Why Punishment Doesn't Work.

  Punishment is a form of imposition that people have used for thousands of years and the question has surfaced: Is it even helpful? The answer is no. When parents punishes their children, the parents seem to think it works because right in that moment the child DOES stop, but its not a lasting affect. They may have learned not to do it around THEM but do it the rest of the time. 
   Reasons for punishment are many but one of the main reasons is that the child resents and hates the punishers. The relationship between them gets destroyed and eventually all you know them as is the person who punishes you and the one to avoid. No one actually wants this. They just wanted to stop the undesirable behavior but ends up stopping the respect. 
   Not only do people not respond to it, but they end up repeating these behaviors. Similarly to the Bobo Doll Experiment ( Bandura 1961), when a model demonstrates the behavior then the child learnt o do it too. They will usually end up becoming abusive people and beat their children and spouses similar to the punishment they were given. 
   Being exposed to punishment over a long time also doesn't work because the punishee becomes acclimated to it. Eventually there is so much resentment and pattern, that eventually they stop responding to it. 
Punishment almost never works in the long run because of these reasons and many others. Even though it many seem like the perfect temporary fix, its not useful for the future and the persons overall life. 
   
  

Applications of Social Learning Theory Now

Applications of Social Learning Theory

In Criminology 
- used to explain the emergence and maintenance of deviant behavior, especially aggression
- criminal behavior is learned in both social and nonsocial situations through combinations of direct reinforcement, vicarious reinforcement, explicit instruction, and observation

In Management 
- rewards aren't the sole force behind creating motivation 
- Thoughts, beliefs, morals, and feedback all help to motivate us
- Modeling, or the scenario in which we see someone's behaviors and adopt them as our own, aide the learning process as well as mental states and the cognitive process.

The Influence of Television on Behavior

    Television is a controversial topic on its educational and entertainment sides. There are some great educational programs out there for kids; counting, spellings, general knowledge. But most of what see is entertainment with characters we can relate to and nothing of real educational purposes. Kids end up watching these and because they can connect with the characters and see themselves as THEM, they end uo wanting to do whatever the character is doing. Even if its aggressive.

If the kid is watching  relatively aggressive program with fighting and gore, they are more likely to gain aggressive traits such as using force to get their ideas across especially if they are the same sex as the character. In the 15 year longitudinal study of 557 done by Psychologist L. Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D, showed just this. The first step was identifying what TV shows they watched and how violent they where. 15 years later they talked to the same people, now in their 20s, and measured how violent they are. They found that the kids who had watched more violent shows had more violent traits or convicted of a crime. Watchign these shows had increased their aggressive behaviors and changed them in a negative way. Similarly, a study conducted by Kimball and Zabrack (1986), found that after only 2 years of television being introduced into a Canadian town, that the children became significantly more aggressive. 

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment

Aim: The aim was to see if children could be influenced in an aggressive way by the means a model showing them.

Participants: between the ages of 42 months and 71 months

Results: the children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to act in physically aggressive ways than those who were not exposed to the aggressive model

Results: gender differences strongly supported Bandura's prediction that children are more influenced by same-sex models

Conclusion: Children are easily influence when in the presence of a same- sex aggressive model.

Limits: upper-middle class and rich whites were able to afford putting their children in a nursery. Thus, the subjects would turn out to be mostly white and of similar backgrounds

What Factors Make us More Likely to imitate the behavior of a model? 
- Relation (Family, stranger…)
- Gender

Punishment VS Reinforcement and Observational Learning

Negative Punishment 

• A teenage girl stays out for an hour past her curfew, so her parents ground her for a week.
• After getting in a fight with his sister over who gets to play with a new toy, the mother simply takes the toy away.

Positive Punishment 

• Because you're late to work one morning, you drive over the speed limit through a school zone. As a result, you get pulled over by a police officer and receive a ticket.
• Your cell phone rings in the middle of class, and you are yelled at by your teacher for not turning your phone off before to class.

Negative Reinforcement 

• Before heading out for a day at the beach, you slather on sunscreen in order to avoid getting sunburned.
• On Monday morning, you leave the house early in order to avoid getting stuck in traffic and being late for class.

Positive Reinforcement 

• After you get a correct answer in class, your teacher says, "Great job!"
• At work, you exceed this month's sales quota so your boss gives you a bonus. 

Observational Learning 

• An inexperienced salesperson is successful at a sales meeting after observing the behaviors and statements of other salespeople.
• A kid watches a basketball game, then shoots hoops without being taught how to do so.
• A new employee avoids being late to work after seeing someone else fired for being late.

Aggression in TV Shows and Their Relation to Violence in Young Adults

Childhood Exposure to Media Violence Predicts Young Adult Aggressive Behavior

·who conducted the study

Psychologists L Rowell Huesmann and Jessica Moise-Titus, Cheryl Lynn Podolski, Leonard D. Eron

·the aim

To show if Children's viewing of violent TV shows, their identification with aggressive same-sex TV characters, and their perceptions that TV violence is realistic are all linked to later aggression as young adults, for both males and females.

·the participants

557 people (when first started when aged 6-10 but the second part they were in their 20’s

·the results

The people who had watched High violent shows and connected with the characters showed more instances of overall aggression (committing crimes, being physical with spouses)

·      The conclusion

Children watching High Violence TV shows where more likely to become aggressive in their adult years than those of non-violent watching viewers.