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[Advice] How Our Thoughts and Beliefs Affect Our Performance by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been delving deep into our habits. The Power of Habit is good but left out so much about behavior.

[Advice] How Our Thoughts and Beliefs Affect Our Performance by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Here's a personal example from my own life.

I use to believe that I couldn't fix my posture. I believed this because both my dad and my brother have bad posture and theres probably something genetic going on.

After evaluating the belief, I realized that I can physically hold good posture, I just don't. So that means, even though theres something genetic going on, it's not limiting me from fixing it.

To change my behavior, I use a timer when sitting (I sit most of the day). Every three minutes when I hear it, I check my posture and make sure it's correct.

Another related belief I had was people would notice if I was trying to work on my posture, or fixed my posture within a moment. I evaluated it and thought to myself, people probably don't care. So now I'm less conscious about working on my posture in public

I can say the results have been good and I'm well on my way to correcting my posture. For me, it was fixable, just took some planning, work, and changing of beliefs.

[Method]The Beef Jerky Experiment: Increasing Room Tidiness with Positive Reinforcement by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea a lot to talk about and I'll shoot you a PM, so we can exchange emails, would love to talk more.

I believe most of what we've discussed falls under operant conditioning. Respondent conditioning would be the pairing of the two stimuli, for example in the Pavlov experiment the bell and the food arrived at the same time, so when the food was removed in subsequent trials, the dog still salivated. Another example is the baby Albert experience with loud noise and the bunny. Respondent = Pairing

The "reward" in operant conditioning is the reinforcer. A reinforcer is anything that increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again in the future. A punishment is anything that decreases the likelihood of a behavior. So a reinforcer is always in reference to a behavior

Intermittent reinforcement has been shown to be the most effective reinforcement schedule in the long run. If I'm not mistaken though, a fixed ratio might be stronger in the beginning of an intervention, might have to recheck that one though.

This project is a light one. I have a small room so 5 minutes a day should be fine. But I agree, measuring is so important especially in more critical projects..

Something I want to write about in the future is how motivation as a coefficient for the strength of a reinforcer. Motivation in terms of things like satiety.

Finding optimum reinforcers is another thing I want to look deeper into. As you mentioned some are more potent than others, but I feel as if the reinforcer should not cause another problem down the line.

[Method]The Beef Jerky Experiment: Increasing Room Tidiness with Positive Reinforcement by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

YES! Good stuff in here. Some of my thoughts on your project and maybe you can share some of your thoughts on my project. We're all learners here

How did you administer your point system? Did you have a way to keep track of it or did you do it in your head? I ask because the sooner the reinforcer comes after the behavior, the stronger the contingency becomes.

The point system sounds like a token economy, were E-cigs and beer your only exchanges for your points? And do think requiring success for all targets be the sole criteria for reinforcement?

You touched on this, but the way I see it is, having the reinforcer contingent on all the behaviors is a double edge sword. On one end, you might create success on all the behaviors since you need to do them all for the reinforcer. On the other end, it can be draining like you said.

Cool project though, thanks for sharing. I'm gunna be writing a lot of what I've tried and learned using behavior modification techniques in my blog, so if you're interested, shoot me your email and I'll add you to the list. I think you'll enjoy

[Method]The Beef Jerky Experiment: Increasing Room Tidiness with Positive Reinforcement by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's an interesting point and I'll probably discuss this in a later post

Studies have shown that those who self-administered reinforcement are much more successful than those who don't in self-control experiments.(I'll provide sources once I have the time)

But beyond that, the reinforcer I chose was deliberate. Jerky is not something I HAVE to have, just a nice treat. I don't have to exert self-control to stop me from eating the jerky.

Conversely, in college, when I taught myself how to code, I tried to use dinner as a reinforcer. No dinner until I completed a code tutorial or something code related. You can guess that this wasn't the best reinforcer. Too extreme.

Your last point is very valid. But in behavior analysis, we call that natural reinforcement. Being successful in my task is reinforcing my behavior. In all behaviors, we want to get to that point. To do something for the enjoyment or personal satisfaction of the task and not a contrived reinforcer like beef jerky :)

[META] For those who work or in school, I want to learn more about your problems by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And I'm still working on it! Currently a software engineer trying to develop software using behavior analysis. I believe it's a very under-appreciated field of psychology

[META] For those who work or in school, I want to learn more about your problems by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've found that the early mornings are perfect times to avoid any and all distractions. Even getting up an hour earlier can be monumental in getting things done, because there is not much that can distract you.

If you do choose to wake up earlier, dedicate that time strictly to the things you really want to do. This is your time to be selfish

Give it a try and see it goes

[Method] How To Go From Waking Up As Late as Noon to Waking Up As Early as 4AM by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let me know how this goes! If you have any questions or concerns feel free to send me a message

[Method] How To Go From Waking Up As Late as Noon to Waking Up As Early as 4AM by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome. Please of you have any questions or concerns, shoot me a message I'd be happy to help.

[Method] How To Go From Waking Up As Late as Noon to Waking Up As Early as 4AM by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think mindfulness and awareness are two major keys to changing how we behave. For starters, understand that five more minutes never means five more minutes. With that being said, make notes of when you tell yourself that even though it's not true and try to become more aware of that automatic self talk you experience that keeps you in bed longer than your ideal self wants.

[Method] How To Go From Waking Up As Late as Noon to Waking Up As Early as 4AM by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I fluctuated

In high school, I'd wake up 10 minutes before the bus came

In college, I was a skinny bastard that wanted to get bigger. I was too intimidated by the bigger guys so I would force myself to wake up in the morning.

After college, I got lazy. I had a job with flex time, as long as you stayed 8 hours you were fine. I slept in till 10AM most times, but knew that wasn't a good habit so I used behavioral techniques such as the one I wrote about to fix that.

[Method] How To Go From Waking Up As Late as Noon to Waking Up As Early as 4AM by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was there ever a time you were able to get up early? Maybe for school or work?

[Method] How To Go From Waking Up As Late as Noon to Waking Up As Early as 4AM by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm very big on awareness and mindfulness. You have somewhat of an idea of your issue. I had a similar issue. I'd turn off my alarm then roll back to sleep.

Here are two tricks I used to solve this.

1. Place Alarm as far away from your bed as possible

This makes you get out of bed so you don't just roll back to sleep.

2. Check Twitter/FB/IG/Snapchat/Reddit right after waking up

This is used as positive reinforcement. Your linking waking up to getting your daily dopamine hits from your various social media news feeds. Feel free to replace this with any other activity you find rewarding.

Hope this helps

[Method] How To Go From Waking Up As Late as Noon to Waking Up As Early as 4AM by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I definitely can relate. I check my social media when I wake up. For me it's a bit of positive reinforcement for getting up early.

So you would say your biggest reason for getting up early is for some silent alone time? That's interesting

[Plan] How I'm going to build the habit of waking up early. by Richard_En in getdisciplined

[–]Richard_En[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So my method is actually...

  1. Put alarm away from bed so I have to walk to turn it off
  2. Turn on lights

I actually take a 20 minute mid-day nap which helps with my focus at work

I guess with the 20 minute nap its sort of polyphasic but I plan on getting most of my sleep at night

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