Antecedent Control Strategy

Dr. Drake, a dentist was concerned that many of his patients did not floss their teeth regularly and were therefore at risk for gum disease. Dr. Drake devised a plan to get her patients to floss everyday. Every time patients came in for a check up or cleaning, Dr. Drake showed them awful pictures of people with gum disease and pictures of painful surgery that people with gum disease had to endure because they did not floss regularly. Before the patients left the office, she told them that they could avoid the awful gum disease and the painful surgery by flossing their teeth for 2 minutes every day.

What antecedent control strategy was Dr. Drake using to get her patients to floss their teeth?

Why is this strategy, by itself not enough to keep people flossing?

What other strategy would you add to make it more likely that people would keep flossing their teeth regularly? © BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com March 21, 2019, 11:54 pm ad1c9bdddf
https://brainmass.com/psychology/abnormal-psychology/antecedent-control-strategy-478241

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(1) What antecedent control strategy was Dr. Drake using to get her patients to floss their teeth?

Dr. Drake is using a behavioral technique of aversion control. For example, aversion control is used in therapeutic interventions based on strategies that are conducted by presenting the patient ‘client with unpleasant images and/or events to change a negative behavior. Therefore, Dr. Drake is using aversive strategies in order to make patients aware of the consequences that could come from not brushing and flossing their teeth. A common form of Aversion therapy is used in operant conditioning associated with reinforcement to avert a negative behavior through punishment. It involves the pairing of a stimulus (a noxious image) designed to elicit a response to the undesirable target behavior (such as …