Psych In Your World: Using The 3 P's To Be A Good Person

By Angelica Aguirre

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The “Psych In Your World” video series features short lectures by psychology professors at Minnesota State University, Mankato on a range of topics connected to psychology. These videos were created as resources for teachers of psychology at all levels. We also provide discussion questions for each video for you to use with your students.

Here, psychologist Dr. Angelica Aguirre talks about the field of applied behavior analysis. This is an area of psychology where psychologists and clinicians use basic principles of learning and behaviors to help shape people's behaviors, such as improving communication and social skills in individuals with cognitive disabilities. 

As you watch the video, think about the following discussion questions: 

  • Why might it be difficult for a teacher/parent to use the basic principle of “Planned Ignore Inappropriate Behavior”? 

  • What is the difference between a reinforcer and a reward? 

  • Dr. Aguirre talked about how when appropriate behaviors happen more frequently, we can start fading out the reinforcer. What do you think would happen if we just abruptly took away the reinforcement instead of fading it? 

Resources

Autism is one of the most researched cognitive disabilities and much of this desire to learn about its causes and features centers on assisting children and their parents with behavior change. The ‘All Autism Talk’ podcast includes a number of conversations with people in the autism community.

This lesson plan includes additional discussion questions and activities to accompany this video.

Outreach, PedagogyKarla Lassonde