What does your text say about punishment?
What is your geberal opinion of punishment?
What is Skinner's general opinion of punishment?
How has your opinion changed since reading these chapters?
Week #14 - Skinner - Punishment (Due Thursday Week #14)
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Put simply, according to the text, punishment is a behavioral contingency leads to a decrease in the rate of response. They also say that the "punisher" is a something that decreases the rate of operant behavior (for a example an event). The book lays out two different types of punishment. The first is positive punishment. This is when a stimulus is given after a behavior and the behavior becomes less common. The second is negative punishment. This is when a stimulus is removed after a behavior has occured. Following with the definition of punishement this type also leads to a derease in the behavior. A key factor the book mentioned is that punishment is really only a true punishment when it succeeds in decreasing the frequency of a behavior. It also seemed like they wanted you to know that punishment is not a means to teach/condidtion new behaviors. It can only be used with already existing ones. Finally, the text says that punishment is most effective when introduced at "moderat" intensity. Anything too extreme or too weak will not give you the desired effect. It also needs to be paired time-wise with the behavior. If given too long after it will not be associated with the behavior you wish to change.
I would say I support punishment, but I do not believe in its excessive use. I know there is a time to spank, a time for jail, and all of that, but I think too many times people go overboard with their punishements. What some people call punishment I would almost call abuse. I think it is important that people realize that there is always going to be punishment. Simply because of physics and the world we live in ,everyone will still get punished. As I have said before I do believe that a punishment should fit the crime. Not too extreme, but it must also get the point across. If kids, animals, or even adults for that matter aren't met with proper punishment for their actions, then these behaviors will never be changed.
As I said in class I could never really catcha flat out opinion, but it sounds to me like he accepts it. He sees punishment almost as a force of nature on its own. He accepts that the world if full of punishment. He talks all about the different kinds. We are punished by people in all kinds of ways, punished by nature, and in some intstances we are punished by circumstance itself. He doesn't seem to believe that there is such thing as a world without it. He does not envision a place where we can do away with it like Pryor believed. It seems to me that Skinner just believes there are times when punishment fits and is truly apropriate and times that it is not. He also seemed to question society as to who deserves the punishment in different situations. The teacher? The student? It is almost like he is telling us that we have the "tools" we just have to use them right. This of course is just my opinion and I may be misunderstanding him completely. I do have to say that I found the paper very interesting. He made a lot of excellent points. Especially the idea that we are not free, of course this fits in well with punishment. If a man is free is he to take full responsibility of his actions? Well Skinner doesn't have an answer to this because from what I gathered he doesn't really believe anyone is completely free. All we ever do is reliant upon something. Life is full of contingencies. I found this quite catching. In phiosophy I had heard of this position, but in a way I can't say I completely agree with it. I also liked his talk, though not actually his idea, of the "midwife". That we have innate ideas, knowledge, and someone helps them to reach their potential. The midwife, however, is not held responsible for how it grows or what it becomes. This is something I might want to look more in to.
So with all of that said I can't say my opinion really changed at all because I think in some ways we agree. There are of course things he said that I have never thought of and don't know if I follow, but it has definitely made me want to learn more. There are just so many ways to think about punishment because it is related to just about every aspect of our lives. The paper opened my eyes to all the ways to think about it. It is almost as though my opinion isn't complete anymore.
The text has a lot of information on punishment. There are sections on delayed, effectiveness, intensity, positive and negative forms of punishment. I looked into positive punishment. Normally when you hear the word punishment you relate that to an aversive behavior, or something negative. So when you hear positive punishment it sounds a bit confusing. When I read the information in the text I found that it’s not confusing. Positive punishment is decreasing a behavior. The book gives the example of spanking a child after they run out into the road. This is positive if the child then stops or turns when they reach the road in the future. So the actual spanking is a negative consequence but the outcome is positive. If the mother were to just scold the child they wouldn’t be more likely to do it again because there wasn’t a consequence. Scolding is not punishment.
My general opinion of punishment is that punishment is necessary in certain situations and a lot of parents don’t know how to punish their children. Personally when my sisters and I were growing up we never got spanked or grounded. We knew there were consequences to certain actions if we did something wrong we were told that was wrong and why and not to do it again. If we were caught about to do it again we got a look that stopped us in our tracks. There was never a need for spanking or grounding us. We knew the consequence was there and we didn’t do anything to get to that point. We knew to obey our parents. If we did what was asked of us we were rewarded. Not punished for not doing it. This then led to us wanting to do the right thing in order to be rewarded. When I have kids in the future I plan to raise them the same way by rewarding them not punishing them unless absolutely necessary.
Skinners general opinion of punishment is the behaviors happen in certain situations. If the situations or environments can be controlled then the behaviors wouldn’t happen. In the reading it talks about freedom. If people are in an environment without restraint they will emit aversive behaviors because nothings stopping them. If children are raised in a family that lets them do what they want without penalty those kids will act like that in all situations because they were raised it’s ok to live like that. Skinner gives the example that people don’t speed when they see a cop. The people drive reasonable close to the speed limit. When there isn’t a cop in sight the driver is more likely to drive how they feel not how they should. The environment is set in a certain manner. With the potential for punishment people will act accordingly.
My opinion really hasn’t changed after reading the text and skinners chapters. I believe environment does set you up for certain behaviors. Some people act differently around different types of people. They might act one way around their grandma and a totally different way around their college buddies. The people who act the same around everyone in their lives are the people who are culturally aware. Some people think they need to have two different personalities. When grandmas around there is the possibility for punishment, around friends grandmas not there to watch them. Personally I can’t stand people like that. People should act the same all the time if there’s the potential for punishment or not.
Most sources state punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant or aversive. In intro to psych, we are taught there is a positive and negative punishment as well. The text goes more into detail on There are sections on delayed, effectiveness, intensity, and interval schedules. I like how the text talks about the Premack Principle and how to make punishment most effective. It also talks about the motivation for response and response alternatives. A straightforward way to make punishment more effective is to give a person or animal another way to obtain the same reinforcers that support target responses. Avoidance and escape are also mentioned. In escape learning, an operant response changes the situation from one in which a negative reinforcer is present to one in which it is absent, for some period of time.
My general opinion of punishment is that it needs to be taught in schools and parenting classes how to be used appropriately. It disturbs me to see parents using it in the wrong way on their children in public places. It defeats the purpose of the form of punishment. I hope when I become a parent that I remember how to use it the right way, instead of focusing on how bad my child may act and punishing them.
Skinner states positive reinforcement is the key to producing desired behaviors. however in this article it sounds like he is more accepting that the world is full of punishment. It almost seems like their isn't a world without it in his opinion. Skinner believes there are certain times and situations where punishment is acceptable, and others not. He also talks about certain people that deserve punishment in different situations. I liked how he talked about man and freedom; if we are free then we should take on the full responsibility and consequences. Yet Skinner states again and again he does not believe in freedom. We always rely on someone or womething All we ever do is reliant upon something.
My opinion hasn't really changed about punishment. It kind of got confusing because we have knowledge of what skinners theories are, and in this article he seemed wishy washy about what he really believed, but then we would confirm his original thoughts. Reading this has made me want to learn more from other authors on their point of view of punishment; even though there were some things I wasn't quite following with Skinner.
When discussing punishment, the text goes into great detail about the contingencies of punishment and how to make it effective when modifying or reducing a behavior. It begins by discussing positive punishment and negative punishment and the differences between them. Positive punishment is said to occur when a stimulus is presented following a behavior and the behavior is decreased to do the occurrence of the stimulus. Simply put, when a behavior is punished immediately after it occurs, the behavior is unlikely to occur again. Negative punishment is when an ongoing negative stimulus is removed due to a change or decrease in behavior. The text goes on to discuss the relative principal of punishment, schedules of punishment and how to make punishment more effective. It also discusses the negative effects that punishment can often lead to such as abuse from parents (who take the punishment technique too far), punishment can generate distress and aggression in the person/animal receiving the stimuli, and it can also cause a person/animal to lash out in other situation or on other people.
Overall, I believe that punishment can be an effective form of modifying behavior if it is used correctly. Though it is not always the best technique to use, often positive reinforcement is a much better choice, it is necessary in certain situations. There are some behaviors that simply cannot be modified using reinforcing techniques and therefore jail time, time outs, etc. may be necessary to correctly change an individual’s behavior. Though I feel that punishment is necessary, I feel that it is often an abused technique. Parents are constantly seen taking advantage of punishment as a form of teaching and end up abusing their child. Civil courts and attorneys often fight for the harshest punishments in cases when it is not truly necessary. The punishment an individual receives must be fair and appropriate for the act that they committed. An individual that is overly punished will only feel resentment and potentially anger for being unfairly treated, though they committed a bad act, and end up learning nothing.
Skinner compares a life involving punishment to a life of freedom. There is hardly ever a situation in which an individual is truly free and is under no form of control or punishment. We are controlled by parents, teachers, governments, etc. from the time we are born until the time we die. When we fall out of line with what is expected from these controls, we are punished. It is due to these controls and these consequential punishments that we are taught how to live, what to do, and what is considered right versus what is considered wrong. A life of freedom would mean we, individually and personally, would have to choose what was right or wrong. And when we commit a harmful act, we have to decide within ourselves if it is necessary that we change the behavior (rather than changing due to punishment). Skinner then goes on to question whether any individual has high enough morals to do the right thing all the time. An individual with such morals would be equal to what we consider Jesus was. It is rare that we find somebody committing the right act all the time without being supervised or monitored by another. With the idea of punishment and the punisher, Skinner then began to wonder who is at fault when a harmful or devious act is committed. Should it be the person who committed it or should it be the person that didn’t correctly teach the child or impose within them good morals and obedience of law? Overall, Skinner questions almost every angle of punishment and makes you look at it from various points of view that I had never thought of before.
I cannot say that my idea of punishment has fully changed after reading these chapters. I still feel that punishment is overused and reinforcement is a better technique for modifying behavior. However, Skinner did make me look at the idea of punishment in ways that I would never thought to view it. Comparing punishment to the idea of a life of freedom was something I never imagined. I never thought about how true freedom is not possible when there are controls and punishments in almost every situation in life. Even nature can be a form of punishment in some situations. Skinner broadened my horizon when it comes to the idea of punishment but overall did not change how I feel about it.
The text (Pierce & Cheney 4th ed.) begins by defining punishment as any behavioral contingency that results in a decreased rate of response. Other procedures, such as satiation, extinction, restraint, and behavioral contrast can also reduce the rate of response. Positive punishment involves the introduction of an aversive stimulus following a behavior, which then decreases in rate of response. The other type of punishment known as 'negative punishment' involves the removal of a pleasurable stimulus contingent upon an undesirable behavior, with the removal resulting in a decreased rate of behavior. The text specifies that a punisher will be most effective if it is of moderate intensity and abruptly delivered immediately following the response every time the undesirable response is emitted. Because it is difficult to punish a behavior right as it occurs, the punisher may become associated with a different concurrent behavior that unintentionally becomes extinguished. This is why reinforcement is usually the preferred method of behavior modification.
I am personally not opposed to punishment as long as it is not too harsh and well-deserved. I believe that there are certain individuals who may not benefit from reinforcement and therefore stricter policies are necessary to control their behavior. Punishment can be anything from a physical strike to a monetary fine, and therefore I cannot say that I support punishment in general, however, if we change how we punish and what we punish with we may see an improvement in the efficacy of 'aversive' methods of behavior modification.
Skinner believed that punishing someone is the most restricting thing you can do to them, aside from actually physically restraining them. This shows that Skinner was very averse to punishment; he considered it to rob a man of his freedom and dignity. Skinner believed that rather than stop an unwanted behavior, punishment only serves to displace the undesirable behavior; an organism learns to avoid punishment by avoiding situations and doing things that are incompatible with punishment. Furthermore, Skinner states that in a world with nonpunitive contingencies, a person will ultimately do good, but that person, in turn, is not free. He cannot receive credit for his good behavior, and he has learned nothing. Punishment cannot teach or condition new behavior, it leaves the organism to discover what behavior is acceptable, and thereby wastes time and resources. Instead, Skinner offers many alternatives to punishment in his book, "Beyond Freedom & Dignity."
I do not believe Skinner has changed my view on punishment, however, I do now realize that it has no constructive purpose in establishing new, more desirable behaviors. I agree that a person may redirect their behaviors to avoid punishment and therefore no behavioral change has really occurred. I know that it is impossible to live in a world free of punishment, but I think that it could be greatly reduced in many settings. More specifically I think reinforcement should be used more in elementary and high schools, where negative emotions and social stigma caused by punishing bad grades or missing assignments could be reduced greatly.
My book has quite a few things to say about the general idea of punishment. Punishment sets up something aversive on a behavior that has been deemed inappropriate. There are several different reasons one can be punished. There are also different types of punishment. Two of these are positive and negative punishment. A positive punishment would be the classical electric shock, or something aversive. A negative punishment would be taking away something of value, like freedom or food. The book also goes on to talk about Skinner. I assume this is so because Skinner offers a new element to punishment in the terms of operant conditioning.
My opinions on punishment range widely. Like all of us, we've begun to understand that we need an even mix of things in psychology. We need an even amount of punishment and reward. When I think of punishment I tend to think of the prison system. Many criminals go into prison and come out worse off then they were before. This is a main tenet of Skinner's creed, punishment is ineffective. I don't totally agree with this, but I think to a large extent that it's a valid statement. Punishment, in the right context and volume, can be very effective.
Skinner rejects punishment, he claims that it is ineffective. Skinner contests that positive reinforcement should be used over punishment. We're told that this will no provoke a "counterattack". We are never free from punishment, as Skinner states, we are punished by people, nature, gravity and many other things. In this logic people have no individual freedom, we are all shaped by our environments. Freedom would be consitituded as the lack of punishment, which is a falacy in Skinner's view.
My opinion has changed alot since reading Skinner's chapters, the book, and some research I've done on my own. If I had to choose a method of shaping then I believe positive reinforcment would be the way to go. That being said, I still can't abandon some of the positives of punishment in the right settings, times, and amount.
I’ve found the discussion of punishment to be of increasing interest as we have done our readings. My understanding of what punishment is, how it is used, why we use it, and what are the consequences of its use has evolved. Like many people, I saw “punishment” as “spanking,” “jail time,” “a time out.” The readings show that punishment is a much broader concept. The act of punishment has larger consequences than simply stopping the child from running into the street, for example. As Skinner says in Beyond Freedom and Dignity, “Punishment is designed to remove awkward, dangerous, or otherwise unwanted behavior from a repertoire on the assumption that a person who has been punished is less likely to behave in the same way again. Unfortunately, the matter is not that simple.” (pg. 57)
According to our text, actions are defined as punishers when their occurrence decreases the rate of an organism's responses. Positive punishment is when a stimulus (spanking) follows a behavior (a child putting a paper clip into an electrical outlet) and the rate of the behavior declines. Negative punishment is different. Negative punishment is when a stimulus is removed after a behavior and this removal results in a decline of the behavior. For example, after a prisoner throws food at a guard, his television is removed from his cell. If the prisoner stops throwing food, the removal is negative punishment.
The text and Skinner both describe the problems and consequences of using punishment to shape behavior. Essentially, punishment has severe problems. First, it only reduces the likelihood of a behavior; the subject does not learn a new, more desired behavior. In addition, this suppression may be only temporary; in many cases the undesirable behavior returns. Also, to be effective the punishment must be very close in time to the behavior. The effectiveness is greatly reduced with the passage of even a short period of time. For these reasons, punishment as a means to stop unwanted behavior and cause someone to engage in a desired behavior has real limitations.
Pierce and Cheney also discuss several negative side effects of the use of punishment to shape behavior. These include, subjects ritualistically repeating persistent actions in an attempt to avoid punishment, learned helplessness and depression, aggressive behavior by the punished individual in an attempt to stop the punisher, redirected aggression, and general social disruption. Each of these side effects may, in some cases, lead to more problems for the individual and society as a whole than did the initial undesired behavior. When combined with the often ineffective results of punishment, these unintended consequences may make the cure worse than the original problem.
Another negative consequence of the use of punishment that I see is that the person who successfully uses punishment become negatively reinforced – the unwanted behavior stops – and he or she is more likely to use punishment again. This can lead to a persistent cycle of using punishment to control behavior. “And why not? It worked last time.” It is easy to imagine how abusive relationships can quickly develop. The punishment fails for any of the reasons previously discussed, the punisher fails to achieve success so the severity of the punishment increases, and the relationship quickly becomes abusive and dangerous.
It’s clear from the excerpts of Skinner’s writings in the text and from Beyond Freedom and Dignity that he rejects the use of punishment to control behavior. He writes that punishment harms “both the punished organism and the punishing agency.” In Beyond Freedom and Dignity Skinner states that the assumption that punishment removes unwanted behavior is simplistic. The target behavior may reappear, and the adverse consequences may arise.
In Chapters 4 and 5, Skinner argues that punishment, and those people and agencies that promote its use, cannot lead to personal freedom and individual dignity. He writes “[e]xcept when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when under the threat of punishment. We should expect that the literatures of freedom and dignity would oppose punitive techniques, but in fact they have acted to preserve them. (pg. 76) In these chapters, Skinner engages in an interesting analysis of whether a person who is “punished” through legal sanctions, religious conscience, or social mores, can really be considered to be free. It is a harsh critique of the use of punishment and those writers and institutions that support the use of punishment.
Skinner also criticizes what he describes as “timid alternatives” to punishment in Chapter 5. He finds each of these alternatives to be ineffective in reaching the goal of most effectively and humanely controlling human behavior. He writes that even the use of these “weak forms of nonaversive control . . . block progress toward a more effective technology of behavior.” (pg. 95) This seems to be a direct reference to his operant utopia described in Walden Two.
After reading this material about punishment, it seems clear that what I once thought of as a useful and reliable “tool” is much more problematic. Clearly, studies have shown the problems with the unintended consequences of punishment. However, it seems to me that the use of punishment is ingrained in eons of human development. “It’s easy . . . whack ‘em on the head and he stops what he’s doing. That’s all I want to do.” However, the harmful consequences are much more subtle, and so unnoticed. Also, other methods of changing behavior are not so easy to apply and require much more attention and subtlety. While Skinner may preach the evils of punishment, I think it will be difficult to remove its use from society.