I have been reading one of my education text books this morning about child and adolescent development, and it raised a few questions for me. The chapter was discussing how children learn what is considered 'good behavior' from the response that their actions receive, and how behavior modification can be used to correct 'bad habits'. An example they give is of a young boy who is terrified of white rabbits, and anything else similar. To modify this 'bad habit' the child is given his favourite snack to eat in a comfortable environment, while a caged white rabbit is placed in the room close enough that the child is aware of it, but far enough away to not create a large fearful response. This is repeated many times, with the rabbit getting slightly closer each time, until the child can eventually pat the rabbit without being scared.
Another example they give is a group of young children are each shown a video, individually, of an adult showing physical aggression towards a blow up bobo doll with a weight in the bottom so that it pops up again when it is knocked down. 1/3 of the group is shown a video that results in punishment towards the adult for a result of this behaiour, 1/3 is shown reward and 1/3 is shown no consequence. The children are then each taken to a room with the same bobo doll and those who were shown that the adult was rewarded will imitate the actions they were shown.
I have been thinking a lot lately about why it is important to want to better yourself and be a better person, when it seems that most people who go through life never trying to better themselves seem to get rewarded for it, while those who try to better themselves are not. This chapter in my text book made me wonder when that emotional development becomes fully developed, and IF it ever fully develops. Even as adults, if we see those who act 'badly' rewarded for it, does that make us less inclined to try to be good, or are we already set enough in OUR ways and in who we are to know better? If we were rewarded for our negative actions as a child, is it too late to learn not to act that way once you've grown up?
What are your thoughts on this?
-TJ
"Even as adults, if we see those who act 'badly' rewarded..."
ReplyDeleteNot strictly relevant, but this reminded me of something in a psychology lecture.
Prison is designed to act as a punishment, and can do so in several ways:
1) Takes away freedoms of the world, contact with family, opportunities to earn money.
2) Presents a situation of decreased living comfort, aversive company, and threats.
However, relating this to correcting 'bad behaviour', often those in prison are there because of necessity crimes. This leads to believe that their living conditions were already far sub-standard. Looking back at how prison functions as a punishment, we see that if the perp was in a negative life situation before being introduced to the prison environment, it could actually act as a reward; If they were in a dysfunctional relationship with their family, or already didn’t have stable income (the second of which is very likely to lead them to commit necessity crimes). Also taking them out of the world, takes away threats which they would have otherwise encountered. Furthermore, their already low living conditions will render the newly presented situation ineffective as a punishment, creating a cycle of reinforcing the ‘bad behaviour’.
Bit of a tangent, but I can see a link :)