Behavioral modification in athletes

Behavioral modification in athletes

Introduction

Behavior modification is a process used by different psychologist's parents and therapist to change the behavior of a person or animal. The change in behavior takes place by using positive or negative reinforcement of acceptable behavior. This is also the method used to change the behavior of person in response of different stimuli. Positive and negative reinforcement procedures are used to add positive reinforcement in ones behavior and to reject negative behavior. This change in behavior is known as behavior modification. Behavior modification is used to change the behavior of a person either by using punishment or any reward. It is the human nature that its behavior changes due to certain events in it life. For example if a child is scolded over anything then he or he will try to ignore that thing in the future whereas if a child is regarded or rewarded for any act than they will try to repeat that act again and again. Classical conditioning is another part of behavior modification. Classical conditioning is the acknowledgement of the stimulus producing any change in the behavior. The technique of sorting out the reason for behavior change plays an important role in diagnosis and the start of appropriate treatment (Miltenberger, 2011).

In Rome Olympic games that took place in early 1960's, Europeans thought to find out some relation between psychology and athletics. Hence Europeans were the first ones who involved psychology in the athletic arena and laid down the foundation of sports psychology. Some practitioners performed interesting research on athletes however; their contributions were not that worthy. The research carried out by practitioners did not focus over athletes and coaches as the source of information for the improvement of athletic performances (Hersen et.al, 2005).

B.F. Skinner in 1938 laid the concept of operant conditioning. This concept concludes that the consequences of the behavior produce changes in the probability of the behaviors future occurrence. If any behavior is entertained by any sort of reward than there is a probability that it may reoccur. However, if any behavior is entertained by punishing stimulus then there are fewer chances for this to reoccur. For example if an athlete wins and receives different rewards than that athlete will try to win every time to again receive those rewards. However, if the athlete looses the game then he or she may become disappointed. Skinners approach argues that a shy person learned to be shy because of the environmental activities they had while growing up. He further points out that the rearrangement of the environment can make that person more social and motive the person to achieve the goals of their lives and prevent him or her from being a shy person or a loser (Iversen, 1992).

Coaches are trained to change the behavior of athletes so that they can perform better. Behavior modification is the technique that is taught to coaches to boost the morale of the athletes. This also focuses over the research conducted that focuses on a ...