A plan that seeks to decrease the occurrence of problem behaviors by changing the environment to make alternative, appropriate behaviors more likely is best described as which concept?

• A. Behavior Reduction
• B. EO/MO
• C. Antecedents
• D. Stimulus Fading Procedures

Answer: (A)

The main idea is reducing problem behaviors by changing the environment so that appropriate, alternative behaviors become more likely. This approach—behavior reduction—focuses on altering the setup and contingencies around a behavior to make the desired response easier and more reinforcing, while diminishing the reinforcement that maintains the problem behavior. In practice, you might rearrange materials, adjust tasks, or modify cues so that engaging in an appropriate behavior is more likely and more rewarding than engaging in the problem behavior. This is different from motivating operations, which change how reinforcing a consequence is at a given moment, or from stimulus fading, which is a specific procedure for gradually changing stimuli.