Isn’t punishment negative reward? Shouldn’t punishment have the same effect as reward but just the opposite sign?
One hypothesis:
When reward happens, the subject gets curious about exactly what they did to earn the reward; they refine their behavior to more efficiently obtain it (explore → exploit mode). But when punishment happens, the subject gets aversive towards the whole general area around the punishment; they take opportunities to avoid the situation associated with it. If getting in a scuffle at school gets me punished at home, that’s a good reason to avoid school or home (or telling parents about school) rather than avoiding scuffles.
In the sufficiently general case, the punished person feels they are being punished for being who they are rather than for any specific action. “I can’t be myself around you, because you don’t like me.” This seems like a chance to lead into some pretty nasty stuff.
One thing I wonder about:
What are good ways to reinforce someone for being honest about making mistakes? If kid comes home from school and has the choice of whether to confess that they got in trouble at school, or lie about it, then punishing them if they confess will deter confession. There’s a trope that kids stop telling their parents what happens at school because they take their parents’ reactions to be aversive or at least embarrassing. “What’d you do at school, dear?” “Oh, nothing …”
Another issue with punishment is that it amounts to an attempt to replace a behavior with nothing (as was pointed out the the main article). Behaviors exists because they have a function, but mere elimination means the function is not addressed. Tends to be better to replace the behavior with something that has the same function. For instance, replace an unwanted behavior that functions to get attention with a wanted behavior and give that attention, so that the wanted behavior fulfills the existing function.
And as you point out, punishment tends to train avoidance of the parent and sneakiness.
In summary, punishment has bad side effects and it’s not a tool for building up a system of wanted behaviors.
One hypothesis:
When reward happens, the subject gets curious about exactly what they did to earn the reward; they refine their behavior to more efficiently obtain it (explore → exploit mode). But when punishment happens, the subject gets aversive towards the whole general area around the punishment; they take opportunities to avoid the situation associated with it. If getting in a scuffle at school gets me punished at home, that’s a good reason to avoid school or home (or telling parents about school) rather than avoiding scuffles.
In the sufficiently general case, the punished person feels they are being punished for being who they are rather than for any specific action. “I can’t be myself around you, because you don’t like me.” This seems like a chance to lead into some pretty nasty stuff.
One thing I wonder about:
What are good ways to reinforce someone for being honest about making mistakes? If kid comes home from school and has the choice of whether to confess that they got in trouble at school, or lie about it, then punishing them if they confess will deter confession. There’s a trope that kids stop telling their parents what happens at school because they take their parents’ reactions to be aversive or at least embarrassing. “What’d you do at school, dear?” “Oh, nothing …”
Kazdin addresses this in so far as he recommends building close trustful communication in general—not only rewarding confessions.
Another issue with punishment is that it amounts to an attempt to replace a behavior with nothing (as was pointed out the the main article). Behaviors exists because they have a function, but mere elimination means the function is not addressed. Tends to be better to replace the behavior with something that has the same function. For instance, replace an unwanted behavior that functions to get attention with a wanted behavior and give that attention, so that the wanted behavior fulfills the existing function.
And as you point out, punishment tends to train avoidance of the parent and sneakiness.
In summary, punishment has bad side effects and it’s not a tool for building up a system of wanted behaviors.