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Decreasing Nail Biting with Positive Reinforcement

Megan Frazier

University of Pikeville

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Abstract

Over the past three weeks I have been working on decreasing a behavior. The behavior that I

have been working to decrease is a person biting their nails. During this experiment I have tried

many things in order to decrease biting of the fingernails. I have tried things such as pointing out

the problem of the person biting their nails, painting their nails, cutting their nails short, using

special nail polish that tastes bad, and ultimately rewarding if person doesn’t bite fingernails. It’s

kind of like it’s an addiction or more so a way to relieve stress. The participant was given two

weeks to try to stop biting their nails by having many reinforcements added to their everyday

life. The different punishments used in this experiment are used to positively reinforce the

participants to stop biting their nails. The whole goal of this experiment was to decrease the

behavior.

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Decreasing Nail Biting with Positive Reinforcement

Onychophagia, otherwise known as nail biting, is a cosmetic concern that can be severe

or not even noticeable. It is basically an oral habit that can be classified in the DSM-5 as an

Obsessive-Compulsive related disorder. There can be many reasons as to why people bite their

nails. According to Psychology Today, “People who chronically bite their nails may experience:

distressful feelings of unease or tension prior to biting, feelings of relief or even pleasure after

biting, feelings of shame, embarrassment, and guilt often related to the appearance of physical

damage to skin and nails caused by biting, tissue damage to fingers, nails, and cuticles, mouth

injuries, dental problems, abscesses, and infections, and in some cases, onychophagia may lead

to complicated family and social relationships.” (Psychology Today, anonymous, 2019)

Biting of the nails can indicate that people could have other disorders associated with this

simple cosmetic issue. According to the Calm Clinic, there is a seventy-four percent chance that

someone biting their nails has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, thirty-six percent chance

of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, twenty-point six percent of Separation Anxiety Disorder,

eleven-point one percent chance of Major Depressive Disorder, and nine-point five percent

chance of Mental Disorder (Henry Vyner, MD, Psychiatrist, 2018). It has been found that there is

a twenty-eight percent chance that people with Tourette Syndrome are also nail biting.

Nail biting is one of the hardest habits that you can quit, with having repetition after

repetition it can be stuck in your head the simple habit of biting your nails. There are many

different ways out here in this world that is supposed to stop the biting of the fingernails,

however not all of them work for everyone. To get rid of nail biting it does require a lot of

patience, determination and consistency in order to actually stop the habit.

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The purpose of this whole experiment was to reduce and/or eliminate the annoying habit

of biting of the fingernails. During this experiment there were many different trails and different

things have been tried in order to stop the biting of fingernails. Biting of the fingernails is a very

common habit that most people have and a bad one at that. This is apparent in younger adults,

teenagers and children, such as the participant of my experiment.

Method

Participant

The participant was a white, sixteen-year-old male student at Betsy Layne High School.

The subject has tried to stop nail biting once before and was successful due to him getting braces.

Since his braces have been off, he has been back biting his fingernails.

Apparatus

There were many things used in this experiment whereas most could be found in your

home. These items include pen, paper, fingernail clippers, special nasty tasting nail polish, and

food. These items were used to prevent the participant from biting his fingernails where they

would deliver a punishment every time, he tried to bite his nails.

Procedure

The experiment that was being carried out was an attempt to decrease the participants

urge to bite his fingernails. His behavior has been apparent for around two years and then was

put on hold for approximately a year and a half due to having braces put on, and since then he’s

picked the habit back up and has been participating in biting his fingernails for around five

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months now. My participant wants to eliminate the fingernail biting all together. The way I

would measure the behavior that my participant provided I made a scale from 1-10, asking him

how bad he wanted to bite his nails and asking him if he bit his nails or not. The first week I left

it just up to him to decide if he was biting his nails or not only bringing the issue up to the

participant. The next week the first treatment was added in which was clipping his fingernails so

short that he couldn’t bite them. The week after that I added a second treatment of applying this

nasty tasting nail polish that I bought at Wal-Mart. During every week I would buy him his

favorite snack everyday if he didn’t have a huge urge to bite his nails or if he didn’t bite his nails.

These forms of treatment were positive reinforcement and was used to negatively reinforce the

participant to not bite his nails.

The experiment that I conducted was mostly basic and easy to go along with. Before I

started the experiment, I made it clear to the participant the habit that we were going to break,

and he agreed to the challenge and wished to also eliminate nail biting. Once the habit had been

very well known, the participant was allowed to return to his daily life with no reinforcement for

one week. After the first week was completed, I then started the reinforcements. I started off by

cutting my participants fingernails as short as they would go so, he couldn’t bite them. After that

week was completed, I then exchanged the clipping of the fingernails for a nasty tasting clear

nail polish. During these weeks of being reinforced with many different things he would record

how bad he wanted to bite his nails and if he did. Also, at the end of everyday if he didn’t have

an huge urge or bit his nails then I’d buy him his favorite snack.

Results

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The results that my participants provided the nail biting actually was eliminated

altogether. The first week my participant continued to have an urge to bite his nails and

continued to bite them. For the first week the data that was collected is shown in Table 1.

The data shown in Table 1 was what I expected to see considering he had a huge urge to

bite his fingernails. There wasn’t a day that wasn’t rated something that I didn’t expect, he was

very consistent on biting his fingernails and the urge to bite his nails due to any little bit of stress.

The next week is when the cutting of the fingernails and being rewarded after every

process was put into place. I clipped his fingernails for him every time they started to grow out

even though most of the time, I would go to clip them, and he had already had any little bit of

nail that was left already bit off. In this data there are a couple days that where rated higher than

days later in the week. Considering that the highest numbers were the first couple days is

understandable due to the fact that he was so used to biting his nails and tried to go straight to not

biting his nails. The data started out really high however, as days went on during the week the

data seemed to decrease slightly. The data for this week is shown in Table 2.

The next week I decided I wanted to try another reinforcement other than just clipping

my participants nails down short, I decided I was going to go buy special clear nail polish that

tasted bad. In this data set his urge started to decrease and stayed around the same numbers while

still around halfway which had improved since the clipping of the fingernails. There weren’t any

shockers in the data this week except he tried to bite his nails the first couple of days and once he

realized the nail polish was so nasty, he couldn’t even bite his fingernails. The data for this week

is shown in Table 3.

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On the last week, the participants urge to bite his nails and biting his nails decrease and

actually biting them was eliminated. There was one hiccup in the data, and it was towards the

end of the week when he actually had a really high urge to bite his nails however, he ignored the

urge and didn’t bite his nails. This was a very stressful day for my participant not only did he

have a huge exam, he also had a game later that day. The data for this week is shown in Table 4.

The data does show a trend with how the experiment went along rather than a couple

hiccups along the way. Not only did the urge to bite his nails decreased however when he had a

higher urge to bite his nails it was the days that he was more stressed out. There is obviously

problems tracking the data, the participant might have over exaggerated or under exaggerated

some of the ways he felt towards biting his nails.

Discussion

According to the data set that was recorded shows the urge of biting the fingernails and

actually biting them was decreased and even eliminated the biting of the fingernails for the last

week. Granted there is room for error in collecting the data whereas the participant may have not

put exactly how he felt but for the most part I would say that the results that were proposed are

correct.

The experiment couldn’t really have been changed anymore considering I decided to use

two different reinforcements to see which one worked the best. My participant responded very

well to the reinforcements that were placed onto him. He started to get the hang of everything

after the first couple of days during the reinforcements. The only change that could’ve been

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placed would be to try to avoid stressful situations but that would limit him on the things that he

would be doing and wouldn’t be considered living his life normally for the experiment.

Even though the urge to bite his fingernails were decrease if he doesn’t continue to do the

things that he had done in the last few weeks then he could easily pick the habit of biting his

nails and the urge back up even though he hasn’t bite his nails in almost two weeks. A second

experiment should be used as a follow up to see if the participant has actually stopped biting his

nails and the urge has went away.

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References

“Onychophagia (Nail Biting).” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/onychophagia-nail-biting

Anxiety and Compulsive Nail Biting.” Calm Clinic,

www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/nail-biting

“Stop Nail Biting.” The Nail-Biting Habit. Quitting Is Not so Easy,

www.stopnailbiting.net/articles/nail-biting-habit.html

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Table 1. Data from Week 1 (Baseline)

Data Bite Nails Mean Standard Deviation

10 YES

10 YES

9 YES

Week 1 10 YES 9 3

8 YES

9 YES

7 NO

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Table 2. Data from Week 2 (Intervention) Clipping of Nails

Data Bite Nails Mean Standard Deviation

9 YES

10 YES

8 YES

Week 2 7 NO 7.57 3.7

7 NO

6 NO

6 NO

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Table 3. Data from Week 3 (Intervention) Nasty Nail Polish

Data Bite Nails Mean Standard Deviation

6 YES

7 YES

6 NO

Week 3 6 NO 5.57 2.38

5 NO

5 NO

4 NO

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Table 4. Data from Week 4 (Return to Baseline)

Data Bite Nails Mean Standard Deviation

5 NO

4 NO

4 NO

Week 4 3 NO 4 4.47

8 NO

2 NO

2 NO

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