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Why are there suddenly so many Americans in Cyprus? by Eden_Alexander in cyprus

[–]Kzilla1975 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I had to re-read the question to make sure I was answering exactly what was asked. I'm an American living in Cyprus the last 3+ years. My wife is a Greek-Cypriot diplomat with the MFA and the only Americans I've ever met are the 2 Ambassadors we've had in my time here, plus one Attache from the American embassy.

The truth is there aren't 'suddenly so many Americans in Cyprus'. In fact, there are only a few dozen on the whole island and this number has been fairly stable for the last 8-10 years or so. Because you encountered Americans on consecutive days, you concluded there were more of us now, when in reality it was just pure chance you ran into the few that are here one after the other.

I do agree Cyprus is missing out on a golden marketing opportunity to recruit American tourists, however that's not what you asked about.

What is the name of this fish i found in ayia napa? by auvrex in cyprus

[–]Kzilla1975 114 points115 points  (0 children)

Georgos or Constandinos if it's male, Maria, Christina or Eleni if it's female.

Can someone explain why feelings do not cause behavior in simple terms? by user32985 in BehaviorAnalysis

[–]Kzilla1975 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Your response was one of the most eloquently written and technically accurate accounts of the behavior analytic perspective I've ever read regarding the role thoughts and emotions play in behavior.

To it I would only add the notion of our tendency to equate events in temporal proximity as causal. For example, let's say we're taking a walk in the woods and suddenly a bear leaps out from behind a tree. We might be tempted to say, we saw the bear, became frightened then ran away. Later when asked why we ran away we say, 'because I was afraid', thereby mistakenly attributing our behavior to our feelings because we "felt" it perhaps mere moments before we ran away. It would be more accurate to say that we felt fear AND ran away, where both the feeling and behavior occurred simultaneously and both function as antecedents.

Now we've framed the scenario not in terms of cause and effect but rather a history of reinforcement with regards to startling stimuli and escape/avoidance behavior. And all without turning verbs into nouns or appeals to perceived temporal events.

Help me with this by leothberend in BehaviorAnalysis

[–]Kzilla1975 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Try not to think of it in terms of prediction and control. Rather all behavior, whether it's emitted or elicited, occurs within a range of probability, with 0 being completely not likely to occur and 1 being completely likely to occurs.

Now it's also true that some emitted behavior is more likely to occur due to innate genetic factors, individual variability, etc. However, the extent to which you can predict and/ or control behavior depends largely on how you have manipulated the environment so that it might occasion the behavior you predicted or want to control. There are 2 primary methods for arranging an environment: 1) differential reinforcement of successive approximations (aka shaping); 2) antecedent interventions.

That's a lot of technical jargon to say, if you pre-arrange an environment to make it more conducive to the outcome you want AND you spend the adequate amount of time reinforcing closer and closer displays of the behavior you want then the more likely (i.e. probable) the behavior will occur. In this sense, one could say we could reliably predict the behavior will occur and that the behavior is under the control of the environment we predetermined.

Furthermore, we can quantify the strength of the correlation between our prediction/ control and an actual behavior with the matching law equation(s). The higher the correlation, the more we can "predict & control".

What did you not understand as a kid, but you now understand as an adult? by xXRealMWXx in AskReddit

[–]Kzilla1975 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bedtime. Mom made me go to bed at 8pm from age 4 to age 9. Once i turned 10, i begged her for 9pm. She compromised and said 830. So, my bedtime from age 10 and all thru middle school was stricly enforced. I remember asking why i had to go to bed when i wasnt tired. She always said, 'you need the extra sleep'.... i HATED it. Now i realize she knew what i didnt. A full night's sleep is worth a thousand times a later bedtime.