Question

Punishment is often ineffective. Based on studies about the use of punishment, why is it typically ineffective?

		It fails to apply operant conditioning.
		It fails to use reinforcement to discourage the behavior.
		It fails to teach children what they did wrong and what they should stop doing.
		It fails to teach children what to do in place of the behavior being punished.

Answer 1

Punishment is often ineffective because it fails to teach children what they did wrong and what they should stop doing.

Explanation:

Punishment is a consequence of an undesired behaviour that makes an individual avoid that particular behaviour in future in an attempt to avoid the punishment attached to it. For example, a man touches a particular switch and gets electrocuted. Thereafter, he will refrain from touching that particular switch in order to avoid getting electrocuted by it.

However, punishment is not always as effective as expected. This is because the individual being punished associates the painful experience (punishment) with that particular behaviour. Punishment would not change his goal, but rather, it will compel him to change the course of attaining the goal. This is more prominently observed in case of children. Children tend to focus on the immediate consequences and do not emphasize upon the long term impact of their behaviour. Thus when they are rebuked, or have their privileges withheld due to some undesirable behaviour like throwing tantrums for a new toy, they wait until their parents calm down so that they can ask for it again. They tend to associate the situation in its immediate setting. They do not have the understanding about why they are not supposed to behave in that manner. Also, in the absence of their parents, they are more likely to display that particular behaviour since their goal still remains the same, only the course of attaining the goal changes. For example, the child might then ask his grandparents or his favourite aunt to buy him the toy which his parents didn’t. But the child does not realize that he was not being rebuked for asking for the toy, but rather because of the tantrums he was throwing. Since he did not realize that, he would most likely throw tantrums for other things, in the near or distant future. For a punishment to be effective, it is thus essential to teach the child what he did was wrong and what he should stop doing in future.