Excellent StudentPSY 460Fall 2006Krista G.

Saving Our Literary Worl

d

With

Behavior

Analysis

Problem

I work in a strange and mysterious place…the rare books and special collections in the Waldo Library. Not many souls

wander up to peruse our selection of 12th

century manuscripts or a signed edition of

Walden by Thoreau. In the summer of 2005, our beloved boss Dr. Thomas Amos died suddenly. Very sad

indeed.

Note: This presentation is hypothetical but all the

places and contingencies are real. This feasibly

could be implemented in this environment. There

really is a rare books room! (hint: go visit it!)

Problem

It was going to take a good deal of time before they could find anybody to

replace him, so for about one whole year, this department in the library was basically student run. So, you can imagine how much work was

getting done.

Dat iz because your arr lazy, students

worker-types bums. Yous iz no good for doing zee Library

vork.

Now that, Mr. Librarian, is victim blaming, saying

the victim of the problem is the cause of

the problem. We student workers were experiencing the real

cause of poor-self management; where there was poor rule

control by outcomes, which in our case, were too small to control our

behavior.

Since then, at the start of the 2006 Fall semester we have found a new head of the department.

But, books are still not getting repaired at the rate they used to be two years ago.

This is big problem in a department full of needy books. Books that call out for attention from

someone, anyone! Don’t fear first edition of Collected Longer Poems

of W.H. Auden, behavior analysis is here to save the day!

Competing Contingencies

Fixing a book requires the help of some not-so-nice-smelling chemicals like leather cleaner

and 200 proof ethyl, de-natured alcohol. Starting repairs is liable to make you

experience a new world of aversive smells you didn't even know existed. Also fixing a book requires the use of many sharp tools. My lovely assistant Gus (and model in all

these pictures) cut the tip of this finger off fixing a book. No joke. Libraries can be

dangerous.THE DANGERS OF LIBRARY WORK!

Natural Competing Contingency

No aversive

smell of glue/

mold killer

BEFORE AFTERBEHAVIOR

Repair onebook

aversive smell

of glue/mold killer

Analyze the Natural Contingencies

Ineffective Natural Contingency

Given amount of books to

repair

Repair one book

Slightly less

amount of books to

repair

Baseline Graph

This graph starts with month 1 being January 2006. The number of books we repaired

definitely dropped in the summer months.

baseline

Baseline Graph Description

During the summer months, 5-8, the number of books

repaired was so low, it makes me ashamed to

look at it.

Specify the Performance Objectives

The main goal is to increase the output of repaired books.

To facilitate this we need to complete a goal-directed systems design form. In this, we can

see where the personnel (front-line and managers) come into play with regards to the

goal of this system.

The four main organizational outcome measures of quality, quantity, timeliness, and cost will be

used as standards to compare the current state and the ideal state after the addition of the performance-management contingency.

Input-Process-Output Model

(Repaired Book) [output]

Production: fix broken book [process]

(Broken Books) [input]

Goal Specification FormOutput Fully Repaired Books

Standards

Quality

Current Ideal

Books repaired properly 80% of the time

Books repaired properly 100% of the time

Quantity 1 books a day 4 books a day

TimelinessNo deadline

Before new shipment of books

CostN/A

Less than $100 spent on intervention

Process Fix Broken Books

Production: XDistribution_ __ R&D__ _

Input Broken Books

Design the Intervention

The intervention that has been put into place is relatively basic and easy to manage. I typed

up and gave my fellow employees a performance contract, a written rule

statement that described the behavior (correctly repairing books), when that behavior

should happen (at work), and the added outcome (monthly bonus points contingent

upon amount of books fixed).

At the end of the month when statistics are taken for how many books repaired and by whom, the amount of books repaired per person will earn the person with the most repairs a special bonus for that month.

Design the InterventionPerformance Management Contingency

Fear the loss of a

point toward bonus

Will lose points toward

bonus at end of month

Repair one book

Repair one book

Will not lose points

toward bonus at end of month

Do not fear the loss of

a point toward bonus

Implement the Intervention

The performance management contingencies went into effect in

month number 9, October.

Every student worker was involved.

They recorded their data on a piece of paper that I later collected.

Evaluate the Intervention

The intervention has been a great success for us at the Rare Books room. The students workers were

actually excited to give it a try-and of course to get that end-of-the-

month bonus. The number of books repaired is on

the rise again.

Evaluate the Intervention

Hypothetical recycle

In month 10 we hired three new employees so we had to recycle the

objectives since it generally takes about one full year before you learn to do

everything 100% correctly at this job. The number of books was lowered from 4 a day to 2 books a day. This decrease

in the amount required ensured that sloppy work wasn’t being done just to

meet the daily requirements.

Comments

Working at the rare book room has been an amazing opportunity. I’d love to see this intervention put into place if the number of book

repairs is still not up to par.

Evaluate the Recycle

Books Repaired

22

412

1

19

39

6763

35

8674

0

20

40

60

80

100

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Months

bo

oks

rep

iare

d

baseline intervention

recycle

Evaluate the Recycle

This recycling was a success. The new employees were able to met

the requirements without having to compromise their repairs.

Any Questions or Comments???

THANK YOU!