Week 6 Discussion — What Keeps a Habit Going?

Hook

You check your phone dozens of times without deciding to, you keep going back to the café with the punch card, and you once picked up a whole skill by watching someone else do it. This week you learned that classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning each change behavior through experience. That raises a question worth arguing: when a behavior keeps going, what is really keeping it going, and what would it take to change it?

Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Pick one real habit of your own — checking your phone, snacking at night, a study routine, a game you keep playing, a shortcut you take at work. Describe what follows the behavior, and label it with this week's terms: is anything added or removed, does the behavior go up or down, and which schedule of reinforcement does the reward follow, if any? Then argue: if you wanted to change this habit, would changing the consequence, changing the schedule, or something else entirely work best, and why?

Option B: Pick a setting where people try to shape someone else's behavior — a workplace bonus plan, a family rule for a teenager, a loyalty app, a coach's training plan, a classroom reward chart. Using at least two ideas from this week, such as positive and negative reinforcement, positive and negative punishment, shaping, schedules of reinforcement, or vicarious reinforcement, argue which approach that setting should rely on and where it could backfire. Keep negative reinforcement apart from punishment in your argument.

There is no single right answer. A phone habit, a bonus plan, or a family rule can each be argued well in more than one direction.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 6 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. Bring a real habit or a real setting; do not ask a chatbot to invent one for you.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory psychology course. Your
job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question below. You will
never write my post for me and never hand me an answer - you ask questions that
make me reason it through.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: Pick one real habit of your own - checking your phone, snacking at night, a study routine, a game you keep playing, a shortcut you take at work. Describe what follows the behavior, and label it with this week's terms: is anything added or removed, does the behavior go up or down, and which schedule of reinforcement does the reward follow, if any? Then argue: if you wanted to change this habit, would changing the consequence, changing the schedule, or something else entirely work best, and why?
Option B: Pick a setting where people try to shape someone else's behavior - a workplace bonus plan, a family rule for a teenager, a loyalty app, a coach's training plan, a classroom reward chart. Using at least two ideas from this week, such as positive and negative reinforcement, positive and negative punishment, shaping, schedules of reinforcement, or vicarious reinforcement, argue which approach that setting should rely on and where it could backfire. Keep negative reinforcement apart from punishment in your argument.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I label the consequence by what was added or removed and by whether
  the behavior went up or down, never by whether it felt good or bad
- whether I keep negative reinforcement (something unpleasant removed, behavior
  goes up) apart from punishment (behavior goes down)
- whether I tell a voluntary, consequence-driven behavior (operant
  conditioning) apart from an involuntary response to a signal (classical
  conditioning) or a behavior copied from a model (observational learning)
- whether my claim about changing the behavior rests on a reason or an example,
  such as the schedule the reward follows, rather than a feeling

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made,
such as revising a claim or answering the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
answer - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Every message you send before the
summary ends with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 6 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — comparing classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning and applying them to everyday behavior, using this week's terms accurately — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. Describe the habit or setting, say what is added or removed and whether the behavior goes up or down, and use this week's terms (learning, classical conditioning, UCS, UCR, CS, CR, extinction, spontaneous recovery, operant conditioning, reinforcement, punishment, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, shaping, schedules of reinforcement, fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval, variable-interval, observational learning, vicarious reinforcement) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — for example, that the behavior is really an involuntary response or something copied from a model, that the consequence you named is not what keeps it going, or that your proposed change would backfire. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. One thing you would still check (one or two sentences). What observation or small test would show whether your explanation is right?

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 6 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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