Conditioning Children

• What are the three topics in the 'using conditioning with children' debate?

  • In the home
  • At school
  • Vulnerable groups
• Why should conditioning techniques be used with children in the home?

  • Study of 1,400 families, child aged 3
  • 1/3 of families gave their child 'time out' or told them to sit quietly in a corner --> operant conditioning
  • Study found no difference in the anxiety, depression, self-control or rule breaking levels in the children who did have time outs, compared to those who did not.
• What is a positive ethical implication of using conditioning techniques in the home?

  • Children given time outs do not misbehave or show any difference in psychological well-being more than children who are not given time outs
  • Thus, time-outs are not harmful in a child's development, mental health, or behaviour
• Why shouldn't conditioning techniques be used with children in the home?

  • Ten minutes after being smacked (punishment --> operant conditioning), children misbehaved in about 75% of incidents
  • Study showed that hitting children is not an effective way to teach them, or promote parent-child relationships
  • Smacked children are significantly more likely to 'externalise' behaviour --> the younger they are hit, the more profound the outcomes
  • Research also shows that kids who are smacked as a punishment show more challenging behaviours than those who are not smacked.
• What is a negative ethical implication of using conditioning techniques in the home?

  • Smacking can result in behavioural and mental health problems, such as aggression, anxiety and depression.
  • This can lead to problems in the child’s life outside of the home, for example the increase aggression can lead to misbehaving at school, therefore they are less likely to achieve better grades.
• Why should conditioning techniques be used with children at school?

  • Every lesson a child behaves, they are rewarded with a tick on a reward-based tick chart. They can exchanges ticks for a reward (e.g. sweets, certificate). More ticks = bigger rewards
  • A child will not get ticks for any lesson that they misbehave, meaning they can not get bigger rewards
  • Before the tick system was introduced, there was very little behaviour management in lessons --> students relearnt how to behave (according to researcher) more appropriately in the classroom setting due to the positive reinforcement
• What is a negative economical implication of using conditioning techniques at school?

  Some schools may not be able to use this type of positive reinforcement:

  • The rewards given, such as giving out sweets to a classroom of children every month, can be expensive.
  • Budgets in schools are already tight, money should be spent on more useful things (such as stationery, notepads, desks, computers etc).
• Why shouldn't conditioning techniques be used with children at school?

  Three groups of children:

  • Group 1 would get a reward for playing with markers
  • Group 2 got no reward
  • Group 3 got a surprise reward
  • Group 1 were significantly less interested in playing with markers after they got the reward compared to the other groups
  • This shows how rewards can reduce the intrinsic motivation of children to complete tasks, so should not be used to control the behaviour of children
• What is a negative social implication of using conditioning techniques at school?

  • Giving children an extrinsic motivation to complete a task can ruin their intrinsic (or internal) motivation, as they feel the need for somebody else to reward them, instead of participating in a task for their own enjoyment.
  • This could impact children as they enter the workplace, as they may expect reward or praise when completing a task to work hard- the lack of this may make the children feel unmotivated to complete the task.
• Why shouldn't conditioning techniques be used with vulnerable children?

  • Massachusetts school can legally use electric shocks to control their special needs students.
  • A controversial school gives special needs students an electric shock as a form of punishment in operant conditioning when displaying inappropriate behaviour.
  • Judge Katherine Fields: ruled that the state failed to demonstrate that the procedure "does not conform to the accepted standard of care for treating individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities”.
• What is a negative ethical implication of using conditioning techniques with vulnerable children?

  • The mass shock given to the vulnerable individuals when they misbehave causes more damage beyond the conditioning process
  • Could cause them both physical and psychological pain, which could be traumatising for them
  • They may not understand how they misbehaved, so shocking them may make them anxious and confused
• Why should conditioning techniques be used with vulnerable children?

  • A 'token economy' has been useful in teaching children to read, by rewarding them with tokens after completing reading and vocabulary tasks (Operant conditioning --> positive reinforcement)
  • Token economies can help improve well as improving children’s behaviour by rewarding a lack of an undesirable behaviour- positive reinforcement.
  • Therefore, Token economies can be useful in encouraging children to read, work, and improve their behaviour.
• What is a positive social implication of using conditioning techniques with vulnerable children?

  • The use of token economies has been seen to help children learn and improved behaviour
  • Helps to produce cleverer and better-behaved children.
  • As a result, these children will enter society as more educated individuals, and their good behaviour will lead to less negative behaviour in society.