Contiguity Theory Examples

1. A cat learned to repeat the same sequence of movement associated with the preceding escape from the box, but improvement does take place.
2. A girl use to always throw her clothes around after coming back home from school. Even after repeated admonishment from her parents. One day her mother told her to go out of the house, reenter and put the clothes in order. The throwing on the floor habit disappeared and the more recent habit of cleaning-up response became a new habit for the girl (Ormrod, 1999).
3. One of your instructors glares at you as she hands back the exam that she has just corrected. You discover that you have gotten a D - on the exam, and you get an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach. The next time your instructor glares at you, the same uncomfortable feeling returns (Ormrod, 1998).
4. Another instructor smiles and calls on you everytime you raise your hand. Although you are fairly quiet in your oter classes, you find yourself raising yourhand and speaking up more and more frequentlyin this one (Ormrod, 1998).

Examples for Breaking Habits (Ormrod, 1999)

1. Exhaustion method: While taming a horse a rider stays on top of the horse until it is too exhausted to continue bucking (jumping, resisting). A new response of standing still becomes the new habit.
2. Threshold method: A teacher eliminates a child’s spitball-throwing behavior by having child stay after school to make spitballs until the child is too tired to continue.
3. Incompatible Stimulus Method: To reduce the competition individuals with high achievement-motivated who are very competitive, the teacher might divide the class into small groups. Then, assign each group an academic task that requires cooperation rather than competition. Finally, assign grades based on group performance rather than individual performance. This method should help increase and maintain a healthy cooperative behavior and help build a good sense of cooperative environment.