BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE AND VIOLENCE:Schedules of Punishment

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Forensic Psychology (PSY - 513)

Lesson 15

BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE AND VIOLENCE

Objectives:

To understand the schedules of punishment

To understand the generalization of punishment

To understand the Implications of punishment for violence

To understand the problems of behaviorist perspective

Punishment

Punishment has been a norm to learn and unlearn behaviors for centuries in all cultures. People knew

that reward can motivate a person to perform some thing but Skinner made the earth shattering

discovery by targeting the idea that how to prevent, stop and barricade people from doing what they

have learned. So, he devised the idea of Schedules of Punishment and experimented on the reaction of

rats towards punishment.

Schedules of Punishment

Rat presses bar.

Receives mild electric shock.

Frequency of bar pressing decreases

But after some time mild shock loses its value and rat keep on pressing bar

So, punishment has to increase in intensity.

Experiment

RAT PRESSED THE BAR

RECEIVED MILD

DECREASE FREQUENCY

ELECTRIC SHOCK

BUT PERSISTENT ON BAR

PRESSING

RAT PRESSED THE BAR

RECEIVED INTENSE

STOP BAR PRESSING

ELECTRIC SHOCK

RAT PRESSED THE BAR

RECEIVED INTENSE

DO NOT STOP BAR

ELECTRIC SHOCK (BUT

PRESSING

NOT EVERY TIME)

RAT PRESSED THE BAR

RECEIVED INTENSE

STOP BAR PRESSING.

ELECTRIC SHOCK (BUT

CONSISTENTLY)

Generalization of punishment

Punishment also generalizes to other activities like reinforcement. Like when rat received food pallet its

other activities and movements in the box increased as result and after receiving an intense electric

shock, rats sniffing decreased and reduction in all other activities was observed.

Let's try to understand generalization of punishment phenomenon in human behavior like if you punish

a child for poor performance in mathematics, his performance in science, English and social studies also

decreases as a result. Punishment generally suppresses all other activities.

According to the result of Skinner's experiments only consistent and severe punishment is effective.

But can we apply the same punishment schedules to human behavior.

Forensic Psychology (PSY - 513)

Child misbehaves 3 times_____ Parent punished only 1 time and ignored other 2_______child will

keep on misbehaving

Punishment should be consistent and applied every time that the child engages in the misbehavior. Of

course it is not possible to severely punish every time. Now keeping in view the schedules of

punishment, think that how can we make our children learn good behaviors and forbid from erroneous.

How severly can we punish our children? Is it justified? If children show unwanted behavior, is it

practical and moral to consistently and intensively punish them? Does punishment work? Then why

human have been punishing people for centuries? Skinner concluded punishment is not effective at

all.

Punishment is also reinforcement

Yes some time punishment serves as reinforcement. For instance a child wants the attention of his

mother and mother is busy with other chores. Child repeatedly shouts and calls her but she does not give

any attention but when she turns to him, give him a slap on his face. Now in this situation child become

successful in getting the attention of mother in the form of punishment.

A verse of Fraz's Gazal illustrates this in a beautiful way:

Ranjish hi sahi dil hi dukhaanay kay liyay aa

aa phir say mujhay chhorr kay jaanay kay liyay aa

You need attention whether in the form of pain or punishment and by punishing we are reinforcing the

behavior of our child and ultimately increasing his future possibilities of unwanted behavior.

If punishment is not effective then what is effective

Reward

Desirable/wanted

Try to reward children more frequently and ignore their

behaviors

unwanted behaviors. May be a child underachieve in

Ignore

Negative and

mathematics because he gives more attention to other

unwanted

subjects. So, reward that child when ever he picks up

behaviors

mathematics' book or do some thing good in this subject

instead of punishing him.

Energetic progress in good can eliminate bad

Implications for violence

Punishment has profound implications for violence. Physical punishment should not be admissible in

any circumstances because it is harmful for self esteem, motivation, general emotions and progress.

Modeling of violence

Physical punishment serves as a model for aggression. Children imitate or model what they see adults

due to them. Aggression begets aggression. Punishment for hitting, shoving and kicking may stop the

child¹s misbehavior temporarily, but it stimulates further aggression in the child. He will learn that it is

all right to hurt others. Spanking does not teach the child the' moral message' that you should not hurt or

abuse people. When punishment is paired with criticism, name-calling or verbal abuse, the child may

become afraid of the punisher. The parent loses trust with the child. The effects of punishment have

been shown to last only for a short time. While the child may stop the inappropriate behavior, the

punishment does not teach the child what to do in the future.

Built up rage

After being punished, the child is left in emotional turmoil and resentment. He may focus on fantasy and

revenge, which then can grow into hatred. The child learns not misbehave when the parent is around.

The punished behavior may stop only in the presence of the adult. The child may continue the negative

behavior when the adult is not around.

Forensic Psychology (PSY - 513)

The child may stop the behavior for which he is punished and substitute another aggressive act. He may

stop the negative behavior such as hitting but then increase other aggressive behavior such as verbal

abuse of the person he is upset with.

The frequent use of punishment may cause a child to withdraw or regress into acting younger. He may

become non trusting and fearful of others.

The child may lie or become sneaky to avoid being punished. He will not learn to take responsibility for

what he did wrong, but may justify and rationalize it.

The child may develop negative beliefs of himself that are associated with the frequent use of

punishment such as "I'm a bad person. I'm mean." These negative beliefs result in further lowered self-

esteem.

When punished, the child may strike back at the person or he may take his anger and displace it at an

object, animal or another child, so resulting gin the chain of violence and aggression.

When the parent threatens the child with a terrible consequence that is not carried out, there can be

several responses. The child can become excessively frightened or the child learns to distrust the parent

and view the parent as a liar.

Researches shows that sexual abusers are not those who were sexually abused in the child hood rather

were physically beaten and turned to sexual abusers. Offenders and criminals have the childhood

history of physical punishment.

Problems with the behaviorism

Although the whole process of behaviorism has a scientific touch and are saying that human beings are

no more than a part of the animal kingdom. But human beings are much more than animal; they interact,

read books, have religion and have language.

Ignored the importance of language

These are human beings that can express their feelings in words, can explain abstract things through

language. This is language that explains our religion system, moral system. Some people argues that

animals too have language but animals do not have rich vocabulary, they may have natural biological-

social system.

Ignored the importance of memory and many other cognitive processes

Behaviorists emphasized the outward behavioral aspects of thought and dismissed the inward

experiential and sometimes the inner procedural aspects as well.

Animal violence

Most animals resort to violence throughout their life. Violence is the daily routine of tigers, wolfs even

apes e.t.c There is another side; many human beings live their whole life with out resorting to violence

and this make the best evolve creation. Behaviorists have amazing contribution but fall short because it

does not treat us at spiritual level and does not give us our due status.

With all such limitations and issues, Behaviorism has amazingly contributed to the field and study of

psychology and has given the prolific lessons to teachers, parents, educators and forensic psychologists

who are interesting in the study of violent behaviors.

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