INTERMITTENT REINFORCEMENT
AND WHY A PERSON WILL DO SOMETHING AGAINST HIS LONG TERM INTERESTS
This piece discusses an essential understanding since, as a human being, you will experience this.
REWARDS!
Psychologically, we will tend to do that which gets for us a reward (desired consequence) for our behavior. When we get the reward, we tend to repeat the behavior, hoping to get the reward.
But in some circumstances, the reward never comes and that tends to extinguish the behavior, for what fool would keep on doing something if he/she gets nothing out of it!
(Well, there is an exception. Some people will, though it is not rational, think that they might get a reward even though the evidence shows that they won't. While mice may not go down a tunnel if there is no more cheese there, humans have "hope" that they keep, unthinkingly, rekindling. Thus, the piece: Why Rats Are Smarter Than People - And How You Can Be Smarter.)
There are also many other ways where we do not think and look to see what is really happening, so we live off of short term rewards at the cost of bigger long term rewards or a bigger long term negative consequence. Like sex as a teenager resulting in pregnancy. Or excessive drinking or eating... I'm sure you can think of many. To get into that side of things, see the pieces around Right Thinking - The Master Skill (also see the sidebar links!) and Decision Making - mark my words: get very, very good at these if you want to create a great life! See also, and understand, the psychology and strategies of Change and Habits.
THE IRONY OF IRREGULAR, UNRELIABLE REWARDS...
Proven over and over in studies, it turns out that intermittent, irregular, unreliable, sporadically occurring reinforcement can be stronger than regular reinforcing rewards!
"One of the useful principles discovered by behavioral psychologists is that intermittent reinforcement increases resistance to extinction. The word intermittent means not every time. Intermittent reinforcement contrasts with continuous reinforcement. Under conditions of continuous reinforcement, the organism is reinforced every time it makes the required response." (Source: Intropsych. Read the other three paragraphs, too.)
Perhaps there is an increasing hunger for the reward due to the deprivation for too long a period and that increases the power of the lure.
There are two key pieces to "intermittent reinforcement".
1st, it is just a natural part of a human who hasn't hardly evolved at all in 10,000 years will still be subject to these very human tendencies. It is not their fault.
However, if we want a better life, we must engage our higher brain (the higher "executive functions") to figure our workable strategies that will have us doing that which gets us around this - instead of being the victims of non-thinking! It is only with the higher brain that we can decide and see what is to our long term benefit.
The primitive brain is simply going to react to short term impulses and rewards.
While gambling is clearly intermittent reinforcement, since one is gobbling up the reward while going downhill, that is of the non-thinking type, other things are not so obvious.
In particular, on this site, we are concerned with the effect of being addicted to approval of others and letting that run one's life. The fact is that approval may have no actual value in life if it is outside of those who are close to or dependent on their approval (such as a boss). Yet, we have often failed to differentiate from the time we were children, where we generalized approval as being needed to survive or have less deprivation.
Daniel gave away his life for approval, living in pressure all the time to get the approval of authority figures. He would go to any lengths to make sure everything was perfect and he would often stay up overnight to do "enough". He would neglect his family in an unending, unreachable quest to fill his unsatiable need. Of course, one could understand that if a person was in fear of losing his job. But he continued the same behavior even after he retired, in doing excess work in the service and contribution to others, helping others and getting approval from others while betraying (in a sense) his own spouse. Although dressed in a thin layer of adultness, he remains, standing on his two back paws, panting for petting, anxious to please his masters in life - not a good idea if one is a human being!
He and a good chunk of our society needs to free ourselves from being run like puppets on a strong for false rewards or intermittent rewards. Obviously learning about one's own psychology, breaking away from (faux) dependency "needs", and learning how to be powerful in life is absolutely necessary - it is not acceptable to be a puppet in life. It is best to create your life yourself - powerfully!!!
And, 2nd, on the other side, is:
OR WE MIGHT BE THE REINFORCER, UNINTENTIONALLY
"Intermittent Reinforcement - Intermittent Reinforcement is when rules, rewards or personal boundaries are handed out or enforced inconsistently and occasionally. This usually encourages another person to keep pushing until they get what they want from you without changing their own behavior." Source: Out Of The Fog.
Obviously, if you are doing this, you are harming your own cause, yourself, and the other person. It is a good idea to understand what is involved and how to avoid such behavior and, indeed, how to do the very opposite! It will make an often huge difference in some people's lives to alter these behaviors/strategies.
