Setting Event

Setting events were first conceptualized in interbehavioral psychology in the 1950s as contextual factors that influence the antecedent-behavior-consequence (ABC) relationship. During the past 20 years, applied behavior analysts have accelerated investigations of these potentially powerful environmental influences on behavior. Researchers described setting events as more global in nature than the discrete ABC components and capable of influencing how individuals respond to an antecedent stimulus at a given point in time by momentarily changing the value of the consequence stimulus. For example, a setting event such as illness may influence a student's work behavior by changing the value of work completion as the reinforcing stimulus. When individuals are ill, work completion, typically a reinforcing consequence stimulus, becomes aversive, and task abandonment, or escape, becomes reinforcing. Setting events also evoke more pleasant stimulus response relationships, as in winning a lottery. Such a setting event may decrease the impact of work demands to the point of work termination (i.e., no longer needing to work) and may increase the value of stimulus response relationships associated with acquiring highly preferred possessions (e.g., houses, boats, etc.). Setting events can increase or decrease the value of the consequence stimulus and thereby influence how individuals respond in varying contexts.

Historically, researchers have focused far more on those setting events likely to have adverse effects on individuals' quality of life, especially individuals with developmental disabilities or emotional disturbance. Researchers learned that setting events and their impact varied uniquely across individuals but, more important, were predictive of challenging behaviors. With the increase in concern for the lives of individuals with challenging behavior, investigators considered more closely classes of setting events and how to intervene to achieve at least momentary if not longitudinal benefits.

In general, researchers concurred that setting events consisted of three classes: (a) physiological [Page 1516](e.g., illness, menses, sleep), (b) contextual (e.g., presence or absence of particular people, crowded conditions), and (c) interpersonal or behavioral history (e.g., altercations with family members before work or school). In the process of demonstrating the relationship between setting events and challenging behavior, researchers were encouraged to move beyond the standard experimental manipulations to measures such as probabilities and correlations that separated behaviors into conditions with and without setting events. The assessment and classification of setting events set the stage for the development of interventions that cross setting event classes. The interventions consist of (a) removing or minimizing the impact of the setting event, (b) neutralizing the setting event, (c) increasing the opportunities for positive reinforcement, and (d) changing or withholding the immediate or discriminative stimulus for the behavior.

Often, physiological setting events are associated with interventions that minimize or remove the impact of the setting event. For individuals who are ill or women who are experiencing menses, taking medication may remove or minimize the effects of the illness or menses. Some setting events, such as difficult interpersonal interactions or arguments, may be neutralized through relaxation techniques or some type of cooling-down period. Once a setting event occurs, the removal or withholding of the discriminative stimulus or the immediate stimulus may prove useful, as does increasing the opportunities for positive reinforcement. For example, a student may experience some altercation on a bus ride prior to school. Rather than starting his day with new or difficult concepts in math, he should be asked to complete a few easy problems that he can effortlessly accomplish and then be presented with more difficult problems. Another way to minimize the impact of the same setting event might be to have the student do easy tasks or errands for the teacher before beginning his schoolwork. Throughout any intervention, it is always important to maximize opportunities for positive reinforcement.

...