Modifying Someone Else’s Behavior

              I’d like to introduce a simple practice in behaviorism to modify someone else’s behavior. A lot of experiments have shown that “verbal behavior can be conditioned by selectively rewarding types of words or phrases” (as cited in Frager & Fadiman, 2002). Considering this concept, we can give others some rewarding verbal behaviors by simply nodding our heads or saying “yeah” or “uh-huh.” That kind of verbal behaviors may be effective to reinforce other’s behaviors whenever they express emotional statements in particular.  

Reference

Personality and Personal Growth (6th Edition)