I don't know of any "how to" type material, but the scientific topic here is operant conditioning. The basic idea is that you reward behaviors that are desired

I don't know of any "how to" type material, but the scientific topic here is operant conditioning. The basic idea is that you reward behaviors that are desired and/or punish behaviors that aren't desired. There's an interesting dichotomy, though: the fastest way to learn a behavior is to have a reinforcement (a reward or foregoing something unpleasant) that is consistently provided with/after the behavior and not at other times. However, the most effective way to maintain a behavior is for the reward to be provided at a random ratio to the behavior (but still only in conjunction with the desired behavior) [1]. A lot of people want to believe that humans are somehow "above" operant conditioning, but there's a lot of evidence that we aren't. Language nitpick: the word you want is systematic [2]. [1] http://open.lib.umn.edu/intropsyc/chapter/7-2-changing-behavior-through-reinforcement-and-punishment-operant-conditioning/#stangor-ch07_s02_s02_f01 http://open.lib.umn.edu/intropsyc/chapter/7-2-changing-behav... [2] http://www.public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/systemic.html http://www.public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/systemic.html