behavior

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Related to behaviorally: contingent behavior

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adulterous behavior

Actions that bely not only an unfaithfulness to one's spouse, but also a propensity toward deceit and licentiousness in general. I suspect that Ollie has been engaging in adulterous behavior recently. I wonder if his husband has picked up on it.

ape (one's) behavior

To mimic the behavior of one, generally in a mocking or derisive manner. It is pretty standard now for comedians to ape the president's behavior and manner of speech.

be on (one's) best behavior

To be very polite or exercise exceptionally good manners. Primarily heard in US. Now, you kids must be on your best behavior for your Auntie this weekend! Good morning, class. I hope everyone was on their best behavior for the substitute teacher yesterday.

See also: behavior, on

be on (one's) good behavior

To be very polite or exercising exceptionally good manners. Primarily heard in US. Now, you kids must be on your good behavior for your Auntie this weekend! Good morning, class. I hope everyone was on their good behavior for the substitute teacher yesterday.

on (one's) best behavior

Being very polite or exercising exceptionally good manners. Primarily heard in US. Now, you kids must be on your best behavior for your Auntie this weekend! Good morning, class. I hope everyone was on their best behavior for the substitute teacher yesterday.

See also: behavior, on

on (one's) good behavior

Being very polite or exercising exceptionally good manners. Primarily heard in US. Now, you kids must be on your good behavior for your Auntie this weekend! Good morning, class. I hope everyone was on their good behavior for the substitute teacher yesterday.

time off for good behavior

An amount of time that is taken off of one's prison sentence as a result of following the rules and not causing any trouble. He served six years of an eight-year sentence, with time off for good behavior. Seeing as this is your first offense, you should be able to get time off for good behavior.

on one's best behavior

being as polite as possible. When we went out, the children were on their best behavior. I try to be on my best behavior all the time.

See also: behavior, on

*time off for good behavior

1. Lit. a reduction in one's prison sentence because of good behavior. (*Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) Bob will get out of jail tomorrow rather than next week. He got time off for good behavior.

2. Fig. a shortened time period—such a meeting, period of punishment, school class, etc. (Jocular. *Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) They let me out of the meeting early. They said I got time off for good behavior.

on one's best behavior

Also, on one's good behavior. Very polite, as in Mother told the children to be on their best behavior during Grandma's visit, or The whole staff were on their good behavior while the client inspected the premises. [Late 1600s]

See also: behavior, on

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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References in periodicals archive ?

LABOR MARKET DIFFERENTIALS FOR BEHAVIORALLY GAY MEN

How ENDAs extend the workweek: legal protection and the labor supply of behaviorally gay men

Most important, they wanted a linguistically oriented database, as well as a behaviorally oriented one.

The FBI's Communicated Threat Assessment Database: history, design, and implementation

The purpose of the present article is to extend the Carr and Britton (2003) article by providing recent citation data for a larger and more diverse array of behaviorally oriented journals.

Citation performance of behaviorally oriented journals

The gibbon was behaviorally depressed but responsive and aware of his surroundings.

Parastrongylus cantonensis in a nonhuman primate, Florida

To overcome this challenge, Whole-Security, Inc., Austin, Texas, recently launched the first browser-based software that behaviorally identifies previously unknown spooled sites, preventing the theft of online identities.

Solution prevents phishing attacks

A focus on basic techniques for interacting with behaviorally challenged residents.

Is your staff ready for violent residents? Appropriate training is a necessity--but what are its ingredients?

It is not uncommon for those who hold these values to convey a certain invulnerability that often translates behaviorally as lack of respect, under-appreciating multiple perspectives, objectivity polarized against emotion and intuition, failure to seek win-win solutions, or as insularity and lack of openness.

Understanding emotional intelligence can help alter problem behavior

The questions are behaviorally specific and simply worded; for example, "Uses the toilet," "[Exhibits] Confusion in new places," "Shouting or cursing at others," and "Chooses appropriate clothing."

Scoring tool uses caregiver input to assess status of dementia patients

The PsycEXTRA gray literature database, soon to be available on EBSCOhost, provides access to psychologically and behaviorally relevant literature published outside traditional peer-reviewed journals or scholarly books.

APA launches three new databases

He emphasizes that it is important to confirm this relationship, "because whatever risk is conferred by sunlight is, in principle, behaviorally avoidable."

It's too darn bright

Children and adults who demonstrated characteristics similar to what we now call autism were often labeled as emotionally or behaviorally disturbed, or cognitively disabled.

Autism and the inclusion mandate: what happens when children with severe disabilities like autism are taught in regular classrooms? Daniel knows

While surfing the Net for an early childhood special education position, I had to chuckle about a job posting I found: "Emotionally behaviorally disabled teacher for secondary," the ad read.

Smile

Their article, "Using the Career Decision Making System-Revised (CDM-R) to Enhance Students' Career Development," illustrates their system's applicability and suitability in developing many of the behaviorally based student competencies highlighted in the National Standards for School Counseling Programs (Campbell & Dahir, 1997).

Connecting school counseling to the current reality. (From The Editor)

2,4,6-TCP is behaviorally active, prompting 65% attraction by fed sexually excited males compared to 49% for acetone controls in 9cm i.d.

First report of a trichlorophenol in ticks and its probable function. (Environmental Poster Session 10:00 AM-11:00 AM)

Among the differentiations discussed are effort versus ability as causes of achievement performance, moral versus outcome evaluation, biologically versus behaviorally based stigmas, stigma onset versus stigma offset, reward for compliance versus threat of punishment for noncompliance, pro- versus antisocial behavior, and retributive versus utilitarian punishment goals.

A naive psychologist examines bad luck and the concept of responsibility. (Philosophical Abstracts)