Yes -- almost as effective as a bullet in the head. But since the side effects of punishment include conditioned emotional effects and avoidance behaviors, I'm not sure what the point is. Punishment would be the best available intervention only within a limited range of life threatening situations that couldn't be addressed by restructuring the environment. Remember that in practice punishment is almost inevitably paired with negative reinforcement (doing something that escapes or avoids the punisher) so that pure punishment is very hard to implement (to put it bluntly). It's more than just ethics.
On Jan 6, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > > Yes. > But what I was interested in is the stopping of behavior. > If we ignore any side effects including physical maiming if > appropriate for the punishment and we don't care about the > individual, which is more effective. > > So. more from a theoretical perspective. What would eliminate a > behavior most effectively (again we don't care about side effects > or the individual concerned) postitive punishment delivered > immediately and as severely as possible, or reinforcement of an > incompatible behavior (or not rewarding the un-desired behavior). > > I would imagine it would be positive punishment. So that extinction > being more effective must be a qualified statement. > > Would others agree with this theoretical perspective that positive > punishment would be optimal (although ethically untenable)? > > > --Mike > > --- On Tue, 1/6/09, Paul Brandon <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Paul Brandon <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [tips] Extinction > To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" > <[email protected]> > Date: Tuesday, January 6, 2009, 7:57 AM > > > But then we must deal with punishment's side effects. > It's still not optimal. > The best alternative when available is the reinforcement of > alternative (and incompatible where possible) behavior. > This reallocates reinforcement (which we assume is occurring as a > consequence of the behavior we're trying to eliminate) rather than > simply removing or competing with it. > Makes better ecological sense. > > On Jan 5, 2009, at 11:53 PM, Michael Smith wrote: >> With regard to the note on extinction. >> >> With 121 posts since the last time I logged on, I must admit I >> didn't read a lot of them. But somehwere in the feeding frenzy >> thread about M. Sylvester someone mentioned using extinction >> rather than punishment because it has been shown to be more >> effective. >> >> Would it be fair to say that extinction is more effective than >> punishment because we can't ethically use punishment optimally? >> That is, immediate and as severe as possible? > Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
