Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (18402)	7/27/2005 10:46:15 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

One could argue that environment has led Israel to conduct positive conditioning of US politicians, while the rest of the middle easterns have had only "punishment" as their means of modifying US behavior. Contrary to popular belief, Skinner did not advocate the use of punishment. His research suggested that punishment was an ineffective way of controlling behavior, leading generally to short-term behavior change, but resulting mostly in the subject attempting to avoid the punishing stimulus instead of avoiding the behavior that was causing punishment. A simple example of this is the failure of prison to eliminate criminal behavior. If prison (as a punishing stimulus) were effective at altering behavior, there would be no criminality, since the risk of imprisonment for criminal conduct is well established. However, individuals still commit offences, but attempt to avoid discovery and therefore punishment. The punishing stimulus does not stop criminal behaviour. The criminal simply becomes more sophisticated at avoiding the punishment. Positive, rather than negative, reinforcement proves to be more effective in bringing about lasting changes in behaviour.