Behavioral Zappa

| 5 Comments

Can you tell what Zappa is saying in behavioral terms?

5 Comments

The good or "boring" behaviors emitted by the children elicits praise form adults which positively reinforces the parents to keep shaping the behavior of the children using positive and negative reinforcement and/or positive and negative punishment. The antecedent in this scenario is the child being shown off to the adults. A target behavior from this antecedent is the adulation from the adults to the parents, and the consequence of this behavior is that the parents (after being positively reinforced) continue to shape the child's behavior.

I would agree with the post above mine (not entirely sure what I should post other than that) =P

Like I said in class I veiw this in opposition to the norm. Instead of believing that the parents are being rewarded for having a boring child-as if they discouraged or punished creativity. Rather, I think that they are failing to reinforce creativity and the "less boring" life style. I like how Zappa refers to reinforcement and rewards in his simple quote about parenting...I think that's where reinforcement is most important!

I enjoyed discussing this topic in class. It automatically made me think of suburban communities where houses, cars, landscaping, etc. is all so similar. At first I thought of this quote as parents wanting to be praised on their children being well-behaved/"boring". But then I also agreed with children wanting to be more well-behaved in front of people they didn't know as well.

This also made me think of the intro to Weeds..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8StRAJCork&feature=related

It totally made me think of Weeds too...Mary Louise Parker is amazing.

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