Parental Discipline?

[Loki]

I thought of the punishment as bizarre at first, but actually showing a teen what his behavior could lead her life to is a very creative punishment. I half-heartedly agree with detractors who think it's humiliating, but it seems that in this case, the mother had her daughter's best interest at hear, even if her attempt of promoting it seems extreme.

sgtmac_46, Raewyn and brandijo, thanks for sharing!

 

[heretic888]

I'm sure no offense was intended.

None at all.

Carl Rogers always struck me as a pure idealist, which probably explains much of his appeal to humanists. His theories are more "good feeling" philosophy than pure science. The idea that everyone will suddenly become perfectly well behaved once they are "respected and progressively understood" seemed a bit absurd and polyannic to me. The problem with Carl Rogers is that his claims are a lot more abstract and vague, and therefore, much tougher to attack. Though, you are correct in the sense that most modern schools of thought are based on Carl Rogers theories on self-esteem and "positive self-regard".

I would agree with you for the most part, but would not be so quick to dismiss the validity of Rogerian counseling. It has its place.

Skinnerian Behaviorism, on the other hand, and it's idea that "everyone is born a blank slate" is far more assailable. Skinner's behaviorism has been mostly debunked since the 1960's as a stand-along model for understanding behavior. It doesn't work by itself.

If you'll re-read my previous post on this thread, you'll see that I stated behaviorist theories (Skinnerian or otherwise) have weak explanatory power in and of themselves.

The rats only do what they are trained to do in the Skinner box, and their behavior deteriorates once multiple variables are introduced. That's because Skinner never understood that people are NOT born a blank slate, but have genetic hardwired behavior that exists beyond his conditioning. Skinner lost his grip on legitimate thought when DNA was discovered.

I agree completely.

Again, though "novice" I may be, entirely ignorant on this topic I am not.

Sorry if I came off a bit blunt in my first post, but you seemed to be claiming that Skinner advocated some type of "permissiveness" counseling, which is not at all true. In fact, punishment (both positive and negative) is a very important part of operant conditioning.

My main issue, however, is the idea that purely positive motivation is the answer to all behavior problems. It's never been shown to be extremely effective in all situations by itself.

Once again, this was not the position maintained by B. F. Skinner. He advocated combining reward and punishment to condition desired behavior in one's subjects. This is made explicit in his paradigm of positive and negative versions of both reinforcement and punishment.

What's MORE, I did not attack the study of behaviorism as whole, but Skinnerian Behaviorism which begins with the misconception that animals are born blank slates. Later behaviorism theories understood the role genetics played in behavior.

True enough, but the fallacy of the tabula rasa has little directly to do with "permissiveness" approaches to behavior modification.

However, I don't entirely buy in to the behaviorist school of thought because it entirely dismisses internal processes as being even relavent.

I agree completely. This is why cognitive psychology largely overtook behaviorial psychology in the 1970's.

Myself (though, as you pointed out, i'm merely an ignorant novice) prefer a more hollistic (Post-Skinnerian) understanding of behavior and human nature.

Personally, I prefer neo-Piagetian models that incorporate a) multiple lines or streams of parallel development (ex: Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences"), b) post-formal stages of development (ex: Jan Sinnot), c) the importance of altered states of consciousness (ex: transpersonal psychology), and d) the dynamic interplay between self (psyche), biology (genetics and neuroanatomy), and environment (both cultural and socio-material).

Laterz.