>>8197865
You could try reading B.F. Skinner. About Behaviorism is a good place to begin.

A textbook like Behavior Analysis and Learning by Pierce or Applied Behavior Analysis by Cooper would also be helpful.

How to Think like a Behavior Analyst by Bailey is probably your easiest way in.

After that you can look into behavioral therapies (DBT, ACT, FAP) or Relational Frame Theory for a theory of language (far better than Skinner's Verbal Behavior book).

>>8197960
Thanks m8. This'll help me get a good start. Appreciate it.

>>8197978
You're welcome. You can find some of those books on Libgen.

Also, behavioral psychology is appealing to scientific-minded people as it has basic principles (reinforcement, classical conditioning, matching law, etc.) that it is based on. Progress can be slow because of these limitations on conjecture and excessive unnecessary theorizing. But once it gets into an area, it dominates it.

Animal training is pretty much all behavioral psychology. The best outcomes for those with autism and learning disabilities comes from behavior psychology. And now it has been making huge inroads into therapy, education, and the workplace for the last two decades.

It's still relatively unknown to or misunderstood by many. For example, simple Behavioral Activation would help over half of those on /b/, /adv/, and /r9k/ but there aren't any pop books on it.

That means if you really get into it and decide to do something with it, you can be a pretty big player with some effort.

Its a shame that behaviorism is out of fashion. One of the most important ideas in behaviorism is that observable behavior is nessesary to a scientific research of why humans do why they do. But many people think that behavior is not the same as brian activity. A lot of modern behaviorist define behavior as ''everyting an organism do'' that also includes the brain. Its a shame that we are so misunderstood.

>>8198008
I would like to use applied behavioral psychology in my day to day life, although only to an "ethical" extent.
However, my main reason for wanting to educate myself on the topic is to aid in research of its applications by corporations and governments.
>inb4 Chomsky fanboy
I think he's a bit of a shill these days, and I've stopped taking what he says seriously beyond what I firmly believe based on my own research.

>>8197960

Can behavioral psychology (if you study it from a textbook, for example) be used to mold yourself consciously? E.g. let's say you wanna go Elon Musk mode and become someone who works 12 hours a day every day. Is this possible?

>>8198109
You can have one behavior that is changing another behavior using the principles of behavior. But then the first behavior, the ''i cant cheat and eat the chocolate anyways'' must be reinforced by other stimuli.

>>8198069
If you want to use it in everyday life, check out Behavioral Activation. Also, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Hayes is a great book for how to do that.

If you want to get to the group level, check out: https://www.prosocialgroups.org It's got evolutionists and behaviorists working together.

>inb4 Chomsky fanboy
Chomsky's issues have been addressed by others. Skinner dodged them for some reason, although, I think it's because he was tired and worried about looking bad because he knew he didn't have the full story yet. It's a little like a intelligent design acolyte challenging an evolutionist about the fact that they don't know about the origin of life or how cooperation works given the selfish gene theory.

>>8198109
Yes, you can go full Musk mode. The behavioral concept that will help you here is Shaping. When new behavior needs to occur, it needs to be Shaped by environmental and cognitive supports. You're not going to run like Usain Bolt the first time or even the hundredth time you try. But we can observe how you run (by recording or watching) and provide feedback on what you did right (and what you did wrong). This feedback guides your behavior towards improvement the next time. And we observe that behavior and provide feedback. Which guides improvement the next time... and so on.

Not all improvement may be in terms of the ultimate measure (e.g., shots under par in golf). If you need to re-design your golf shot, you should expect to see a dip in your score before an improvement. But once the re-design is done. you should expect to see continued improvements in your score until you reach your peak.

For Musk mode, you'll need a clear sense of what's important to you. It doesn't matter what, you get to choose, so do it freely. Then set goals towards this important thing and break it into smaller steps. Assign steps for each day and you're on your way.

contd...

>>8198161
contd....
Except for the actual behavior of taking the steps. For that, you want to go into Shaping Mode, which means you set progressively higher goals. But you start small even if it feels too small.

If you're shooting a basketball, any shot that touches the rim is a great shot, for a beginner. Similarly, increase your work time by 30 minutes each day and you should be fine. If that's too much and you have trouble, scale back and and increase by 30 mins. only every 3 days or so. If you start with one hour of work each day and increase by 30 minutes each day, you'll get to 3 hours by the end of the week, 5.5 hours by the end of the next week, and 8 hours by the third week.

Musk didn't start by putting in 12 hours a day. He did it gradually. So can you. Don't go too high too soon. If it doesn't work, scale it back and adjust from there.

If you're aiming for Musk level, give it a few months. Don't try to get there too soon. Once you're at 8 hours, you can sit there for a bit. Then aim for smaller increments after that.

>>8198161
>>8198169

I see. So basically like progressive overload. I wonder, are there any studies which show that incremental increases in a behavior (e.g. time spent working) allow you to change your behavior? I know it's possible from anecdotal evidence, but this was the core of my question from before, basically does behavioral psychology say, yes, empirically, this does happen.

>>8198179
Yes, there are studies showing that you can shape incremental increases. It happens almost anytime you do animal research as you have to increase the time the animal spends performing the task of interest.

Behavioral therapies (especially Behavioral Activation) demonstrate that time spent on important tasks changes behavior and mood. There's research about it in academic settings (Shaping Academic Task Engagement with Percentile Schedules): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986693/

A big key is that you have to change your environment. You can do that with Post-It notes, decluttering, making access to important things easy, etc. Vietnam vets who were drug addicts in Nam came back and stopped cold turkey due to a change in environment. Rats do drugs when alone in a cage but not when they can play with other rats in a stimulating environment.

Change your environment. That is a huge factor. Sometimes a trip or a break can help. Redesign your environment before you leave so you can come back to a new one.

>>8198203

Thanks for all the responses, this was great :)