The ABCs of Behavior

For today's post we are going to review what is arguably the foundation of behavior analysis, the ABC contingency, otherwise known as the Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence contingency.  This contingency states that all behavior does not happen in a vacuum, separate from the environment in which it occurs.  So now lets break up this contingency into its core parts and review their importance for changing and maintaining behavior.

ANTECEDENT: The easiest way to think about an antecedent is the event that occurs immediately before the behavior occurs.  It is what sets the stage for the behavior that occurs, this is a key point in determining part of the function (or what the point of the behavior is).

BEHAVIOR: A behavior is really anything a living organism can do. This includes: eating, drinking, thinking, talking, dreaming, crying, etc. In school we were given the "dead body test" which is basically if a dead body can do it, then it's not behavior (so basically, laying still without breathing, blinking, thinking, etc.) everything else is a behavior.  Behaviors can be adaptive (good behaviors we want) or maladaptive (bad behaviors we want to change). Every behavior is elicited (or brought on) by an antecedent event.

CONSEQUENCE: A consequence is any stimulus that immediately follows a behavior.  A consequence can either increase the likelihood of a behavior happening in the future (reinforcement), or decrees the likelihood of a behavior happening in the future (punishment). The farther a consequence is removed from the behavior (the longer the time between the behavior happening and the consequence happening) the less likely it is that their will be meaningful behavior change.  In order for a consequence to be effective it should happen between 0-3 seconds after the behavior.

By understanding the basic ABCs of behavior we can begin to determine the function of the behavior, and once we understand the function of the behavior we can manipulate the consequences to either increase or maintain the behavior (if its a desired behavior) or decrease the behavior (if it's a negative behavior) and replace it with a more appropriate behavior.  It is important to remember that we need to ALWAYS replace a negative behavior with a FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT appropriate behavior.  Next, I will go over the various functions of behavior so hopefully all of this will come together and make more sense!