very efficiently. If I say something
30:18
like manned, you have a lot of information about the behavior I'm talking about
30:22
because you know what amand is and the definition of man and how man's work.
30:26
Right, Or if I say I'm doing mannd training, you automatically know
30:30
a lot about what I am saying with just a very short, quick communication.
30:36
And another part I think that's really important about using language and having technical
30:41
language, using it in a specific technical way, is it does in fact
30:45
affect how we think and understand concepts and events. And as I gave the
30:51
example earlier, we say things like we reinforce the behavior, not the person.
30:56
It goes back to fundamental attribution error. It helps us understand that behavior
31:00
happens as in a dynamic interaction between antecedents and consequences. It is something that
31:07
shapes up and develops over time through people's interactions with their circumstances and things that
31:11
are going on. So by simply just that simple of an orientation to saying
31:15
we reinforce behavior, that changes how we then think about individuals and the behavior
31:22
and our job with relation to that. And I think it affects then our
31:26
overall understanding of the people that we serve, and our science and our field
31:32
and our clinical application and all that. Right. So I mean, yeah,
31:36
there are a lot of really good things about being able to have that
31:38
technical jargon and that shared language, but there are also a lot of drawbacks
31:42
And one of the things I think about a lot is if I walk into
31:47
a space and I start using this language, how are people going to look
31:49
at me, or communicate with me, or want to engage with me any
31:53
sort of collaborative way. And so essentially what happens is is if we continue
31:57
to use this technical language jargon that that's part of our shared community, it's
32:01
going to stop us from effective discourse among other professionals who are working together.
32:07
Like so, it's gonna really put a wedge between you and other professionals because
32:13
you're trying to insist upon everybody using our language, or you yourself were insisting
32:17
upon using your language, and it's alienating and isolating people and preventing them from
32:22
communicating with you in an effective way. Like a lot of times, what
32:25
my experience is if I'm over using technical language, the people I'm working with
32:30
feel stupid, right, and so they go, well, when you talk,
32:32
it makes me feel stupid because I don't know what you're talking about.
32:35
So now you come across as arrogant, you come across as full of yourself,
32:38
You come across as somebody who's not willing to collaborate because you can't help
32:42
but use your technical language instead, right exactly. And so I think the
32:46
important thing about this space, and I think we'll impact this morn a bit,
32:50
but is that it really has to do with who we're communicating with.
32:52
Because when we're talking to just each other, it's actually really helpful. But
32:55
when we're trying to collaborate with a team of people who are all working together
33:00
and support of someone, and I'm like talking to this kid's neurologist using behavior
33:04
behavior eas or I'm talking to the parents, or I'm talking to their school
33:07
counselor like I it's like we're speaking different actually kind of our speaking different languages.
33:14
The other thing is that it does make our methods in philosophy less accessible
33:19
to an audience that would benefit from our concepts and philosophy around those things.
33:23
They don't understand what we're saying, and so they don't have very much buy
33:27
in, and they don't know how to interpret what we're saying in a way
33:30
that means anything for understanding behavior or the behavior of their person that they're supporting,
33:36
you know, whatever might be the case. So it's it just then
33:38
it sort of turns them off, and I think it has them be confused
33:43
rather than feel like they're contributing meaningfully to that conversation. Right. Another interesting
33:49
side effect of this is that one it creates this kind of like insulated in
33:54
group, this echo chamber where like behaviorists can only talk to behaviorists and nobody
34:00
else can talk to the behaviorist because the behaviorists taught to themselves and they use
34:02
their language, and it isolates everybody, right, Like, it does that.
34:06
But the other side effect of that is it's great that you have a
34:07
shared community where you can speak the language and you can have that camaraderie there.
34:12
Right. So the other side of that, though, is that when
34:15
we are trying to and you'll hear this complaint a lot about behavior analysis,
34:20
not more people not knowing about behavior analysis or what we do. Part of
34:23
the reason is if we continue to insist on using our language and our language
34:27
alone, it makes it slower to disseminate to other places. Right. I
34:30
was just in a meeting the other day and somebody was talking about they were
34:34
they were talking about this, I think, a psychological concept that was like
34:37
deliberate instruction or deliberate teaching, and I thought that was great. I was
34:42
like, Oh, tell me more about it. Like, this guy had
34:43
a book and he's like, he was talking about this book, and I
34:45
was like, I might order that book, and he goes, well,
34:46
here's what they do with deliberate teaching. So what they do is they provide
34:50
a written instruction to this person, and then they walk through that written instruction
34:54
with that person and make sure they understand the steps. And then they practice
34:59
the skill that they have provided in that written instruction, and then they make
35:02
them practice it and practice it until they get it right with giving and they
35:06
give them the coaching and feedback and do all this stuff throughout the process until
35:09
they get it perfect. Oh this sounds familiar. And I was like,
35:14
dude, this PST and he's like, yeah, I know. And so
35:16
the thing was, it was like it's one of those things where other fields
35:19
are grasping onto the stuff and they're renaming it. It sounds so much nicer
35:22
behavioral skills training or deliberate instruction or deliberate teaching, Like you know, it's
35:28
one of those things where once we isolate ourselves, this science that they just
35:32
they packaged and put into a book already existed for many, many years,
35:37
and we couldn't even get to that point because we couldn't let go of our
35:40
names. We could have called it anything else, but we didn't want to
35:43
do that. You know, I have a super good example of that later
35:45
too. Oh good, that's a good story. The other drawback, I
35:49
think is that to sticking to the technical language, it does not directly translate
35:53
to sort of more common, plain language that people understand. And the other
35:58
thing, too, is that's even more difficult. I've been talking about from
36:00
a very English perspective, a very Anglo centric orientation to this, but it
36:06
becomes even more difficult to translate to non English languages where not only do they
36:09
not have an equivalent term for that, but you're then trying to figure out
36:14
what are the terms that are the closest to the colloquial version of the term
36:17
that I'm using, And it's like you're building a second wall after the first
36:22
one between being able to effectively communicate with these people and just not And so
36:28
it's I think it is a drawback to stick too hard to that language in
36:31
spaces where we're trying to communicate with a broad audience, thinking about that specific
36:37
thing where we're talking about like translation and like direct one to one translations and
36:39
whatnot. There was an infographic going around not too long ago that was talking
36:45
about the Seven Dimensions, and it was there were no direct translations of the
36:50
seven Dimensions because the terms were so specific they couldn't get the meaning to translate
36:54
into another language. And I was like, that actually makes sense. That's
36:59
wild technical language simply and it makes sense, but it can't translate because of
37:02
whatever reason. So that's all. That's a problem with any technical language,
37:06
not just behavior analysis. I think it's important to note that, like any
37:09
specific technical language, like almost has to be translated and then retooled to match
37:15
in that other language. So yeah, because language is super interesting, that
37:17
exact issue in a combination of other things, it makes it difficult to communicate
37:22
with people who are not in our field. It makes it difficult to be
37:25
precise and clear with those folks, accurate with those folks, and really makes
37:30
it difficult to get a point across or get some understanding if we insist on
37:36
using this language. So like, that's why we've got to adapt and move
37:39
towards plain language or shared language or whatever it might be, because if we're
37:45
just insisting on using ours, nobody's ever going to understand it. What it
37:47
is that we do and that you kind of alluded to earlier, is it
37:50
kind of makes us just look like pompous assholes. That's so we're just sort
37:53
of like elitist this is this is how I talk and get used to it
37:58
or get out. Yeah, and that is not helpful. We do not
38:01
need to make more enemies at this point in time, agreed. So that
38:06
kind of brings us to what can we do about it? If we need
38:08
to do anything about it, because I think an important caveat that many people
38:13
have heard is that we can't get rid of technical language. And even if
38:15
we did or tried to, it would be to the detriment of our and
38:20
everyone else's ability to be effective. Because the language exists because it's useful.
38:25
Right. If it wasn't useful, we wouldn't be using it. But it
38:28
is useful. It's useful inside our community in our technical space when we're communicating
38:34
via conferences and publications and whatnot. But we don't want to eliminate it.
38:39
We just need to figure out where and how to use it. Right,
38:43
And one solution that didn't really work and has actually probably caused more grief than
38:46
we realize is this idea of co opting existing terms that serve a new purpose.
38:51
So basically what we have tried to do is we've tried to take terms
38:53
that already existed, give them new meaning, give them new context, give
38:57
them new connotations, and go by the way, this word means this other
39:00
thing that you didn't think it meant before. And what has happened instead is
39:05
that people go no, and they don't accept it. I don't know if
39:07
that's been your experience, but that's been my experience. Like teaching, having
39:10
to teach people things like positive, negative reinforcement, and punishment yes, has
39:15
been one of the most challenging things because people go, oh, positive reinforcement
39:19
means good reward, and I'm like, no, it does not. It
39:22
just means that a thing happened after, like you added something right, Yeah.
39:25
And that's actually caused a lot of confusion. And there are a couple
39:28
of terms that we're going to look at, right, extinction, slice,
39:31
reinforcement, contingency, consequences, positive and negative. All of these terms that
39:37
exist in that space had been co opted and renamed and rebranded, and it
39:40
has caused more confusion than it has caused success. Especially because those have very
39:45
specific meanings that a lot of people are already very used to, particularly the
39:50
positive negative thing. You know, when they hear the negative reinforcement, that
39:53
is one of the hardest things to teach new students and behavior analysis because they're
39:59
like, I do I don't understand why negative reinforcement means the behavior increases more
40:05
often and it's not about inappropriate behavior, right, Like, it's the word
40:10
negative, negative means bad, and it's going back to like a lot of
40:15
this is mathematically oriented. Negative means taken out, that's all right, And
40:19
even further on that, the term negative reinforcement by itself is often used to
40:23
describe bad reinforcement or bad bad things that we do that make bad behavior happen.
40:30
Like that's what like the lay person will say, oh yeah, yeah,
40:32
in a more colloquial way, yeah, yeah, Right, So we're
40:35
taking this term that people are already using to describe this thing and it kind
40:38
of a colloquial way, and we're going, actually, it means the exact
40:42
opposite of what you're describing. Doesn't mean that's what you're describing as positive reinforcement
40:45
for problem behavior. You don't mean negative reinforcement people are like, shut up.
40:51
Yeah, it's trying to, like, as you said, completely assign
40:53
brand new meanings to these things that are not what people are used to them
40:58
meaning and are pretty different. I think when we've it's been okay when people
41:01
have assigned technical meetings that are still pretty close. And I think motivation actually
41:06
is a decent example of that. Like we're all kind of on the same
41:08
page with motivation, Like as you said, it's what's probably the closest one,
41:13
right, But a lot of them are very confusing to people in the
41:15
way that we use them, and they're just re they're appropriating existing words and
41:22
retooling their definition to be ours in a way that's pretty unique. And I
41:27
decided to throw a little bit of precision teaching into the bus here, which
41:30
with a slice, is a very common and that and I'll we have some
41:35
ways to redefine these because that's even one that I think most behavior analysts wouldn't
41:39
recognize. I didn't know until you said it. Yeah, okay, So
41:44
again we're talking about what to do about this, and one of the things
41:46
that we don't want to do is just appropriate existing terms, because that actually
41:51
is more confusing. We also don't want to just completely get rid of it.
41:53
What we really do want to do in terms of how to effectively disseminate
41:59
this amongst our colleagues, people who are training in the field, people who
42:02
are professionals, even who maybe struggle with this, is to know your audience
42:07
and the intention of your communication, right, Because I think if the goal
42:09
is to communicate with similarly trained professionals in many spaces, it makes perfect sense.
42:15
And as you sort of mentioned, when you are teaching a class,
42:19
when you're delivering a conference presentation, when you are publishing something, when you're
42:22
in any space where you're in a clinical space with similarly trained professionals, it
42:30
is a good idea to use technical speak. We want to be technically precise
42:34
in our language because it affects how effectively we communicate, how we think about
42:38
our jobs, how we orient to the problem at hand. Those technical pieces
42:43
are really important in those spaces. Right. If the goal is to communicate
42:45
with anyone else under any other circumstance, it's probably best to just try and
42:52
use plane language and colloquial terms and regular understandable English as much as we can,
42:59
and even further, like you can not only just learn to use plain
43:02
language as much as possible. But if you come up with catchy, easily
43:06
remember things, phrases, metaphors, whatever you're using, right, Yeah,
43:09
however you're describing things, it sticks with people. People like stories, people
43:14
like really clear explanations, and cognitive psychologists and organizational psychologists are masters at this.
43:21
As you said, deliberate teaching. Deliberate teaching. I mean, that's
43:23
beautiful, right. Think about for a second. I don't know if you
43:25
had this experience, but I had this experience where this stuck with me,
43:29
where I was basically taught cognitive psychology. The way to understand it is that
43:32
your brain is basically just an endless filing system, and that like everything that
43:37
you do is just a filing cabinet that you reach into and you pull out
43:40
of and you're like, here's information that I have filed away, And so
43:44
your brain stores information like a filing cabinet. Now I was like, ah,
43:47
that makes sense. I can understand that. When it comes to cognition.
43:51
Cognition is very I mean, cognition is complicated, but cognition is one
43:54
of those things where you go, I understand that metaphor because I don't understand
43:58
the technical language you use, and that stuck with me early in my career.
44:01
Now I know a little bit different, but like at the time,
44:04
I was like, that made sense, and that's why I was oriented to
44:07
it, because I understood it. More like I didn't understand psychodynamics because I
44:09
was like, what does the ID do? Again? Like that doesn't make
44:14
I don't you don't really give me a good feel for that. But I
44:15
understand cognitive psychology because I understand this, So like that's a really good way
44:21
to get buy in as good metaphors, good stories, good examples to describe
44:25
your concepts. Yeah, and as you said, the deliberate teaching, and
44:30
I'll have another one here in a second, but yes, as you said
44:32
that, the people in those fields have been enormously good at being able to
44:37
sort of rebrand these as phrases or using existing terms in a way that both
44:43
I think pulls people in and engages them and it also communicates effectively with them.
44:47
And it kind of doesn't matter whether it's being used technically because they'll be
44:51
able to use it in a way that people pretty readily understand. And even
44:54
if it's a little bit it's like off technically it's close enough to get them
44:59
to be a effective and what they're doing. Now. Another piece of this
45:02
that I think people maybe misunderstand and maybe hear in what we're saying, and
45:07
so I want to try and correct it now, is we're not saying dumb
45:10
it down, right, right, You don't necessarily need to dumb it down.
45:15
You teach. You can teach these, you can teach terms, you
45:17
can teach new meanings, you can rebrand, et cetera. But teach when
45:22
teaching is warranted. Right, So if you are going to use the technical
45:24
language or high vocabulary, you teach new vocabulary when it is common and it
45:29
will be effective elsewhere. That's a good time to teach it. When it's
45:32
like, you can teach this, here's a word you already know that already
45:36
has a meeting, and when you use other people will also understand you.
45:39
Right, and now they have a new skill that they can use. You
45:43
can teach when it's requested they maybe say, can you teach me what these
45:46
things mean or how you talk about this so that I understand when you speak
45:51
technically or you can even speak technically to me. That could be a time
45:53
you can teach when the term or way of speaking can positively advance people's thinking,
45:59
and I use positively colloquially there ooh when doing so will help them think
46:05
more clearly about something, and it's they it's welcomed by them, Like that's
46:08
a good time to teach. Those are the times that are worth teaching.
46:13
Don't just assume that you should be trying to teach these different terms or specific
46:17
language or even high level vocabulary. Right. Another thing too, there's nothing
46:22
worse than a know it all. So don't teach just to show off,
46:27
like you shouldn't be teaching that word because you know it. You know,
46:30
like we like to do vocabulary words because they're relatable, Like we don't like
46:32
to do it because we're like I know this word, and so now you're
46:36
gonna know this word like it's something that's like a specific thing inside of the
46:39
teaching that we're doing. But don't teach just to show off. Don't teach
46:43
because like you know, just because you know something and somebody else doesn't.
46:46
I had to learn this later early in my career. My thought was,
46:51
I'm gonna go and I'm gonna teachase parents everything that I know about behavior analysis
46:53
because I want them to be like honorary behaviorists, right. It came from
46:58
a place of good intentions, right, Like I want to give them as
47:00
many tools I could so that they didn't need me anymore. That's the goal
47:02
of our service. The road to hell is paved, exactly. And that
47:07
was kind of thing, is like, you know, they didn't they didn't
47:08
care. A lot of the families that worked with did not care. They
47:10
were like, just just give me tools so that I can help my child,
47:15
you know. And so that's kind of the thing that I keep landing
47:16
on is don't teach just because you can. Don't teach the show off,
47:20
and don't teach when it's unwanted. Teach because people are seeking it. They
47:23
need the information. It's going to be useful for them. And don't just
47:27
play ads because you say you need to play ads. Wait, I think
47:37
we're getting close to st't wrapping up what we have to say about this.
47:39
I wanted to share some good examples, in my opinion, what we're good
47:43
examples of being able to translate very specific technical words into sort of more colloquial,
47:49
everyday language. And so one example that I think a lot of people
47:53
will fight with me about and I say, bring it on is a reinforcement.
47:58
You can simply call a reward talking to each other reinforcement. Use it
48:01
specifically, use it technically, but most people don't care. Just call it
48:06
a reward, right, It's totally fine. It is as effective as it
48:09
needs to be for them to understand what you're trying to say about that.
48:14
Also, I think negative reinforcement I've always learned as relief, right, like
48:17
you get a break, you get away from the thing that you don't like,
48:21
It is relief. I mean I always think of Jose Martinez Diez talking
48:23
about this at F I T and he was like, how do you spell
48:27
reinforcement any g A T I V E R E I N f O r
48:30
c E M E n T right, So he just kind of would do
48:32
that and rattle it off. I'm like, that's the best way to remember
48:35
it. I mean, that's a really hard thing to spell that quickly.
48:37
But or how to spell negative reinforcement r E L I E F that's much
48:42
better. Yeah, that's much better. That's actually the way he says it.
48:45
I said it wrong. So, yeah, as you said, a
48:49
break or relief like those I think are really good ways of saying it in
48:52
a way that people understand. For precision teaching, they'll use something called a
48:55
slice, and I think they were trying to adopt a playing English term,
48:59
but I'm like, nobody thinks of a slice as a piece of curriculum though
49:04
in any capacity. Ever, the easiest way to communicate is to call it
49:07
a lesson. You can even call it like a curriculum or something like that,
49:10
a module, a unit, a module. Yeah, all of those
49:15
I think are effective. But most of the time, like, any of
49:16
those are just fine. I've always thought like, using a slice is fine
49:21
when we're talking to each other. We know what it means, and it
49:23
comes with associated terms like a slice back, which is functionally an intervention.
49:28
But yeah, as a slice is just a just sort of a lesson.
49:30
Yeah, Extinction is one that comes up a lot that's just withholding or even
49:35
better, like when you kind of get into it, exposure and response prevention
49:38
like that is that is so much better than just saying extinction, Yeah,
49:40
because that is really clear that person is exposed to a condition. You prevent
49:45
the response, you move forward. And that is the term that the cognitive
49:49
psychologists have rebranded beautifully, like that is such a good way to communicate that
49:54
exposure and response prevention. You could call it ignoring, but it is context
50:00
specific, like ignoring is not always extinction. But I think withhole thing is
50:04
appropriate. And then, as I said, the exposure and response prevention is
50:07
really good. Okay, function. Now this is interesting because a lot of
50:09
people use motivation. They're thinking actually more of the consequences. They're motivated by
50:14
X, which is to say, what they're going to get right, where
50:15
we think of motivating as a preceding circumstance. The situation is this thing has
50:20
now become valuable, and therefore that's why they're going to engage in behavior X
50:23
whatever. And so I think when we talk about function, when we're talking
50:28
about like what the consequence is or the reinforcer for that behavior, calling that
50:32
motivation actually connects pretty well with people. So if I say the function of
50:37
their behavior as attention, I could instead say they're motivated to get attention or
50:39
their motivation is attention. You can actually see that like that actually clicks pretty
50:44
nicely into place with the other definition. So that's how I tend to use
50:47
motivation in a way that I think lands with most people in my experience,
50:52
right when it comes to verbal behavior, I think I see a lot of
50:53
students that really struggle with the technical terms of this. But like, I
50:57
think the easiest way to go through verbal behavior is this man's or requests.
51:00
Taxer labels and introverbals are fill in the blanks, and that's really truly all
51:06
they are when you get into like you want to get into like discripint stimuli
51:08
and motivating operations and like whether or not there's point to point correspondence and blah
51:13
blah blah doesn't matter because at the end of the day, you go did
51:15
that verbal behavior match another verbal behavior? No? Was it a request?
51:20
Was a fill in the blank? Okay, you can kind of get into
51:22
that, and people understand that a little bit better. Yeah, and I
51:24
didn't include it, but like echoic, you could say repeat or an imitation.
51:29
I think most people would would get that pretty clearly. Autoclinic. I
51:31
almost don't. I mean I don't. That's not going to show up on
51:35
most assessments, so like people aren't going to be talking about it in place
51:38
like or even if it is, it's like a small small piece. So
51:40
I don't think we need to even unpack that term. But I suppose you
51:45
could. You could call it inflection, you could call it intentional, like
51:47
the meaning I got qualifiers. Qualifiers is great. Yeah, there's I think
51:52
there's different ways to sort of call an autoclinic, but that's what it means,
51:54
all right, Elicit and evoke. Those both have different, unique,
51:59
specific thnical terms of behavior analysis. You can just say cause, we all
52:02
know that, like cause, effect is a loaded term, but when we're
52:05
talking to most people, they don't care that cause works. Just fine,
52:07
This caused that behavior. That's yeah, it's good. Just use costs,
52:12
right, And then consequence is just an outcome, right, It's just it's
52:15
just an event that follows a behavior. It's just the outcome of a behavior.
52:17
And that's really that's really all it is. And the thing is is
52:21
we could have used that from all this time, but we decided to go
52:22
with consequence, even though the term consequence already had a loaded meeting, you
52:27
know, yeah, And I mean that is that is a tough one too,
52:30
because most people associate the term consequence with something like punishment, something aversive.
52:35
There's going to be consequences implies that something bad will happen. They need
52:39
a consequence exactly, and we of course don't use it in that way.
52:44
But that just just increasingly confusing. And that's why I think it makes more
52:46
sense to say what will be the outcome? What what do they get out
52:50
of it? I mean, you can say lots of words to wrap around
52:52
it, but outcome is just short because it's too syllable. So right,
52:55
right, exactly, Okay, So let's I think you're sort of the big
52:58
wrap up to take home the the takeaway from all of this is that technical
53:02
speak is very useful. The jargon is useful. Understanding these terms and how
53:07
we use them in a precise, clear and parsimonious way helps us think clearly
53:12
about how behavior works, and in any feel that technical speak will help them
53:16
think and understand and communicate clearly with parsimony what they are talking about in a
53:22
way that is precise and parsimonious. And it comes with some drawbacks to consider
53:28
in terms of where we use that speak right well, and some other things
53:32
too. I think it's important to know how we speak can really apply to
53:37
people's values. So reinforcing behavior not people is actually a really compassionate way to
53:43
see the individual as a product of their environment, not as a bad person.
53:47
That behavior can be remediated, behavior can be taught, behavior can be
53:52
learned and unlearned, so that person is no longer labeled by being good or
53:58
bad or otherwise. They're simply a product of their environment that can be changed
54:02
to support them in better behavior. Yeah, they're not broken and they don't
54:07
need to be fixed, and their behavior might benefit from some additional support that
54:13
would help allow them to be effective in their circumstances. Right, So again
54:17
we take the blame out of it. That way, thinking about the function
54:21
of behavior as we've been talking about, or you could say motivation, is
54:23
a solution oriented way of thinking about the circumstances that cause that behavior to occur.
54:30
So that little idea of recognizing what is this individual getting out of it.
54:36
I'll share a very personal story someone very close to me who was dealing
54:39
with some issues with their child's behavior and a daycare and like, when they
54:44
do this and it's really upsetting to the provider, They take them out of
54:46
the room, they put them in their own little chair, they give them
54:50
a book and some snacks to read, and I'm like, okay, so
54:53
let me be clear. Problem happens. Outcome for individual is massive one on
55:00
want attention, extra treats, and things to do reward. Right. That
55:04
is a way of thinking about this that helps orient really quickly is thinking about
55:07
that function like what do they get out of this? And not just because
55:09
a lot of people think why are they doing this? What caused them to
55:13
do this? And not so much what did they get out of this situation?
55:16
And so that's why we like that idea of function that to technical term,
55:21
we don't need to use that when we're trying to communicate with people,
55:23
but having that in our in our language helps us think about it in a
55:28
specific, technical and useful way. Right. And then finally this idea of
55:32
contingencies which come up. If we understand how to describe contingencies, what we
55:37
can do better is we can describe those temporal or those time related events and
55:43
how events are reliant on one another, and how to consistently apply things like
55:47
reinforcement or reward to those events that occur, those behavioral events. And so
55:52
if we understand this and we can describe this in a way that is clear
55:55
and concise, then what we can do is we can teach somebody that like
56:00
Hey, yes, when you do things matters, Like when you do this
56:04
thing will absolutely change and shape and alter the course of your entire day.
56:08
So understanding how things are contingent on one another and giving real life examples,
56:15
A red light at a traffic light does not turn green until the other one
56:19
turns red. Right, one light has to turn one is dependent on the
56:22
other for traffic to move a certain way. And so when you are able
56:25
to take some time to explain those things like that, people tend to respond
56:30
pretty well rather than going well a contingency and temporal contiguity and da da da
56:34
da dah. They don't want to hear it. They want to hear that
56:36
things matter. Things they do matter, things they do can be changed and
56:40
altered and actually have an impact on their lives. Yeah. So again,
56:45
all that is to say, like there's a lot of value in using this
56:47
terminology and essentially thinking about like who is your audience, who are you trying
56:52
to communicate with, Because when you're trying to communicate with people who are not
56:54
technical professionals in the field, there's just no point in trying to even lean
56:59
on these terms. And I do think there is a point in trying to
57:02
spend time unpacking them and coming up with either repackaging in a way that's sort
57:07
of marketable, as the cognitive psychologists have been so monumentally successful with doing so,
57:13
or just come up with different terms that we can use that are more
57:15
readily understandable by people, and then help teach our practitioners those terms and they'll
57:20
come up with their own. I'm not you know, I think many,
57:22
if not most, people out there doing this have figured out how to communicate
57:25
effectively. Some of them have probably decided I'm just going to teach you this
57:30
language and you're just going to know it now. It is what it is.
57:31
But I think there is a lot of pragmatic utility in thinking about how
57:37
we can communicate effectively using our basic ideas, but using language that other people
57:42
understand what one hundred percent couldn't have said it better myself? Cool? All
57:45
right? So that's that's just you know, behavior is and technical speak and
57:47
jargon and our and our episode on that. Yeah, I think that anything
57:52
else to say about that before we move on to our credits and recommendations,
57:57
No, I think that covers it. I just be kind, just be
58:00
kind, I mean, stop insisting that everybody use our language. Just be
58:01
kind and work with people. Yeah, yeah, think about you know,
58:06
thinking about what they're what's the function of their behavior as your audience, you
58:08
know, and what how are we going to leverage what we have available to
58:13
us to help make their behavior work more effectively and there in their circumstances,
58:17
their environment, learning our language is not likely to be a thing that does
58:21
that unless they are training to become professionals. So m hmm, okay exactly.
58:25
If you would like to support what we have done here today and we'll
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58:45
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58:45
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58:50
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58:52
right, And if you would like to tell us about behaviory, something that
58:54
we got right, something you'd like to correct, or something you'd like to
58:58
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59:00
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You can also head over to our website. You can pick up merch
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59:17
you and also communicate. She's part of the team. Valuable member of the
59:20
team. Speaking of which, we need some credits here, which is thank
59:22
you to the people who are behind the scenes who make this happen. I
59:25
have this just really lovely group of humans that I think everyone should probably wants
59:30
to be them because they're they're great and you can you can join them.
59:32
But anyway, this includes a very nice, kind group of people that is
59:37
Mike, m Megan, Leila, Mike t, Justin, Kim, Joshua,
59:40
Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, Christy and
59:45
Michelle. Hey. Welcome folks, all the new folks, I love it
59:51
so good. Those are our Patreon people. I also need to thank my
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team. Justin does audio editing and magicness that makes this sound like a real
59:58
episode with real people talking to one another. Shane and I do writing in
1:00:00
fact checking in Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. Okay, if you
1:00:06
are joining us for the first time, we like to recommend things to the
1:00:09
world, just to people who are listening and just that we encountered. It
1:00:14
could have been a while ago, it could be recently. Whatever we're recommending
1:00:15
things, it doesn't matter recommendations. I am recommending a movie. It is
1:00:28
called The Big Sick. The stars Camille Nan Johnny. It is based on
1:00:31
his real life courtship with his wife. There's a lot of things and that
1:00:35
was fictionalized. It was meant to made more into sort of a movie style
1:00:38
comedy and story. It's a fun comedy. You could maybe maybe put it
1:00:44
in the category overrom com but it it feels better than that because this is
1:00:47
this is more of a real story, like this actually kind of happens to
1:00:51
two people. It's a good watch and it's not very long. It's available
1:00:53
on Prime I think Prime distributes at Amazon Prime. So if you are interested
1:00:58
in a movie like that, a quick nice, this little comedy that sort
1:01:00
of leans into romantic territory, you could head over to Amazon Prime and check
1:01:05
out The Big Sick Well. And I like Kum Eldon and Johnny Like he's
1:01:07
great. Everything he's in is just wonderful. He's in the new Ghostbusters that's
1:01:10
coming out, and I'm so excited about that. Yeah, yeah, great.
1:01:14
All right, So mine is a game, which is funny that you
1:01:16
went with a movie that with a game, because the opposite, man,
1:01:20
I should have recommended a book that would have been like a Freaky Friday situation.
1:01:22
Now I know. That's what I'm saying, Like who's Abraham? Who
1:01:25
is Shane? Who switched you? You know? I'm recommending a game called
1:01:29
UNO Show Up No Mercy. It's a new version of UNO that is out
1:01:32
that is, it scratches an itch that I have in myself that's like a
1:01:37
vindictive, vengeance filled person. So the way this works is that it's all
1:01:43
the standard rules of UNO, except there are way more wild cards, okay,
1:01:49
and some of the wild cards are not just a draw for it's like
1:01:52
a draw ten or it's a reverse draw for so like instead of handing off
1:01:58
for and they and officially the rules are you can double up in stack cards,
1:02:01
so like if you do a draw too, it's draw two, draw
1:02:04
two, draw two, draw two. You can do that. There are
1:02:06
skips that are skip everyone whoa so it's like not just skipping the next person,
1:02:10
it's skipping literally everyone. And one of my favorite rules is that if
1:02:15
you draw more than twenty five cards, you're automatically out of the game.
1:02:19
Wow. And there's like some cards where you have to switch your hand with
1:02:21
other people, Like you can choose to switch with people, so like you
1:02:23
can play it when somebody has like one card left and you're like, oh
1:02:27
no, that's my card here, let's switch, you know. And it's
1:02:30
a lot of fun. It really subverts kind of the UNO rules and and
1:02:35
just just pisses everybody off. It's so great. Wow, it's just chaos
1:02:38
and it's I love it. It's and it's out now. We played a
1:02:42
couple of rounds the other night and uh man, it was just it's just
1:02:46
so fun. I haven't played UNO and just about as long as I can
1:02:50
remember. I'm also not generally seeking out super cutthroat games, but it does
1:02:54
sound like fun. You know, I can get behind this sort of just
1:02:59
matter Alica, kill them all approach to a game, and I think anything
1:03:06
that brings people into a space where they're interacting over like a tabletop game,
1:03:09
is something I'm generally going to be in supportive anyway. Sure, even if
1:03:13
it's something like dare I say, Monopoly, don't want to be your landlord?
1:03:17
That's all I think. I don't want to be your landlord? Yeah,
1:03:21
all right, anyway, So those those are our recommendations. Thank you
1:03:23
so much for recording with me today, Shane, Thank you everybody for listening.
1:03:28
I think that's all we have to say about behavior eas for right now.
1:03:30
We could certainly have said more. We went already went long as it
1:03:34
is, since that's what we do. Is anything that you like to add
1:03:37
or anything that I forgot before we wrap up? Nope, I think that
1:03:39
covers it perfect. Then this is Abraham and this is Shane. We're out.
1:03:44
See ya. You've been listening to Why We do what we do.
1:03:47
You can learn more about this and other episodes by going to wwd wwdpodcast dot
1:03:53
com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day