mom experiment

Keenan Coffey

4/29/14

Period D

Experiment Project

I decided to interview my mom to try and break a habit of hers. She is probably the loudest person I know. In my prior attempts to break this habit, I have tried talking to her, or just being loud back to her. I have constructed an experiment involving me giving her a piece of candy when she answers questions without yelling. I decided to keep it in a controlled area like my house just so she would act like she normally would. Everytime my mom answered quietly in a quiet tone I rewarded her with a piece of chocolate. Everytime she had yelled, or raised her voice I did not give her anything in return.

My mom's realization of not recieving candy is to fix the problem of her talking so loud. I performed all of the experiments in my kitchen during dinner, or just at random hours of the day. I also took into account that my mom has ADHD medicine, and that it calms her down on most occasions. It would be almost unfair to not take this into account.

I gave my mom positive reinforcement because I gave her a piece of candy. Everytime she recieved one, she was reinforced to try and gain more. She had partial reinforcement because I was not completely consistent throughout the day. She could have been talking to my brother in a quiet tone and I wouldn't give her a piece of candy. I gave the reward only when she was speaking to me.

I gave her a positive punishment because I did not take away anything from her when she continued to be loud. I could have sprayed water on her, or I could have done something in a negative manner. My hypothesis is that she will be not as loud during the trials as they progress. The goal of the experiement is to try and make my mom use an inside voice when she spoke. Hopefully this experiment translated into the future, and that is partially why I chose to do this topic.


Day 1

I introduce my mom to the experiment. She responds by letting me perform it, and lets me series of questions just on regular events happening that day. The whole day she was yelling, and I only managed to give her one piece of chocolate.

Day 2

I asked my mom questions relating to a common theme of sports. I asked her a lot about baseball, and she knew a lot about it. She was not loud while answering questions like "How many outs are there in an inning". I then changed up the sequence of questions by making them a little harder. I then asked her to explain the infield fly rule, which I don't seem to know very well either. She got mad and responded by saying "you know I don't know that, Keenan". She did not get a piece of candy.

Day 3

This day I decided to ask her questions relating to her. I asked about what she did before she had kids, what she did in highschool, questions like that. She began to realize that she always wanted the chocolate because thats her favorite candy. I conditioned my mom to not yell, and to talk in a reasonably quiet tone the whole time. She told me she didn't want to do the experiement anymore, and I decided to use my brother.

Day 4

My brother is a lot like my mom. He also speaks loudly, but I think he could be partially deaf to be completely honest. I asked him questions about his life and he responded in a quiet tone. He got every question right and got candy everytime.

Day 5

I asked my brother a series of questions pertaining to baseball like my mom. I asked him only the hard questions though. This was to see if he responded the same as my mother. I asked him about the infield fly rule and a couple other hard concepts, and he did not explain them. He also responded loudly, and I did not reward him with candy.

The experiment went reasonably well. I did not have any problems or implications other than having to buy more chocolate, and my mom not wanting to stay in it. I luckily had my brother to test on, though. I achieved many goals I made at the beginning of the experiment process. I wanted to see the response to a stimulus from both my mom and brother's perspectives. They were both successful in doing so and realized the purpose of it all.

I also wanted to keep my mom to a quiet tone when she was speaking. Days after I noticed that she was reasonably quiet around me. It definitely worked in this case.

My brother was a different story. After the experiment he continued to talk in a loud tone. He was not the initial volunteer in the first place, so it is still a success.