Contemporary Debates: The Behaviorist Approach: Using conditioning techniques to control the behavior of children Flashcards
What are the 4 reasons why conditioning techniques can be argued to be appropriate?
- Applications at home
- Applications in school
- Applications to peers
- Applications to vulnerable groups of children
Explain “Applications at home” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be appropriate.
State
* Reinforcement can be used in the household to manage the behaviour of children.
Explain:
* Positive reinforcement enables parents to teach their childrem yhe value of money: if they complete tasks they might not want to, they will be rewarded financially. This is a principle in the world of work. These skills are also important for independence.
Example:
* Positive reinforcement is often usedby parents to increase non-essential but desirablbhaviours such as tidying room. Gill found that paying children to complete household tasks led to them performing 20% of all household chores.
- Jo frost, the supernanny, believes in reward charts and the naughty step to punish poor behaviour. This creates a functional and happier household.
Explain “Applications at home” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be inappropriate.
State
* Reinforcement can be used in the household to manage the behaviour of children.
Explain:
Parents struggle to remain consistent and calm when using reinforcing techniques which reduces their effectiveness.
Those who apply them effectively may cause long term emotional harm to their child who will grow to be unable to process and reflect on their behaviors, producing a less moral society.
Society is run by money driven individuals who only help each other and the community for financial benefit.
Example:
* Morris (2014) claims that the ‘naughty step’ (advocated by Supernanny Jo Frost) can have long-term emotional effects on a child, as they cannot reflect appropriately on their own behaviour. Therefore, conditioning children in this way may have a negative impact on their development.
- Many parents struggle to apply the rules of the naughty step reducing the effectiveness of the conditioning technique in real life. Some children have tempers not suited to this technique.
- False understanding of money, because not all mundane tasks recieve financial compensation.
Explain “Applications in school” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be appropriate.
State
* Reinforcement can be used in schools to improve the behaviour and academic performance of children.
Explain:
* Applying these techniques enables the classroom environment to be more effective for both the students and the teachers, in trun enhancing the performance and general experience of both.
Example:
* McAllister et al found that increased teacher praise led to a decrease in inappropriate talking in secondary school.
- A token economy system of gold starts and merit points can be used to positively reinforce behaviour.
- LeFrancois suggests that teachers should maximise pleasant stimuli like displays and nice smells, and minimise unpleasant stimuli to condition students to associate the classroom environment with positive feelings.
Explain “Applications to peers” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be inappropriate.
State
* Peer group influences can be undesirable
Explain:
* If we surround ourselves with the wrong individuals, positive reinforcement from the peer group may be unhealthy and lead to destructive behaviours.
Example:
* Bricker found that children as young as 10 are more likely to smoke if members of the group smoked.
Explain “Applications in school” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be inappropriate.
State
* The techniques are harmful to a child’s development and interfere with a child’s internal drive to learn.
Explain:
* By using reinforcement technqiues in education, we destroy the intrinsic drive to learn by replacing ths internal motivation with extrinsic motivation, which is reliant on the praise and acknowledgement of others. This may create a society run on only acting accordingly or completing work for show.
Example:
* Lepper et al found that, when promised a reward, children spent less time on a task, suggesting that they were motivated by the reward rather than the intrinsic motivation to succeed.
- Dweck found that children who were praised for doing good work on a maths test did worse later than the group that were told that they were lazy.
- Reward systems aren’t evident in schools of different cultures. Observations of japanese elementary schools rarely used praise, so the children were internally motivated.
Explain “Applications to vulnerable groups of children” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be inappropriate.
State
* Conditioning techniques used to treat ADHD and autism are very flaed and inappropriate.
Explain:
* Use of this treatment when may inflict more harm to children, and poses as a massive financial burden for desperate parents.
Example:
* Lovaas’s method was based on his own research that contained many methodological flaws including not randomly allocating children to the experimental and control groups.
- ABA is demanding and requires 40 hours of therapy per week. This is expensive and unnecessary since Anderson found that an average of 20 hours per week was enough to see significant improvement in the social behaviour of autistic children.
- Conditioning only treats the symptoms, and it is likely that undesirable behaviours would re-emerge once the therapy has finished and the reinforcement is removed.
Explain “Applications to peers” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be appropriate.
State
* We imitate the behaviours of our peers, and in turn are conditioned by them.
Explain:
* We can surround ourselves with individuals whom we aspire to become more like, or individuals who are ambitious and we have something to learn from in order to improve our own abilities.
Example:
* Children are initially influenced by parents, but when moved to school or nursery the influence of peer group become the predominant factor. To reduce negative sanctions, and increase positive sanctions, we imitate ‘accepted behaviours.
Explain “Applications to vulnerable groups of children” as an argument for why conditioning techniques can be argued to be appropriate.
State
* Conditioning techniques can be used to help children with psychological and medical conditions, such as autism and ADHD.
Explain:
* We can apply reinforcement to improve the behaviours of children whom are part of vulnerable groups to enable them to more effectively integrate into society.
- This may reduce the likelihood of these children becoming victims of bullying.
Example:
* Robinson et al (1981) found that token economy can be used to improve the literacy skills of children with hyperactivity issues. Using this technique to reinforce desirable behaviours is effective as children learn that they need to build up tokens in order to receive the reward.
- Lovaas (1987) developed applied behaviour analysis (ABA) to increase social interactions for children with autism. Initially, the child is rewarded regularly for appropriate social behaviours, but over time, these rewards are reduced and only issued if the behaviour displayed is close to the ideal target behaviour.
- Use of a ‘Funhaler’ to show inhaler is fun to use. Parents reported fewer issues getting child to use inhaler.
What are the ethical implications of “Using conditioning techniques to control the behaviour of children”
- Children are being conditioned by adults, without their knowledge and consent. Children are unable to remove themselves from situations that may cause them psychological distress or, at the very least, their free will to behave in any way they want is removed by two systems of socialisation: family and education.
- Using conditioning techniques to control children raises ethical issues such as protection from harm. Techniques such as the ‘naughty step’ may cause psychological harm, as Morris suggests, and corporal punishment (smacking) will cause physical harm.
- Rewards or incentives in education based on Gneezy may not be a good choice due to diminishing budget, and leads to a society run by selfish pursuits.
What are the social implications of “Using conditioning techniques to control the behaviour of children”
- Vulnerable children may benefit from conditioning techniques. Making behaviour more normal make them more likely to be accepted by society and gain employment.
