behaviour modification report idl

INDIVIDUAL DYNAMICS AND LEADERSHIP

PROJECT ON

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION OF STUDENTS RESIDING IN FLATS TO SWITCH OFF THE ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENTS WHEN NOT IN USE

SUBMITTED BY

GROUP 8G034 AVINASH KUMAR G040 SAURABH MISHRA G042 ABHIROOP MUKHERJEE G055 AMARTYA SEN G062 V ANURAG NAVEEN THEJA

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Individual Dynamics and Leadership

CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Purpose of the project 4

Explanation of behaviour modification and learning principles 4

Behaviour to be changed 5

Intervention used 6

Data collection 7

Pre-intervention data 8

Post-intervention data 9

Results and its implications 11

Recommendations for improvement 12

Learnings from the project 12

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES �2


INTRODUCTION At some point of time, we must have felt or witnessed certain physical or behavioural reactions like whenever we talk about our favourite food our mouth starts watering, or we check right & left and then cross the road, these responses are almost involuntary and are hard to explain. Such behaviours and responses are learnt by our subconscious through individual experiences and are integrated into our natural behaviour. This learning occurs all the time. Thus, a generally accepted definition of learning is “any relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience”. So, the learning modifies our behaviour by strengthening desirable ones or by weakening the undesirable. With this in mind we introspected and tried to identify a particular behaviour which can be modified and will have certain value addition. The options we had are as follows:

To keep our rooms cleanTo wash one’s dishes after useTo keep the keys and other important items in proper placesTo switch off the electrical equipments when not in useTo throw garbage in dustbin

Among those we opted to modify the behaviour of students to switch off the electrical equipments when not in use.


“The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.” B.F. Skinner


PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT The selected behaviour modification target was selected because it had important and value oriented future implications. The electrical devices we had taken into consideration ranged from high to low load. The considered devices consisted of Air Conditioner, Geyser, Fan, Tube light and bulbs. The implication of switching off the not in use equipments had both short & long term benefits. The short term benefit was reduction in the electricity bill which will improve our real financials. The long term benefits would be value addition like understanding the negatives of wastage of resources along with being a responsible citizen.

EXPLANATION OF BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION AND LEARNING PRINCIPLES Behaviour modification is the process of replacing the undesirable behaviours with desirable behaviours by altering the individual's reaction to stimuli through positive or negative reinforcement or reducing the frequency of undesirable behaviour by extinction or punishment. Behaviour modification is based on the principles of operant conditioning. Behaviour modification techniques can be classified into the following types:

Reinforcement Theory: Reinforcement is the process in which a behaviour is strengthened by the immediate consequence that reliably follows its occurrence. Any strengthened behaviour is unlikely to occur in the future. One of the earliest examples of reinforcement was Thorndike’s cat experiment (1911). A hungry cat was put in a cage and food was kept outside the cage. The cage had a special lever, which when hit would open up the gate thus allowing the cat to get to the food. In the beginning the cat was trying to get to the food by biting the cage bars, trying to get through the bars but was unsuccessful in getting the food. Once by mistake it hit the lever which opened the gate and the cat got the food. The next time it was put into the cage it took lesser time to get to the food and, thus learning each time. This was termed as law of effect. In this experiment the target was the cat, getting to the food was the consequence and hitting the lever was the behaviour. More experiments were conducted by B. F. Skinner on pigeons and rat validating the theory. Reinforcement concept can be classified as:

Positive Reinforcement: When any desirable behaviour is followed by a positive consequence, the reinforcement is termed as positive reinforcement. The positive consequence can be anything like a treat, bonus, appreciation or award after the desirable action. It is a sort of reward based system. The reward is linked to the desirable behaviour which makes it important, thus the person tries to iterate the positive behaviour.

Negative Reinforcement: When any desirable behaviour is not followed by a negative consequence, the reinforcement is termed as negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement strengthens a behavioural response by taking away a negative



outcome. This makes the target avoid the negative consequence by avoiding the negative action.

Punishment Theory: When an undesirable behaviour is followed by a negative consequence it is termed as Punishment. The target links the negative consequence to the undesirable behaviour and tries to avoid it. Punishment can work either by directly applying an unpleasant stimulus like a shock after a response or by removing a potentially rewarding stimulus. The negative consequences can be pay cut, lower incentive and attendance loss.

Extinction Theory: It is an alternative to punishment technique which attempts to weaken an undesirable behaviour by attaching no consequence to the behaviour. For example if a student participates in discussion just for the sake of participation, the professor will not comment on it while a serious participation may be appreciated in front of the class.

BEHAVIOUR TO BE CHANGED We have all been told as a child to save electricity. It formed an important topic in our science subject. But still many of us fail to do so even after so many years of education. There are several underlying reasons behind this such as:

Lack to motivation: We do not have motivation so as why to take this ‘save electricity’ seriously. We feel we do not get anything in return for displaying such behaviour.

Lack of Vision: There is a thinking that people around are already saving electricity and what difference does it make if one person does not switch off not-in-use devices.

Carelessness: Many of us do not care that it is an important issue we are ignoring. We do not realise the gravity of situation at macro level.

Time management: Many are in a hurry when leaving the flats and hence forget to switch off the devices.

Monetary issues: As children we did not have to pay the bills and hence did not understand the monetary impacts. Also, when we stay in hostels the bill is already covered in the hostel fees and hence, financially this never seems to be an issue.

Through this project we are trying to understand the behaviour of students of NMIMS staying in flats who do not switch off the devices when leaving the flats or when not in use and hence, leading to higher electricity bills. We are all adults now and is time for us to lead others by examples and hence, should behave responsibly and imbibe it in our behaviour to save electricity.



INTERVENTION USED For behaviour modification we have used positive intervention and punishment methods independently.

The positive reinforcement used here was the motivation to save electricity bill (Fig. 2) for the next month and the money hence saved can be used for other purposes. One thing most of us have realised from our stay in Mumbai is that we need to manage our financials properly. One more positive reinforcement was the motivation to act responsibly. To achieve this we created posters and pasted it outside the main door and on the washroom door (Fig 1).

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Fig 1: Stimuli for positive reinforcement

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Fig 2: Saurabh’s electricity bill for last month



The punishment used here was the ‘Board of Shame’ (Fig. 3) concept where in the person with most defaults in a week is highlighted. The defaulter has to treat all other flatmates and do the household chores on Sunday.

Fig 3: Shame chart for Avinash’s Flat

Choosing these two interventions individually helped us compare which of these acted as a better behaviour modification technique.

DATA COLLECTION The data has been collected on daily basis for three weeks:

Week 1 - Pre-interventionWeek 2 - Post-intervention with punishmentWeek 3 - Post-intervention with positive reinforcement

We collected data based on how many times a day the devices such as lights, fans, geyser and air conditioners were found in ON condition when no one was using those. This is called defaults. So, the tables having the data in coming sections shows the number of



defaults by flatmates in three different flats in the course of 3 weeks. To count the number of defaults, each one in the flat informed others relating to the number of defaults he has observed during the course of the day. The cumulative response of all flatmates for a given day was recorded.

PRE INTERVENTION DATA We formulated a table (Table 1) for week 1, i.e., 13th July to 19th July to observe the behaviour of the flat-mates when no intervention was being applied. The tables have been shown below. It has data from 3 different flats.


Saurabh’s Flat

Date 13th July 14th July 15th July 16th July 17th July 18th July 19th July Total

Parth 1 2 3

Nishant 1 1 2

Archish 2 2 1 5

Abhiroop 1 1 2

Saurabh 1 1

Total 2 2 2 1 1 1 4 13

Avinash’s Flat


Chandrahas 1 2 1 4

Nitin 2 2 4

Revanth 1 1 2

Ajanya 1 1 1 3

Avinash 1 1

Total 3 1 3 2 1 2 2 14


Table 1: Week 1 - Pre Intervention data

POST INTERVENTION DATA Method of data collection here was similar as mentioned above but now it was with intervention applied to see how intervention helped one modify his/her behaviour

In week 2 - 20th July to 26th July we used punishment as the intervention and recorded the data for change in behaviour of the flatmates. The below table shows the data collected.


Saurabh’s Flat

Date 20th July 21st July 22nd July 23rd July 24th July 25th July 26th July Total

Parth 1 2 3

Nishant 2 2

Archish 1 1 2

Abhiroop 1 1

Saurabh 1 1

Total 0 0 1 1 3 1 3 9

Amartya’s Flat


Saurabh 1 1 2

Rathin 2 1 1 4

Premanshu 1 1 2

Shashank 1 1 2

Amartya 2 1 3

Total 0 0 2 2 4 1 4 13


Table 2: Week 2 - Post Intervention data

In week 3 - 27th July to 2nd August we used the positive reinforcement as the intervention and recorded the data accordingly. The data collected is shown below


Amartya’s Flat


Saurabh 1 2 1 1 5

Rathin 2 1 3

Premanshu 1 1 1 3

Shashank 1 1 2

Amartya 1 2 1 4

Total 2 2 3 3 3 2 2 17

Avinash’s Flat


Chandrahas 1 1 2

Nitin 1 2 3

Revanth 1 1 2

Ajanya 1 1 2

Avinash 1 1

Total 1 0 1 1 2 3 2 10

Saurabh’s Flat

Date 27th July 28th July 29th July 30th July 31st July 1st Aug 2nd Aug Total

Parth 1 1

Nishant 0

Archish 1 1

Abhiroop 0

Saurabh 1 1

Total 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 3


Table 3: Week 3 - Post intervention data

RESULTS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS Number of defaults were reduced by both the interventions and in all the flats which were under study indicated that intervention had worked.

We observed that positive reinforcement was a better intervention in modifying the behaviour. Reasons for this can be the motivation to save money by reducing the electricity bill, the feel good factor about oneself after modifying one’s behaviour in a positive way and also the message on the poster motivated them to do it on a regular basis.

The punishment was also effective because no one wanted to waste their Sunday in doing chores, but were not that good as compared to positive reinforcement. The reason for this may be the punishment was not severe enough to bring about a drastic change in the behaviour or we being friends the punishment could not make an impact.


Avinash’s Flat


Chandrahas 1 1

Nitin 1 1

Revanth 0

Ajanya 0

Avinash 0

Total 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 2

Amartya’s Flat


Saurabh 0

Rathin 1 1

Premanshu 1 1

Shashank 0

Amartya 1 1

Total 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 3


Fig 4: Trend of defaults for three weeks

RECOMMENDATION FOR IMPROVEMENT Both punishment and reinforcement can be used together to see if it further improves the results. This project can be extended to offices and classrooms where a person spends considerable amount of his/her time. As one wears a helmet while riding a bike or uses seat belt while driving similarly when it comes to saving electricity it has to become a part of ones personality. This is possible through behaviour modification and daily practice. The motivation to act responsibly has to be the biggest driving force in achieving it.

LEARNINGS FROM THE PROJECT There were many learnings from the project not just from subject point of view but also learnings in general. Some of them are as follows:

Importance of teamwork was a key learning. Initially, all of us felt that the topic was very difficult. But all of us sat down and started discussing on things related to the topic and inputs from each one proved instrumental and we were able to finish the project.

Everyone has some qualities which is unique and working together in a team helps to leverage these qualities and achieve better results.


0

4.5

9

13.5

18

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3

Saurabh’s Flat Amartya’s Flat Avinash’s Flat


We were able to relate to the theories studied in the subject and the relevance of the subject in day-to-day life.

Also, we learned to accept one another’s opinions by setting aside the differences. This was important for the best outcome of the group.

Proper Time management was also a learning. With so many projects and activities in hand, it was essential to devote time judiciously to different things.

Learning from peers, one of the goals of joining a B-school, was seen clearly while working for this project.


behaviour modification report idl

Documents

behaviour of students

behaviour modification

natural behaviour

particular behaviour

postintervention data

preintervention data

electrical equipments

skinner individual dynamics