91 Modifying Behavior

<p style="margin-right: 0.39in; margin-bottom: 0in;">People act in predictable ways that can be traced to basic instinctual motivations: envy, greed, avarice. Enlightened people hope they can rise above such base & selfish behaviors, but intellectual honesty demands we accept that we are all predictably flawed. Indoctrination in our youth makes most of us subject to minor enumerated penalties to control our behavior: sanctions, fines, and even incarceration; but some people are immune to these kind of ephemeral persuasions. When people have nothing to lose, no esoteric threat will consciously deter them from acting out, and penalties that seem reasonable to suburbanites are not effective on folks who ignore summonses & blow-off community service. Tickets certainly don't prevent irresponsible people from acting irresponsibly & imprisonment doesn't enter their thinking. Even draconian penalties don't accomplish anything but satisfy our own desire for vengeance & control.</p> <p>However, the silver-lining to this minimalist view of psychology is that simple triggers work both ways. Pavlovian response is well understood and people exhibit it too. A little bit of pain will train away inappropriate behavior, and there's lots of research that says that an immediate, low-grade shock is enough to acclimatize miscreants. It’s the timing of the punishment, not the severity. If wrong-doers are tasered when apprehended then you would begin to see changes in attitude & performance, and minor infractions require only a minor stimulus: steal a candy bar, zap; cut in line at the movie theater, zap; speed, zap. Your dog won’t bite if you lightly switch it every time it tries.</p>