BehaviorBehavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as well as the inanimate physical environment. It is the computed response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary.
Positive behavior supportPositive behavior support (PBS) uses tools from applied behaviour analysis and values of normalisation and social role valorisation theory to improve quality of life, usually in schools. PBS uses functional analysis to understand what maintains an individual's challenging behavior and how to support the individual to get these needs met in more appropriate way, instead of using 'challenging behaviours'. People's inappropriate behaviors are difficult to change because they are functional; they serve a purpose for them.
Positive psychologyPositive psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the conditions that contribute to the optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions... it aims to improve quality of life." It is a field of study that has grown as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being. Positive psychology began as a new domain of psychology in 1998 when Martin Seligman chose it as the theme for his term as president of the American Psychological Association.
Behavior modificationBehavior modification is an early approach that used respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior. Based on methodological behaviorism, overt behavior was modified with consequences, including positive and negative reinforcement contingencies to increase desirable behavior, or administering positive and negative punishment and/or extinction to reduce problematic behavior. It also used Flooding desensitization to combat phobias.
Human behaviorHuman behavior is the potential and expressed capacity (mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Behavior is driven by genetic and environmental factors that affect an individual. Behavior is also driven, in part, by thoughts and feelings, which provide insight into individual psyche, revealing such things as attitudes and values. Human behavior is shaped by psychological traits, as personality types vary from person to person, producing different actions and behavior.
Subjective well-beingSubjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire. Ed Diener developed a tripartite model of subjective well-being in 1984, which describes how people experience the quality of their lives and includes both emotional reactions and cognitive judgments. It posits "three distinct but often related components of wellbeing: frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and cognitive evaluations such as life satisfaction.
Behavior analysis of child developmentThe behavioral analysis of child development originates from John B. Watson's behaviorism. In 1948, Sidney Bijou took a position as associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington and served as director of the university's Institute of Child Development. Under his leadership, the Institute added a child development clinic and nursery school classrooms where they conducted research that would later accumulate into the area that would be called "Behavior Analysis of Child Development".
Applied behavior analysisApplied behavior analysis (ABA), also called behavioral engineering, is a psychological intervention that applies empirical approaches based upon the principles of respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior of social significance. It is the applied form of behavior analysis; the other two forms are radical behaviorism (or the philosophy of the science) and the experimental analysis of behavior (or basic experimental laboratory research).
Adaptive behaviorAdaptive behavior is behavior that enables a person (usually used in the context of children) to cope in their environment with greatest success and least conflict with others. This is a term used in the areas of psychology and special education. Adaptive behavior relates to everyday skills or tasks that the "average" person is able to complete, similar to the term life skills. Nonconstructive or disruptive social or personal behaviors can sometimes be used to achieve a constructive outcome.
Stimulus controlIn behavioral psychology (or applied behavior analysis), stimulus control is a phenomenon in operant conditioning (also called contingency management) that occurs when an organism behaves in one way in the presence of a given stimulus and another way in its absence. A stimulus that modifies behavior in this manner is either a discriminative stimulus (Sd) or stimulus delta (S-delta). Stimulus-based control of behavior occurs when the presence or absence of an Sd or S-delta controls the performance of a particular behavior.
