INDIVIDUAL DYNAMICS AND LEADERSHIP

PROJECT ON

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND

POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES
BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION OF STUDENTS RESIDING IN FLATS TO
SWITCH OFF THE ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENTS WHEN NOT IN USE

SUBMITTED BY
GROUP 8

G034
G040
G042
G055
G062

AVINASH KUMAR
SAURABH MISHRA
ABHIROOP MUKHERJEE
AMARTYA SEN
V ANURAG NAVEEN THEJA

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

CONTENTS

Introduction

Purpose of the project

Explanation of behaviour modification and learning principles

Behaviour to be changed

Intervention used

Data collection

Pre-intervention data

Post-intervention data

Results and its implications

11

Recommendations for improvement

12

Learnings from the project

12

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

The way
positive
reinforcement is
carried out is
more important
than the
amount.
B.F. Skinner

INTRODUCTION
At some point of time, we must have felt or witnessed certain physical or behavioural
reactions like whenever we talk about our favourite food our mouth starts watering, or we
check right & left and then cross the road, these responses are almost involuntary and are
hard to explain. Such behaviours and responses are learnt by our subconscious through
individual experiences and are integrated into our natural behaviour. This learning occurs all
the time. Thus, a generally accepted definition of learning is any relatively permanent
change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience. So, the learning modifies our
behaviour by strengthening desirable ones or by weakening the undesirable. With this in
mind we introspected and tried to identify a particular behaviour which can be modified and
will have certain value addition. The options we had are as follows:

To keep our rooms clean

To wash ones dishes after use

To keep the keys and other important items in proper places

To switch o the electrical equipments when not in use

To throw garbage in dustbin

Among those we opted to modify the behaviour of students to switch o the electrical
equipments when not in use.

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

The selected behaviour modification target was selected because it had important and
value oriented future implications. The electrical devices we had taken into consideration
ranged from high to low load. The considered devices consisted of Air Conditioner, Geyser,
Fan, Tube light and bulbs. The implication of switching o the not in use equipments had
both short & long term benefits. The short term benefit was reduction in the electricity bill
which will improve our real financials. The long term benefits would be value addition like
understanding the negatives of wastage of resources along with being a responsible citizen.

EXPLANATION OF BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION AND

LEARNING PRINCIPLES
Behaviour modification is the process of replacing the undesirable behaviours with
desirable behaviours by altering the individual's reaction to stimuli through positive or
negative reinforcement or reducing the frequency of undesirable behaviour by extinction or
punishment. Behaviour modification is based on the principles of operant conditioning.
Behaviour modification techniques can be classified into the following types:

Reinforcement Theory: Reinforcement is the process in which a behaviour is

strengthened by the immediate consequence that reliably follows its occurrence. Any
strengthened behaviour is unlikely to occur in the future. One of the earliest examples of
reinforcement was Thorndikes cat experiment (1911). A hungry cat was put in a cage
and food was kept outside the cage. The cage had a special lever, which when hit would
open up the gate thus allowing the cat to get to the food. In the beginning the cat was
trying to get to the food by biting the cage bars, trying to get through the bars but was
unsuccessful in getting the food. Once by mistake it hit the lever which opened the gate
and the cat got the food. The next time it was put into the cage it took lesser time to get
to the food and, thus learning each time. This was termed as law of eect. In this
experiment the target was the cat, getting to the food was the consequence and hitting
the lever was the behaviour. More experiments were conducted by B. F. Skinner on
pigeons and rat validating the theory. Reinforcement concept can be classified as:

Positive Reinforcement: When any desirable behaviour is followed by a positive

consequence, the reinforcement is termed as positive reinforcement. The positive
consequence can be anything like a treat, bonus, appreciation or award after the
desirable action. It is a sort of reward based system. The reward is linked to the
desirable behaviour which makes it important, thus the person tries to iterate the
positive behaviour.

Negative Reinforcement: When any desirable behaviour is not followed by a

negative consequence, the reinforcement is termed as negative reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement strengthens a behavioural response by taking away a negative
BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

outcome. This makes the target avoid the negative consequence by avoiding the
negative action.

Punishment Theory: When an undesirable behaviour is followed by a negative

consequence it is termed as Punishment. The target links the negative consequence to
the undesirable behaviour and tries to avoid it. Punishment can work either by directly
applying an unpleasant stimulus like a shock after a response or by removing a
potentially rewarding stimulus. The negative consequences can be pay cut, lower
incentive and attendance loss.

Extinction Theory: It is an alternative to punishment technique which attempts to

weaken an undesirable behaviour by attaching no consequence to the behaviour. For
example if a student participates in discussion just for the sake of participation, the
professor will not comment on it while a serious participation may be appreciated in front
of the class.

BEHAVIOUR TO BE CHANGED
We have all been told as a child to save electricity. It formed an important topic in our
science subject. But still many of us fail to do so even after so many years of education.
There are several underlying reasons behind this such as:

Lack to motivation: We do not have motivation so as why to take this save electricity
seriously. We feel we do not get anything in return for displaying such behaviour.

Lack of Vision: There is a thinking that people around are already saving electricity and
what dierence does it make if one person does not switch o not-in-use devices.

Carelessness: Many of us do not care that it is an important issue we are ignoring. We

do not realise the gravity of situation at macro level.

Time management: Many are in a hurry when leaving the flats and hence forget to
switch o the devices.

Monetary issues: As children we did not have to pay the bills and hence did not
understand the monetary impacts. Also, when we stay in hostels the bill is already
covered in the hostel fees and hence, financially this never seems to be an issue.

Through this project we are trying to understand the behaviour of students of NMIMS
staying in flats who do not switch o the devices when leaving the flats or when not in use
and hence, leading to higher electricity bills. We are all adults now and is time for us to lead
others by examples and hence, should behave responsibly and imbibe it in our behaviour to
save electricity.

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

INTERVENTION USED
For behaviour modification we have used positive intervention and punishment methods
independently.

The positive reinforcement used here was the motivation to save electricity bill (Fig. 2) for
the next month and the money hence saved can be used for other purposes. One thing
most of us have realised from our stay in Mumbai is that we need to manage our financials
properly. One more positive reinforcement was the motivation to act responsibly. To achieve
this we created posters and pasted it outside the main door and on the washroom door (Fig
1).

Fig 1: Stimuli for positive reinforcement

Fig 2: Saurabhs electricity bill for last month

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

The punishment used here was the Board of Shame (Fig. 3) concept where in the person
with most defaults in a week is highlighted. The defaulter has to treat all other flatmates and
do the household chores on Sunday.

Fig 3: Shame chart for Avinashs Flat

Choosing these two interventions individually helped us compare which of these acted as a
better behaviour modification technique.

DATA COLLECTION
The data has been collected on daily basis for three weeks:

Week 1 - Pre-intervention

Week 2 - Post-intervention with punishment

Week 3 - Post-intervention with positive reinforcement

We collected data based on how many times a day the devices such as lights, fans, geyser
and air conditioners were found in ON condition when no one was using those. This is
called defaults. So, the tables having the data in coming sections shows the number of

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

defaults by flatmates in three dierent flats in the course of 3 weeks. To count the number
of defaults, each one in the flat informed others relating to the number of defaults he has
observed during the course of the day. The cumulative response of all flatmates for a given
day was recorded.

PRE INTERVENTION DATA

We formulated a table (Table 1) for week 1, i.e., 13th July to 19th July to observe the
behaviour of the flat-mates when no intervention was being applied. The tables have been
shown below. It has data from 3 dierent flats.

Saurabhs Flat
Date

13th July

14th July

Parth

15th July

16th July

18th July

Total
2

1
2

Abhiroop

Saurabh
Total

19th July

Nishant
Archish

17th July

1
2

17th July

18th July

19th July

13

Avinashs Flat
Date

13th July

14th July

Chandrahas

Nitin

15th July
1

16th July
2

4
1

2
1

Avinash
Total

Revanth
Ajanya

Total

1
3

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

1
2

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Individual Dynamics and Leadership

Amartyas Flat
Date

20th July

21st July

22nd July

23rd July

24th July

Saurabh
Rathin

Premanshu

Shashank

25th July

26th July

Amartya

Total

Total

13

Table 1: Week 1 - Pre Intervention data

POST INTERVENTION DATA

Method of data collection here was similar as mentioned above but now it was with
intervention applied to see how intervention helped one modify his/her behaviour

In week 2 - 20th July to 26th July we used punishment as the intervention and recorded the
data for change in behaviour of the flatmates. The below table shows the data collected.

Saurabhs Flat
Date

20th July

21st July

22nd July

23rd July

24th July

25th July

Parth

Nishant

Archish

Total
2

3
2

Abhiroop

Saurabh
Total

26th July

1
0

1
3

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

Individual Dynamics and Leadership

Avinashs Flat
Date

20th July

21st July

22nd July

23rd July

24th July

Chandrahas

25th July

26th July

Nitin

1
1

Revanth
Ajanya

Total

Avinash

Total

10

Amartyas Flat
Date

13th July

Saurabh

14th July

15th July

16th July
2

17th July

18th July

Rathin

19th July
1

Premanshu

Shashank

Amartya

Total

Total

17

Table 2: Week 2 - Post Intervention data

In week 3 - 27th July to 2nd August we used the positive reinforcement as the intervention
and recorded the data accordingly. The data collected is shown below

Saurabhs Flat
Date

27th July

28th July

Parth

29th July

30th July

31st July

1st Aug

2nd Aug

Total

Nishant

Archish

Abhiroop

Saurabh
Total

1
0

1
1

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

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Individual Dynamics and Leadership

Avinashs Flat
Date

27th July

28th July

29th July

30th July

31st July

1st Aug

2nd Aug

Total

Chandrahas

Nitin

Revanth

Ajanya

Avinash

Total

Amartyas Flat
Date

27th July

28th July

29th July

30th July

31st July

1st Aug

2nd Aug

Total

Saurabh

Rathin

Premanshu

Shashank

Amartya
Total

1
0

1
1

Table 3: Week 3 - Post intervention data

RESULTS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

Number of defaults were reduced by both the interventions and in all the flats which were
under study indicated that intervention had worked.

We observed that positive reinforcement was a better intervention in modifying the

behaviour. Reasons for this can be the motivation to save money by reducing the electricity
bill, the feel good factor about oneself after modifying ones behaviour in a positive way and
also the message on the poster motivated them to do it on a regular basis.

The punishment was also eective because no one wanted to waste their Sunday in doing
chores, but were not that good as compared to positive reinforcement. The reason for this
may be the punishment was not severe enough to bring about a drastic change in the
behaviour or we being friends the punishment could not make an impact.

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

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Individual Dynamics and Leadership

Saurabhs Flat

Amartyas Flat

Avinashs Flat

18

13.5

4.5

0
Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Fig 4: Trend of defaults for three weeks

RECOMMENDATION FOR IMPROVEMENT

Both punishment and reinforcement can be used together to see if it further improves the
results. This project can be extended to oces and classrooms where a person spends
considerable amount of his/her time. As one wears a helmet while riding a bike or uses seat
belt while driving similarly when it comes to saving electricity it has to become a part of
ones personality. This is possible through behaviour modification and daily practice. The
motivation to act responsibly has to be the biggest driving force in achieving it.

LEARNINGS FROM THE PROJECT

There were many learnings from the project not just from subject point of view but also
learnings in general. Some of them are as follows:

Importance of teamwork was a key learning. Initially, all of us felt that the topic was very
dicult. But all of us sat down and started discussing on things related to the topic and
inputs from each one proved instrumental and we were able to finish the project.

Everyone has some qualities which is unique and working together in a team helps to
leverage these qualities and achieve better results.

BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION USING A PRE- AND POST-INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

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Individual Dynamics and Leadership

We were able to relate to the theories studied in the subject and the relevance of the
subject in day-to-day life.

Also, we learned to accept one anothers opinions by setting aside the dierences. This
was important for the best outcome of the group.

Proper Time management was also a learning. With so many projects and activities in
hand, it was essential to devote time judiciously to dierent things.

Learning from peers, one of the goals of joining a B-school, was seen clearly while
working for this project.

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