Dear Diary

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Through the course of multiple journal entries, I pushed myself to defeat a common addiction/problem I have had all my life. I attempted to be healthier, better me, picking the salad instead of the cheeseburger or the veggie sub instead of pepperoni pizza. At the beginning of this experiment, I worked really hard to achieve these goals, picking a healthy sub or salad and drinking water rather than soda. If I did achieve these goals, I would reward myself by watching an episode of my favorite T.V show, relaxing and just enjoying my night. Later in the week, I was not as successful with my goals, eating late night sweets and drinking soda for dinner. I believe my behavior for eating and drinking healthier fluctuated by day, as some days I were better than others. I feel the biggest problem was not enough motivation. If I were to do it all over again, I would pick something else as my reinforcement.

 This idea of reinforcement and behavior comes from this leaning psychology called operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is where you use positive/ negative reinforcement to increase a behavior and negative/positive punishment to decrease a behavior.
Using a journal and attempting to decrease a behavior or increase a behavior by using negative/positive reinforcement or punishment is an example of Operant Conditioning. 

I challenge you to do this yourself!! Make a journal and  write down each day how you tried to change your addiction/ behavior. See if



Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 9, 2018 at 8:25 PM

    Loved your blog! I completely agree on how difficult it is to stay motivated, especially when it comes to eating better. I am the exact same way, I will start to eat better and workout and then slowly fade away from what I originally set my mind on. I love how you tied this into everything we are talking about in psych.

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  2. Aylin NeriMarch 12, 2018 at 8:31 PM

    Hey Ben! This was such a great blog! I tried eating healthy at the beginning of this semester and it was so diffcult! SO I can definitely relate to you and your 7-day challange description! I liked how you mentioned something from last weeks lecture! The only thing I have a concern about is the ending of your typing. It may just be my laptop, and correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like you you didn't finish your sentence at the very end before you show the screenshots of the journal entries. Other than that you did great!!

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