Alfie Kohn, rewards... and parecon
Some thoughts on alternative education author Alfie Kohn today. I started with his book, "Punished by Rewards", which discusses why rewards (grades, gold stars, salary bonuses or any other kind of bribes) are not good things - not in workplaces, not in families, and not in schools. Why? Five reasons, Alfie says:
1. Rewards are the flip side of punishment - we agree that we don't like punishment, but rewards are just as controlling.
2. Rewards rupture relationships - because they are a form of control and a form of judgment, rewards are poison to relationships. They make it hard for the person rewarded to ask for help, for example, because the rewards make them feel judged.
3. Rewards avoid root causes - if someone is "misbehaving" or making an error, it should be viewed as a sign of some problem that has a cause, and that cause can be addressed and understood. But rather than trying to figure out causes (physical, physiological, etc.) dangling rewards offers a quick fix that doesn't address the root of the problem. In that sense rewards are un-radical.
4. Rewards discourage risk-taking. If you are doing something for a reward, you are going to look for the easiest and surest way to the reward, as opposed to outside-the-box thinking required for open-ended problems.
5. Rewards destroy intrinsic motivation. Kohn cites various studies showing how when people do tasks for rewards they lose interest in them much faster than when they are not doing tasks for rewards.
Interestingly, he is also against praise. He is against praise because it is just a verbal reward. He differentiates praise, however, from encouragement and feedback: Spontaneous expressions of happiness or delight or gratitude are fine. Comments on how something was done that can improve performance and point to changes are useful. Praise as a form of control is poison.
But then, you ask, how do you motivate people? Kohn's answer is, you don't. You can create the conditions that encourage intrinsic motivation, but you cannot motivate people. How do you get them to be nice? Not by enforcing rules of nice-ness, or even rewarding niceness, but by being nice and creating a nice environment (Barbara Coloroso, the topic of the previous two blogs at killingtrain.com, says the same thing). This is close to some other related material I've been reading on alternative education - John Holt, John Taylor Gatto, A.S. Neil - and to my mind it is basically an anti-authoritarian, or anarchist, idea. If you believe that what is in people is basically good, you create conditions in which they are free and they can practice being free and being good, being ethical and motivated. I agree with it, and I found it validating. Many times in my life I have been complemented and praised and found it grating and annoying, and couldn't explain why. "They're just trying to be nice", I would think to myself, "why do I find them so annoying?" I realize now I was just bristling at the fact that the praise was a light and difficult-to-detect kind of control.
Kohn puts all this analysis in a framework of anti-behaviourism and a critique of Skinner. Some who know Chomsky's history know that Chomsky started his career with a very thoroughgoing critique of Skinner and behaviourism as well, for some of the same reasons Kohn uses. Kohn argues, convincingly, that behaviourism - the idea that we can train people like we train rats - is a pervasive theory of human behaviour in our culture, and it has to go.
I'd like to take a second and think about whether this has relevance to leftists. First off, as I said above, I think Kohn is basically taking a piece of the anti-authoritarian tradition and developing it. In that sense, I think it is basically a left idea that he is using, about human dignity being basic and intrinsic and how preserving it leads to good things, trampling it to bad things. But are leftists also behaviourists, sometimes, and if so, should we discard that behaviourism? I think the answer to both questions is yes. I have encountered what Kohn calls "praise junkies" in activist circles. People who are offended when they are not thanked for doing tasks, for example. I've always gotten a little annoyed when people *did* thank me for doing tasks - as in hey, I didn't do it for you to thank me, pal. But the real annoyance is that instinctual annoyance at even light forms of control. Someone taking on the role of thanker or praiser is someone taking authority on to themselves, authority over the person thanked or praised. Behaviourism also shows up in meetings that run like traditional classroom sessions, with a teacher in charge at the head of the class (perhaps Barbara Coloroso would call this "brick wall facilitation". But there's also what she would call "jellyfish facilitation", in which there is no structure or direction or leadership and everyone in the meeting flails without any respect for each other's time and no sense of where anything is going. The alternative to these in her scheme would be "backbone facilitation", where there is structure but not authoritarianism of rewards or punishments).
I also wonder though about what the implications of these ideas about rewards are for participatory economics, or parecon. In a participatory economy, people are remunerated for effort and sacrifice expended in useful labor. Are these differential rewards going to kill intrinsic motivation? I suppose they are mostly for work that is not intrinsically motivating, which is why they should be highly rewarded. The logical conclusion of Kohn's ideas if we hold the values of equity, solidarity, and self-management is that we should basically have everyone work the same and basically have everyone remunerated the same. That removes rewards from the equation. But can we trust intrinsic motivation to get all the jobs done, including the shitty ones? Or do we have to provide material incentives? And if we do, is that behaviourism? Something to think about...
ZNet Articles
ZMag Articles
ZCommentaries
ZAudios
ZVideos
Blog Posts
Real World Intrinsic Motivation in Education
By Spain, Steve t ashar at Aug 06, 2007 05:59 AM
Dear H and Others,
H wrote: "The system only truly works when it is completely closed off, or otherwise when there is complete self-awareness, neither of which is realistic.
I disagree. Having seen many non-bootcamp models of teaching interfaced into mainstreams schools, I have witnessed that young people can be far more interactive with settings which engage them at an intrinsic level. It is not purely academic. I am not sure where you get this line of thought from?
Indeed outside of schooling such organisations as the Childrens' Council for Greater London is also a shining example of this, it's lack of notoriety part of the problem of a lack of awareness as to why this is a far healthier and humane way of engaging with others.
Too many adults from all different cultures view children as possessions - extensions of kin/labour groups or, with no self-determination until certain rights of passage have been made. These all go to engage the young person in compliance with norms and sustanence of the working social model.
What I have found, and understound was previously found by Frierre, A.S.Neill etc is that when you start treating people as your equals, that is you stop using them to your own ends, and leave them to their own, providing facilitation where required - you develop excellence, and more importantly, foster a greater respect and actualisation of Freedom.
Indeed the one thing I have never come across is a healthy young person who doesn't want to explore in such ways when given the oppertunity. This is from both a teaching perspective and community worker.
Reply this comment
re bribes..
By Kissenger, Clark at Aug 03, 2007 06:01 AM
Reply this comment
Behaviorism
By Crushedclowncar, K-w at Aug 02, 2007 17:37 PM
Behaviorism is not the idea that we can train people like we train rats, it is the idea that as observable pheneoma, human behavior can be studied scientifically, while the internal workings of the brain cannot and therefore psychology should focus on the study of behavior. It is important to understand behaviorism in historical context. Before it, psychology was terrifically unscientific, just loads and loads of fantastical theories based mostly on speculation about how the mind works (see Freud, Sigmund). It was these scientists who pioneered the kinds of studies of behavior that Alfie Kohn relies heavily upon for evidence.
In this context it is easy to understand why behaviorists are so reactionary and why Skinner attempted to explain as many behaviors as possible using the science he had available to him. For every Chomsky working on theories scientifically, there are 20 people working on unscientific theories because it has always been more fun to speculate and imagine than to sit down and study humans methodically. In that sense many behaviorists throw the baby out with the bath water, which is unfortunate, but it is also unfortunate that this gives some people the impression that behaviorism has nothing to offer as it appears to have done with you.
To get back to the topic of rats; In the words of one of my behaviorist professors, "There are many things humans do that rats do not do, but almost everything a rat does, humans do." Operant conditioning is a matter of fact, rejecting it will lead you only to ignorance. Humans do learn based on rewards and punishments. This is not the only way they learn, but it is a pretty huge factor in human behavior.
When I read Kohn I see someone using science to challenge conventional thinking in much the same way behaviorists do. Kohn is building off of the work of behaviorists who have always advocated for the most humane and effective teaching methods possible.
You are making a very behaviorist argument when you say that the best way to change behavior is to change the environment, this is behaviorism in a nutshell.
Behaviorism does not advocate authoritarian teaching anymore than Darwinism advocates eugenics. Yes, people can be taught (though not exclusively) like Rats. This does not mean that they should be tought this way or that this is a superior way of teaching them.
I am a behaviorist, I am also a radical, I think that Skinner, Kohn and Chomsky all have very important things to teach humanists.
Reply this comment
Kohn
By Kissenger, Clark at Aug 02, 2007 13:09 PM
Reply this comment
Interfacing with the real world
By Anonymous, Anonymous at Aug 01, 2007 22:49 PM
Very interesting analysis, but I find that the problem with these types of systems is that they don't interface well with people who are not willing to play. The system only truly works when it is completely closed off, or otherwise when there is complete self-awareness, neither of which is realistic.
I'll avoid the point of whether the world should be without any positive reinforcement (in the psychology sense - adding praise or adding punishment are both "positive reinforcement"; taking away a toy or withholding a verbal insult are both "negative reinforcement" to simplify it). Two things remain true: Except in a very artificial or academic setting, a) there *is* positive reinforcement; and b) There are many different kinds of people, and at least some people *want* positive reinforcement and appear able to translate their desire for it into genuinely good things.
Every social interaction is manipulative from (and including) birth to (and including) death. Kohn is just talking about another kind of manipulation that he posits is less dangerous and more effective. For some, I bet it is. For others, it's not. Examples of children at different ages is a minor example where a diversity of tactics is necessary.
So, if we're agreed that it's all manipulation, we can see that manipulation is a means to an end. I think one would have higher success rates by using the appropriate manipulation for the appropriate context, rather than only one technique.
Having said that, I'm glad to add Kohn to my toolbelt to go alongside the others.
~H
Reply this comment