Do people think it’s a valid, scientifically supported phenomenon?
Works like hell for animals, at least for some behaviors. I suspect it will work for many human behaviors, though being the reinforcer and reinforcee seems like a serious handicap. Karen Pryor appears to be the expert in this area - see http://store.clickertraining.com/people-tagteach-training-books.html. It’s something I’ve been meaning to look into for a while, so please report back if you get into it!
Wow, why didn’t I pick up on that? After going over Yvain’s post (which I read many months ago) I think it didn’t strike me the same way because he discusses the validity of extending the concept to humans and the details within a laboratory setting (which is great), while the NYT article takes it as a basic observation of humans and focuses on applications to real-life motivation.
Sounds like operant conditioning ?
Works like hell for animals, at least for some behaviors. I suspect it will work for many human behaviors, though being the reinforcer and reinforcee seems like a serious handicap. Karen Pryor appears to be the expert in this area - see http://store.clickertraining.com/people-tagteach-training-books.html. It’s something I’ve been meaning to look into for a while, so please report back if you get into it!
Wow, why didn’t I pick up on that? After going over Yvain’s post (which I read many months ago) I think it didn’t strike me the same way because he discusses the validity of extending the concept to humans and the details within a laboratory setting (which is great), while the NYT article takes it as a basic observation of humans and focuses on applications to real-life motivation.
Which post? Sounds like I want to read it too :)
http://lesswrong.com/lw/6ja/basics_of_human_reinforcement/
Plus a few before and after it that are relevant. I looked for a sequence page, but it wasn’t on any.