Behavioral Psychology: Case Studies

Introduction

The contemporary world has been on a continuous trend to understand and appreciate human psychology. Mental wellness is a significant concern due to the increase in the prevalence of stress, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. The case studies present individuals whose behavior is dictated by the environments in which they live. Behavioral psychology reveals critical stimuli that define human conduct allowing strong interventions that reform and restore positive behaviors.

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The Case of Emily

Case Summary

Emily is a 6-year old child who no longer wants to attend school. She claims that school is not fun anymore and she would rather stay at home. The problem escalated to screaming tantrums whenever she is about to be taken to school. She also bangs her head on the floor in an attempt to hurt herself and portrays how she hates the routine of going to school. Emily refuses to sleep on her bed and has to sleep on her parent's bed and be transferred to her's later. She often wakes up at night, screams and wakes up the entire family.

Target Behavior

The target behavior in Emily's case is making her love school and understand why she needs to attend one. Another behavior targeted in the case is restoring her normal sleeping patterns.

Hypothesis

Emily is insecure and screams out of fear.

The cognitive events causing insecurity are at the school since she finds no peace and fun in attending it.

Behavior Modification

To treat Emily's school refusal behavior, one has to understand the conditions or events that led to it. School refusal is often caused by an array of factors that may be either related or independent. A psychologist needs to understand the conditions that Emily faces at home. Stressful situations at home or school affect a child's opinion on school and resultant behaviors. Emily may have stressful events at school because she is peaceful at home and loves to sleep in her parent's bed. Furthermore, the stressful conditions may be caused by difficulties in establishing peer relationships or challenges in grasping the content and achieving academic success. Human beings are social, and despite Emily's young age, she too has the desire to bond with other people and share random knowledge (Miltenberger, 2012).

School refusal may also be caused by bullying and problems with teachers. Emily needs to explain to a psychologist the relationships that she has with her fellow schoolmates and teachers. She is so adamant in refusing to attend school and would prefer to hurt her head than go to one. Refusing to go to school enables her to either escape the foiled relationships, the bullying and offers her the attention of her parents. However, Emily does not enjoy staying at home either. She occasionally screams while sleeping in her room and wakes up her whole family. The behavior reveals that she is scared of something. Her numerous screams only occur while she is sleeping alone meaning that she is often afraid that something terrible would happen.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy would allow Emily to improve her mental awareness and strategies for coping with stressful and scary things. CBT is action-oriented where a behaviorist would lead Emily to practice actions that enhance her sense of security (Miltenberger, 2012). For instance, she can be directed to developing a sleeping pattern on her own and a sense of responsibility so that she does not entirely rely on her parents. The enhanced emotional awareness would further nurture her attitude towards school and make her understand the reward for learning.

Both parents and the school have critical roles to play in treating Emily's sleep refusal. Parents can encourage children to attend school and be more open to learning by observing positivity and using encouraging statements to their children. For instance, Emily's parents should tell her how going to school makes her brave and empowered. The reassuring remarks build confidence in the child and create a sense of responsibility whose reward is happiness. '

The interventions by Emily's parents are not in line with positive reinforcement. The contingencies of reinforcement tie behavior to its reward or consequences. The parents decided to let Emily stay at home and sleep on their bed where she felt secure. The interventions worsened her conditioned since by staying at home they rewarded her for her ill behavior. The parents ought to have given a direct command to Emily to nurture discipline and show control.

Monitoring & Analyzing Results

The chosen intervention plan seeks to identify the cause of insecurity in Emily and solve it. According to her teacher, Emily is a good student and has no quarrels with school administration. The intervention would let her explain why she hates going to school and the kind of changes that she has experienced over the course of her early school life. The intervention will answer questions such as; why was school fun before? How was Emily when she started school? Does she understand the reason for attending school?

Emily's behavior modification would be monitored by observing her attitude towards school and self-drive towards sleep. Her parents will record the days when Emily was positive about going to school and the times when she was able to sleep in her room without the screaming tantrums. The records would provide data for statistical conclusions to the effectiveness of the behavior modification model. Furthermore, the recorded data would help modify the intervention to include other aspects of psychological care as and when need be.

The Case of Mr. Smith

Case Summary

Mr. Smith is the head of a company that manufactures custom figure skates. He faces the problem of employee absenteeism and needs intervention on how to deal with it. He only manages 30 employees in his small firm yet the employees stress him out when they fail to meet production thresholds and disappoint his customers. If the harmful behavior continues, the company may have to close. Mr. Smith tried offering refreshments to his employees, but the plan only made the situation worse. He faces a critical human resource plan whose intervention requires understanding the psychology of employees while appealing to motivation and loyalty.

Target Behavior

The target behavior in the case is employee motivation and nurturing loyalty. Mr. Smith's employees show no motivation in their work since they attend work only when they feel like so and they do not respect organizational authority. Mr. Smith may have shown laxity in showing power and control over the employees, and thus he needs to change his behavior. Mr. Smith needs to attain the target behavior of charisma. He needs to learn leadership style that will place him at the pinnacle of his company's authority and control the employees.

Hypothesis

Mr. Smith is a weak leader who shows little or no charisma despite his positional power as the owner of the company.

The employees receive minimal benefits and thus show no motivation to work.

The HR department in Mr. Smith's company does not address employee psychology and matters of employee turnover.

Behavior Modification

The case presents a case of poor human resource management strategies. Mr. Smith is a weak leader, and he too needs to change his behavior lest his company fall apart. First, Mr. Smith needs to adopt a more autocratic leadership style. The manufacturing world mostly involves the repetition of the same processes and principles over a long period since employees make the same products every day. As a result, an autocratic leadership style is valid since it allows leaders to offer direct direction to employees without question (Bolman & Deal, 2017). Mr. Smith should be able to direct his employees to attain the set production target without fail.

Furthermore, an autocratic leadership style would allow Mr. Smith to eradicate employee turnover problems through reward and punishment. The employees who fail to report to work can have their salaries reduced and their benefits scrapped. However, for such an intervention strategy to work, the company needs to have a clearly stated HR policy that ties reward or compensation to performance (Bolman & Deal, 2017). The plan would allow the highly productive employees to receive more rewards than their poor counterparts. Conversely, since Mr. Smith shows no control over his employees, there is the probability of resistance and high chances of strikes and laxity. He should liaise with the employees in an open forum, explain the subject of concern and autocratically state the way forward.

Mr. Smith's employees suffer from poor motivation. People respond to stimuli in the environment and develop attitudes and behaviors that define their interactions and overall conduct (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007). A behaviorist would research the kind of remuneration strategies applied, the HR support systems and the nature of work done in the company. For instance, the employees may be involved in hard labor that they struggle to keep fit all week long. The employees may be poorly paid that they seek side hustles as a means of supplementing their income. The employees may be rudely addressed and managed that they find reasons to reduce productivity and eventually kill Mr. Smith's company. A clear intervention would be to set up a support department that addresses the employee's concerns and behaviors. The department would identify erratic employees and intervene to alter their behavior. The department would also offer psychological help to employees to make an appealing and healthy workplace where happiness and loyalty thrives.

Monitoring & Analyzing Results

The case of Mr. Smith is critically reliant on data. A behavioral therapist requires data on remuneration, working hours working conditions, rewards and bonuses, management strategies data among other data to provide a plausible intervention for Mr. Smith. For example, data on working hours and remuneration would help understand the state of motivation in the workforce. Poor pay and long working hours are often factors that water-down employee motivation. Once the data is provided, the behaviorist would understand the root cause of the erratic employee behavior and suggest an intervention strategy.

In case the intervention is adapted, a direct measure of success is the rate of employee lateness and productivity. Mr. Smith would record the productivity of each employee as well as the attendance. Employees who fail to conform to the outlined strategies in the new leadership style can be laid off temporarily or fired.

Conclusion

Human beings are indeed adaptive beings whose actions and behavior depend on factors of stimuli in the environment. Emily showed disregard for school and inability to sleep on her bed because she was scared about something. Cognitive behavioral therapy would help her overcome the fear. Mr. Smith's employees showed a lack of motivation and loyalty. Understanding their psychology would allow Mr. Smith to change the factors that cause them to abscond their responsibilities.

References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. John Wiley & Sons.

Cooper, J.O., Heron, T.E. & Heward, W.L. (2007). Applied Behavior Analysis (2nd Ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Miltenberger, R. (2012). Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures (5th Ed). [Purdue Global]. Retrieved from purdueuniversityglobal.vitalsource.com