Subject:	Behaviorist Person
From:	Judygran@aol.com
Date:		Fri, 11 Dec 1998 15:36:54 -0800
Date:          Thu, 10 Dec 1998 11:22:52 EST


Application of Stimulus Satiation With a Vulcan Male in
Pon Farr

by Behaviorist Person

The subject, Spock X., was subjected to an abrupt change in
placement when his shuttlecraft was decertified for failure to
meet fire safety codes. In the new environment, he displayed
agitation, noncompliance and loss of appetite. His Behavior
Management Specialist, James T. Kirk, charted these
maladaptive behaviors but was unable to identify
antecedents or setting events. 

To screen out extraneous environmental variables, Kirk
placed the subject in a Skinner Box. However, the behaviors
escalated, and soon Spock began to exhibit aggression,
disruptive behavior, self-injurious behavior (SIB), property
destruction and stripping behavior. Non-aversive 
interventions including redirection, planned
ignoring and differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO)
were ineffective. More restrictive measures such as
mechanical restraints and a prone take-down hold could
not be employed due to agency policy and the non-availability
of human rights committee review.

Spock began to express interest in Kirk's posterior, 
perhaps because boiled eggs had been used as edible
reinforcers in his previous behavior management program.
Using the five-step process developed by Knoster, Bambara
et al. (1996), Kirk performed a functional analysis and
hypothesized, following White (1959), that Spock was
responding to a deficit external to the nervous system (i.e.
the absence of an appropriate mating partner) which 
was acting as a strong persisting stimulus. In short,
he concluded that Spock was engaging in mating
behavior that is adaptive to a Vulcan male in pon farr.

Next, Kirk searched for an appropriate corrective
procedure. Although, as noted by Carroll et al. (1978), past
research had restricted the use of satiation to such behaviors
as magazine hoarding, towel hoarding (Ayllon, 1963) and
the positive practice overcorrection dressing procedure that
Foxx (1976) used with disrobers, Kirk hypothesized that
satiation would be effective under then-obtaining
experimental conditions. He promptly initiated the
procedure. 

As hypothesized, the satiation activity was terminated by a
consummatory response with consequent reduction of need.
Moreover, the intervention was highly reinforcing for both
men. Kirk decided to repeat the procedure, this time
employing a backwards chaining method.

At this point, Dr. McCoy, an orthodox behavioral
modification researcher of the Georgia School, arrived to
peer review Kirk's work. He criticized Kirk for failing to
consequate Spock's maladaptive behavior and for
inadvertently rewarding him for attention-seeking. However,
when Kirk showed him the data, which showed that the
target behaviors had decreased virtually to zero after only
two trials, McCoy was impressed. "Remember when I said
you'd have made a fair psychologist?" he reminded Kirk. 

McCoy offered to replicate the procedure with Kirk as subject, but
Kirk declined. He and Spock departed to a reinforcement-rich
environment where they could initiate a regular schedule of stimulus
satiation interventions to accomplish skill-building and
generalization of their new behavioral repertoire to other settings.

Judith 

(Honest, I swear I am not making this stuff up.)