Additions to the Reinforcement Page!
31st January 2010
The persuasion world never stops and neither do I! The magic of the Internet permits constant rewriting, repair, and restoration and so I’ve gussied up the Reinforcement Page, thusly.
Good Taste in Terminology
Many people are idiots about Reinforcement Theory and say more than they know: FauxItAlls. The mark of the beast occurs with two words, “positive” and “negative.” If you wish to remain a person with class, sophistication, and darn it, just plain good taste, let me show you to the Cool Table. This information will probably have no impact on how Those People misuse Reinforcement lingo, but at least you and I will have the smug pleasure of knowing the difference between those heathens and us sophisticates. Let me hold your cape. On to the opera!
You can easily find confident writers scribbling the terms “positive reinforcement” and “negative reinforcement” as synonyms for “reward” and “punishment,” respectively. Thus, a “positive reinforcer” is a rewarding consequence while a “negative reinforcer” is a punishing consequence. These heathen FauxItAlls have confounded two different elements of the theory into a hopeless mashup of mismeaning. Heathens are free to say and do what they please – that’s what makes them heathens after all – but they cannot call themselves knowledgeable, competent, learned, I-passed-the-true-false-test purveyors of Reinforcement Theory. Anyone who uses this lingo is post hoc, ergo ipso facto, dipsy-doodle dumb, but unfortunately neither speechless nor dysgraphic.
People properly punished, oops, I mean educated, in Reinforcement Theory lingo know that the modifiers “positive” and “negative” are closer in meaning to the street parlance meaning of “on” and “off.” Thus, when a Proper Persuader says or writes “positive reinforcer” it can mean either a rewarding or a punishing consequence was “turned on” or “made available” or “activated” or just simply, “there.” By contrast, with a “negative reinforcer” it means either a rewarding or a punishing consequence was “turned off” or “made unavailable” or “deactivated” or just simply, “not there.” The key point to discipline here is the on-off usage of the positive-negative terms and not the reward-punishment connection wired by discombobulated heathens.
The Proper usage of positive-negative as on-off makes certain reinforcement situations more understandable than the uncouth reward-punishment misprison. Consider this situation. In a known situation (When), you perform a behavior (Do), and receive a reward (Get). Later, I change the contingency by taking away the rewarding Get. This is now punishment. And I created a punishment by taking away the previously rewarding consequence. I didn’t add anything new, I just took away something rewarding from the old. This is negative reinforcement.
Kids growing up learn this by the street name of Grounded rather than the hoity-toity Negative Reinforcement. This rose is all thorn and arises from what you lose rather than what you gain. The FauxItAll nomenclature clearly cannot cope with an example even juvenile delinquents understand.
Thus Spake The Maestro: Positive means On; Negative means Off. Let’s us now scoff at the FauxItAlls who drop their unLearned Drawers in public with their positive-reward and negative-punishment miswiring. Tah!
Now, we’re off to Tosca. Scarpia knows the difference between the positive and the negative and how to apply them with rewards and punishments . . . until the end, of course, when Tosca proves that love is greater than operant conditioning!
More Good Taste: Taking a Beating for a Rosy Glow
While we sit entr’acte, consider now another conceptual and linguistic faux pas from the FauxItAlls: Killing a behavior. We’re talking about, my good man, ending it, it never happens again, it falls out of the behavioral repertoire. She stops nagging. He stops drinking. They live happily ever after.
To end, stop, finito, quito, void, nullify, endeth any behavior the FauxItAll goes to the whip early and often, believing like Mrs. Reinforcer in a crazed conception that never has, was, or will be found in Righteous Reinforcement. Mrs. Reinforcer believes in a Constant Consequence that conditions for all faces and places. FauxItAlls believe Punishment terminates a behavior. Both are wrong. There are no Constant Consequences and Punishment does not terminate a behavior.
What, then, sir, you say, what then terminates a behavior if not punishment?
Nothing, my good man. Why, nothing at all extinguishes a behavior. Now, pass me the mustache wax, if you please. As you splutter, let me wax on . . .
. . . recall that Consequences of Reward INcrease a behavior, that Consequences of Punishment DEcrease a behavior, and that the Consequence of Nothing stops a behavior. Nagging does not stop because the Nag fears Punishment, but because Nothing desirable follows the Nagging. Silence while the Nag waits for the Punisher to leave the Scene is not the same thing as the Silence that arises from a new point of view. FauxItAlls and Mrs. Reinforcer (in the Lecture Hall with the Whip) fail to distinguish these different states of inaction. Sometimes, inaction is a ploy. Other times, it is the sign of an extinguished action.
Of course, FauxItAlls know that the Consequence of Nothing is an idiocy because everyone knows that nothing comes from nothing, so Nothing cannot possibly work! And the Fauxs point to numerous examples wherein someone like Mrs. Reinforcer clearly did Nothing with Bad Bill, yet Bad Bill’s behavior persisted.
The missing trick is that there are a google of Consequences and it is a conceit of the foolish to believe that only their Consequences count. When Mrs. Reinforcer does Nothing with Bad Bill, she believes that the only source of Consequence for Bill is her. Sigh. It is difficult to extinguish a behavior because it is impossible or at least illegal for any one source to control all the Consequences for another human being. Thus, even while you are properly doing Nothing, Bad Bill finds Consequences from other sources in the room, not infrequently from Sally Goodchild who finds herself blushing when Bill gets Bad with Mrs. Reinforcer. Bill fancies a girl with a pinkish hue, a rosy glow, and will gladly pull Mrs. Reinforcer’s chain to put a blush on Sally’s cheeks.
Do not confuse the petty details of reality with the eternal truth of theory: The Consequence of Nothing ends it all.