Behavior Modification Project Observation Report

Caught in the Action For my behavior modification project, I chose to eliminate the number of times that I would bite my nails. This project was taken over the course of eight continuous days. For the first four days, I tracked and recorded the number of times I was biting my nails during a half-hour time span and what situational factors and stimuli caused me to do this. Following the first four days, the next four days I chose a positive reinforcer that would help me from biting my nails. My hypothesis for this experiment goes as follows: When a reward is in place for reaching a certain amount of smiley faces, the amount of times I bit my nails will decrease. The independent variable is a reward that is in place for a certain number of

In the first day of tracking the amount of times, I was biting my fingers nails it was clear that this would occur when I was placed in a stressful situation. For example, in the first two hours after awakening up I found myself biting my nails. This happened when I was in my lecture class taking notes. I became very anxious about all the information that we were given and the fact that no one was talking was making it even worse as the teacher was becoming more frustrated. Biting my nails occurred because my hand was in a position where I was able to see just a glimpse of white which then caused me to want to bit my nails. As the day continued and I was placed into other stressful situations especially studying my tendency of biting my nails continued. As a result, in my class as well as studying I was not able to write down information because I was biting my nails. The second day of recording was not much different. Although I was not in the stressful class environment my tendency for biting my nails grew, even more, when I was on the golf course. During the bus ride to the course, I found myself in the half-hour spans of two hours biting my nails four times. This was due to the fact that