Often when people talk about behavior they are referring to the response part. But a behavior has three parts: an antecedent, a response, and a consequence. The antecedent is the things that occur just before the response, and the consequence is the things that occur right after the response. The response is a subject’s action that occurs right after the antecedent and just before the consequence. When we talk about behavior, we talk about each of these parts. These parts have different functions in their relations to one another. Ability to see these parts of behavior and to understand their functions helps us better understand the behavior in our lives, whether it is our own or that of others.
What Is The Antecedent?
When a person performs an action, there are things that have occurred just prior to it. People’s actions don’t come out of nowhere or just suddenly occur. Sometimes it seems that way, but it is never true. All of these objects, people, speech, etc. that occur just before the response have a relationship to the response, but at least one of them has what we call a controlling relationship. For example, when I pour myself a cup of coffee in the morning, I pour the coffee into a coffee cup. I pour coffee into the coffee cup every time. Now, there may be more than a coffee cup on the table, for example there may be a bowl. But I never pour the coffee into the bowl. It’s always the cup. Thus, for the action of pouring coffee, the cup is an antecedent that has a controlling relationship to that action. The bowl does not have a controlling relationship to the action of pouring coffee. When we talk about the behavior of pouring myself coffee every morning, we say the cup has control of the response of pouring coffee. It’s a good thing for me that the cup has strong control of the response of pouring coffee. The important function of the antecedent is that it connects our responses to the environment in ways that help us manage our environment.
How The Antecedent Is Connected
If antecedents take control of responses, then we need to understand how this occurs. We want to make sure the antecedents we want control the responses we want. The wrong antecedents controlling the wrong responses will be a disaster. The antecedent gets its power to control a specific response from the specific consequence that has reinforced the response. For example, my coffee cup gets its power to control my response of pouring coffee when my coffee cup is filled with coffee and I take a sup. Every time this sequence is completed (coffee cup, act of pouring coffee, coffee cup filled with coffee, I sip coffee) a connection is formed between the coffee cup and my action of pouring coffee. As this sequence occurs over and over, the connection between the antecedent (the cup) and the response (pouring coffee) becomes stronger. We refer to this connection as the antecedent gaining control of the response.
However, we must remember that the response must be reinforced in the presence of an antecedent for the antecedent to gain control of the response. If the response is reinforced but not in the presence of the antecedent, then the antecedent won’t gain control of it. The response that has been reinforced the most in the presence of a particular antecedent will be the response that is most likely to occur in the presence of that antecedent.
Examples of Antecedents and Responses
Washing your hands. The following sequence occurs: 1) You approach the sink in the bathroom; 2) You grasp the handle of the water faucet; 3) You turn the handle until the water begins to flow.
In this sequence the antecedent is the handle of the water faucet. There are two actions, one in step 2 (grasping the handle of the water faucet) and one in step 3 (turning the handle until the water begins to flow). Because they occur very close together in time, we can view them as both being controlled by the antecedent (the faucet handle). The reinforcer is the water flowing.
Waiting for a car to pass before crossing the street. The following sequence occurs: 1) You stand at the sidewalk curb and look both ways and see a car approaching; 2) You stand on the curb until the car passes; 3) You walk across the street.
In this sequence there are two antecedents and two responses. In step 1, an approaching car is the antecedent for the response of continuing to stand on the curb. In step 2, the car passing you is the antecedent for the response of walking across the street. If the antecedent in step 1 did not control the response of continuing to stand on the curb, you would walk into the street in front of an approaching car. Hopefully, the car would see you in the street and stop.
Removing a dress from your closet.
The following sequence occurs. 1) You approach the closet door; 2) You open the closet door; 3) You look into your closet and spot your dress; 4) You take the dress off the closet rod; 5) You take the dress off the hanger; 6) You hang the hanger on the closet rod.
In this sequence there are several antecedents. However, the main antecedent is the dress you are seeking. The other antecedents are the closet door, hanger, and the closet rod. These are all things that support your actions. Each of the antecedents control an action. The closet door controls you opening it; the opened closet controls your looking for the dress; the dress hanging on the rod controls you taking it off the rod; the dress on the hanger controls you taking the dress off the hanger; and the closet rod controls you placing the hanger on the rod. Each of these antecedents and actions have a reinforcer. We won’t go over each, but the conditions that represent the completion of each step are the reinforcers for each step. To illustrate, the reinforcer for step 1 is the closet with the door closed. Step 4 delivers you dress from the closet which is your goal, getting your dress from the closet. To accomplish this goal, several antecedents, responses, and consequences have to occur.
Antecedents Can Work For You
Antecedents to your responses are powerful parts of your environment. You have probably never thought of them in this way. When you have thought about behavior, you have likely thought only of the response. You most likely assumed the behavior was controlled by the actor’s desires or was just spontaneous. Now you know they are controlled by things in the environment. All our behaviors are controlled by things in our environment. Our desires can still play a role in our behavior, but our desires just don’t control our behavior. You know that a reinforcer following a response will make whatever occurs just before the response control the response.
Let’s assume your child has developed a habit of interrupting you when you are trying to explain something to him. Let’s look at the sequence. 1) You are talking to your son, looking him in the eyes; 2) Your son interrupts you; 3) You ask him not to interrupt you; 4) You begin talking again looking you son in the eyes; 5) Your son interrupts you again; 6) You ask him not to interrupt you, etc..
Let’s look at this sequence in terms of the antecedents, responses and consequences. The antecedent has two parts: 1) you talking to your son, and 2) you looking him in the eyes; 2) the response is your son interrupting you; 3) the consequence is asking your son not to interrupt you. This sequence of the antecedent-response-consequence repeats itself in steps 5 and 6 with the antecedent being understood.
Because your son continues to interrupt you, we know that the consequence (you asking your son to not interrupt) is not effective in reducing his interruptions. This is because his response of interrupting you has been reinforced sufficiently that it is strongly controlled by the antecedent of your talking to him while looking him in the eyes. There are several things you could do to change that. Here, we will discuss one of those: changing the reinforcer.
The reinforcer has been you asking your son to not interrupt you while looking him in the eyes. Let’s change that to the following. Immediately when your son interrupts you, do the following: 1) break eye contact (you look down); 2) say nothing for about 5 seconds: 3) look your son in the eyes; 4) ask him if he is listening; 5) when your son says yes, continue to talk to him looking him in the eyes. Repeat steps 1-4 every time your son interrupts. For the purposes of this blog, we will assume your son says yes to your question. There are things you can do if he says no, but that is beyond the scope of this blog.
We have changed the reinforcer so that it will reduce the chances of your son’s response of interrupting from reoccurring in the future when you are talking to him. We will assume this is an effective strategy. If it is effective, this change in the reinforcer has reduced the power of the antecedent to elicit the response of interrupting and strengthened its power to elicit the response of listening while you are talking. What we have done is to change the response that the antecedent elicits (interrupting you while you are talking) to the response you want (listening to you while you talk).
More than Simply Responding
If you don’t know how your behavior works, then you are damned to go through life simply responding to it when it produces results you don’t like. Many people, even highly educated people, live their lives this way; they know many things, but they don’t know how their behavior works. By understanding a few important facts about how your behavior works, you can take control of your own behavior and help others manage their behavior. This kind of personal control is rather rare. Don’t be a slave to your environment; take control of your own behavior.