In Behavioral Therapy, which technique removes rewards to stop an undesirable behavior?

• A. Diversion
• B. Chaining
• C. Behavioral Extinction
• D. Hypothesis Testing

Answer: (C)

Extinction is the process where you withhold the reinforcement that has been maintaining an undesirable behavior, so the behavior decreases and eventually stops. In operant conditioning, a behavior tends to occur if it’s followed by a rewarding consequence; when that consequence is no longer provided, the urge to perform the behavior fades. Therapists implement this by removing attention or rewards tied to the behavior, allowing the person to learn that the behavior no longer yields a payoff.

For example, if a child acts out to gain attention, ignoring the behavior eliminates the attention payoff, leading to a reduction in the misbehavior over time. This is different from diverting the child to a different activity (diversion), which changes what they do but doesn’t address the reinforcement pattern of the original behavior. Chaining involves linking actions into a sequence and reinforcing each step, not stopping reinforcement for the undesired act. Hypothesis testing relates to evaluating assumptions in a cognitive approach, not to modifying reinforcement to reduce a behavior.