Punishment.

Punishment in the past.

In the USA these 29 states have now banned corporal punishment:

Worldwide Bans on Corporal Punishment

The following list shows a sample of the trend towards the elimination of corporal punishment in schools, dating as far back as the 1700s.

Schools & Physical Punishment.

Aggression and antisocial behavior.

Science and punishment.

"To the average citizen, an obvious way of reducing aggression is to punish it. If one man robs, batters of kills another, the simple solution is to put him in prison or, in extreme cases to kill him. If a young girl aggresses against her parents, siblings, or peers, we can spank her, scream at her, remove her privileges, or make her feel guilty. The assumption here is that this punishment "will teach them a lesson," that they will think twice before they perform that activity again, and that the more severe the punishment, the better. But it is not that simple. Severe punishment has been shown to be effective temporarily, but unless used with extreme caution, it can have the opposite effect in the long run."

Why do we punish?

The main reason many people believe in the virtues of punishment is easily explained by Festinger's concept of cognitive dissonance. While common sense would lead us to believe that if we suffer we would understand this as a completely bad thing that has happened to us, cognitive dissonance tells us otherwise. Cognitive dissonance, among other things, is the social process whereby people rationalize the choices they make into the belief that those choices were the best choices. Even choices that were made for them, in this way, become a belief that those choices were best. Thus their adverse experiences, can become transformed into a belief, that such things must be good for you. The logic goes, "I am what I am because of what happened to me and all the things that happened to me were therefore good and for my own good, including the beatings." In his book "Cognitive Dissonance" Joel Cooper talks about liking what you suffer for:

"Observations of parents and children in the real world have demonstrated time and again that parents who use severe punishment tend to produce children who are extremely aggressive or who, as adults, favor violent means of obtaining personal and political ends. This aggression usually takes place outside the home, where the child is distant from the punishing agent."

Here Aronson, being a good scientist, points out that such correlations while certainly not proving that punishment reduces social deviance, likewise are inconclusive in asserting that harsh punishment causes or increases aggressive, or antisocial behavior:  

"But these naturalistic studies are inconclusive. They don't necessarily prove that punishment for aggression, in itself, necessarily produces aggressive children. Parents who resort to harsh punishment probably do a lot of other things as well - that is, they are probably harsh and aggressive people. Accordingly, it may be that the children are simply copying the aggressive behavior of their parents."

Why might harsh punishment actually cause the thing it is supposed to prevent?

1. As Aronson points out children may be imitating the the harsh and aggressive behavior of their parents. However dolling out harsh punishment is in itself a modeling by parents of harsh and aggressive behavior. Children who view corporally-punishing behavior of their parents may be learning to get others to do what they want by hitting or punishing them.

2. Children may also become aggressive or antisocial by lashing out blindly at the world out of anger and resentment stemming from corporal punishment. We all have experienced a situation where someone has attacked us or made our life miserable for seemingly no reason. This is where we are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone has attacked this person, unbeknown to us, and because they cannot retaliate and attack that person, they simply lash out at anyone nearby. By punishing their children, parents may be punishing their own parents by proxy for their acts of corporal punishment. This displaced retaliation is what Laura Huxley means by 'you are not the target'. In his book Aronson also speaks to an aspect of this: "One other factor of great significance to the efficacy of punishment is its severity or restrictiveness. A severe or restrictive punishment can be extremely frustrating; because frustration is one of the primary causes of aggression, it would seem wise to avoid using frustrating tactics when trying to curb aggression. 

3. Children who are punished both severely and frequently may find these beatings may contribute to their having feelings of worthlessness and loss of self-esteem. It has been shown in many studies that people who feel worthless or have low self-esteem do not feel much in the way of dissonance when they perform aggressive or antisocial actions. Such people are less inclined to learn and are less capable of learning to reduce their own aggressive and antisocial tendencies. 

4. Another possibility is that when punishment is being presented as the only solution to personal conflicts, there is a loss of opportunities to learn peaceful conflict resolution, perhaps causing aggression and antisocial behavior to be the only social tools the child has available when he grows up.

5. Finally children may become more aggressive and antisocial in response to corporal as a way of asserting their freedom and dignity by refusing to be controlled by corporal punishment.

Mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons have many implications for learning. First it means that learning is perhaps less intentional than we might like. It means that we tend to learn what is modeled for us and that we learn it by imitating what is modeled. It is not just that we learn activities that are rewarding, but that the mere seeing of an activity will induce some tendency to perform that action and some learning of how to perform it. Not only that, but the more we see the action, hear the action, are reminded of the action in any way, or even if we simply think about the action, it gradually becomes more wired into our brains. Being punished, it turns out, means we are probably learning to punish. Every time the cane falls on our flesh our brain is busy simulating the wielding of the cane, preparing us to in turn wield the cane. Socialization is all about learning to inhibit this automatic activation of the mirror neurons in cases where such activity is inappropriate. In the case of modeled punishing activity learning to inhibit this response can be very difficult if the modeling of punishment is very frequent.

If we observe others being punished, as in the case were children see their siblings being punished, this may cause some conflict where we have a choice as to which behavior our mirror neurons will react to; the punisher or the punished. If we mirror the actions and emotions of our punished sibling we will build empathy and become less likely to punish or be aggressive. But if our mirror neurons emulate the actions and emotions of the punisher we will likely become more aggressive.

When we ourselves are punished there is only one model to emulate with our mirror neurons and that is the behavior, the actions and emotions of the punisher. This form of modeling will most likely increase our aggression and our other antisocial behavior.      

Psychologist Thomas Gordon has remarked that in an auditorium filled with bank robbers, wife bashers and assorted other felons we would likely find: "...a significant majority of them were regularly punished as children."

Of course People may say, that just because people who punish their children have children who are particularly unruly and lacking in socialization, does not mean that the punishing causes the unruly and antisocial behavior. This is quite true and it is also probably true that the child's behavior (the antisocial behavior) causes the parental behavior of punishing. But here is the thing, what this correlation clearly does show, is that the punishing behavior is ineffective, because the children end up unruly and antisocial any way.

It is remarkable that physical punishment is still well thought of by some people, when there is so much evidence against it, and there has been opposition to it as far back as about 70 A.D. or earlier. "As for corporal punishment, though it is a recognized practice, I am completely opposed to it, first because it is disgusting, fit only for slaves and undoubtedly an insult. In the next place because a pupil whose mind so ill befits a free man's son as not to be corrected by reproof, will remain obdurate even in the face of blows - like the vilest of slaves....If you coerce the child when he is young by means of blows, what will you do when he is a young man who cannot be compelled through fear and has many more important things to learn? Quintilian A.D. 35-100      

The Plowden Report, Children and their primary schools, 1967 stated in part: "It (corporal punishment) has been almost universally outlawed in other western countries. It can be associated with psychological perversion affecting both the beater and the beaten and it is ineffective in precisely those cases in which its use is most hotly defended. We think that the time has come to drop it. After full consideration, we recommend that the infliction of physical pain as a recognized method of punishment in primary schools should be forbidden."

The focus of punishment.

New research.

Abusive parents.

Why is punishment so entrenched?

1. It's quick and easy. Parents and teachers just don't want spend all that time and effort solving some difficulty with children. People are often lazy.

2. It usually causes at least temporary compliance. The parent or teacher gets their way. People are often lazy and self involved.

3. We tend to end up doing what our parents did and for most of us that means punishing. This is the behavior that was modeled for us when we were young. Jeez I sound just like my mother. People are often lazy and lack self awareness.

4. It is expected by our peers and those in positions of authority over us. For teachers it is expected by colleagues, the parents, the school administrators and the children themselves. People are often lazy and afraid of what other people will say.

5. It makes us feel powerful. The parent or teacher is one up and the child is one down. It also appeases feelings of panic, that come from feeling out of control, and restores the feeling of control. This seesaw attitude of competition is deeply imbedded in our culture. People are often lazy, insecure and domineering.

6. It satisfies a primitive 'eye for an eye' type of rough justice. This is a deeply rooted cultural norm, that society, and thus people, should take vengeance upon those who transgress the rules. People are often lazy and vindictive.

7. We are afraid that if the child gets away with it, they will do the same or worse at the first opportunity. People are often lazy, suspicious and untrusting.

8. We tend to believe that punishing shows us to be strong, while not doing so shows us to be weak and permissive. People are often lazy and stuck in a false 'either or' belief system.

There is at least one other reason why we continue to punish. This involves a kind of nostalgia for things of the past and a belief that the past was better and more noble, an often quoted and well recognized fallacy.

To the same extent that punishment is a poor method in schools, it is likewise a poor method in the home. Parents should, and indeed have to be, very careful how they punish their children. Thankfully injuries inflicted on children, even if perpetrated by their parents are considered crimes these days. Click here to learn some of the things birth parents have done to their children. Even in the hypothetical case of considering children akin to wild animals that need to be trained, no animal trainer worth his salt would allow the animal he was training to be punished.

What happens to an animal that is beaten? It may be cowering one moment, but can become a snarling, savage monster that must be restrained all the time. Such animals will bite their master if an opportunity presents itself. In a pack, such animals will tare their master to pieces. In so far as authoritarianism condones various forms of punishment, drawing a parallel between the beaten dog and humans seems reasonable. This leads us to believe that far from reducing bad behavior, the cult of punishment actually is what turns our youth into cowering pitiful creatures one moment, and a pack of young thugs terrorizing the elderly the next.

Slaves.

Fooled by randomness.

"For example, flight instructors in one study noticed that when they praised a pilot for an exceptionally smooth landing, the pilot usually had a poorer landing on the next flight. On the other hand, criticism after a rough landing was usually followed by an improvement on the next try. The instructors concluded that verbal rewards are detrimental to learning, while verbal punishments are beneficial. But are punishments really better than rewards for learning? It is more likely we would get such a sequence of events because of a 'regression to the mean'."

'Regression to the mean' is a statistical concept. If someone has landed an aircraft really well it is statistically more probable that next time he will do it worse. Likewise there is a greater probability that if someone performs badly that he will do better on the next try. There may be no causal connection between the reward or the punishment and what happens on the next try. Chance alone can account for both the improvement and the deterioration in performance. All this is bad for learning because it helps perpetuate the myth that punishment motivates to learn. The teacher or parent, observing children doing badly at some task for which they are then punished and who subsequently do better on their next try, tend to perceive a causal link between the punishment and the improvement. In these cases however the children were statistically bound to do better on the next try if they did very badly on the first try. The teachers or parents are actually being tricked by a statistical illusion into believing that punishment is effective when it may be having no effect or may possibly be having a worsening effect. 

Types of punishment.

	Detention. Incarceration has always been a popular form of punishment which also is done during the student's free time. Sometimes it is useful academically if students are able to use the time to complete homework assignments, but usually this kind of activity is forbidden, as then detention might not be perceived as a punishment, which is of course the whole reason for it. Detention usually involves some mindless, useless work that completely wastes the student's time. An un-graded essay or writing lines are popular activities, or sometimes no activity is allowed at all as in the cartoon opposite. Basically students are meant to feel more confined than usual, they are meant to feel they have been jailed, albeit only for a short time.
	An enforced visit to the principal. This walk of shame is a time honored punishment in schools. Teachers tend to use this because it gets a troublesome student out of the way, temporally solving a problem. But it really does not solve anything, as when the student returns, he is likely to do the same thing again, at least after a while. It is also popular with teachers, because it basically fobs off the need for the teacher to deal with the problem himself. Instead the responsibility falls to the principal. Thus principals tend to become ogres in the student's eyes. This is typified in the movie "School of Rock", where the head mistress is telling a little girl, in a kind voice, to be more conscientious, but the girl is clearly terrified out of her mind.
	Humiliation. Humiliation is any kind of action that portrays a person as stupid, weak, or powerless. Almost all punishments performed in schools have some elements of humiliation. Humiliation is the emotional equivalent of physical pain and is often even more terrifying to children. Like corporal punishment, it is a non resolution method of dealing with differences. It is conveyed to students by what is said to them in front of their peers, by forcing them into doing demeaning activities before their peers, and by exposing for all to see their most private weaknesses and absurdities. It creates anger and resentment in the student just as surely as does physical pain. Sure it brings compliance, but it is a compliance with an eye for revenge, or modeled meanness to be passed on to others.
	Sarcasm. Sarcasm is a form of humiliating a victim with words. While it often seems humorous to those that hear it, it is, like any punishment, meant to be hurtful. It is sometimes seen as worse than other forms of humiliation, because it lures the other students into betraying their fellow students in this humiliating experience. Because it seduces them into portraying their friends as stupid, into perceiving their friends as stupid by ridiculing them with rapier sharp wit. It is a grievous betrayal. Also because it engenders laughter it is a particularly insidious model for students to copy. Sarcastic teachers tend to end up with rooms full of sarcastic students. Sarcasm is not only the lowest form of wit, but it is also some of the lowest form of human behavior.
	Extra schoolwork. If it is our intention to have children wanting to learn, then using schoolwork as a punishment is ridiculously self defeating. The very idea, that learning could be turned into a punishment, just makes my blood boil. But is does exist and usually takes the form of the following example from the writings of John Holt. "...[She] was going to continue working with her daughter as she had been, by giving her a page of problems to do each day, with the threat that for each problem done wrong she would be given several more problems to do." It is difficult to imagine what this mother might be hoping for her daughter, certainly not that she ever learn to like learning, or that she become a life long learner.
	Mindless repetitive dull work. Writing lines is mind numbingly boring and a completely useless way of occupying someone's time. Although this is usually done in detention, it is sometimes required to be done when the student is kept in after class. Some teachers have been known to have students do lines while class is continuing, so that the student actually misses the lesson. Where ever and whenever it is done, this tedium is both painful and an unforgivable waste of time, that could be used for learning or for play. The lines serve no purpose other than to make work. It is the soulless equivalent of digging a hole and then filling it in. Even the message in the lines is usually not taken in. We all remember lines tend to be written in columns of the same word, so the sentence does not even register.
	Withdrawal of privileges. Withdrawal of rewards, comforts, and enjoyable circumstances taken for granted, may be the most common form of punishment these days. Some privileges, some excursions, some pleasures often seem to be dangled in front of students for the sole purpose of being snatched away if the students do not comply with the teacher's wishes. Such blatant manipulation is usually seen through by students who then decide if compliance is worth the bait. Other privileges such as play time at recess or during sports, can also be withdrawn making the few minor pleasures available at school also conditional of compliance. Such actions by teachers likewise do not invoke in students a sudden revelation of the error of their ways, but rather models for students the uses of power.
	Time out. Time out covers a multitude of punishments. It is basically a respite for the teacher or the student. If not presented as a punishment, but as an option. It can be an effective cooling down period, a time of calming dangerous emotions so a more rational mind may emerge. But time out in schools usually means enforced isolation which merely provides the student with time to multiply resentment and hurt feelings and plan revenge. The child sitting alone does not suddenly come the realization that he has done something wrong and must not do it again. Rather he has time to plan how to do it again without getting caught and how to better make the teacher's life miserable.
	Logical consequences. What is called logical consequences by those who advocate this form of punishment is usually neither logical nor consequential. These are an artificial attempt to make punishment equate with the discipline of nature. But students, whatever their age, are not taken in by explanations of natural law. They see quite clearly that it is a person, a teacher, that is punishing them, and not some vital force of nature. For them, the difference between other punishments and the so called 'logical consequences' is zero. At the same time, teachers who use this technique can end up performing some ludicrously inappropriate actions, in an effort to make punishments somehow fit the crime.

Psychology and Punishment.

"Quite literally, a person may subsequently behave 'in order to avoid punishment'. He can avoid it by not behaving in punishable ways, but there are other possibilities. Some of these are disruptive and maladaptive or neurotic..."

"The trouble is that when we punish a person for behaving badly, we leave it up to him to discover how to behave well..."

Punishment causes escape or flight behavior, where the one who is punished tries to escape any situations of future punishment. The one punished decides from then on, which way to act in order to avoid the punishment. He will be rewarded by that method which appears most effective from his own previous experience. That is, he will tend to act in the way in which he has discovered to be rewarding in avoiding punishment. This way may be any number of inappropriate ways that are not anticipated by the punisher. In his book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" Skinner gives examples of many of the sorts of socially inappropriate strategies people use to escape future punishment, as follows:

Fantasy. "Thus a person may behave in ways that will not be punished because they cannot be seen as by fantasizing or dreaming."

Redirection. "He may displace punishable behavior by directing it toward objects which cannot punish - for example, he may be aggressive towards physical objects, children or small animals."

Identification. "He may watch or read about others who engage in the punishable behavior, identifying himself with them..."

Projection. "...or interpret the behavior of others as punishable, projecting his own tendencies."

Rationalization. "He may rationalize his behavior by giving reasons, either to himself or others which make it non-punishable - as in asserting that he is punishing a child for the child's own good."

Avoidance of temptations. "One may avoid the occasions on which the punishable behavior is likely to occur. A person who has been punished for drunkenness may 'put temptation behind him' by staying away from places where he is likely to drink too much..."

Changing the environment. "Still another strategy is to change the environment so the behavior is less likely to be punished. ...we weaken punitive social contingencies by associating with more tolerant friends."

Changing the probability. "Or he may make punishable behavior less likely by changing his physiological condition, controlling aggression for example, by taking tranquillizers."

Sublimation. "Literature and art permit one to 'sublimate' other kinds of troublesome behavior."

Keeping busy. "...he stays out of trouble by keeping busy in non-punished ways, as by doggedly 'doing something else'. ...Organized sports are sometimes promoted on the grounds that they provide an environment in which young people will be too busy to get into trouble."

Transforming reward into punishment. "A person may even take steps to strengthen contingencies which teach him to stop behaving in punishable ways: he may, for example take drugs under the influence of which smoking or drinking have strong aversive consequences, such as nausea..."

Reducing reward. "Temper tantrums often disappear when they no longer receive attention, aggressive behavior is attenuated by making sure nothing is gained by it, and overeating is controlled by making foods less palatable."

Surreptitiousness. "A simple way to avoid punishment is to avoid the punishers. Sex play becomes surreptitious, and a violent man attacks only when the police are not around."

Compliance and its price.

It is a bandage or a patch.

Any strategy that has to be invoked over and over again clearly is not solving the problem and punishment has to be used again and again.

It makes the problem worse.

Alfie Kohn puts it like this: "Researchers have found for example, children who are severely punished at home are more likely than their peers to act out when they are away from home. I have yet to find an educator who is surprised by these findings, which suggests that we have all noticed something similar going on at schools."

It creates a new problem of modeled use of power.

This is a very disturbing lesson as Alfie Kohn points out: "Specifically the child learns that when you don't like the way someone is acting, you make something bad happen to that person until he gives in: Do this or here's what I'm going to do to you." It is disturbing because some children's behavior suggests that they have already learned this all too well.

It creates an eroded relationship between the punisher and the punished.

Alfie Kohn says: "Once an adult has come to be seen as an enforcer of the rules and an imposer of unpleasant consequences, the child is about as happy to see that person as an adult is to see a police car in the rear view mirror." A person's ability to uncover the causes and rational of problem behavior relies on the element of trust and care that has developed between the teacher and the student or the parent and the child. Punishment of the student by the teacher violates this trust and care, distorting the relationship so that the possibility of coming to some amicable solution is lost forever.

It creates a new problem of impeded ethical development.

Punishment places the child in an insecure and unsafe position. It forces the basic motivation to become the satisfaction of the need for safety. In terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it causes the child to get stuck at the level of safety and thus less likely to become concerned with the higher meta needs. Alfie Kohn puts it like this: "...we want children not to rob banks - or do various other things that are unethical or hurtful - because they know it's wrong, and also because they can imagine how such actions will affect other people. But when disciplinarians talk about imposing 'consequences' for a student's action - and inducing him to think about those consequences ahead of time - they almost always mean the consequences to him. The focus is on how he will get in trouble for breaking the rule." It forces the child to be concerned with the lower deprivation needs, and never develop a concern for others, or develop an understanding of what is right for all humans.

Rehabilitation and Punishment.

The social utility of punishment.

Of course punishment benefits another smaller group of people, the victims. For the victim this is not only about what the criminal deserves but also about what they deserve. If a criminal takes the life of someone you love, how can society restore balance to us in the fairness of this act? Those who are victims are usually not Jesus like wanting to forgive their tormentors, but rather actively wanting revenge. Part of this is again the wanting to restore the balance of fairness in society, but it has a darker side of an eye for an eye. These darker wishes can escalate into feuds that can unhinge societies. Societies have to some how allow victims some retribution through societies action, so victims are not tempted to try and restore balance through their own actions.   

With prisons then, society is attempting to provide safety for non criminals, to see a balance restored to our sense of fairness, and to allow victims of crimes some retribution. Thus there is some justification for thinking of prisons as places for punishing criminals. Through prisons, society can be seen as taking its rightful revenge on its miscreants. In schools however, there is no way of justifying punishment as in most cases the children do not transgress the laws of society, and if they did, the law is quite capable of dealing with it without help from the schools.

The Admirable Person.

"Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." Albert Einstein

How does and admirable person come to be?

Modeling behavior.

Intrinsic reward.

Fooling ourselves?

A world without punishment.

Punishment as a means to the internalization of values.

"...both Merrill Carlsmith and Jonathan Freedman demonstrated that, with young children, threats of mild punishment are far more effective than threats of harsh punishment. ...Here's how it works. Suppose a mother threatens to punish her young son to to induce him to refrain, momentarily, from aggressing against his little sister. If she is successful, her son will experience dissonance. The cognition 'I like to wallop my little sister' is dissonant with the cognition 'I am refraining from walloping my little sister.' If he were severely threatened, he would have an abundantly good reason for refraining; he would be able to reduce dissonance by saying, 'The reason I am not hitting my sister is that I'd  get the daylights beaten out of me if I did - but I sure would like to. However, suppose his mother threatens to use a punishment that is mild rather than severe - a punishment just barely strong enough to to get the child to to stop his aggression. In this instance, when he when he asks himself why he is not hitting his infinitely hittable little sister at the moment, he can't use the threat as a way of reducing dissonance - that is, he can't easily convince himself that he would be walloped if he hit his little sister simply because it's not true - yet he must must justify the fact that he's not hitting his little sister. In other words, his his external justification (in terms of severity of threat) is minimal; therefore, he must add his own to justify his restraint. He might, for example, convince himself that he no longer enjoys hitting his little sister. This would not only explain, justify, and make sensible his momentarily peaceful behavior, but more important, it would decrease the probability of his hitting his little sister in the future. In short, a counter aggressive value would have been internalized. He would have convinced himself that, for him hitting someone is neither desirable nor fun."

So punishment can be successfully used as part of the socializing process. But, as has been demonstrated, this is a very slippery slope that is difficult to perform well without the the use of behavior modeling, the logical presentation of the reasons for behaving that way, and having choice within the guide lines or limits. Also, remember it is not the fear of punishment that allows it to be effectively internalized, but rather the the reduction of dissonance.           

Empathy, mirror neurons and socialization.

The perception of punishment.

Some aggressive and antisocial behaviors may be performed out of a child's need for attention. Parents who do not provide a child with love and esteem, and who are generally cold and indifferent, may find their children acting aggressively or antisocially in order to get parental attention. Attention is a poor substitute for love and esteem, but it is better than nothing. Punishment in this case may be perceived as a reward in the form of parents paying attention.

Crime and punishment.

"When negative consequences are imposed on a behavior, they will produce a reduction of that particular response. When negative consequences are removed, the behavior that has been discontinued will typically tend to reappear."

This kind of deterrence is the one that is used by the law almost everywhere, and it used to be used in schools. It is now fondly remembered by both parent and teacher reactionaries. It is typically depicted by the cartoon below. 

Gneezy and Rustichini felt this theory was largely untested and set out to test it. In his book "Cognitive Surplus" Clay Shirky tells the story:

"They set out to correct the fact in 1998, working with day-care centers in the Israeli city of Haifa as experimental sites. Day-care is day-care the world over; working parents with children under school age need someone to watch their children during the day. Sometimes day-care is set up as a public service other times as a business, but in either case the parents and the day-care workers have a potential clash of interests: pickup time. The workers have outside lives, so they want all the kids safely reunited with their parents at a set time. The parents on the other hand, busy at work or running errands and never entirely in control of their travel time, want some slack to pick up their children later than the appointed hour.

The study's ten day-care centers in Haifa ran until four P.M., though no penalty for picking up children late was specified. Gneezy and Rustichini observed closing time in the centers to see how often parents were late; in a normal week, there were seven or eight late pickups at each center. Then they instituted a penalty at six of the centers: henceforth, they announced parents would be fined for picking their children up more than ten minutes late, a fine that would be automatically added to their bill. (The other four centers, the control group, operated unchanged to ensure that any observed effects in the six selected schools were the result of the fine.)

The new rule was imposed at the six centers the following week, and its effect on the parents' behavior was immediate: their lateness increased. In the first week, the average number of late pickups rose to eleven; to fourteen the week after that; and to seventeen the week after that. The episodes of lateness finally topped out a month into the experiment at around twenty a week - nearly triple the pre-fine number. Thereafter, for as long as the fine was in place, the number fluctuated, but it never fell below fourteen and remained closer to twenty most weeks. Meanwhile, the number of late pickups in the four control centers didn't change.

From the point of view of deterrence theory, this result was perverse. The fine was small, just ten shekels (about three dollars), but it should still have had some deterring effect; however bad a late pickup was before the fine was instituted, it should have been ...[only ten shekels worth changed] after. And even if it was too small to have a deterring effect, it shouldn't have increased the frequency of lateness. And yet that's just what it did."

Gneezy and Rustichini formulated a theory to explain their experimental results. They theorized that the fine was not perceived by the parents as a punishment, but rather as a simple fee for service transaction. They were paying extra in order that they could be late. In the parent's eyes the fact they they could pay extra to be late meant that they could be late whenever circumstances indicated the loss of the money was worth the convenience of being able to be late. Gneezy and Rustichini reasoned that the situation that existed before the introduction of the fine was ambiguous, being partly a transaction, but partly a gift, where their being late inconvenienced the workers and took advantage of them. It was a situation that caused the parents to see the workers as fellow human beings who's feelings and rights should be respected. It was a situation  in which they would feel guilty about abusing the worker's good will. With the introduction of the fine, they realized, the ambiguity collapsed, and being late was then considered part of what they were paying for. They no longer saw the workers as people who's lives had to be respected, but rather they saw the worker's time as being a commodity for which they were paying and a cheap one at that. The parents perceived the fine as being full payment for the inconvenience they were causing. 

Perhaps in our cartoon Scruffy's thoughts might have been a bit different to his words.  

"Gneezy and Rustichini kept the fine in place for three months, and then ended it. Once the fine stopped, however, the number of late pickups per week didn't return to pre-fine levels; in fact it remained as high as high as it had been when the fine was in place. Inducing parents to see the workers as participants in a market transaction, rather than as people whose needs had to be respected, had altered the parent's perceptions of the workers, an alteration that outlived the fine itself. One might impose a fine significant enough to deter lateness the paper noted, but the experiment showed that market transactions are not merely additive to other human motivations; they alter them by there mere presence."

"Culture isn't just an agglomeration of individual behaviors; it is a collectively held set of norms and behaviors within a group. In the case of the day-care centers, introducing the fine killed the previous culture by altering the way the parents viewed the workers, and that culture stayed killed even after the fine was removed." 

Any punishment can in most circumstances be perceived as being part of a market transaction. In the case of physical punishment, the punishment is most effective on those who are less hardy and unused to physical violence and who are unlikely to break the law to begin with. It is least effective with those who are used to punishment and who are willing to pay the price. The hardened criminal will normally see punishment as a balancing of the account in a bizarre contract between him and the law. With the account balanced by his incarceration, he will then feel more free than he previously did to break the law. In all probability, for many criminals, a crime once punished, may be perceived as his contract with the law as being fulfilled, and his slate wiped clean, so that he is free to indulge in criminal activity again. Each time he is punished he sees it as the scales being balanced again, so he can be justified in renewing his criminal behavior. 

I had a friend who went to jail and who told me of two prisoners who were brothers, who were abused as children, and who would push needles into their testicles to prove their manliness. I cannot imagine they would be much deterred by any physical punishment, and could view any punishment as a simple price to pay to do whatever they wished.

A penalty or a transaction?

"I ran into an example some years ago at the San Francisco Airport. I'd previously called the airline to change the return date of my flight and had been told I'd have to pay an additional twenty-five dollars when I checked in at the airport.

When I got to the ticket counter on the day of the flight, I asked the agent for my new ticket and said, 'Oh, and there's a twenty-five dollar charge' as I started to dig out my wallet. 'No,' she replied, 'you have to pay a penalty.' Thinking I was about to be hit with another fee on top of the one I already knew about, I said, 'I was told I'd only owe twenty-five dollars to change the ticket.'

'The twenty-five dollars is a penalty,' she replied. At that point I realized what was going on. We agreed that I owed the airline twenty-five dollars, but in my mind that was a reasonable fee for the additional work. In her mind, though, it was punishment for changing my ticket. Further, she was clearly in no mind to hand over the ticket until I acknowledged that."

So what does all this say about punishment?

It says that punishment when seen from the point of view of a criminal is not punishment at all but rather it is a transaction. Certainly it is true from the point of view of psychopaths and sociopaths who, as they have no empathy and therefore no conscience, are not concerned with inconveniencing others or causing them pain or harm. They simply weigh the cost of a so called punishment against the pleasure they obtain from performing the action of a so called crime. They also, of course, consider the likelihood of their getting caught and factor it into their decision.

But what about the criminal that has a conscience? The criminal in this case  is in the same position as the the parents in Gneezy and Rustichini's experiment, in that they initially feel uncomfortable in discomforting or causing others harm. However when a punishment is applied these 'criminals' tend to see it as the price they have to pay for doing business. In fact, far from reinforcing their concern about inconveniencing or harming others, this payment tends to be seen as full compensation paid. Criminals tend to feel the scales of justice have been balanced by their payment and they feel less concerned about the inconvenience or harm they might cause others. Certainly they do not feel more concerned about the inconvenience and harm done to others as should be the case if punishment worked to reduce their criminal tendencies. Criminals with a conscience then may be disturbed by their conscience if they do not get caught but feel unconcerned about others if and when they do get caught.

Another factor in a punishment is it's severity. If a punishment is sufficiently severe it will be considered unjust by ordinary people. Such punishments while they do in fart deter some criminals only make others work harder at not getting caught. When they are so punished criminal's fury and indignation at its unfairness tends overcome their future likelihood of compliance rendering severe punishment also useless in reducing criminal activity.

Of course some punishments are actual fines where real money is exchanged to balance the scales of justice. This is an unfair type of punishment as the the poor and working classes tend to see the punishments as severe while the rich tend to see it as cheap compensation for their antisocial behavior. Imprisonment, on the other hand, is by most understanding a much fairer punishment, as while each group is prevented from earning a living by the imprisonment, each income reduction is commensurate with each class status.

The point is that anyone who deviates from social norms can construe any kind of punishment as a payment made to compensate the parties injured by the social deviation. The moment the deviant realizes he/she is paying a price for his/her action the relationship that enabled his/her guilty conscience is crushed. In consequence, any feelings of guilt the deviant had evaporate along with any motivation to obey social norms.

How then can punishment be seen to motivate or socialize children in schools?

We can say then, that there is no proof of the theory that punishment will motivate children to learn academically, and there is plenty of evidence that punishment prevents such learning. Fortunately in today's system of education very little punishment is used with a view to induce students to learn academically as such. There are however, some types of punishment such as sarcasm, humiliation, mindless dull work, extra schoolwork and withdrawal of privileges, which are sometimes used to punish poor or uncompleted work. This use of punishment we can be fairly sure is counter productive. This use of punishment is not only ineffective in producing better or completed work, but it will probably lead to poorer work and less desire to complete work.

Secondly punishment's main use in schools is to socialize the children and to enforce the school rules. Some people are of the opinion that enforcing the school rules is the same as socialization, but they are quite separate, in that, internalization of the school rules can in some cases be out of step with values needed to enable smooth social integration. What is needed for good socialization of children is for them to internalize those values deemed essential by society as a whole. This is best achieved by the modeling of such behavior, through the explanation of such behavior and through having some choice in the behavior.

However, children in schools do need guidelines and limits within which they are expected to act and these have little effect or relevance if not accompanied by some level of punishment if and when they are ignored. This said, the dynamics of punishment are such that social values are only internalized through threat of punishment, when that threat is mild enough to produce dissonance in the children that cannot be explained by the threat itself, when those children stay within the set limits. Remember also that threat of punishment works best when it never has to be enforced and the more it is enforced the less it will work. On the other hand corporal punishment and other forms of severe punishment appear to prevent the internalization of values and increase the likelihood of antisocial and aggressive behaviors.

There is of course no good answer to the problem of punishing children because those children come from such diverse backgrounds and home lives that have different amounts and quality of socialization. This is true when they first enter the school and remains a truth with which the teachers have to compete on a daily basis. Punishment that appears mild to one child may appear quite severe to another. So in the end our advice is simply to avoid the use of punishment if you can and if you cannot use it sparingly. Also to be effective in procuring lasting changes of behavior punishments must be mild and used only in the service of socializing children. It should never be used for the purpose of trying to force or induce children to learn academically.