Why Are Punishment and Penalty So Popular?
by
Charles Lamson
Given that most people do not like to give or receive punishers and penalties, you would think those consequences would rarely be used. Yet daily examples of punitive techniques exist in almost every work environment. Why do we so often resort to these methods to solve a problem? The answer lies, of course, in the consequences to the person using them.
When you use punishment, if it is going to work, it will work right away. That is, the behavior that you do not want will stop, at least temporarily. If the behavior stops, that is what you wanted. In other words, the use of punishment is reinforced. The person punishing receives a PIC for using punishment. This is called the punishment trap. Having received a PIC (positive, immediate, and certain reinforcer) for punishing, the probability increases that you will use punishment in the same or similar circumstances. By contrast, when you reinforce, you rarely see immediate results.
When you reprimand those who are doing something wrong, they will usually stop immediately. If you reinforce someone who has corrected some inappropriate behavior, you will usually have to wait at least for a short period of time to see if the reinforcer worked. This is why many people mistakenly think punishment is more effective than reinforcement in solving problems.
Punishment is reinforcing to the one punishing, not only because it works but because you do not have to deliver punishers and penalties as often as you must deliver reinforcers. With punishment, you can just sit back in your office and wait for problems to be brought to you. This is called management by exception. When people do something wrong, go out and let them have it; any other time, ignore them. People do not foul up as often as they perform adequately. So a good deal of your time can be devoted to other things, like solving the problems generated by the negative side effects of using punishment. This is called crisis management. The crisis manager never runs out of work.
One key point about punishment is that behavior often stops only in the presence of the punisher, unless the punishment is severe. Punishment that is so severe that it completely eliminates a behavior is almost always corporal in nature and so strong that it cannot be used at work. Severe punishment has severe side effects. It can increase the likelihood of aggressive responses from the one being punished or penalized and thus the need on the part of the one doing the punishing to continuously increase the intensity and/or frequency of the punishment. Workplace violence can be the product of this cycle of punishment and aggressive response if it increases in frequency or intensity. That kind of one-sided correction process sets up no real opportunity to learn and the person doing the punishing becomes a punishing stimulus just by showing up. Managers, parents, or others who rely on punishment and penalty may never realize how they are robbing themselves of the pleasure of being a positive force in others' lives.
Many managers realize the shortcomings of punitive consequences but do not know how they would solve their problems if they decreased its use. They will likely continue to use punishers and penalties but will do it more and enjoy it less. A manager who retired from a maintenance superintendent's job at an auto plant said in a speech to new supervisors, "In my 35 years in this plant I can remember the names of about 50 people who were really no-good. They continually caused problems. I can remember about 10 who were really outstanding. But the thing that bothers me is that I cannot remember the names of the hundreds of people who helped me be successful during my career here. I hope you don't retire with that burden on your conscious as I have." He further stated that if he had it to do over again, he would concentrate on making sure that he showed proper appreciation to the people who had helped him be successful.
When people experience success with positive reinforcement, they often make dramatic changes in the long-standing patterns of relating to people on the job. One supervisor, after learning PM (Performance Management) methods, withdrew her retirement papers because she had started to enjoy rather than dread her job. A retired safety manager, who returned to participate in auditing safe behavior in a PM safety program, remarked that he was well-liked for the first time in his career because his presence now signaled positive reinforcement rather than punishment.
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