Contemporary Debate Flashcards
Effective and appropriate at home:
Gill (1998) asked parents to give their children pocket money for completing household chores or postpone giving pocket money if the chores weren’t completed. The researcher found that the strategies were successful as children ended up performing 20% of the household chores
Mayhew (1997) has suggested that behaviour management can be helpful when a child’s behaviour is actually a problem and not part of normal development. Such techniques can be used successfully to modify children’s behaviour
Not effective and appropriate at home:
Mayhew (1997) has suggested that parents tend to overuse punishment to regulate children’s behaviour and this can cause difficulties. He suggests that punishment is inefficient for a number of reasons: children learn what is wrong from punishment but not what is right. This can cause resentment in the child. The child is also more likely to become afraid or angry by receiving punishment which increases their physiological arousal (stress response) which inhibits learning.
Some researchers criticise techniques such as the naughty step. Morris (2014) for example claims that such techniques can have long-term emotional effects. Children do not have the cognitive ability to reflect on their own behaviour or verbalise their feelings from the naughty step experience. As a result, the lack of empathy and help with their feelings from experiencing the naught step may ultimately have a negative effect on their development.
Inconsistency: the stressful life of a full-time parent may mean that even the most dedicated parent may not apply the conditioning techniques consistently and display frustration. Therefore, such techniques are less likely to be as effective in real life as experts promise.
Effective and appropriate in school:
McAllister et al (1969) investigated inappropriate talking during English classes in a school. They found that when the teachers used praise and showed disapproval that this led to a decrease in inappropriate talking during lessons.
LeFrancois (2002) supports the use of classical conditioning techniques in the classroom leading to an improvement in student performance. He suggests that teachers should maximise the use of pleasant stimuli in their classrooms to creative positive feelings that children have about their work environment. This in turn should result in an improvement in behaviour and academic performance.
Pintel (2006) examined the effect of positive reinforcement, in the form of rewards, on the achievement of fourteen 3rd Grade students’ end of the week spelling test. The first four weeks of the study looked at test results when there was no use of positive reinforcement in the form of rewards. These results were then compared to grades for the four weeks in which students received rewards every time the student earned a score of 92 or above. The 8-week study showed significant improvement in the students’ grades when they received positive reinforcement in the form of rewards.
Not effective and appropriate in schools:
Some educational approaches such as the Montessori approach criticise the use of such techniques. They believe that such techniques may be harmful to a child’s development in that they hinder the child’s internal drives to learn. For example, Lepper et al (1973) found that when children were offered a reward for drawing a nice picture, those promised the reward spent significantly less time drawing the picture compared to those not promised the reward. This suggests that the children’s own motivation had been destroyed by the expectation of a reward.
The reward system is not used across cultures. Lewis (1995) conducted observations of schools in Japan and found that the reward/praise system was rarely used. The children however did appear to be internally motivated.
The use of rewards may create a form of ’learned helplessness’ in children. Dweck (1975) found that those children who were praised for doing good work on a maths test, performed worse in a more difficult test than children who were told they were lazy. The ‘lazy group’ had learned to persist with the test whereas the ‘praised’ group gave up more easily. This demonstrates that rewards do not always lead to improved performance.
Ethical and appropriate with vulnerable children:
Lovaas (1987) developed applied behaviour analysis (ABA) to increase the frequency and quality of social interactions for children with autistic spectrum disorder.
Robinson et al (1981) demonstrated how token economies can improve children’s performance in reading and vocabulary when they have hyperactivity issues. (Operant conditioning) Suggest conditioning techniques are effective in controlling children’s behaviour.
Chaney et al (2004) demonstrated how the use of a ‘fun inhaler’ can be used to increase the accuracy of medication in children with asthma. After two weeks of using the fun inhaler, parents reported that children had fewer problems when medicating and had a more positive response to treatment. Classical conditioning. Successful use of the conditioning in making the children associate the inhaler with something that is fun and positive. Supports the idea thar using conditioning techniques to control the behaviour of children with medical conditions is effective.
Not ethical and appropriate with vulnerable children:
Many researchers criticise the use of the Lovaas method. For example, Lovaas’s (1987) research had many methodological flaws including not randomly allocating children to conditions. Therefore, any conclusions drawn about the effectiveness may not be valid. Secondly the treatment is costly and intensive e.g., approx. 40 hours per week. Anderson et al (1987) found that an average of 20 hours contact would allow for a significant improvement.
Treats only symptoms: Critics of behavioural methods suggest that such conditioning techniques only treat symptoms not the underlying cause. As a result, some believe that undesirable behaviours may re-emerge once the reward has been removed.
What are the ethical implications?
Some people believe that the use of conditioning techniques is unethical as they involve the manipulation of someone else’s behaviour and not necessarily with their knowledge. Others however argue that the benefits to society, children, parents and teachers outweigh the costs.
What are the social and economical implications?
the positive impact that such techniques can have on behaviour have an important effect on society and thus economics. For example vulnerable children may benefit from such techniques which may aim to ‘normalise’ their behaviour making them more likely to be accepted within society. This can result in the participating fully in society and in employment.
However the frequent use of rewards in society may have a negative impact in making individuals motivated and driven by external rewards which could result in a society being more selfish.
Rewards are frequently used in education to improve outcomes. Levitt et al (2010) reviewed a programme in Chicago which used rewards to improve educational outcomes. Financial rewards were offered as an incentive. This led to modest gains in performance which would ultimately benefit society as school leaves would be better educated and potentially better qualified. -(EMA) students must attend to receive it- acts as a reinforcer for good attendance at school/college- this is an example of an operant conditioning techniques.
