This term was referred to in yesterday’s post “Santa Send Off” so I wanted to break that down a bit further.
As a Psychology student at Ithaca College I was fascinated by human behavior (still am!). I took Economics and Statistics because I had to. I took Organizational Behavior, Neuropsychology and Psych Law because I loved them!
“Know Thyself” (Socrates) seemed like a worthy goal. When I attended Behavioral Psychology I was a like a scientist trying to understand what makes me, and others “tick”. Once I understood that (more like a life long process than a goal to be accomplished in a semester) I was focused on following along with all the research, Pavlov’s dogs and such to understand what drives, or reduces certain behaviors.
Positive, negative, and intermittent reinforcement are three ways to increase or decrease a certain behavior. Turns out intermittent is the most effective (so says the research.). When we don’t exactly know when the same but repeated action will be rewarded, we do it more to increase our chances of receiving that reward.
Consider the slot machines. The gamer puts in a coin and pulls the lever. Most times, there is no reward. Just some fun lights, music and points accumulating. But every once in a while, there is a payout. Sometimes it is massive!
These small and big wins intermittently reinforce the gamer to keep putting coins in. They aren’t doing anything different to influence their chances of winning, but repeating the action again and again because at some point they know there’s a reward. They may not want to leave a machine because they have “been there so long” they KNOW the win is coming and they don’t want to miss it.
Connecting this concept back to yesterday’s “Santa Send Off” post, I can understand why it is challenging for Zach to stop asking for Santa when we drive. He knows that every couple of drives, we inevitably see Santa! So in his experience, if he keeps asking eventually he is rewarded.
Does this matter? It does if you are trying to increase/decrease any behavior in yourself, your kids, your teams or even your pets! The less predictable the frequency of reward, it seems the more likely we are to repeat the behavior.
Ever have a kid throw a tantrum and give into her just because your energy was completely depleted? If there are 4 tantrums, and 3 of 4 you take the high road, but that 4th gets the reward they seek (you stoping what you are doing, giving them a reward of some kind – even if just your attention or maybe they get to hold your phone in that moment even though you don’t normally allow it).
That once-in-a-while reward is all the fuel they need to know that “Sometimes this goes my way so I’ll keep giving it a try.”
I’m no clinical psychologist, but when it comes to behavior this may be one of the best kept secrets when trying to ensure a behavior (often unwanted) continues. Think about this scenario in your own life, if you are so inspired, to identify areas where you are actually using the strongest method of reinforcement (intermittent) to extinguish a behavior you are actually strengthening!