> On Mar 27, 2009, at 10:03 AM, Michael Britt wrote: > > > Interesting article on the front page of the Chronicle this week > > called, "Falling Behind? Try Shame, Fear, and Greed". Basically the > > idea is that people are trying to motivate themselves by "taking a > > contract out on themselves" on a site called, StickK (http:// > > www.stickk.com/ ). Despite the slick website, the idea actually seems > > pretty basic: you decide that if you don't reach a certain goal (say, > > "lose X amount of weight", or, more pertinent to us, let's say, "write > > the introduction section to my manuscript") by X date/time, you agree to > > do something negative (say, donate money to a cause you don't really > > endorse). If you accomplish your goal, the negative thing will not > > happen. > > > > Sounds like simple negative reinforcement?
On 27 Mar 2009 at 10:24, Paul Brandon wrote: > Yes -- avoidance behavior. > An old behavioral technique also mentioned by Thaler and Sunstein in > Nudge [This must be _Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and > Happiness _, 2008] This sounded familiar to me. It's a self-behaviour modification technique in which you sign a contingency (behavioural, performance) contract which states a particular dire punishment to follow if the contract is not completed (of course, if it is, the removal of the contingency would, as Michael Britt notes, be negative reinforcement). I've seen this idea in various books describing techniques of self behaviour modification. For example, Malott, Whaley, and Malott (1997) illustrate it with the fictional case of "Sid Fields", a doctoral student who couldn't get down to finishing his dissertation. So he wrote out checks to the American Nazi Party with this written on each: "Although I'm Jewish, I admire your work so much I wish to make this contribution". He gave them to a friend with the instruction to mail one off each time he failed to comply with his contract. Being a good liberal and a Jew, this contingency was so abhorrent to him that completing his dissertation was ensured. (I note in passing that the technique only seems promising for Nazi- haters. A procrastinating American Nazi would be better advised to write checks out to B'nai Brith). This "American Nazi" contingency is a popular one, as a number of sources mention it. For example, Steven Levitt describes the Nazi donation ploy in a blog last year discussing the StickK site mentioned by Michael, and notes, possibly with regret, its absence from StickK. He says he heard the idea in an undergraduate class from his former professor Thomas Schelling, (see http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/thomas- schelling/) Malott et al cite two earlier papers in _Teaching in Psychology_ as the basis for their fictitious "Sid Fields" case. One of these, Garcia, Malott, and Brethower, (1988) mentions the use of behavioural contracts in a study on thesis and dissertation supervision. But there is no mention of the Nazi contingency. The earliest mention I can find appears in an anonymous 1982 article in _Time_ magazine, called "Kicking Cocaine" (see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922855,00.html), According to the author, it was used in a clinic for coke abusers operated by the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Contingency contracts were signed against cocaine use, and "one Jewish man wrote out a check to the American Nazi Party". My questions: 1) What is the earliest reported use of contingency contracts with dire consequences for non-compliance? 2) What is the earliest specific reference to the possibly apocryphal American Nazi contingency? Stephen Malott, R., Whaley, D., and Malott, M. (1997). Elementary Principles of Behavior, 3rd ed. Prentice-Hall. Garcia, M., Malott, R., and Brethower, D. (1988). A system of thesis and dissertation supervision: helping graduate students succeed. Teaching of Psychology, 15, 186--. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: [email protected] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Subscribe to discussion list (TIPS) for the teaching of psychology at http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/tips/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
