Behavior modification

Behavior modification is the traditional term for the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of behavior through its extinction, punishment and/or satiation. It is similar to operant conditioning but with the absence of the antecedent. Behavior modification is now known as Applied behavior analysis (ABA) which is more analytical than it used to be.

Description

The first use of the term behavior modification appears to have been by Edward Thorndike in 1911. His article Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning makes frequent use of the term "modifying behavior". Through early research in the 1940s and the 1950s the term was used by Joseph Wolpe's research group. The experimental tradition in clinical psychology used it to refer to psycho-therapeutic techniques derived from empirical research. It has since come to refer mainly to techniques for increasing adaptive behavior through reinforcement and decreasing maladaptive behavior through extinction or punishment (with emphasis on the former). Behavior modification is a form of Behavior therapy now known as Applied behavior analysis. Emphasizing the empirical roots of behavior modification, some authors consider it to be broader in scope and to subsume the other two categories of behavior change methods.

Behavior Modification (journal)

Behavior Modification is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research in the field of behavior modification. The editor-in-chief is Alan S. Bellack (University of Maryland). It was established in 1977 and is currently published by SAGE Publications.

Abstracting and indexing

Behavior Modification is abstracted and indexed in Scopus and the Social Sciences Citation Index. According to the Journal Citation Reports, its 2010 impact factor is 1.585, ranking it 49 out of 104 journals in the category "Psychology, Clinical".

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