Common sense has since the dawn of time associated learning and discipline with the carrot and stick system. The carrot is a pleasant event that will happen if we do things correctly; the stick, conversely, is an unpleasant event that we will suffer if we do not do things correctly.
The first question that arises is why two options? Can't we just punish those who don't do things well to force them to change, or conversely, can't we just reward those who do things well to encourage others to do the same? You can imagine that if it were that simple, the education system that "works" would have been known and used for a long time.
Let's start by looking at the punitive approach. This method seems to be very effective on the majority (we always talk about the majority, never all people in this kind of thinking). Anyone with a minimum of common sense will try not to be punished. But you still need to be aware of the limitations of the process...
Not doing something because you know you're going to be punished is probably not going to make the person want to do it anymore. They'll try to do it in secret, or they'll try to find a way to potentially avoid being punished by changing some of the information so they're no longer "under the direct control" of the person who can punish them. So it's only effective in the short term.
Frequent exposure to punishment can create emotional instability in individuals, as they fear making mistakes or facing criticism and constantly anticipate potential repercussions. This instability can quickly lead to passivity, which was undoubtedly the intended goal of slavery but certainly not of an education aimed at improving the individual concerned.
Fear and anxiety related to punishment can psychologically break the individual who will submit passively, but it can also conversely reinforce his position of refusal and lead him to an attitude of provocation or even violent rebellion as a coping mechanism. And here we can say that the situation at the end is much worse than that at the start!
Finally, it is important to consider that someone who does not do things 'well' may simply not have the capacity to do so, and in that case, it seems obvious that punishing them will not solve the problem.
This is why the 100% stick solution doesn't work, even in animal training (You've all seen those trainers who have a whip in their hand, they also always have treats...).
By recognizing and rewarding individuals for their efforts, this approach helps build confidence, boosts self-esteem, and fosters a positive learning environment. Indeed, if the atmosphere is positive, people are more open and attentive, whereas conversely, it is useless to want to discuss with an angry or panicked person; you have to wait for them to calm down if you don't want to waste their time.
The problem is that not everyone likes carrots and you feel that you are not going to be able to provide everyone with the thing that will motivate them enough to move forward (you already have to know it). In addition, some people will prefer to continue doing the thing that is causing the problem rather than stop in exchange for the carrot. So 100% carrot is not THE solution either.
1- Use both!: Many psychological studies have produced very similar results. The best educational results are achieved with a ratio of three to five carrots to one swat. This is indeed consistent with what we said previously. Punishment is much more effective in a positive atmosphere, and too much punishment leads to aversion and not progress (this is further accentuated by age, as adolescents are much more prone to aversion than to progress).
Why not a 1:1 ratio? This stems from a psychological bias that affects us all: the negativity bias. Roughly summarized, we'll say that we notice negative events much more than positive ones, and therefore, to achieve a sense of balance, we need more positive than negative events, because if the ratio is equal, we'll generally remember it as negative!
2- Remember to point out that things are well done: To achieve a ratio of 3:1 to 5:1, it is important to learn to notice what is good and especially to congratulate the author. So when you give a negative opinion, he will be all the more surprised and will therefore be more willing to analyze the criticism, try to understand it and see what he can correct in his attitude to improve things. Conversely, too much criticism leads the person to think that you criticize everything, all the time and that the effort would therefore be useless.
3- Punishments are never self-evident: It is already obvious that punishment is not used to vent one's anger, but only in the event of a proven fault. And one must always begin with a warning, with punishment only occurring later, if the fault is repeated a second time. Furthermore, punishment must always be accompanied by an indication of what should have been done. It is this dual pedagogical aspect of the prior warning AND the brief explanation of what should have been done that will allow for optimal teaching.
In dominance and submission games, punishments are frequently used. Since these are voluntary games, it's likely that the submissive enjoys it, perhaps even enjoying punishment... But how do you punish someone who enjoys being punished? To understand the subtleties of this, you need to look at the behavioral approach.
You all know the name of one of the most famous behaviorists, a man named Ivan Pavlov. His most famous experiment involved accompanying the giving of food to dogs with various stimuli (we always talk about a bell, but in reality there were many different signals). After a certain time, the stimuli triggered salivation even in the absence of food, which proved that conditioned reflexes could be reprogrammed.
One of the major legacies of Pavlov's work and his theory of conditioned reflexes can be found in the work of one of his disciples, the German-Russian sociologist and microbiologist Sergei Tchakhotine, who took up this theory from the perspective of mass psychology. He set out his theories in a reference work, The Rape of Crowds by Political Propaganda (1939).
This is the starting point of the behaviorist approach. Roughly summarized, this approach is based on the idea that our behavior evolves in relation to the good or bad experiences we have. For example, you taste an unknown dish, you find it tasty, you will tend to want to eat it again later. If you find it disgusting, there is little chance that you will buy it again later.
The idea is to associate an action that we want to see repeated more often with a pleasant stimulus (the carrot). This is what behaviorists call 'Reinforcement'. Conversely, we will associate the actions that we want to eliminate with an unpleasant stimulus (the stick). We call this 'Punishment'.
Be careful with language from now on, don't take words in their most common sense! Here, punishment is an action that will have the effect of reducing or stopping a behavior, even if for you this action is absolutely not a punishment in the common sense of the term. Imagine, for example, that your dog doesn't like being petted. If you pet him every time he brings you the ball to congratulate him, as we all instinctively tend to do since the majority of dogs like being petted, he will inevitably bring it back less and less without you understanding why! Punishment is therefore not universal (We come back to my example in the introduction, the submissive, pleasure in pain, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...). It is therefore important to take the time to understand the other person if we don't want to make a big mistake, whether our goal is to punish or reward them. Just because you'd do anything to eat chocolate doesn't mean someone else won't find it disgusting.
All this applies of course to reinforcement as well. If a kid annoys you and you yell at him, it seems quite logical that he would stop, but sometimes the opposite happens. Why? Because he is looking for attention and he notices that by annoying you he gets attention! In YOUR perception, yelling is a "punishment" because in YOUR logic, you don't like being yelled at, but it turns out that here it is a reinforcement. You must therefore detach yourself from your own perceptions and analyze the situation very coldly. If an action, whatever it may be, leads the subject to do less or to stop doing it, it is a Punishment. If it leads the subject to do it more often or with more intensity, it is a Reinforcement! And what can be reinforcement for one can be punishment for another!
From the 1970s onwards, Skinner's radical behaviourism lost influence in favour of cognitivism. Most of the criticism of behaviourism is that it limits learning too much to stimulus-response association and considers the subject as a black box (it does not take into account, for example, the subject's prior knowledge). We will address this point in the third part of the subject.
1- Reinforcement is far more effective than punishment when it comes to achieving lasting, profound behavior change. Punishment is often more effective in terms of short-term results but much less effective in the long term, as the unwanted behavior is not changed but hidden to avoid future punishment, which may even make it more attractive than it was originally.
2- To punish or reward effectively, you need to know the person you are addressing. Acting "as if it were for you" is a serious mistake.
3- BDSM play may at first seem "different" but basically the rules remain the same, only the frame of reference changes. Does your submissive like to have certain "punishments"? Well, you will use them in the story if his general behavior satisfies you. Conversely, if you are not satisfied, you can give him "real" punishments, those that he does not like, or you will not punish him at all, which will be for him a real punishment that we call frustration.
Followers of this method add to this Reinforcement/Punishment distinction, a concept of Positive or Negative. So, as before, be careful with the meaning of these two words. They have no moral value here (it's good, it's bad) nor any notion of effectiveness (it works, it doesn't work), they only have a mathematical meaning, that of adding or removing a stimulus.
For example, giving a whip is 'positive' because it gives an additional stimulus to the person (as already mentioned above, this whip, depending on its strength, the person who receives it, the context, can generate a pleasant stimulus (we like it) or unpleasant stimulus (we don't like it) but will rarely leave someone unmoved). Conversely, leaving someone alone is 'negative' because it removes a stimulus (that of the interaction) but again, depending on the people and the situations, it can remove a stimulus that was pleasant (the person liked being with you) or unpleasant (the person prefers that you are not there).
There are therefore four possibilities for modifying a person's (or an animal's) behavior. They are not at all equivalent in terms of effectiveness, far from it. I therefore give them to you here from the most to the least effective:
