In animal training it is said that best way to get rid of an undesired behaviour is to train the animal with an incompatible behaviour. For example if you have a problem with your dog chasing cats, train it to sit whenever it sees a cat—it can’t sit and chase at the same time. Googling “incompatible behavior” or “Differential Reinforcement of an Incompatible Behavior” yields lots of discussion.
The book Don’t Shoot the Dog talks a lot about this, and suggests that the same should be true for people. (This is a very Less Wrong-style book: half if it is very expert advice on animal training, half of it is animal-training-inspired self-help, which is probably on much less solid ground, but presented in a rational, scientific, extremely appealing style.)
Behaviorism in its original form assumed that thoughts or emotions don’t exist, or at least that it is unscientific to talk about them. Later behaviorists took less extreme positions, and allowed “black boxes” in their models corresponding to things that can’t be measured (before inventing EEG).
In CBT the “B” stands for behavioral, but “C” stands for cognitive, which is like the exact of behaviorism. CBT is partially based on behaviorism, but the other essential root is so-called Rational Therapy. (Fun fact for LW readers: the Rational Therapy was inspired by Alfred “the map is not the territory” Korzybski. It’s a small world.)
In animal training it is said that best way to get rid of an undesired behaviour is to train the animal with an incompatible behaviour. For example if you have a problem with your dog chasing cats, train it to sit whenever it sees a cat—it can’t sit and chase at the same time. Googling “incompatible behavior” or “Differential Reinforcement of an Incompatible Behavior” yields lots of discussion.
The book Don’t Shoot the Dog talks a lot about this, and suggests that the same should be true for people. (This is a very Less Wrong-style book: half if it is very expert advice on animal training, half of it is animal-training-inspired self-help, which is probably on much less solid ground, but presented in a rational, scientific, extremely appealing style.)
When it comes to training animals you can only go through behavorism. On the other hand when training people you can use CBT and other approaches.
Excuse my ignorance, but isn’t CBT based on behaviorism?
Behaviorism in its original form assumed that thoughts or emotions don’t exist, or at least that it is unscientific to talk about them. Later behaviorists took less extreme positions, and allowed “black boxes” in their models corresponding to things that can’t be measured (before inventing EEG).
In CBT the “B” stands for behavioral, but “C” stands for cognitive, which is like the exact of behaviorism. CBT is partially based on behaviorism, but the other essential root is so-called Rational Therapy. (Fun fact for LW readers: the Rational Therapy was inspired by Alfred “the map is not the territory” Korzybski. It’s a small world.)
CBT has many parts like the acceptance paradox that have nothing to do with behaviorism.