Friday, September 30, 2011

Operant Conditioning 101 With Children


If dogs could talk, like this child, they too would tell you that rewards work to encourage a behavior and mild aversives work to discourage it.

Yes, there is a role for punishment ("time out" is the punishment here) in raising kids. 

Of course, there is another part of operant conditioning, which can be seen in the hilarious video seen below. This is extinguishing.

.



Now, here's a question: Is this mother being cruel to this child because she is not giving it a response?

Is this child being unnecessarily and dangerously stressed because the mother is ignoring the child?

Is this mother teaching the child to scream and cry hysterically in order to get its way?

If this mother succeeds in getting this child to stop throwing temper tantrums, will that child simply grow up to throw temper tantrums at other people?

Believe it or not, this is what some people believe might happen if you do not give in to a child (or the dog) and simply practice old-fashioned extinguishing.

No wonder so many dogs, and kids, are such a mess!

No comments:

Post a Comment