To illustrate the demands of self-monitoring including reactivity, select some specific behavior, thought, or emotion that you would like to change (e.g., either increase the behavior or decrease the behavior). Examples might include the number of times you say “um” during a conversation, the number of cigarettes you smoke, the amount of time you spend studying, the number of pages a textbook you read each day, the amount of food or drink you consume daily, the number of steps walked each day, etc.
Then record the frequency of the behavior immediately after it occurs for a period of five days. After recording the data, track your data by day and number of occurrences. Reactivity should produce changes in the behavior in the desired direction. Select a behavior that you would like to change, but also one that you would be comfortable discussing within the class.
Submit a two-page narrative paper (include the data chart) to talk about reactivity, the demands of self-monitoring, and the importance of accuracy (reliability and validity) of self-monitoring in clinical assessment. Explain how hard it was to monitor the frequency of each occurrence of the selected behavior? How did self-monitoring help you to increase or decrease the behavior?
