“Well, that came out of nowhere.” 

“She’s never done that before.” 

“Why would he do that?” 

Sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. People are complex, complicated, hard to understand. So are people’s behaviors. We all ask the question from time to time: why do people do what they do? Well, part of the answer lies below – antecedents.

Behavior changes based on the world around us.

Part of that world, antecedents, are those events that occur before the behavior. Think about the last phone call you received. What happened? You might say, “I answered the call by pressing a button on my phone.” This is the behavior, what you did. The question is, what brought that behavior out? In this case, your phone ringing (or vibrating). If your phone didn’t ring, could you have “answered a call”? No, because the phone didn’t ring. Only when the phone rang, did you do the answering.

The ringing phone is an antecedent. It comes before your behavior; and it brings out that behavior. All behaviors have antecedents. Sometimes, they are right before the behavior – a ringing phone; the dog barking to go outside; heavy rain beginning as you walk out the front door. They are part of the environment in which we live. They give us something to respond to. 

Sometimes, these come a bit further before our behavior. These still impact us. For example, you are walking into work, carrying coffee. But, uh oh – you trip and spill your coffee. First off, this is just a bummer – coffee is gone, and your pants are stained. You sit at your desk. As soon as you sit down, an annoying coworker walks over and starts talking about their weekend. Typically, you might just deal, it’s not that bad. But today, your tolerance is really low – I mean, you have no coffee! So today, when they start talking, you yell “Not right now!”

Think about these events:

1.     A teacher gives a student a challenging task

2.     Your spouse tells you to “calm down” while arguing

3.     You enter a room that smells lovely; someone lit a vanilla-scented candle

4.     Your favorite soccer team got eliminated from the World Cup

5.     The traffic light turns green

Remember, these aren’t behaviors. These happen in the world around us, specifically, before we do something. Now, think about the behaviors that might follow. For #1, the student asks to go to the nurse, to get out of the task. In #2, the argument might get louder; #3, you can tolerate some arduous work, because the environment is quite enjoyable. In #4, you throw something at your TV, and it breaks. And in #5, you press the gas pedal and get moving.

Antecedents come before behavior. They can help us understand why behaviors occur; or why certain behaviors don’toccur. Next time you’re out, look not only at what people do, but also what happened before. Context is powerful!