Th e idea that all behaviors have a function is widespread across a variety of apparently totally diff erent areas of psychology. Th us, functionality might be quite a useful unifying concept for thinking about motivation to change. In try- ing to understand the emotional development of children, particularly how emo- tion regulation develops adaptively for most children, child psychologists have argued that emotion itself is functional (Th ompson, 2001). By this is meant that emotion serves a purpose. Emotion is therefore good, or adaptive, or desirable, according to how well it does so.
Young children might be playing an imaginary game in which they are pre- tending to be dangerous creatures and they are running around roaring and shrieking and chasing each other all in good fun. To stay part of the game with all the other children it is necessary to get excited, to be aroused, and to show general pleasure. Th e function of this emotional arousal is that it maintains the game. A child who gets overexcited (cannot modulate his or her arousal) might get aggressive or belligerent or dominate the play. Th is is considered “over”emotional because it interferes with continuing the fun game. Other chil- dren are no longer having fun and the game ends. Th e overreactive, underregu- lated child’s emotional expression was dysfunctional for that context. Another child who fi nds the game intimidating and is not having fun might show dis- tress, switching from being excited to being fearful and perhaps crying or with- drawing. Although that stops that child’s participation in the game, the anxiety does serve the function of allowing the child to withdraw from an activity that is no longer pleasurable. Th e best regulated children eventually tire of the game and fi nd something else to do: by managing their emotional arousal they are able to sustain a broader function, which is continuing to be friends with each other and preserve the positive social relationships. Children who get overexcited and become aggressive or children who become overly anxious and withdraw are not considered socially skilled by teachers, parents, or peers because their emotional reactions are not functional for the longer-term goal, which is maintaining posi- tive, fun, friendly relationships with other children.
In one of my own research projects we saw very good illustrations of exactly this kind of process (Galyer & Evans, 2001). We played an imaginary game with an empty box, in which we as the grown-ups pretended that there was something inside the box (either a growling monster or a purring kitten). A few children became so overexcited by this game that they could not contain their curios- ity and they grabbed the box out of our hands and ripped open the lid, only to confi rm petulantly that there was nothing inside. Th at pretty much ended the fun game; not much more could be done with an empty box. Other children became so fearful that there might be something in the box that they withdrew and refused to continue the game. Many children, however, were able to manage
their emotions so that the interaction could continue. Some changed the valence of the monster in the box, telling us that it was actually a friendly monster, or just a baby monster with no teeth. Others said the kitten was sleeping, they could hear it purring, and that we should keep very quiet so as not to wake it. So the imaginary game continued and the enjoyable interaction with the adult was maintained.
In a totally diff erent context and a very diff erent literature, applied behavior analysts have explained how what appears to be purely negative, socially inap- propriate behavior on the part of children with signifi cant disabilities actually serves a function for these children. What teachers and parents and therapists consider to be “challenging” behavior, such as self-injurious head banging, is functional, because it often allows the child to escape a negative situation, per- haps being told to do something he or she does not want to do. Aggressive behav- iors such as pulling another child’s hair or grabbing their toy away from them has the function of obtaining something desired: being left alone or getting the toy that they want to play with. Behaviors such as this might seem hard to explain, until we realize that what characterizes children with autism or other developmental disabilities is that they lack other, more common or acceptable forms of communicating their wants and needs.
Mark Durand (1990) made an important contribution to understanding such challenging behavior by arguing that very often these negative behaviors had communicative intent. Th ey were designed to achieve some outcome, such as gaining a material object, getting social attention, avoiding a task demand, or escaping from an aversive situation. It is not necessary to confi rm that the behaviors are deliberately planned to obtain these outcomes. It is simpler, and makes fewer assumptions, just to recognize that as these behaviors do serve those functions, they will occur in situations in which the outcomes are desired. If children with autism can escape from unwanted interactions with peers by exhibiting a self-injurious behavior, then that behavior will be reinforced by the consequence of being removed from the situation.
From that example it can be seen that a “treatment” procedure such as time-out would not be an eff ective deterrent to self-injury, since the time-out achieves precisely the goal of the challenging behavior—escaping social demands. Behavior analysts are therefore totally correct in insisting that it is not possible to change inappropriate behavior unless its function is under- stood. Th inking even more deeply about this it is possible to argue that instead of trying to understand the “cause” of a behavior we should try to understand of which variable or infl uences the behavior is a function. Functional analysis is thus a better way of thinking about causes. Th is is precisely the argument that Skinner (1953) made years ago. He did not like thinking about the causes of a behavior at all. He argued that the proper task of a science of behavior was to specify the antecedent and consequent events, which are generally envi- ronmental, of which the behavior of interest was a function. When that is
known, it would become possible possible to manipulate these variables and change the behavior: predict and control.
C h a n g e w o r t h y B e h a v i o r s F u l f i l l N e e d s
Th ere is an important practical implication of recognizing that all behavior serves some kind of function. If the function is meeting important psychologi- cal needs (self-esteem, social attention, sexual satisfaction, and so on), then it will be hard to change the behavior that serves that function unless we can fi nd an alternative, more socially acceptable behavior having the identical func- tion. If a child with autism is banging his head in order to escape a situation that for him is highly unpleasant (an empowerment need), it requires replac- ing this self-injurious action with something equally eff ective but more accept- able, such as asking, by word or by sign, if he can leave the situation, or do an alternative activity, or even have the pleasure of being held in a restraint. Since Durand argued these negative behaviors are communicative, it was only a short step to propose that the most desirable alternative would be a communication skill. Empirically he was able to demonstrate that when an alternative commu- nication skill achieving the function of the challenging behavior was taught, the challenging behavior decreased. If the communication skill served a diff erent function, however, the challenging behavior would not decrease. Th is was a con- vincing demonstration that the alternative skill was not just something else to do but another behavior that met the same needs as the negative, challenging behavior.
Every therapist for any kind of problem needs to consider and utilize this same principle. Try to discover what the function of the undesired behavior is, fi nd out if the individual has a better alternative in his or her repertoire, and if not teach it, and then make sure this better alternative does indeed achieve the function of the one to be discouraged. If a client’s voyeuristic behavior is the only way to achieve sexual satisfaction, it is very unlikely that you will have therapeutic success by introducing punitive contingencies. Psychologists generally recognize this, but think of all the interventions in which the exact function of a nega- tive behavior has never really been analyzed or understood and yet a program has been introduced to discourage it without teaching alternatives: suspension for fi ghting at school, prison for pedophiles, name and shame consequences for drunk driving, and restricting access to alcohol for teenage binge drinkers, just to name a few.
R e w a rd i n g C h a n g e D i r e c t l y
In other contexts or descriptions of life’s journey, change is not depicted as something you have to consult a professional to achieve. Change is good. Change is inevitable. Change means you are alive and curious. Th e opposite of change
is stagnation. Is it not equally true, however, that in life we sometimes resist change, prefer the familiar, trust the traditional, and fi nd security in old habits? Uncertainty is aversive (Evans & Galyer, 2009). Th us we might think of change as a response class—a category of diff erent behaviors that share a past history of being reinforced or punished and have thus become a functional class. Even in the laboratory it is possible to reinforce an organism for doing something dif- ferent from what it did the last time. As already suggested, clients by defi nition are those people who have not been able to make changes on their own. Is it con- ceivable, therefore, that we can encourage specifi c clinical change by rewarding general life changes?
As far as I know there is no direct evidence supporting such an idea: the dif- ferential reinforcement of change. Yet it is quite commonly suggested and used by therapists, particularly behavior therapists. To encourage clients to think positively of change and the need to act diff erently if they wish to feel diff er- ently, behavior therapists often suggest to clients very early on in therapy that they do something diff erent that week, something they have never done before or not for a long time. Usually the suggested action is easy to do at home or in the neighborhood, requires no resources, is likely to bring some degree of satis- faction, and is novel. At fi rst the action might be little more than changing our environment or daily routines. Often the activity is something a little special and indulgent, designed for the client’s own pleasure. After that the suggested action might be for someone else’s benefi t—something that brings joy, however simple, to a spouse, a child, or a friend.
Th ese actions have no direct link to the target behaviors or the negotiated goals of treatment. It is strictly a shaping procedure. But it shows that change is possible, thus increasing hope. It permits the reinforcement of change as a response class that should generalize to the much harder changes that may need to be made as treatment progresses. And the actions themselves raise the client’s overall level of material and social reward, a necessary condition for enhancing the quality of life. Behavior therapists use the spontaneous increase in overall rates of positive behaviors as a barometer for the general eff ectiveness of the treatment program. If you want to change you have to start acting diff erently.