November 10, 2003
Behaviorism and My Dorm Room
Today in psychology we were talking about behaviorism , which proposes that much of behavior is determined by the environment. If you want to change behavior, you can do it by simply putting the subject in a different environment. While behaviorism might be somewhat reductionistic, I do agree that the environment is very important for determining behavior, and I started thinking about the relationship between my environment and my behavior.
One case where I change my environment to improve behavior is going to the library. When I have lots of studying to do, I always try to go to the library to eliminate distractions and provide a setting where productive studying is more likely to happen. What exactly is it about my dorm room that makes it not conducive to studying? One major distraction is my computer. I know I should try to have more self control, but it seems that when my computer is sitting right next to me, I can always think of something that I absolutely need to use it for right now. So, according to behaviorism, I should change my environment (room with computer) to change my behavior (getting distracted). Ideally, I would have another room for my computer, so I could have one room for computing and one room for studying. If I had my own apartment, then perhaps I could do this, but with an 8' by 10' dorm room, there's nowhere I could put my computer so that it would be out of sight while studying. Despite my good intentions, I am hamstrung by the constraints of my dorm room.
In any case, I should really pay more attention to my environment. Sometimes I'm productive, and other times I spend hours without getting anything done. Instead of simply accepting this, I should figure out why I'm not productive, and see if there's a way I can change the environment to improve my behavior.
Posted by Dirtae at November 10, 2003 04:38 PMThis is a phenomenon that I have been keenly aware of for a while now. As you say, I find that I am almost completely incapable of doing work in my room. I realized this sometime after sophomore year (now electing to go to Starbucks on a regular basis), and the impact on my productivity has been *very* noticable.
I wonder, however, if it is not just due to minimizing distractions, but also due to the associations our mind has with certain environments. For example, I find that sitting in my room and doing work on my computer is very difficult (I tend to want to check my email, check Slashdot, check a number of the blogs I have been reading, etc... every five minutes), but if I take my laptop somewhere else, I don't have this problem at all. I suppose that I could narrow down the distraction to being the Internet, more than just my computer in general, but even when I have a wireless connection on my laptop elsewhere, I still tend to be far more focused.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that our rooms are the places where we sleep, and so therefore our minds unconsciously associate it with being a place for relaxation and unwinding.
Whatever the case, environmental effects on productivity are definitely very real.
Yes, I think you are right about our mental associations playing a big role. Perhaps my problem is not that the computer is in the room with me, but that I don't have seperate work and play environments. Thus, when I sit down to write some code for a class, I am in the exact same environment as when I sit down to read blogs or check email. A cleaner seperation between work and play environments would help.
Posted by: UncleDirtae at November 10, 2003 07:12 PM
