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increasing or decreasing the reinforcing or avoid and escape from them provide value of a particular consequence. This negative reinforcement. For example, one is called establishing operation. For learns to put on woollen clothes, burn example, if a child gives trouble in eating firewood or use electric heaters to avoid the dinner, an establishing operation would unpleasant cold weather. One learns to be to decrease the quantity of food served move away from dangerous stimuli at tea time. This would increase the because they provide negative hunger at dinner and thereby increase reinforcement. Aversive conditioning the reinforcing value of food at dinner. refers to repeated association of undesired Praising the child when s/he eats response with an aversive consequence. properly tends to encourage this behaviour. For example, an alcoholic is given a mild The antecedent operation is the reduction electric shock and asked to smell the of food at tea time and the consequent alcohol. With repeated pairings the smell of operation is praising the child for eating alcohol is aversive as the pain of the shock dinner. It establishes the response of is associated with it and the person will eating dinner. give up alcohol. If an adaptive behaviour Behavioural Techniques occurs rarely, positive reinforcement is A range of techniques is available for given to increase the deficit. For example, if a child does not do homework regularly, changing behaviour. The principles of positive reinforcement may be used by the these techniques are to reduce the arousal level of the client, alter behaviour child’s mother by preparing the child’s through classical conditioning or operant favourite dish whenever s/he does homework at the appointed time. The conditioning with different contingencies positive reinforcement of food will increase of reinforcements, as well as to use the behaviour of doing homework at the vicarious learning procedures, if necessary. appointed time. Persons with behavioural problems can be given a token as a reward Negative reinforcement and aversive every time a wanted behaviour occurs. The conditioning are the two major techniques tokens are collected and exchanged for a of behaviour modification. As you have already studied in Class XI, responses that reward such as an outing for the patient or a treat for the child. This is known as lead organisms to get rid of painful stimuli token economy. Box Relaxation Procedures 5.2 Anxiety is a manifestation of the psychological distress for which the client seeks treatment. The behavioural therapist views anxiety as increasing the arousal level of the client, thereby acting as an antecedent factor in causing the faulty behaviour. The client may smoke to decrease anxiety, may indulge in other activities such as eating, or be unable to concentrate for long hours on her/his study because of the anxiety. Therefore, reduction of anxiety would decrease the unwanted behaviours of excessive eating or smoking. Relaxation procedures are used to decrease the anxiety levels. For instance, progressivemuscularrelaxation andmeditation induce a state of relaxation. In progressive muscular relaxation, the client is taught to contract individual muscle groups in order to give the awareness of tenseness or muscular tension. After the client has learnt to tense the muscle group such as the forearm, the client is asked to let go the tension. The client is told that the tension is what the client has at present and that s/he has to get into the opposite state. With repeated practice the client learns to relax all the muscles of the body. You will learn about meditation at a later point in this chapter. 95 Chapter 5 • Therapeutic Approaches Reprint 2026-27