Is Behaviorism a good idea for Personal Development?

[Brutha]

[...]About two dozen studies from the field of social psychology conclusively show that people who expect to receive a reward do not perform as well as those who expect nothing.[...]

A while ago we had a discussion about Pain and Pleasure and the need to use them to improve our performance.
In addition we have people asking about how to best rewards themselves.

Is it a good idea to base our motivation on the Pleasure of rewards?

[Chado2423]

My friend in college told me "If the reward is something out there, then there really isn't any real reward. The reward must come from your true nature."

[Mark Lapierre]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Is it a good idea to base our motivation on the Pleasure of rewards?

Very good question. And while I think about it I'd like to ask another question. If we define pleasure to include happiness (which, while arguable greater than pleasure, also includes elements of it), what motivates us other than pleasure?

Our simplest desires are pleasurable ones. More complex (and potentially wholesome) desires revolve around happiness (or are happiness itself).

If the reward is happiness, then I see no problem with basing our motivation on the pleasure of that reward.

It's more complex if the reward is material. I'll come back for that.

[Uplift]

And thats where the element of attitude comes in to play in the behavioural field. And attitude is changeable, able to be manipulated. For instance, say losing weight. If the attitude views over eating and sugary, high calorie sweets as pleasure, then denial of them is pain, and doomed to difficulty or failure. But a change in attitude, which views over eating and sugary, high calorie sweets as pain, as a painfull, useless hinderance to the pleasure of deluxe health, fitness and the lifestyle benefits, then eating the right food and losing weight is easy, a pleasure.

The power of attitude is clear in different cultures. As one culture craves foods that another is appalled by. Same food, but a different attitude that colours behaviour.

[NotesMaeve]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Is it a good idea to base our motivation on the Pleasure of rewards?

Sweet pants, don't we all do it for some form of reward?

[Freelancer]

Is it a good idea to base our motivation on the Pleasure of rewards?

Whey excellent question. A poster before mentioned the following;

"If the reward is something out there, then there really isn't any real reward. The reward must come from your true nature."

I happen to agree completely with this (smart friend you got there ), the reward should come from the inside out. Take Steve for example (he's such a fun guy to pick on) his reward is completely based on his 'true nature'. He does what he does because of the person he is and that in itself is all the rewards he could ever wish for. The material things he gets are perks not what drives him forward.

[Brutha]

Sweet pants, don't we all do it for some form of reward?

Take a baseball player, he throws 10 free throws in a row.
Let's say he hits 4 times and misses 6 times.
Did he somehow feel more potential reward in those 4 times than in the other 6?
Maybe two years ago he would have only hit 2 times and missed 8 times. Is the improvement based on feeling more pleasure when he hits?

I would rather say that it made "click" a few times in his brain. Don't throw the ball in a certain way.
He might even have changed his attitude in that time.
Maybe the year ago he feared to miss.

According to the pain/pleasure model the fear to miss should increase his motivation to hit/not to miss.
Following from his increased motivation he should also increase his result.

On the other side there are people who are unattached to the outcome of their actions and try to live in the moment. Completly (zenlike) focused on throwing the ball exactly the right way, whether in training or in a real match, without commiting any thoughts to the outcome.

Thinking of rewards (or penalties), removes focus from the real task.

[Matthew Shea]

The way I see it, every action has a consequence. That consequence is judged good or bad for whatever reason, be it a reward, be it fear, be it morality, whatever. There are exceptions and people's justifications for certain actions can get bizarre and contradictory, but people will basically do what they perceive to be "good" based on the situation.

[m38967]

in my case, i would say not so much, because i have tried to motivate myself with rewards, such as if you get your daily x number of posts done by x time, treat yourself to x. But because my issues kind of go deep, the reward is not enough of a motivator. (apparently)

i think in my case, what motivates me is hope. hope for me is the almighty motivator, because it implies possibility and future. when i got my job a few months ago, it did wonders for me and my outlook (and the future). nothing can motivate someone like knowing they can lift themselves out of a hole they are in.

personal small rewards do and can motivate those with minor goals and/ or issues.

[eblight]

Is it a good idea to base our motivation on the Pleasure of rewards?[/quote]

This is a deep question. If a person gets an inner response that feels like an "aha - this feels really good to do" then that is enough motivation in itself for any pleasure of reward that may come out of it. In other words a person is aligned with what feels correct and right for them. The pleasure that follows is automatic because the person has responded to something correctly in the first place.

[Brutha]

The way I see it, every action has a consequence.

Words like reward, pleasure and punishment contain intentionality. Not every consequence of an action contains intentionality.

[Jason S]

The idea behind most external rewards is to carry an individual for a brief period of time, during which the person is learning to internalize his or her own set of rewards. eg, we get gold stars in grade school, but not in college, b/c by then, we're expected to have recognized the intrinsic value of working hard in school and created an internal set of rewards to keep ourselves motivated.

In fact, the studies that the author of the article originally quoted above show that rewards do in fact work--for a time. It's when they're left in place too long that problems occur... or when the reward encourages a behavior that's not quite the behavior you were hoping to encourage. (Like a reward designed to promote productivity that actually drives increased face time.)

As for the idea that only internalized rewards matter, I respectfully disagree... how many of us would like living in a world totally devoid of rewards, where no one ever did so much as said "thank you"? Being able to maintain my sanity in such a place might be a sign of the ultimate ability to transcend the "human element," but I for one wouldn't want to try it!