The Curious Case of Buster Bluth:

A final fiesta presentation intended for your viewing pleasure.

Mia Provenzano PSY1400, Fall 2011

If you’ve never seen Arrested Development,

It is a show about an extremely dysfunctional family…

Which makes for a great source of various contingencies...

That you will see in a second…

But first, let’s get to know the Bluth’s a little bit. Let’s see what they have to say…

Background Information: This is George Bluth

Sr., CEO of the Bluth Company. As of recently, George has been imprisoned for toying with the Bluth Company’s assets. He considers jail a vacation from real life.

Background Information:

This is Lucille Bluth. Upon her husband’s recent imprisonment, she has been named CEO of the Bluth company. She is controlling, overbearing, & judgmental.

Background Information: This is GOB (George Oscar Bluth). He is

the oldest Bluth child. He works as a struggling magician who rides around on a segway… enough said.

Background Information:

This is Michael. He is the only responsible and seemingly normal member of the Bluth family. Michael spends most of his time cleaning up his family’s messes.

Background Information:

This is Lindsay. She married her husband simply to spite her mother. She is high maintenance and has no aspirations of ever working or making her own money.

Background Information: This is Buster, the youngest Bluth and

subject of rampant contingency use. Buster is a naïve man-boy who still competes in pageants with Lucille.

Fun Fact:

This is Buster’s real father, George Sr.’s twin brother, Oscar Bluth. He is an old hippie who has nothing going for him besides a full head of hair.

Now that we’ve all been introduced,

Lucille hears that Michael is housing all of his siblings except Buster. Buster has been quite annoying to Lucille lately.

So she guilts Michael into letting Buster move in with him.

Buster spends the day at the Bluth Company

Michael: “Gob, what are you doing here, and why are you in a bathrobe?”

Gob: “What’s he doing here, and why is he in his bathing suit?”

Buster: “Mom dropped me off to spend time with Michael.”

Buster spends the day at the Bluth Company

Gob: “Spend time with Michael? Or to serve her own menopausal needs?”

Michael: “She’s always got to wedge herself in the middle of us so that she can control everything.”

Buster: “Yeah, Mom’s awesome. Maybe we should call her…”

Dirty looks in the copy room

Before:

Buster does not receive dirty

looks from his brothers

Behavior:

Buster says, “Mom’s

awesome.”

After:

Buster receives dirty looks

from his brothers

Dirty looks, of course, are aversive stimuli

Later on…

…it is revealed that George Sr. did not pay much attention or give a lot of support to Buster as a child.

You were just a turd.

In other words…

S :Δ

George

SD:

Lucille

Behavior:

Little Buster presents his arts & crafts

projectAfter:

Little Buster receives no praise and attention

After:

Little Buster receives

praise and attention

Before:

Little Buster receives no praise and attention

Buster’s presenting an art project is not in the episode, but used purely for this example

After a few days with his siblings…

…Buster has already began imitating their behavior, specifically the way they speak.

Old horny slut!

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Before:

Buster receives no

imitative reinforcers

Behavior:

Buster bad-mouths Lucille

After:

Buster receives imitative

reinforcers

Sometimes.

What just occurred? The stimuli arising from the match

between Buster’s behavior and the behavior of his siblings maintains Buster’s behavior of using expletives. His siblings also praised his negative talk about their mother.

Praise Praise is a learned reinforcer. It is established by being paired with

other learned and/or unlearned reinforcers.

Praise Food, drink, loving touch

No Praise No food, drink, loving touch

So what happened next?

Buster’s comments were already being reinforced by praise when they took a turn down inappropriate street.

So his siblings then stopped praising his vulgar comments.

#&@$! $#&*%! @#$%*&!...

Before:

Buster receives praise

Behavior:

Buster uses

expletives to describe

Lucille

After:

Buster receives

no praise

The Law of Effect

The effects of our actions determine whether we will repeat them.

For example, Buster will no longer

enter photobooths.

What went down… Well, after Lucille heard about Buster’s

hurtful comments she came crawling back to him.

Naturally, to get him back she taunted him with his own words.

What went down…Buster: “Michael! I want to go with Mom.”

Michael: “You said that she shoots you down.”

Buster: “ I was just trying to fit in.”

Michael: “You were flying today, buddy.”

Buster: “Yes. I was flying. But a little too close to the sun.”

Lucille: “You let him go in the sun?!”

All that for him to just go back to his momma??

Following this short dialogue, Lucille told Buster to go sit in the car. He then insisted on sitting in the front seat. So maybe that’s not impressive for us all, but it was a big step for Buster.

In the end, Buster did go back home with his mother, but through this process he learned to stand up to her. At least a little bit.

The End

The Bluth family lived…. Ever after.