Chaney Lesson

Chaney et al

2004

Contemporary study from the
developmental area

Key Theme:
External Influences on children

Multiple Choice

This study belongs to the behaviourist perspective, which states that everyone is born....

• Psychologically flawed

• Unable to change their personalities

• Pre-determined to act in a certain way

• Blank Slates (Tabula Rasa)

Multiple Choice

This study also belongs to the developmental area, which states that....

• Behaviour comes from social situations and other people

• Behaviour changes over time and childhood experiences can affect later life

• Everyone is different and we look for differences rather and commonalities

• Internal mental processes can affect the way we behave

Multiple Choice

What other core study have we looked at that also belongs to both the behaviourist perspective AND the developmental area

• Bandura

• Freud

• Sperry

• Piliavin

This is your first contemporary study

• All the core studies are divided into classic studies (older

studies) and contemporary study (newer studies).

• We have covered all the classic studies, now we will look at

the contemporary ones.

• Both Chaney and Bandura study

‘external influences on children’s behaviour’ so we will find ourselves comparing this study to Bandura.

What you will need to be able to do

1. Describe the study
2. Explain why it’s in the developmental area
3. Explain why it’s in the key theme of ‘external

influences on children’s development’.

4. Compare how Chaney and Bandura are

similar or different to each other

5. Argue if Chaney has built on or not built on

what Bandura learned.

Multiple Choice

Which behaviourist theory makes use of concepts like 'reinforcement' or 'punishment'?

• Classical Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning

• Social Learning Theory

Multiple Choice

What is POSITIVE reinforcment?

• Giving a reward to encourage a behaviour

• Taking away something bad to encourage a behaviour

• Punishing someone by introducing something unpleasant

• Punishing someone by taking away something good

Multiple Choice

What is POSITIVE punishment?

• Giving a reward to encourage a behaviour

• Taking away something bad to encourage a behaviour

• Punishing someone by introducing something unpleasant

• Punishing someone by taking away something good

Multiple Choice

What is NEGATIVE reinforcment?

• Giving a reward to encourage a behaviour

• Taking away something bad to encourage a behaviour

• Punishing someone by introducing something unpleasant

• Punishing someone by taking away something good

Multiple Choice

What is NEGATIVE punishment?

• Giving a reward to encourage a behaviour

• Taking away something bad to encourage a behaviour

• Punishing someone by introducing something unpleasant

• Punishing someone by taking away something good

Key Concept

This study focuses on operant conditioning to explain behaviour.

In particiular it focused on:

• Positive Reinforcment

• Negative Reinforcement

Make sure you understand the difference between the two

Background

What is asthma? Please watch the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ur1XreTiNg

Even though there are treatments for asthma, the problem is
that some people (particularly little children), do not use their inhalers correctly.

For example, some children don't breath in slowly enough, some refuse to use it at all.

The aim of this study was to see if operant conditioning could
be used to encourage children to want to use their inhalers, and
when they do use it correctly.

Sample

• 32 children (22 boys and 10 girls)

from Australia aged between 1.5
and 6 years (although 75% of the
children were over 3).

• On average they had had asthma

for 2.2 years.

The inhalers they were using before the study started were either:

The AeroChamber Inhaler

The Breath-a-Tech Inhaler

Both of these
inhalers were

standard children’s

asthma inhalers

Open Ended

The sample was 32 children from Australia aged up to 3 years old. Can you see any issues with the population validity (generalisability) of this sample?

The main part of this
study was to see if a
new type of inhaler
would help the
children’s compliance.

(Compliance means using the
inhaler correctly)

This new device was:
a) An inhaler
b) Fun
so it was called…

The
Funhaler!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xhh8PowaKs
The participants used the funhaler for TWO WEEKS

​Watch the video below:

Multiple Choice

The funhaler CREATED 'fun' by a whistle and spinner that activated as children breathed through the device. The vast majority of children found it fun to use. What type of reinforcement is this? Positive or Negative?

• Positive Reinforcement

• Negative Reinforcement

Multiple Choice

The medicine in the funhaler also REDUCED the unpleasant symptoms of asthma (e.g. breathing difficulties).

What type of reinforcement is this? Positive or Negative?

• Positive Reinforcement

• Negative Reinforcement

Important Point

So the Funhaler used a combination of POSITIVE and NEGATIVE reinforcement to encourage children to use it.

It's important that you can describe how it created both types of reinforcement.

​'Fun' Toyball gives postiive reinforcment

​Medicine gives negative reinforcment

Procedure

The procedure is divided into 3 sections:

1) The parents of the children were given a questionnarie about the use of their current inhaler (Aerochamber or Breath-a-Tech)

2) The children were all asked to use the Funhaler for two weeks (during this time researchers would randomly contact parents to see how it was going).

3) A final questionnaire was given about the use of the Funhaler

Further Details

Procedure

Initial Data Collected

• Questions about

current inhaler

• Measure current

adherence

• Current frequency of

medication

• Problems with

medication

• Attitudes towards

medication

Data collected through

study (2 weeks)

• Parents given Fun

haler to use with
instructions

• Parents were

contacted randomly &
asked if they had used
the Fun haler the
previous day

Final Data Collected

• Questionnaire to

measure adherence

• How frequently the

child was medicated

• Parent and child

attitudes to Fun
haler

Open Ended

Parents were asked to fill out questionnaire at several points in this study. Can you see any problems with collecting data through quesitionnaire only?

Multiple Choice

ALL the children used a normal inhaler first and then ALL swtiched to the Funhaler. What experimental design does this make it?

• Independent Measures

• Repeated Measures

• Matched Groups

• Field Experiment

​Results

The results from the questionnaire were split into two sections:

1) Behaviours of the children (how they used the inhalers)

2) Attitudes of the children (how they felt about the inhalers)

Look at the results on the next slides. What can you conclude?

Open Ended

What conclusion can you make about children's BEHAVIOUR when using the Funhaler compared to their previous inhaler?

Open Ended

What conclusion can you make about children's ATTITUDES when using the Funhaler compared to their previous inhaler?

Multiple Choice

The Chaney study is an example of an experiment. What is the independent variable of the experiment?

• Whether the children at asthma or not

• The behaviour change towards inhalers

• Whether they used a regular inhaler or a Funhaler

• How the parents filled out the questionnaire

Variables

Independent variable

• Whether child is using

the Fun haler or the
normal device

Dependent variable

• The children’s behaviour

– how frequently
children took the
medication

• The problems the

children had with
delivery of medication

• Attitudes of the parents

and the adherence
towards medication

Open Ended

As this is a contemporay study, we need to compare it to it's classic study. Can you write down ONE SIMILARITY and ONE DIFFERENCE between Chaney and Bandura?

Open Ended

RECAP: Describe how the funhaler used both POSITIVE reinforcment and NEGATIVE reinforcement