Conditioning children's behaviour debate Flashcards
What does Jo Frost suggest?
The “naughty step” can be used to correct inappropriate behaviour.
The “Supernanny Team” argue that the naughty step work best when parents make a fuss of what their child does right. For example:
Giving positive reinforcement at appropriate times.
What did Gill (1998) study?
Asked parents to encourage chore completion by the payment of pocket money. (This is an example of positive reinforcement.)
Or the postponement of pocket money.
(This is an example of punishment)
Gill concluded that these strategies were successful because children ended up performing 20% of the household chores.
What did Morris (2014) claim?
The “naughty step” can have long-term emotional effects.
Children don’t have the same ability as adults to reflect on their own behaviour and verbalise the feelings they experience from things like the “naughty step”.
Without empathy and help with their feelings, the “naughty step” may ultimately have a negative effect on development.
What is the “consistency” evaluation point?
Parents may try to follow parenting gurus (like Jo Frost) and be calm and consistent whilst applying techniques such as the “naughty step”.
However, the stressful life of a full-time parent means that even the most dedicated parent may slip up and demonstrate frustration and inconsistency in their applications of conditioning techniques. Therefore, conditioning techniques are unlikely to be as effective in real-life as experts promise.
Why is conditioning considered to be appropriate in schools?
Education has been a major user of operant conditioning techniques to control behaviour.
Gold stars, merits and house points are positive reinforcers.
(The aim is to reward good behaviour and performance)
Praise is also reinforcing.
What did McAllister et al (1969) study?
Looked at inappropriate talking in high school English classes.
They found that the increased use of “teacher praise” and “teacher disapproval” led to a decrease in “in appropriate talking”.
In the control condition there was no decrease.
What did LeFrancois (2000) suggest?
Classical conditioning can be used to improve student performance.
He proposes that teachers should maximise the pleasant stimuli in their classrooms and minimise the unpleasant stimuli.
(Pleasant stimuli – attractive wall displays, nice smells and laughter)(Unpleasant stimuli – shouting and negative comments)
This means students have more positive feelings about the work environment and their behaviour and / or academic performance will improve.
Why is conditioning considered not appropriate in schools?
Montessori education believes that the reward and punishments advocated by conditioning techniques are harmful to a child’s development and that they interfere with a child’s internal drives to learn.
What did Lepper et al (1973) study?
Nursery children were asked to draw some nice pictures.
When children were promised a reward, they spent half as much time drawing as children who weren’t promised a reward.
This suggests that their own motivation had been destroyed the expectation of extrinsic rewards.
What did Dweck (1975) find?
Found that children who were praised for doing good work on a maths test did worse on a later, more difficult test than children who had been told they were lazy.
The second group had learned task persistence whereas the “praised” group gave up easily.
This shows that rewards don’t always lead to better performance.
What are the implications of conditioning children?
The frequent use of rewards may actually lead to a society whereby some people are only motivated by extrinsic factors.
This means that society may become less cohesive and more selfish.
What did Gneezy et al (2011) claim?
Incentive programmes in education don’t always offer the best return on investment.
With many schools and education authorities having to operate on a diminishing budget, it’s questionable whether it’s ethical to pay or reward students for their performance, when that money could be better spent elsewhere.
What are the conclusions of the debate?
Parents, schools, peers and other agencies all have an obligation to ensure that children grow up able to function within the society in which they live.
This process of socialisation inevitably involves conditioning as that’s one of the basic routes to learning and teaching.
However, reward systems may be ineffective.
There are important ethical considerations that are related to the manipulation of behaviour. For example:
In vulnerable groups of children.
