Last semester, my close friends and I spent a lot of nights staying up late. Staying up till 3 am maybe watching a movie, or just talking. Eventually it caught up to us and we would feel tired throughout the whole day, but we would still just sit around. Soon enough we became more productive during the time we stayed up late. We would bring in some work, and many of us had similar classes, so we would be able to work together and help each other out as we worked. But the only problem with this was one of our friends would still decide to not do any work. This problem is still occurring now, and we are trying to help our friend start. During past few weeks, due to a lack of difficult work, we all just hung out, not doing much. But now that some exams are coming up, everyone started to study more. We attempted to get our friend to study by having everyone around our friend study. We would all be quiet, and focused, hoping that would persuade our friend into wanting to study too, since it would be like a last option for our friend. Our friend’s mind was still set on not doing work, even though there is an exam coming up very soon. We all want to have fun, but we are too worried that our friend may get stuck behind because of the lack of effort our friend puts forth into studying. A big part of the problem we have with getting through to our friend is the fact that our friend is often alone doing whatever, so if our friend were to get bored of us studying, then our friend can leave and do whatever. Hopefully we can get our friend conditioned to study with us when we study, especially since we can all help him with at least one of his classes.
3 thoughts on “Attempt at conditioning”
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I thought this post was pretty interesting. In my experience, I’ve tried using positive reinforcement with my roommates and it’s worked pretty easily. I think another thing you should try is giving a lot of positive encouragement if he DOES study (even a little). This positive reinforcement can increase his behavior. In my situation, by ignoring all the bad things my roommates did but encouraging all the good things, it turns out that they easily changed their behavior. Also I agree with another comment, Soo Yoon Bae – it probably will take some time. But I’d love to know what happens!
I agree with the aforementioned comment. It is indeed interesting that you’re friend didn’t demonstrate any change in behavior despite the external stimuli (you and your friends quietly studying) that should’ve led to behavioral changes. However, maybe perseverance is needed – constantly make the “quiet, focused, study” situation, and set an example; see if you’re friend gets motivated to study. If all fails, maybe try “stimuli and response,” another component for the behavorism method. For instance, maybe try telling your friend “if we study for a certain amount of time, let’s do something fun afterwards.” And make sure you accentuate the point that you will have fun once he gets his work done in a given time.
This is pretty interesting. It seems that this “nurturing” attempt to get your friend to study is not working out as planned. Although it sounds a bit bizarre, your little experiment might have shown that study habits are somewhat inbred, or “nature,” and that they cannot be changed simply by leading by example.