Since we are talking about behaviorism and what we can do with it to be able to manipulate our children, I invite you to watch this video today, which, with a certain humor, explains the way in which using rewards and punishments can bend the will from another person without her knowing. And you can also Learn to use behaviorism to manipulate your children with Dr. Sheldon Cooper. A luxury.
Let us admit that Dr. Sheldon Cooper is a fictional character. He appears in the great American series The Big Bang Theory, played by Jim Parsons. As in other parodies of behavioral methods, Sheldon, in the chapter "The Gothowitz Deviation" uses a simplified and really effective method based on behavioral psychology to try to modify behavior from Penny, his friend Leonard's girlfriend.
When Penny does something he wants reinforce your behavior with a prize, which in this case is a chocolate. The truth, even if the example is humorous, reminds me a lot of the methods that parents and educators use for children to do what they want: give them a chocolate, a dessert, let them play the console or put them in a “nice " Smiley face.
There is no doubt that it is possible to use behaviorism to manipulate children, like all people, but that its use is not always moral or educational, since it does not offer the recipient of these formulas the ability to understand the reasons for their behavior nor choose freely to act in one way or another. And that we don't know the true consequences that this manipulation can have in the long run.
It is evident that, although behaviorism can be legitimately used by specialists to help people with a problem and always with their consent, make use of it to modify aspects of the behavior of a normal, healthy and free child to get it to adapt to World design that we demand from adults is almost as incorrect as Dr. Sheldon Cooper's use of behaviorism and can have very negative consequences.
