Punished by rewards: Part I

I am reading Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards, and will probably have several posts on this as I work my way through it. Kohn is fast becoming one of my favorite thinkers. Here's the first paragraph of Chapter One, on behaviorism:

There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us. The time to worry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we do not have the idea; it has us.

It does seem to be a common assumption that people will not expend effort unless there is some external reward to be gained, and yet my own life is clear proof to the contrary. Behaviorists believe there is no true altruism, which I dare them to say to a haggard mother of a 6-week-old. Having a toddler in my home also provides constant evidence that humans are possessed of enormous intrinsic motivation. If you watch Tristan for any length of time, you'll see him making up challenges for himself. He'll think: can I step onto this stool while holding the pickup truck without dumping the little pig out of the back of it? And then he'll repeatedly try it out, over and over again, getting back up after falling, putting the pig back in the truck, until he succeeds (or has a tantrum). This can't be explained by the simple idea that he's having fun and enjoying himself, because more often than not these experiments leave him hollering with frustration and rage. There is obviously some desire for mastery and understanding which in part drives human behavior.

Kohn maintains that behaviorist thinking is dehumanizing, not only because many carrot and stick systems are based explicitly on studies of animals, but because it denies our full potential:

[O]ur everyday practices rest on an implicit theory of human nature that fails to do us justice. When we repeatedly promise rewards to children for acting responsibly, or to students for making an effort to learn something new, or to employees for doing quality work, we are assuming that they could not or would not choose to act this way on their own. If the capacity for responsible action, the natural love of learning, and the desire to do good work are already part of who we are, then the tacit assumption to the contrary can fairly be described as dehumanizing.

Kohn is himself a parent, and as I read him, he is sincerely sympathetic to how difficult it can be. Unlike other parenting book authors I've read, he's realistic about how exhausted a parent can become. Behaviorist methods, doling out "time out" or gold stars, revoking TV privileges or giving out cookies, work very well in the short term and for the limited goal of controlling observable behavior. They're easy. They don't require creativity, empathy, communication skills, patience, negotiation, compromise, or the disapproval of others (most of whom will inevitably be Skinner devotees, though perhaps unwittingly).

Last February, after a miserable period of three weeks during which one or both kids were sick (as was I), I resorted to giving Anya little plastic beads in return for remembering to brush her teeth and get dressed without being nagged, or for picking up toys, or for trying a new food. About 3 days into this program I was chatting enthusiastically with friends and relatives about how this had really gotten us back on track, back into some semblance of a household routine. About 10 days after I began this, I was completely demoralized and could not bear hearing another "Will I get a bead for that?" or "How about I do this, then will I get 2 beads?" Suddenly Anya would not budge a finger unless there were beads involved, and it took more and more beads to cajole her into doing things. I quit using these rewards, but the economic model persisted for weeks afterward. The tokens were gone, but she thought we should keep track of favors: if she'd done me two favors (and even things she had previously done spontaneously now became "favors" to me), then I "owed" her two favors in return.

Even more interesting was that she started to use threats all of a sudden, although I had not been using threats myself. Once the economic model is entrenched, I guess the absence of "payment" seems as natural a tool as the payment itself. Suddenly it was, "If you don't let me watch Franklin, I'm not picking up my toys."

So I've experienced both the instant but superficial success of behaviorist techniques, and the longer-term unintended consequences (which I'm sure Kohn will be describing in detail in later chapters). For my family, introducing an economic model was extremely corrosive to what you might call our social ties-- not the deeper familial love, but certainly the everyday desire to be polite and get along, the desire to help each other out, the desire to make ourselves understood and elicit empathy and assistance. In other words, much of the higher level primate behavior was stripped away, leaving mainly the behavior of rats in mazes, who are unwilling to move unless they can smell the cheese around the corner. Thankfully it only took a week or two (and much discussion) to get back to normal.

Chapter One of Punished by Rewards begins with this apt quote:

For the anthropomorphic view of the rat, American psychology has substituted the rattomorphic view of man.

--Arthur Koestler

And one more quote, this from Chapter Two:

As behaviorists cheerfully admit, theories about rewards and various practical programs of behavior modification are mostly based on work with rats and pigeons. The underlying assumption, according to one critic, seems to be that "the semistarved rat in the box, with virtually nothing to do but press on a lever for food, captures the essence of virtually all human behavior."

Bu it is not only researchers who make this assumption. We join them in taking "one giant leap toward mankind" when we import the principles and techniques used to train the family pet to the realm of raising children. The way we sometimes talk about (or to) our daughters and sons reflects a view of parent-child relationships quite congenial to a committed behaviorist. Discussions about how to "handle" our kids are a case in point; on reflection, this seems a rather peculiar verb to use in the context of a relationship with another human being. Likewise, when we call out a hearty "Good girl!" in response to a child's performance, the most appropriate reply would seem to be "Woof!" With respect to the workplace or public policy, we talk casually about the use of "carrots and sticks," and there is food for thought here, too. Before these words came to be used as generic representations of bribes and threats, what actually stood between the carrot and the stick was, of course, a jackass.

The thing about the rat or the pigeon is that naturally we care only about their behavior, as they are unable to communicate to us their thoughts. We don't care whether they love us, respect us, hate us, or fear us; we aren't trying to foster such sophisticated ideals as a sense of social responsibility, charity, or altruism. Kohn has elsewhere (in his Unconditional Parenting) described the long-term ill effects of withdrawal of love and attention through the use of "time out," which naturally did not bother the original creators of the time out method, as they were using it to train pigeons.

One other facet of behaviorism is its enormous emphasis on and requirement of measurement. We must measure such elusive things as effort and success, learning and understanding, in order to know how to dole out rewards. When criticizing the constant grading, testing, and labeling of children which goes on in most schools, we should keep in mind that this mania for measurement came about at the same time as behaviorism, and is a required part of any system of rewards and punishments.

You can't give up incessant measurement without giving up behaviorism.