Psychology Habits - Desired Behavior

A statement that clearly describes your desired behavior in positive terms (i.e., something you want to do vs. something you don’t want to do).

• I want to work on keeping my room clean on a regular basis.

Three statements about how this change will support personal goals, either short-term or long-term. (This is the why of your project: why did you choose this behavior; why is it meaningful to you?)

• I chose this behavior because I think doing it will benefit other aspects of my life as well. I’ve found that when my room is clean, I tend to feel better and be more productive all around. I’m hoping that reaching this goal will help me create a long term habit of keeping up with and cleaning my room daily so that it’s less work in the long run.

Use of at least one classical conditioning technique.

• The classical conditioning technique I would use to train myself to keep my room clean would be once I go around and clean my room every day, I allow myself to watch an episode of one of my favorite Netlfix series.

Use of at least two reward strategies (operant conditioning) – make sure one is fairly immediate (continuous or near-continuous) and one is delayed (either fixed ratio or fixed interval).

• One reward strategy I would use for operant conditioning that is immediate would be to let myself have a snack as soon as I finished cleaning my room. Similarly, for my delayed reward strategy, if at the end of the week I had kept my room clean, I would allow myself to make a trip to Goodwill and go thrifting.

You may also include a punishment (operant conditioning), but this is not required.

• A punishment that I might use to motivate myself to keep my room clean is to not let myself watch any Netflix until my room is picked up and tidy.

Two self-talk or reminder strategies that will help you remember to associate your target behavior with your goals (short- or long-term).

• Two reminder strategies that I might use to help me remember to associate my target behavior with my goals would be to leave myself post it notes on my bathroom mirror where I will see it often. In addition, I write in my planner everyday and love crossing items off, so I could include a reminder in my planner as well so that I can cross it off at the end of the day.

A way of monitoring and recording your progress (e.g., daily chart or check-ins before a normal, routine activity in your day).

• My way of monitoring and recording my progress would be to add a checkmark to my calendar every day that I am able to have my room completely clean by the end of the day, before I go to sleep.