Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Positive V. Negative Reinforcement
This article relates a bit to the exercise we did in class on positive and negative reinforcement. Basically, the article states that, in the case of ethics, negative reinforcement works better. Employees are more apt to heed consequences for bad behavior than rewards for good behavior. I think part of this is because of the intangible nature of ethics. It is hard to reward someone consistently for being a good person. What type of reward would you give? How often would you give it? What behavior, exactly, would be rewarded? People grow up knowing that there are consequences for bad behavior, it's a concept they are used to, and it makes sense to keep using that structure in the workplace once they are adults.
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I can see the positives to both sides of reinforcement-but I think if you lead more towards the side of positive reinforcement-it's really hard to set the bar, and keep that bar within an acceptable level. One week they're a gift card, next day off, next a raise, and on and on. Where/how do you cap the rewards? Similarly I think about my son who is rewarded when there's positive behavior at school-when he behaves at that level for a few weeks, it just kind of goes by the wayside and we expect that kind of behavior but when he slips we go back to reinforcements which works for a child-as adults ethical behavior should be expected without rewards.
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