| That's a really good method. I think one of the reasons why this works so well is that it makes the student think about the "why". Most people are more likely to follow rules they understand (so long as they agree with why they exist). Telling someone to not drink on a boat is a prescriptive rule. Telling someone not to drink on a boat because being drunk will make it easier for them to drown is too vague. Including specific reasons might help, but it is easy for the student not to internalize these explanations, especially since they would likely prefer to not think about drowning. Turning this around puts the negative outcome, drowning, in the forefront. This puts the focus on the reason why the rule was created. By thinking about why being drunk will increase their chances of drowning, they will better understand why they should follow the "no drinking" rule. In your case, it sounds like you even have them derive the rule itself. This requires at least some thought about the issue and should make it more likely that they will both remember and follow the rule. I would guess that this technique is most effective when the negative outcome is severe and/or something the student doesn't want to think about (e.g. dying). By focusing on how to cause these negative outcomes, the student is forced to think about things they may otherwise try to avoid. It also seems that this technique is effective when the positive outcome is the negation of the conjunction of the negative outcomes. For example, consider the goal of "staying safe while boating". Being safe is easiest to define as not doing any of the things that increase the chance of danger, or, in other words, "not being unsafe". Being unsafe in general is the conjunction of all the ways of being unsafe specifically ("NOT being drunk while boating" AND "NOT entering the water without a life jacket" AND ...). Being safe requires avoiding unsafe outcomes. By flipping the goal, it becomes more clear that we need to figure out what the unsafe outcomes are. Once these are determined, we can start to come up with ways to avoid them. |