March 14, 2006, 11:27 a.m. (Message 44701, in reply to message 44673)
Richard wrote: > There was a psych study that proved how any reinforcement positive or > negative can work if consistant, but inconsistant reinforcement tended > to cause problems. Even child abuse is an effective teaching method of > consistant. To carry this allusion farther, the societal problems to > day have more to do with inconsistant reinforcement that breeds > distrust. I thought there was evidence to show that the optimum way of learning was "random rewards", i.e. when you got a reward for doing something correctly, but not every time. I can remember finding this worked with me - a four day dancing weekend, with the teacher giving out no more than half a dozen "Well done xxxxx" during the weekend. (where xxxx is someone's name) ---- Everyone worked really hard to try and get one of these sparse phrases of individual praise. OK, it is not what I actually do now, having been taken up with the modern approach of "giving plenty of encouragement" - I even try to limit the number of "buts" when I tell them something is "well done", and when I am concentrating I even remember to phrase the qualifier with "it would have been even better if ......." instead of "pity you forgot...." I think the trick is not to reward efforts with either silence or criticism and fault finding. Malcolm Malcolm L Brown York