Whose Brains Respond to Carrots and Whose to Sticks?
Old logic sees punishment as motivation. Good ‘ole school systems used this: strict rules and give anyone who diverges of the righteous path a good beating. That will see them right. I grew up in Britain which still had the cane (a thin stick) as a punishment in schools — it was finally abolished when I was 14, but not before my brother and been given a good whipping at school. To be honest that didn’t bother him so much, it was a badge of honour in a boy’s school — the proverbial beating my mother gave him was much worse (she was a teacher to boot).
So, we see this pattern in society starting off with severe punishment and slowly moderating over the centuries and recent decades. Now governments are using nudges and rewards to get people to behave in the right way. David Rock well-known for coining term neuroleadership, claims reward is the only path forward. Smacks of operant conditioning to me — was Skinner right all along? Doubtful — the brain, as always, will give us some answers.
The answers we need first is that of motivation itself — if reward and punishment are seen as the means to an end i.e. a positive or effective behaviour, then we need to understand how the brain gets itself motivated. The research into motivation is long and complex and will break your patience for the moment, as interested as you may be. Short…
