[tremendulo]

I suspect what truly works is (a) the instructor knows something that you don't know, (b) you want to learn it, (c) you establish communication. Praise and blame are an inherent part of that communication. In certain circumstances, especially where (b) is less true, then praise and blame get upgraded to reward and punishment. For example if you are a child at school.

We like to say that people (especially children) shouldn't be punished; they should only be rewarded. And then we deny that we are still punishing them, after all, for example by silence and withdrawal.

The reality is you aren't in a relationship if you only get praise and positivity. That feels meaningless or even creepy depending on the intensity. A genuine connection will feel positive/neutral most of the time and negative occasionally, since we are knowledge-creating entities. For example, in a computer game you're learning optimally if your win:lose ratio is somewhere around 80:20. I would guess this applies to our relationships too.

Neither reward nor punishment will 'work' in the absence of the other. This is why tyrants go over the top with punishment, because all blame and no praise is lack of relationship too.

[dkarl]

I think context-specific norms are important, too. I was on a lot of Little League teams where the coach was a curmudgeonly guy who was always yelling, and the kids mostly didn't mind being yelled at. It was happening to everybody, so it didn't mean anything bad about them personally. Same thing in school; some teachers were just mean. But then there were teachers who would treat different kids differently. Some kids would get the acid tongue over and over again no matter how hard they tried; others just got sweetness and light. That's terrible. It definitely doesn't have the desired effect; at least, I hope no teacher would want to make kids feel sick about coming to school every day.

If you establish a norm that everybody gets yelled at, even the better performers, then getting yelled at comes to just mean "pay attention" or "you need to focus more on this." Otherwise getting yelled at means, "You are not living up to the standards of the group, and we resent you for it. You should worry about what's going to happen to you here, if you're even allowed to remain."

[jancsika]

> Praise and blame are an inherent part of that communication.

Language acquisition presents what is perhaps the easiest falsification of your claim. Children don't learn verbal communication so well because of a system of instruction inescapably based on rewards and punishment from an instructor who can teach the lessons that the child wishes to learn (or thinks they should learn). They learn so well because their brain essentially builds them a nice filter chain based on the sounds they hear at an early age range (thus language exposure is an important factor in later language learning).

We hoist praise and blame onto that process mainly because most parents have decades- (or sometimes centuries-) old concepts of learning that aren't based on modern research. Still, I'd much prefer they err on the side of too much praise rather than risk abusing their children. We have plenty of research that tells us the clear risks when that happens.

> In certain circumstances, especially where (b) is less true, then praise and blame get upgraded to reward and punishment.

The example above is a case where (b) is less true. Infants don't desire to build a language filter based on the sounds they are hearing. It happens involuntarily. But your system would actually guide a parent in the wrong direction-- escalating praise/blame to reward/punishment in a situation where neither are warranted.

> For example, in a computer game you're learning optimally if your win:lose ratio is somewhere around 80:20. I would guess this applies to our relationships too.

For that to be testable, your character in the game would have to stay dead once it gets killed. Or at least its injuries would need to follow it everywhere. Like a friend tries to show you a new move and hands you the controller, then the game says, "Hey, you're that guy with the broken leg," and doesn't allow you to do the move.

I think the win:lose ratio would change significantly in that case.

[tremendulo]

People implicitly praise and blame by their emotional responses. A negative response from a person you admire or seek to emulate is felt negatively whether it was intended as blame or not.

Reward and punishment are an amplification of a generally unwanted signal. I'm not advocating these; I'm not taking a moral stance. Rather I'm talking about what people already do irrespective of what they think or say they are doing.

Children learn language because it helps them to get what they want. If reward and punishment guaranteed results then adults would be able to reliably recite the multiplication tables (which they can't).

[linkmotif]

I agree with you except in interpersonal relationships people tend to confuse “punishment” with meanness or losing one’s temper. There’s never a good reason to not be patient or to lose your temper. Having room for negativity is important, but communicating negativity is much more difficult than praise on many levels.

[tremendulo]

I bet those who believe that anger is always and everywhere wrong are the ones who lose their temper. (They may go silent and direct the anger inwardly.) Those who use the anger will employ measured criticism and intensify their efforts.

[linkmotif]

Yes, how you employ/deploy your frustration or anger is everything. I still fail often. It’s probably my #1 top thing I wish to improve upon.

[charlieo88]

I'm not sure how accurate, but I've read a book that claimed killer whale training only uses positive reinforcement. That you can't punish an orca and then expect to be able to get into the water with it.

[rsync]

"We like to say that people (especially children) shouldn't be punished; they should only be rewarded."

I think neither is correct. I think this is a tactical decision that needs to be made in the moment based on time and energy.

Which is to say, it is neither correct nor incorrect to slowly, agonizingly, peel off a band-aid. This can be a successful strategy. Sometimes, however, you just need to rip it off and get on with your life ...

(three kids)

[tremendulo]

Yes. I don't think one can escape from the fact that punishment and reward go hand-in-hand. By the contrast principle, absence of reward is logically equivalent to punishment. Even without explicit rewards and punishments, children will pick up their parents' emotions. And if there are no emotions to pick up, the child will choose another parent figure. Because children want to grow.