Punishment In Educational Contexts

Punishment is common in our society. From taking a child’s toys from them when they are not behaving properly, to punishing adults for having committed offenses, there is punishment everywhere. We see punishment as a way to eradicate or avoid negative or unacceptable behavior. But is punishment in educational contexts useful?

What are the consequences? In this article, we try to answer these questions.

Education is a very important topic that can not be boiled down to concrete experiences or individual opinions. Educational practice must be based on scientific criteria.

To investigate the usefulness and consequences of punishment in educational contexts, we focus on empirical data. This is because scientific data gives us very useful information about punishment and its educational implications.

Reward and punishment in educational contexts

Before we discuss the usefulness and consequences of punishment in education, it is important to understand the principle that governs it. Why does punishment allow for the eradication of certain types of behavior? The answer to this question lies in BF Skinner’s theory of instrumental conditioning. He was one of the tribal fathers to Bahaviorism and made major contributions to learning psychology.

Instrumental conditioning roughly says that when a behavior is reinforced, it is likely to be repeated. In other words, when something positive happens as a result of a particular action, we tend to continue to act that way in the future.

The opposite happens with punishment. When behavior is punished, the likelihood of it being repeated decreases. There is a lot of evidence backing up instrumental conditioning. In addition, the theory has been widely demonstrated in both humans and animals.

However, learning is very complex. A key aspect to understanding the impact of rewards and punishment in educational contexts is its instrumental nature. When we reward or punish, we change a person’s behavior because they expect that reward or punishment. That is, the person behaves like that because of external motivation.

From an external motivational perspective, we can deduce that the new behavior will only continue as long as the punishment or reward is maintained. It is important to understand that instrumental conditioning is associative learning. The person does not understand why the behavior is right or wrong. They will only understand that certain consequences follow a certain behavior.

Problems with punishment in educational contexts

Now that we know the principles behind instrumental conditioning, let’s discuss the usefulness and consequences of punishment in education.

Punishment and pitfalls

Despite the fact that punishment can help shape behavior, it is a rather poor method in educational contexts because:

• Behavioral changes are conditional: As we mentioned above, the behavior will only continue as long as the punishment exists. If the punishment disappears, the negative behavior reappears. This shows us that the person is not learning what is right or wrong. Instead, only a simple associative learning takes place.

• Possibility of learned helplessness: If the person is not presented with an alternative behavior along with the punishment, they may not be able to find the alternative behavior themselves and will be paralyzed in their actions.
• Educating with violence creates violent people: Violent methods of punishment (physical or psychological) can have serious consequences. Humans learn by imitation and immersion in a social context. If we see violence, we learn to react in the same way to things that happen to us.
• Punishment is linked to a person and not to a type of behavior: In many cases, when an individual does not understand why their behavior is wrong, they associate it with the person punishing them. The person believes that the punishment is an evil or selfish whim of the person performing it. Thus, the person may just avoid the person who punished them, instead of changing their behavior.

Use punishment with caution

As we can see, educating a human being is a complex thing. Punishment represents a simple and easy solution that can also be extremely superficial and dangerous. While negative behavior should not go unpunished, education is something that is more complicated.

A democratic education style based on discussion is synonymous with good education. When a child shows negative behavior, discuss with them why the behavior is wrong, what alternatives are available, and how the child can solve the problems they have created.