LovePrevails

uh wrong joystick

Hmm interesting I have no idea, maybe she likes it because she's never felt coerced into it? what do you think ? can you ask around?

Ok here's a really fun idea that will help us get to know each other better and connect as a community. I task everyone who reads this with webcamming themselves telling their favourite joke or jokes then put it on youtube as we get to actually see one another and hear each others inflections we will know each other better and risk meaningless embarassment I'm not really into competition, except the creative destruction of the free-market but if one or some are unbearably fantastic I would be willing to buy any one of Stef's book for contest winner. Let have fun serious is good but ya gotta embrace life and this silly things to get a good balance between saving the world and acting like a goddamn foo'! Antony

Hmmm I'm not sure... I'm thinking we want our kids to grow up to be people who brush their teeth because they have a value that says "I value myself, I value my teeth" Not a mindset that thinks "here we go again - better get it done quickly as possible" when brushing Naomi Aldort who wrote Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, I believe didn't think it was necessary because the dispute over teeth brushing is more of a tax on the strength of the relationship before they're old enough to understand the value of it for their own selves.

Thank you so much Stefan for the positive response It would be great to hear what your enquiry teaches you I am extremely curious If there are some gaps in my understanding I also really want to be filled in This could lead to a lot of growth for us as a community Love and best wishes Antony Edit: Just one more point my girlfriend made about the skittles re: toilet training, when I told her about the thread. She said she thinks its dangerous as it's "eating disorder territory" in her words "when the girl grows up and she has had a hard day at work she will reward herself with sweeties. I think that's a quite observant hypothesis

Dr. Warren Farrell: How The Traditional Male Gender Role Hurts Men And Society: Dr. Warren Farrell: Who Do We Encourage Our Daughters to Date? Dr. Warren Farrell: More Choices for the Family: Dr. Warren Farrell: My Meeting with John Lennon:

USA TODAY May 21, 2009 Cash Incentives Won't Make Us Healthier By Alfie Kohn [This is an expanded version of the published article. Click here for a 1-hour audio presentation by Kohn on this topic.] In its first salvo at reforming health care, Congress is reportedly considering legislation that would do two things: help employers to set up wellness programs and encourage the use of financial incentives to promote healthier living. The first idea is terrific. The second one is terrible. Programs that reward employees who lose weight or stop smoking are already fairly common. A National Business Group on Health (NBGH) survey found that 30-40 percent of companies now offer such incentives. Some critics say this amounts to corporate intrusion into employees' private lives. But there's a more fundamental problem: Paying people to become healthy simply doesn't work, at least not in the long run. Regardless of whether the goal is to increase quality of life or hold down costs, incentives are mostly ineffective -- and may even be counterproductive. In 2007, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that “published research does not support the idea that financial incentives are effective at getting people to stop smoking.” The following year, an academic review of the available data agreed: “Smokers may quit while they . . . receive rewards for quitting, but do no better than unassisted quitters once the rewards stop.” Likewise, an NBGH summary of weight-loss research in 2007 concluded that the promise of a reward may induce people to join a program but there is “no lasting effect” in terms of slimming down. Have newer studies had better luck with incentives, as press reports suggest? Last December, researchers supposedly found that people lost more weight if paid to do so. But the small, poorly designed study showed no statistically significant difference at the final weigh-in. A study of incentives and smoking published earlier this year produced a similar discrepancy between breathless news accounts and unimpressive actual findings. By contrast, three better-designed experiments – in which various kinds of training and support were provided for quitting smoking – discovered that the effectiveness of these interventions was reduced if a reward was offered for kicking the habit. In some cases, people promised money actually fared worse than those who weren't in a program at all! * If these results seem surprising, it may be because of how we tend to think about motivation – namely, as something that goes up when we're offered a dollar, an A, or a “Good job!” But psychologists now realize that there are different types of motivation -- and the type matters more than the amount. “Extrinsic” motivation (to get a reward or avoid a punishment) is much less effective than “intrinsic” (a commitment to doing something for its own sake). What's more, the two are often inversely related. Scores of studies confirm that the more we're rewarded for doing something – at work, at school, or at home -- the more we're apt to lose interest in whatever we had to do to get the reward. Thus, a study in last November's Developmental Psychology showed, as did two previous experiments, that children who are rewarded for helping or sharing subsequently become less helpful. Similarly, the more that students are led to focus on getting good grades, the less interesting they come to find the learning itself. They also think less deeply on average than students who aren't graded. Adjusting the size, type, or scheduling of the incentive doesn't help because the problem is with the outdated theory of motivation on which all rewards are based. Unfortunately, that psychological theory is still accepted by most economists – including those in the trendy field of behavioral economics – who, in turn, influence public policy. Sure, bribes and threats can produce temporary compliance. Offer a reward to adults for going to the gym, or to children for picking up a book, and it may work -- for awhile. But they come to think of themselves as extrinsically motivated, so when the reward is no longer available there's no reason to continue. Indeed, they may wind up less interested in exercising or reading than they were before. Rewards have been called “sugar-coated control.” We like the money -- or the candy or the praise – but we resent being manipulated with it. Also, rewards are based only on observable behaviors. They ignore the reasons we may turn to food or cigarettes for solace. “Smoking, drinking, overeating, or not exercising often represent coping strategies for some kind of underlying distress,” Dr. Jonathan Robison, a health educator, observes. Incentive programs not only ignore those problems but may produce “a cycle of repeated failure.” Better answers: First, address people's motives and deeper concerns rather than just trying to change their behavior. Second, help people to get some control over their lives. Finally, build on their relationships with others to promote change. Couples and friends tend to lose weight together more effectively than do individuals. Health can be a tough sell. But it's clearly something that incentives can't buy. Breakdown of Research going in to above article: Incentives and Health Promotion: What Do the Data Really Say? Alfie Kohn For a comprehensive review of research showing that rewards in general tend to diminish intrinsic interest as well as quality of performance, please see Punished by Rewards. The two specific issues on which most research in the field of health promotion has been conducted are effects on smoking cessation and weight loss. SMOKING Research reviews 1. Dyann M. Matson et al., “The Impact of Incentives and Competitions on Participation and Quit Rates in Worksite Smoking Cessation Programs,” American Journal of Health Promotion 7 (1993): 270-80, 295. * Reviewed all available research from 1960s through early 1990s * Most studies found to be of very poor quality: of 30, only 8 had “an appropriate comparison group which allowed separation of the effects of incentives and competition from other program elements.” And only 3 looked at effects after 12 months or more. * Of 8 studies with an appropriate comparison group, only 3 even found greater participation in the program as a result of incentives. And “the research did not show incentives & competition enhancing long-term quit rates past 6 months.” 2. Pat Redmond et al., Can Incentives for Healthy Behavior Improve Health and Hold Down Medicaid Costs?, Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, June 2007: “Published research does not support the idea that financial incentives are effective at getting people to stop smoking. Although financial rewards may prompt people to use self-help materials or even to quit for a short time, no research has shown that financial rewards produce improvement in the number of people who succeed in quitting smoking entirely.” 3. K. Cahill and R. Perera, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (2008, issue 3): * Looked for all rigorous controlled studies and found 17. * “None of the studies demonstrated significantly higher quit rates for the incentives group than for the control group beyond the six-month assessment.. . . Smokers may quit while they take part in a competition or receive rewards for quitting, but do no better than unassisted quitters once the rewards stop.” Most recent study Press accounts of a Philadelphia Veterans Administration study (Kevin G. Volpp et al., “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Financial Incentives for Smoking Cessation,” New England Journal of Medicine, February 12, 2009, vol. 360: 699-709) claimed that a positive effect from incentives had finally been found. But a careful reading of the study itself reveals: * the study didn't evaluate any non-incentive interventions. Participants either received an incentive for quitting or were in the control group and received no help at all; * the “primary endpoint” for judging the effect was at 12 months even though rewards were still being paid at that point. (What matters is how people fare after the rewards have stopped); * at 15 or 18 months, the quit rate for those receiving incentives was greater than for those in the control group but was still extremely low in absolute terms: below 10 percent; * for those in the incentive group who did manage to quit after 9 or 12 months, about one out of three subjects started smoking again once another 6 months had passed. That relapse rate was actually higher than for those in the control group. Better studies What about studies that offered various types of intervention to help people quit so that the effect of an incentive could be evaluated in conjunction with these cessation programs? 1. Dyann Matson Koffman et al., “The Impact of Including Incentives and Competition in a Workplace Smoking Cessation Program on Quit Rates,” American Journal of Health Promotion 13 (1998): 105-11: * A very large study at three worksites that featured a multicomponent program (self-help package + small-group support + monthly phone counseling) -- with and without incentives. These incentives “were much larger and were provided over a longer period than in other controlled studies.” Also evaluated: a contest between groups to see which had the best quit rate. Effects were evaluated at 12 months. * Results: (a) no significant benefit from the incentive; (b) anecdotally, the contest was particularly counterproductive; and © in discussing what did seem to help, “counselors emphasized self-control and confidence building so that participants did not attribute their cessation to external factors such as incentives” – meaning that an effort had to be made to try to counteract the negative effects of using rewards. 2. Richard A. Windsor et al., “The Effectiveness of a Worksite Self-Help Smoking Cessation Program: A Randomized Trial,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine 11 (1988): 407-21: * Random assignment to four conditions featuring various combinations of different interventions: a self-help manual; skill training and “social enhancement”; and an incentive. Effects were evaluated at 12 months. * Result: the incentive not only didn't help but reduced the effectiveness of other strategies. 3. Susan J. Curry et al., “Evaluation of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Interventions with a Self-Help Smoking Cessation Program,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 59 (1991): 318-24: * 4 conditions: personalized feedback (highlighting intrinsic reasons for quitting based on people's questionnaire responses), an incentive, both, and neither (control group). * Results: incentive recipients were more likely to return the first progress report, but had worse long-term results than those who got the feedback with no incentive – and also did worse than those in the control group. Incentive recipients had higher relapse rates than those in the feedback orcontrol group and were twice as likely to lie about quitting. WEIGHT LOSS Research review National Business Group on Health's Institute on the Costs and Health Effects of Obesity, “Financial Incentives -- Summary of the Current Evidence Base: What (and How) Incentives Work,” 2007: Despite an obvious pro-incentive bias (the stated purpose of the report being to advise companies on how, not whether, to design incentive plans), the authors conclude with apparent reluctance that rewards at best can increase participation rates in a program and boost short-term compliance, but the evidence finds “no lasting effect” on weight loss (or smoking cessation). Early studies 1. Richard A. Dienstbier and Gary K. Leak, “Overjustification and Weight Loss: The Effects of Monetary Reward,” paper presented at annual convention of the American Psychological Association, 1976: * Very small study. Subjects weighed twice a week. Only two conditions: incentive and control group. * Incentive recipients made more progress at the beginning, but after incentives stopped, control subjects lost an average of 3.5 lbs, while incentive subjects gained 6.1 lbs. 2. F. Matthew Kramer et al., “Maintenance of Successful Weight Loss Over 1 Year,”Behavior Therapy 17 (1986): 295-301: At 12-month follow-up: “The principal hypothesis, that subjects entering into financial contracts for attending skills training sessions or for maintaining posttreatment weight would show better maintenance one year after successful weight loss than subjects receiving no maintenance support, was not confirmed.” The only significant difference: many incentive recipients failed to show up for the final weigh-in. Most recent study A report from the same Philadelphia V.A. study mentioned above (Kevin G. Volpp et al., “Financial Incentive-Based Approaches for Weight Loss,” Journal of the American Medical Association, December 10, 2008, vol. 300: 2631-37) was, like the smoking cessation study, widely described as having demonstrated the effectiveness of incentives. However: * the study was very small (only 19 people in each condition, almost all of whom were men) and, again, did not evaluate any non-incentive interventions; subjects received only incentives or nothing; * only subjects in the reward condition were weighed daily, so any positive effect that might have been found could well be from the motivation of the expected weighing rather than from the reward; * news accounts mentioned early results favoring those who received incentives but failed to mention the bottom line: at the final follow-up, incentives provided no significant benefit.

The empirical evidence says otherwise - this is an extremely serious point which should be taken into philosophical enquiry by the show because you are advising hundreds, if not thousands, of parents on the show and if this is a sociologically wrong prescription then it is a critical matter. Have you ever read the book Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn? You say you bribe your daughter to read with skittles because she "doesn't know the reward of reading yet" but - The data says that this is more likely to make the child see reading as a chore in the long run because it has to be rewarded - Ie. rewards, like punishment, - according to empirical not anecdotal evidence - are effective at one thing gaining immediate compliance. They do not address values underlying behaviour. At best rewards are ineffective at anything beyond getting temporary compliance. But more commonly they are actually counter-productive and undermine what we are actually trying to achieve, which is presumably intrinsic motivation. - Apparent benefits of bribing with rewards tend to disappear when the rewards cease to be administered. There can also be an escalation in the need to provide rewards. - Offering a skittle is also wielding power because your daughter doesn't have the ability to offer you a twix to let her off, she has no access to these bargaining conceptions. - Rewards ("bribes") are experienced on some level as controlling, manipulating people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise want to do, the alternative is actively enhancing autonomy+self-efficacy instead in order to encourage people to take up good habits. - data also showed that incentives reduced the effectiveness of other forms of intervention. In other words if you offer goodies, she is less likely to respond to negotiation unless she it offered a bribe. - Studies find that children who are rewarded by their parents tend to be less generous people and more selfish, particularly if they are rewarded for being generous. another tangential point - The best conducted studies on smoking cessation found that not only rewards did not work, but they tended to be worse than doing nothing at all. They had to council the people who got the incentives to quit to undo the damage in order to emphasise self-control and confidence building because they attributed their success to a reward. - Incentives just got people to lose weight for as long as they were being rewarded. Many of them gained more weight after than they had on in the first place. the data is not little either, it is extensive, the studies on motivation says that extrinsic motivation tends to pull in the opposite direction from intrinsic motivation There is not much on youtube (I posted what I've found below) but this really is a critical point I think it's a matter of urgency that you read the book and assess it as someone who says to parents "you have no excuse - the evidence was out there the whole time you were doing it wrong, you just didn't bother to look it up" - this is an opportunity to fact-check your own approach and see if it is congruent with what is best for your daughter. {media] [/media] [media] (edit) just found this one now, [media] (edit) around 40 minutes in Alfie mentions "motivating your kids to read" (as an example he wouldn't want to use bribes for) Quote: "If you want to kill a child's interest in reading, the most effective way to make that kid a non-reader is to give that kid a prize for reading a book... because now they come to see the reading as a tedious prerequisite to getting the goodie. In other words, you have devalued the thing itself because it comes to be seen as something I've got to do, I've got to get over with in order to get the goodie." "Rewards are control through seduction." "Rewards, just like punishments, are ways of doing things to people - rather than working with people. The best counsellors, the best psychologists, the best trainers, the best consultants in any field have to figure out ways of getting better at working with people. Any kind of incentive takes away with one hand whatever it is giving with the other hand... and that's what the research shows."

focus on the frontline service and getting it out to people because that's where the cash comes in if the cash is coming in you can afford to do everything else I've been a piano tutor for 7 years and did it to get by while studing my degree but I don't know if that's similar or not

I'd like to watch it thanks for sharing

yes it was a poor (but populist) example, just speaking regarding the principles of persuasion she discusses.

I have audacity so what do I do? open up the video file, press record and just start talking?

I was wondering if anyone could think of ways of making use of the principles here for making our efforts to turn people to peaceful parenting or anarchocapitalism.

thanks for the detailed description of the work, any comments on his critiques of behaviourism and freud? what is some of what he says and what do you think of his arguments?

Hey does anyone know of some free software I could use to record an audio-commentary of something I want to analyze over the top of it?

it doesn't give me much to go on as you don't say what is good about each book or why its worth reasoning

add me on facebook, Antony Sammeroff your best bet is to go speak to a university professor in the humanities I live in the UK so any data I can gather is likely to be different

Not exactly in my view, I believe people are motivated either by the desire to achieve happiness OR to avoid suffering but not at the same time!!! This explains a lot -you can't pursue happiness if you're afraid of suffering in the short term as sometimes essential to your personal growth that you make difficult decisions. You will see that most people who don't grow live their whole life just avoiding suffering, not much in the way of doing what they need to do to become happy.

Says it all really, (Alice Miller &c.)

forgiving =/= letting it go if someone makes restitution you forgive them if they don't eventually you'll want to let it got that is my pwersonal view on it

School being better than other school says nothingt the whole education system is anti-empirical and does not teach the way people learn, nor does it support cultivating an attitude of life-long learning. Any measures of success within it are measures of the wrong things, such as performance on standardized tests. the majin skill taught in school is memorization which is the least useful skill the the information age where everything is available at the touch of a button. plus, the way they treat children is inexcusable

I think it's a good suggestion as well

[/media]

I can make accurate guesses about how people were parented based on them telling me what they feel anxious about and they are often impressed and want to know what I know to be able to do it which makes it easier to spread the knowledge because I have credibility.