school management
Cause and effect
New experimental game shows why punishment doesn ’ t always work .
By Wade Zaglas
Neuroscientists and psychologists from UNSW Sydney have developed a video game that provides insights into punishment and why some individuals will try almost anything to avoid it , while others are undaunted by it .
For a long time it has been hypothesised that individuals who choose undesirable behaviours that lead to poor outcomes are “ so strongly motivated by the prospect of a short-term reward that the thought of being punished is dwarfed by comparison ”. The other theory is that some individuals are impervious to punishment because they simply don ’ t care about any consequences for their actions .
However , an experiment being conducted by UNSW and Western Sydney University researchers has concluded that a third important explanation might exist , which may have implications for a whole range of challenging teenagers coming through Australia ’ s schools .
The experiment was led by Dr Philip Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel of the Behavioural Neuroscience Lab and Dr Jessica Lee of the Human Learning Lab at UNSW ’ s School of Psychology . It involved a simple online game given to 135 psychology students .
The game tested how likely students were to change their behaviour if their actions resulted in bad outcomes . What caused this sensitivity to punishment across the cohort was a key question of the study .
“ We designed a game where players could make certain responses that won them points , but some responses also lost them points ,” Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel said .
“ After playing it for a few rounds , many players drastically changed their behaviour to avoid losing points , which was a good strategy . However , many other players did not avoid point-loss , even by the end of the game , and as a result , did much worse at it .
“ Really popular accounts of punishment sensitivity say that these two groups probably differ in how they value outcomes . Or that they differ in their impulsivity – their ability to control their own behaviour .
“ Surprisingly , these factors did not explain the difference between good vs bad avoiders of punishment . The thing that these players really differed on was how well they understood the consequences of their actions .”
This inability to understand the consequences of their actions led the researchers , who recently published their findings in the journal eLife , to “ believe this could be an important factor that accounts for what psychologists call an insensitivity to punishment ”.
“ An important and overlooked source of differences between people comes from how effective they are at linking their behaviour to consequences – if you don ’ t know your behaviour is causing you harm , you ’ re going to keep doing it , regardless of your values .”
What ’ s noteworthy about these findings is that this “ insensitivity ” to harming oneself applies to many everyday behaviours , “ such as a person who repeatedly tells inappropriate jokes wondering why people aren ’ t super friendly to them ”. The researchers also list so-called “ intractable ” behaviours related to addiction and mental health .
The 135 study participants played an interactive online game “ where they could click on one of two planets to trade with them and earn points . Each time they clicked on one of the planets , they had a 50 per cent chance of being rewarded with 100 points .”
After playing a few rounds , the participants were then introduced to a new element .
“ Now when they selected one planet , a ‘ pirate ’ spaceship would emerge 20 per cent of the time and make an attack that would claim one fifth of the player ’ s points . If they selected the other planet , a neutral spaceship would emerge 20 per cent of the time , but would make no such attack ,” the researchers explained .
After completing the game , the researchers noted that there was a clear divide between students who stopped “ trading ” with the pirate ship planet to avoid punishment , and those who did not .
There was also a clear split between students that stopped trading with the pirate ship planet ( i . e . avoided punishment ) and those that did not . Only a nominal number of students showed “ intermediate avoidance ”. The students also expressed that they liked winning points when trading with a planet , and disliked the pirate spaceships attacking them .
“ Where they differed was in whether they learned the relationship between their behaviour and negative outcomes ,” Jean-Richard-dit-Bressel says .
“ They all wanted to avoid the pirate ship , but many were failing to realise that it was their actions that was causing it to appear and steal their points .”
However , the researcher highlights that this concept cannot explain everything about why some individuals seem immune or insensitive to harmful , self-destructive or addictive behaviours .
Instead , “ the study shows that an overlooked explanation for a person ’ s apparent insensitivity to punishment is that they may not be noticing how their choices result in particular outcomes as quickly as others ”.
“ If this is something some people really struggle with , then this could be a vital intervention target when trying to promote beneficial behaviour and decision-making in individuals ...” he said .
“ Everyone was clearly motivated to gain points . They really just differed in how they went about it , which entirely depended on what they had learned about their behaviour .” ■
26 | educationreview . com . au