I feel the behaviorist techniques of operant conditioning are easy to misapply.
A large part of Don’t Shoot the Dog explains the frequent mistakes in behaviorism. After reading it I realized that probably everyone who ever talked to me about behaviorism was making these mistakes.
Conditioning seems so simple: if you like something, reward; if you don’t like something, punish; duh. It’s a science you can learn in three seconds! Then in real life you wonder why it often fails and sometimes backfires. The science is always right; so you blame the people (and animals) for being irrational and not responding properly to the scientific techniques! Even worse, you can condition yourself to believe that your conditioning works when in fact it does not.
A large part of Don’t Shoot the Dog explains the frequent mistakes in behaviorism. After reading it I realized that probably everyone who ever talked to me about behaviorism was making these mistakes.
Conditioning seems so simple: if you like something, reward; if you don’t like something, punish; duh. It’s a science you can learn in three seconds! Then in real life you wonder why it often fails and sometimes backfires. The science is always right; so you blame the people (and animals) for being irrational and not responding properly to the scientific techniques! Even worse, you can condition yourself to believe that your conditioning works when in fact it does not.