1) Many people (me included) have a strong, emotional aversion to the thought of using physical force against a child that has effectively no way to defend themselves. (Needless to say, such emotional reactions say nothing about whether it’s actually right or wrong to hit a child .)
Indeed, I don’t have any such aversion, and tend to score pretty low on the “emphathize with other human beings” thing. Which probably explains some of my puzzlement :)
2) AFAIK, there are studies indicating that spanking is an ineffective method of discipline. In general, it seems that positive reinforcement has stronger effects than negative. That’d lead to spanking being both useless and needlessly hurtful to the child, and therefore obviously something to be avoided.
I definitively will research the subject more before I have kids :) Overall, I’m dubious about the idea that negative reinforcement (a.k.a. punishment) is fundamentally ineffective, since fines and jail sentences do seem to work as a deterrant.
3) The notion that hitting a child to make them do what you say teaches them that it’s okay to use force against others to get what you want.
Depends how it’s used. As the guy in psychohistorian’s link says, the problem is when the severety of the punishment depends not of what the kid did, but of how the parent feels. If the kid gets spanked when he knows he did something wrong (like lying), he shouldn’t interpret it as meaning that “it’s okay to use force against others to get what you want.”
Overall, I’m dubious about the idea that negative reinforcement (a.k.a. punishment) is fundamentally ineffective, since fines and jail sentences do seem to work as a deterrant.
I think the general notion is that negative reinforcement teaches you to avoid being caught, while positive reinforcement is more likely to make “being good” part of your self-image. The difference between wanting to be good, and wanting to appear good when others happen to be watching.
Oh, minor note. Negative Reinforcement and Punishment are generally considered to be different sorts of conditioning, rather than terms for the same thing.
Negative reinforcement counts still as reinforcement, ie, rewarding good behavior. It simply happens to be via reducing an undesired thing rather than increasing a desired thing.
Good, I was just going to make that point. Reinforcement, as originally defined by Skinner, seeks to increase the chances of a desired behavior; punishment seeks to reduce the chance of an undesired one.
Of course, since the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement (or punishment) is fuzzy at best (e.g., taking away the requirement to perform a chore could be seen as giving additional leisure time), it’s no wonder that “negative reinforcement” has turned into a euphemism for punishment.
Yeah, negative reinforcement and positive punishment do seem to sort of “blend” into each other...
(A friend of mine is starting up a dog training (well, and training the humans with regards to training the dogs) business and she finds herself a bit frustrated at how she seems completely unable to get communicate the idea (to one particular person) that the four things are different)
Indeed, I don’t have any such aversion, and tend to score pretty low on the “emphathize with other human beings” thing. Which probably explains some of my puzzlement :)
I definitively will research the subject more before I have kids :) Overall, I’m dubious about the idea that negative reinforcement (a.k.a. punishment) is fundamentally ineffective, since fines and jail sentences do seem to work as a deterrant.
Depends how it’s used. As the guy in psychohistorian’s link says, the problem is when the severety of the punishment depends not of what the kid did, but of how the parent feels. If the kid gets spanked when he knows he did something wrong (like lying), he shouldn’t interpret it as meaning that “it’s okay to use force against others to get what you want.”
I think the general notion is that negative reinforcement teaches you to avoid being caught, while positive reinforcement is more likely to make “being good” part of your self-image. The difference between wanting to be good, and wanting to appear good when others happen to be watching.
Very good point, thanks.
There is indeed a whole range of ways to subtly manipulate kids into being good, and threat of spanking is a pretty coarse method.
Oh, minor note. Negative Reinforcement and Punishment are generally considered to be different sorts of conditioning, rather than terms for the same thing.
Negative reinforcement counts still as reinforcement, ie, rewarding good behavior. It simply happens to be via reducing an undesired thing rather than increasing a desired thing.
Good, I was just going to make that point. Reinforcement, as originally defined by Skinner, seeks to increase the chances of a desired behavior; punishment seeks to reduce the chance of an undesired one.
Of course, since the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement (or punishment) is fuzzy at best (e.g., taking away the requirement to perform a chore could be seen as giving additional leisure time), it’s no wonder that “negative reinforcement” has turned into a euphemism for punishment.
Yeah, negative reinforcement and positive punishment do seem to sort of “blend” into each other...
(A friend of mine is starting up a dog training (well, and training the humans with regards to training the dogs) business and she finds herself a bit frustrated at how she seems completely unable to get communicate the idea (to one particular person) that the four things are different)
See also my recent review of Kazdins positive reinforcement method:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jzg/book_review_kazdins_the_everyday_parenting_toolkit/