The question is not whether positive reinforcement is effective in changing your behavior. The question is whether kisses are positive reinforcement in particular contexts.
Neither of those seem to be the question—at least neither of those are the question I’m asking when I evaluate whether a given trend of behaviors constitutes a Defection::Manipulation.
Suppose your spouse says, “Please pick up my prescription from the store” and you don’t want to, but you do it anyway. When you get back, spouse says “Thanks for dealing with that.”
That is kind of me and it would all else being equal be somewhat rude if she didn’t thank me for doing a favour like that. (This assumes a weak instantiation of ‘want’ such that I reflectively endorse doing the errand but experience emotional reluctance. If I reflectively endorse not doing the errand but still do then that is not kind but weak.)
Do you really think continued experiences like that won’t increase the frequency of the behavior “Run an errand even when I don’t want to”?
Being influenced isn’t something to be universally avoided. Having negotiated boundaries subverted by the strategic use of kisses as doggy treats is. That way leads to madness—often for both parties.
For my part, I didn’t experience the positive reinforcement description in the article as being about subverting negotiated boundaries, but about changing what seem likely to be unthinking habitual behaviors that the person is barely aware of.
I don’t know of anyone that I wish to be associated with who specifically desires to leave dirty clothes on the floor instead of in the hamper, it’s just something that is easy to do without thinking unless and until you are in the habit of doing something differently.
If the husband in question had actually negotiated a boundary about being able to leave his clothes on the floor, or even expressed reflective hesitancy about using the hamper as a theoretically desired or acceptable action, then I would agree that the author’s behavior was highly unethical, and as the husband, if I became aware of it, I would have a problem.
A more typical scenario is one in which the husband would reflectively endorse putting dirty clothes in the hamper on principle, but has a previously developed habit of leaving clothes on the floor and does not judge it important enough to do the hard mental work of changing the habit. Positive reinforcement in this scenario basically represents the wife attempting to do a big portion of the work required to change the habit in the hopes it will get him over this threshold.
In this case, I am having trouble imagining a situation in which one would have reflective desire not to use an existing hamper for dirty clothes.
In this case, I am having trouble imagining a situation in which one would have reflective desire not to use an existing hamper for dirty clothes.
Everyone here who has comment on the subject of dirty clothes, myself included, has mentioned that they much prefer to put them in a designated repository. However, the precise nature of the example is not important and precisely where the boundaries of responsibility have been set in someone else’s relationship are not my business to determine.
Of course it is not our business to determine those boundaries in someone else’s relationship.
Yet my reaction to the behavior described is very largely determined by what I imagine as the relationship context. The reason I did not have your reaction to this story is because I implicitly assumed that there was no boundary the husband had set about the fact of having clothes end up in the hamper by his hands.
I was somewhat troubled by the story, and the conversation in this subthread has clarified why—the relationship context is crucial to determining the ethics of the behavior, and the ethical line or the necessary context was not discussed seriously in the article. While I find it unlikely that this particular example was crossing a line in their relationship, similar strategies could easily be used in an attempt to cross explicit or implicit boundaries in a way I would find abhorrent.
There is one point on which I am not clear whether we are drawing the line in the same place.
In the absence of any prior negotiation one way or another, do you consider the wife’s behavior unethical? That seemed to be what you suggested with your initial comment, that it would only be acceptable in the context of a prior explicit agreement.
I think I fall on the side of thinking it is sometimes acceptable in some possible middle cases, but I’m not completely comfortable with my decision yet and would be interested in hearing arguments on either side.
I am clear (and think you will agree) that it is ok to use this strategy to reinforce a previous agreement, and NOT ok to use it to break/bend/adjust a previous agreement. It is the situation with no prior agreement that I am interested in.
To describe it semi-formally.
Party A wants to use positive reinforcement on party B in order to get them to do X
Middle cases I consider to be important (aside from there being some explicit agreement/boundary)
Party B has given some indication (but not an explicit statement/agreement) that doing X would be acceptable or desirable in principle—PR OK
Party B has given some indication (not explicit statement/agreement) that doing X would be a undesirable in principle --- PR NOT OK
Party B has given no indication one way or another -- ??
In this last case, are social expectations relevant? In the particular case of clothes in hamper, there are clear social expectations that most people normatively desire clothes in hamper. Perhaps our difference lies in whether we consider social expectations a relevant part of the context.
My tentative line is that where no indication has been given, reinforcing social expectations is acceptable, and violating social expectations is at least dubious and probably not OK without discussion.
If social expectations matter, then questions about which social circle is relevant come into play. If party A and party B would agree about which social expectation is relevant, then that is the correct one.
The interesting subcase would be where the relevant social expectations are different for party A and for Party B. My current position is that party A’s best information about what party B would choose as a relevant set of social expectations should determine the ethics.
I seem to have more sympathy for your point of view than most here, but I’m not sure I have the thing articulated.
I think a piece of it is that a kiss given in order to get a spouse to do a routine chore seems very different from a kiss given out of affection or lust.
Intuitively, a kiss given out of enthusiasm for help received seems like a different sort of thing than a kiss given as part of a program to get behavioral change.
And I think that another way to put it is that whereas someone compassionate might think “how can I get this person from A to B safely?”, an abuser tends to think “how can I get this person from A to B?
Would it be different and less risky if the reward were M&Ms rather than kisses? If both partners were using reinforcement schemes on each other? The latter seems to have some comic potential, but in a way that isn’t quite coming into focus.
I assume we’re talking about something like a dozen M&Ms/day, which wouldn’t be a large risk for most people (I agree they’d be a bad idea for diabetics). Unless the person otherwise would eat no sweets at all, I can’t see the M&Ms making a difference.
Intuitively, a kiss given out of enthusiasm for help received seems like a different sort of thing than a kiss given as part of a program to get behavioral change.
I agree. That said, this is similar to saying that me going to work because they pay me is a different sort of thing than me going to work because I enjoy my job. In practice, the lines between expressions of enthusiasm and attempts to manage behavior are rarely that clearcut.
Neither of those seem to be the question—at least neither of those are the question I’m asking when I evaluate whether a given trend of behaviors constitutes a Defection::Manipulation.
That is kind of me and it would all else being equal be somewhat rude if she didn’t thank me for doing a favour like that. (This assumes a weak instantiation of ‘want’ such that I reflectively endorse doing the errand but experience emotional reluctance. If I reflectively endorse not doing the errand but still do then that is not kind but weak.)
Being influenced isn’t something to be universally avoided. Having negotiated boundaries subverted by the strategic use of kisses as doggy treats is. That way leads to madness—often for both parties.
For my part, I didn’t experience the positive reinforcement description in the article as being about subverting negotiated boundaries, but about changing what seem likely to be unthinking habitual behaviors that the person is barely aware of.
I don’t know of anyone that I wish to be associated with who specifically desires to leave dirty clothes on the floor instead of in the hamper, it’s just something that is easy to do without thinking unless and until you are in the habit of doing something differently.
If the husband in question had actually negotiated a boundary about being able to leave his clothes on the floor, or even expressed reflective hesitancy about using the hamper as a theoretically desired or acceptable action, then I would agree that the author’s behavior was highly unethical, and as the husband, if I became aware of it, I would have a problem.
A more typical scenario is one in which the husband would reflectively endorse putting dirty clothes in the hamper on principle, but has a previously developed habit of leaving clothes on the floor and does not judge it important enough to do the hard mental work of changing the habit. Positive reinforcement in this scenario basically represents the wife attempting to do a big portion of the work required to change the habit in the hopes it will get him over this threshold.
In this case, I am having trouble imagining a situation in which one would have reflective desire not to use an existing hamper for dirty clothes.
Everyone here who has comment on the subject of dirty clothes, myself included, has mentioned that they much prefer to put them in a designated repository. However, the precise nature of the example is not important and precisely where the boundaries of responsibility have been set in someone else’s relationship are not my business to determine.
Of course it is not our business to determine those boundaries in someone else’s relationship.
Yet my reaction to the behavior described is very largely determined by what I imagine as the relationship context. The reason I did not have your reaction to this story is because I implicitly assumed that there was no boundary the husband had set about the fact of having clothes end up in the hamper by his hands.
I was somewhat troubled by the story, and the conversation in this subthread has clarified why—the relationship context is crucial to determining the ethics of the behavior, and the ethical line or the necessary context was not discussed seriously in the article. While I find it unlikely that this particular example was crossing a line in their relationship, similar strategies could easily be used in an attempt to cross explicit or implicit boundaries in a way I would find abhorrent.
There is one point on which I am not clear whether we are drawing the line in the same place.
In the absence of any prior negotiation one way or another, do you consider the wife’s behavior unethical? That seemed to be what you suggested with your initial comment, that it would only be acceptable in the context of a prior explicit agreement.
I think I fall on the side of thinking it is sometimes acceptable in some possible middle cases, but I’m not completely comfortable with my decision yet and would be interested in hearing arguments on either side.
I am clear (and think you will agree) that it is ok to use this strategy to reinforce a previous agreement, and NOT ok to use it to break/bend/adjust a previous agreement. It is the situation with no prior agreement that I am interested in.
To describe it semi-formally.
Party A wants to use positive reinforcement on party B in order to get them to do X
Middle cases I consider to be important (aside from there being some explicit agreement/boundary)
Party B has given some indication (but not an explicit statement/agreement) that doing X would be acceptable or desirable in principle—PR OK
Party B has given some indication (not explicit statement/agreement) that doing X would be a undesirable in principle --- PR NOT OK
Party B has given no indication one way or another -- ??
In this last case, are social expectations relevant? In the particular case of clothes in hamper, there are clear social expectations that most people normatively desire clothes in hamper. Perhaps our difference lies in whether we consider social expectations a relevant part of the context.
My tentative line is that where no indication has been given, reinforcing social expectations is acceptable, and violating social expectations is at least dubious and probably not OK without discussion.
If social expectations matter, then questions about which social circle is relevant come into play. If party A and party B would agree about which social expectation is relevant, then that is the correct one.
The interesting subcase would be where the relevant social expectations are different for party A and for Party B. My current position is that party A’s best information about what party B would choose as a relevant set of social expectations should determine the ethics.
I seem to have more sympathy for your point of view than most here, but I’m not sure I have the thing articulated.
I think a piece of it is that a kiss given in order to get a spouse to do a routine chore seems very different from a kiss given out of affection or lust.
Intuitively, a kiss given out of enthusiasm for help received seems like a different sort of thing than a kiss given as part of a program to get behavioral change.
From a different context
Would it be different and less risky if the reward were M&Ms rather than kisses? If both partners were using reinforcement schemes on each other? The latter seems to have some comic potential, but in a way that isn’t quite coming into focus.
Do diabetes, arteriosclerosis and dental costs count as ‘risks’?
EY must be saying lots of nice things if that’s a non-negligible risk.
I assume we’re talking about something like a dozen M&Ms/day, which wouldn’t be a large risk for most people (I agree they’d be a bad idea for diabetics). Unless the person otherwise would eat no sweets at all, I can’t see the M&Ms making a difference.
I agree. That said, this is similar to saying that me going to work because they pay me is a different sort of thing than me going to work because I enjoy my job. In practice, the lines between expressions of enthusiasm and attempts to manage behavior are rarely that clearcut.