You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

FrameBenignly comments on Quotes Repository - Less Wrong Discussion

1 Post author: Dorikka 10 February 2015 04:36AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (87)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: FrameBenignly 10 February 2015 11:50:06PM 3 points [-]

The same critical concept in two different disciplines:

"Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs, they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond." - Edward Thorndike's Law of Effect, Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies, 1911

"Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

Comment author: roystgnr 11 February 2015 10:40:27PM 3 points [-]

The tersest phrasing I've seen was "You get more of what you reward, less of what you punish". Google finds a 1990 book calling it an "old adage" so I've no idea what the source is.

From what I've read there is one important exception, though: if you apply an extrinsic reward or punishment to a behavior, people can see this as a replacement for rather than a supplement to whatever intrinsic rewards or punishments they had previously associated with that behavior, and this can actually reduce the desired behavior.