Thank you for your feedback. Seems you know what you write.
I looked up your comments and voted them. Note that you commented on old topics which will get votes seldomly. I voted them.
I also looked up Kazdin and just ordered a book from Amazon.
(how do I make those bars on the right indicating what I am replying to?)
There is a help button right below the comment field that explains it and more.
I focused on behaviorism, but I just wanted to mention that The Incredible Years is a good evidence-based book that is not based soly in behaviorism. Kazdin's are the best books on behaviorism as applied to parenting. Incredible Years integrates a bunch of methods including behaviorism.
Here's a neat pictorial outline of the Incredible Years Program:
http://r2lp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/pyramid-in-color.jpg
Here's the book on Amazon:
(There is also a cheaper 2002 edition on Amazon, not sure what the difference is.)
Here's the Incredible Years website:
The Family-Teaching Association certifies group homes in the use of evidence-based parenting methods. Everyone involved has to be trained and meet standards. These group homes have replaced what use to be call orphanages. A resident family-teaching couple has the role of parent for a group of kids. The organizations managing the group homes also provide support for troubled families as part of an overall system to deal with severe problems related to bad parenting.
So, at least, there is a licensing system geared to addressing the consequences of bad parenting.
Boy's Town is part of this system. It was an early adopter of evidence-based parenting that converted to family-like group homes in the 1970s. Perhaps a rare occasion when a religious organization was on the cutting edge of science.
How about the practical part of behaviorism, operant conditoning?
It looks much more like engineering than like science to me. I don't know it enough to have an opinion on how well it works.
Surely you realize that stability across individuals if not really to be expected overall in detail.
Of course and that's one of the reasons for me having doubts about the "sound science" label.
you just need to explain variation
Post factum..? :-)
In any case, if it all worked as well as you claim, surely psychotherapy for kids would be very effective. I suspect this is not the case in reality.
Actually if it works as well as I claim, psychotherapy for kids might be less effective. It involves changing the kid's environment. Psychotherapy can't do that. You have to get the parents to be willing to change and give them training.
On the contrary, the fact that psychotherapy works at all is evidence that the operant conditioning methods I am pushing are not the whole story, and of course operant conditioning is not the whole story.
By your definition, medicine is not a sound science because stability overall in detail is not to be expected due to genetic variability.
What does it take to turn off your BS detector? I speculate that I can provide it.
With respect to parenting? A fair amount, I'd say.
If we are going to be talking about "sound science", first I'd like to see relevant non-subjective quantifiable metrics which are reasonably stable across environments (e.g. cultural) and individuals. Then I would expect a description of the major mechanisms underlying behavior which should be pretty universal and reliably identifiable. And finally I'd want an ability to make forecasts, say what will happen in cases both with specific interventions and without.
Given that I don't think psychology as a whole qualifies as "sound science", I don't really see how parenting advice can pull it off.
I agree about psychology as a whole. How about the practical part of behaviorism, operant conditoning?
It's quantifiable and reasonably good at forecasts.
Surely you realize that stability across individuals if not really to be expected overall in detail. People don't always react the same in detail because of genetic difference (as an example). Stabilty is likely not evidenced for the most extremely genetically different individuals, and it is not to be expected. Environment and culture can lead to variations as well. Stability is not to be expected in general, you just need to explain variation.
Operant conditioning is the foundation. In parenting, add to that the discovery that adult attention is a powerful positive reinforcer for most children. The methodological advances in parenting are largely built on that foundation.
The research indicates that the best approach is to direct attention to wanted behavior and away from any harmless unwanted behavior that can be ignored.
This is actually the strategy my parents applied a lot (I observed that on my younger siblings). On problematic issues distract from it by supplying something entirely else and focussing attention on that. But it made me feel uneasy because it didn't (seem to) address the real issue. It looked like an easy way out. It did work but it also cost quite some time each time.
The strategy of signaling that you notice, smiling at, gamifying, in response to unwanted behavior is grossly counterproductive.
This is valuable advice. Thank you.
But the point still stands: If the children notice that you intentionally condoned than you relativize your consequence. You can only do this if a) you accept this lenience or b) are sure that the (small) child will not notice. And if the act is indeed harmless.
On the other hand one can nonetheless signal in a mild form that you noticed in really harmless cases.
I will not gamify anymore though.
(how do I make those bars on the right indicating what I am replying to?)
"But it made me feel uneasy because it didn't (seem to) address the real issue. It looked like an easy way out. It did work but it also cost quite some time each time."
You can always address the real issue at some other time. The key is merely short-term timing, you don't want to react immediately in a way that reinforces the unwanted behavior with attention. Later, when the kid is not engaging in unwanted behavior your can address the real issue for hours on end if you want. Often the best way to address the real issue is to immediately react to the behavior that is the opposite of the unwanted behavior by having a long conversation about why the opposite is so good and commendable. Or, better yet sometimes, immediately ask the kid why he/she engaged in the good behavior and get them to tell you why they think it is good and all that. Kids love to have their parents listen to them, its a great social reward for wanted behavior.
"But the point still stands: If the children notice that you intentionally condoned than you relativize your consequence. You can only do this if a) you accept this lenience or b) are sure that the (small) child will not notice. And if the act is indeed harmless."
You are pretending to ignore. You are not condoning anything. The consequence is no attention. You are engaging in behavior shaping, notions like 'condoning" and "lenience" are not really categories in the behavior shaping process. Skillful behavior shaping is just the fastest way to accomplish lasting change according to the evidence. I my book, the fastest way to accomplish effective change is the direct opposite of condoning and lenience. I know this is not the way most parents think, but, in my opinion, it is the way to think. It does not matter if they notice it, the research shows it works whether they notice it or not.
Non-harmless unwanted behavior is a different matter, aggressive or significantly destructive behavior, it cannot be addressed by pretending to ignore. Redirection sometimes works. As a final resort use time-out, but most parents have no idea how to use time out. Time out is not a punishment, its just time-out from reinforcement. You can teach your kid to set in time out and reward them for executing a good time out. You can get the kid to practice time outs in advance of using it. Research show that time out works even if you award, praise, commend the kid for executing a good time out.
Parents tend to start the time out process with explanations. Explanations and face-time are time-in which is the opposite of time-out. Time-in, of course, tends to have the opposite effect of making the unwanted behavior more likely.
Parents tend to threaten time-out. Threatening time-out is time-in. Avoid threatening time-out.
When a time out is warranted, immediately initiate it with little or no talking and avoid looking at the kid. If you need to explain, say something short like "no biting". One minute per year of age is a good guideline for the length of time-out.
Also there are some gamification methods. Say a kid is doing head-banging tantrums or otherwise self-destructive or property-destructive tantrums. You can play a pretend game where the kid engages in "good" tantrums and you give him positive attention for "good" tantrums. Via this process instill the habit of good tantrums that can be ignored. Pretend games are a good way to trigger a wanted behavior that is not otherwise occurring so that you can start reinforcing this behavior.
Anyway this is advanced stuff, I refer you to the books of Alan Kazdin.
PS: You will probably find that it is easy to talk about why bad behavior is bad, but harder to come up with a long monologue or even a bunch of short comments about why specific good behaviors are good. It's worth working on this.
In evidence-based parenting, the reason for pretending to ignore in response to unwanted behavior is that adult attention is a positive reinforcer. It has nothing to do with authority or feelings about interference. It has everything to do with what works.
The research indicates that the best approach is to direct attention to wanted behavior and away from any harmless unwanted behavior that can be ignored.
The strategy of signaling that you notice, smiling at, gamifying, in response to unwanted behavior is grossly counterproductive.
See:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2008/04/tiny_tyrants.2.html
http://epicurusgarden.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-reinforcing-power-of-adult.html
Studies indicate that the normal range of parenting styles have little impact. But the normal range is grossly sub-optimal. So, this research says nothing about the impact of optimal parenting.
Scientific research on parenting has provided superior evidence-based methods that have not been widely adopted by parents due to poor technology transfer in this area. In fact., it's normal for parents chronically employ methods that have been known for decades to be counterproductive.
Certain behaviors are called "behavior traps". Once they are learned it's hard to unlearn them. The behaviors are intrinsically reinforcing and there is a behavioral barrier to unlearning them.
Not eating veggies seems to be a behavior trap. It's not uncommon for picky eating to start around age 2 become a lifetime habit. Parents tend to use counter productive methods in an attempt to address picky eating. Evidence-based methods are available but not widely used.
I conjecture that optimal evidence-based parenting methods have a huge impact on the outcome of adult unhealthy eating behaviors.
I would make a different argument than Pinker's in favor of the notion that parenting matters.
Studies show that the normal range of parenting has a limited impact on outcomes. I will grant that.
The normal range of parenting styles is dominated by sub-optimal parenting, so studying the normal range tells you nothing about the impact of optimal parenting methods. Scientific research has provided evidenced-based parenting methods that are superior to those commonly practiced, but the technology transfer has mostly failed, in particular when it comes to getting most parents to practice the most effective methods. In fact, parents commonly chronically engage in actions known to be counterproductive.
So the issue of whether optimal parenting would have a bigger impact is mostly an open question.
developed and evaluated using sound science.
I would like to point out that my BS detector started jerking rather alarmingly at those words...
Well, I gave some specific references (Incredible Years, Triple P, Kazdin Method, Everyday Parenting by Kazdin). Have you checked them out?
Kazdin runs the Child Conduct Center at Yale and former president of the American Psychological Society. Incredible Years is a program developed at U of Washington.
What does it take to turn off your BS detector? I speculate that I can provide it.
There is also the Parent Management Oregon Model (PTMO) that originates with Patterson at U of Oregon. Patterson wrote the first evidence-based parenting book for a general audience (first that I know of) in 1977 called Living with Children. And, when he wrote it, some of the science was already 15 years old. That gets us back to 1962, which means you have 50 years of catching up to do. With any luck, I can set off your Future Shock detector.
In 1962, Montrose Wolf at U of Washington oversaw a series of interventions that showed that a care giver could reduce or increase specific child behaviors by 40-fold in 2 weeks. The method pretty much amounted to the caregiver cranking their neck in response to the kid's behavior, redirecting their attention in other words.
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Since "this post is arguing for secrecy in particular being a good thing" seems to be a common misunderstanding of the intent of the post, I deleted the mention of hiding one' work from the opening paragraph, as well as added a paragraph explicitly saying that we're not saying that any particular way of taking responsibility is necessarily the correct one.
As you point out, Szilard took steps to keep his nuclear chain-reaction patent secret from the Germans. He later took steps that led the US government to start preventing the open publication of scientific papers on nuclear reactor design and other related topics. (The Germans noticed when the journals went quiet.)
Right after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he thought the US government was putting out too much public information on the A-bomb. He even thought the Einstein-Szilard letters should remain secret. His idea at the time was the US government should reveal almost nothing and use the promise to reveal as a bargaining chip in an effort to get an international agreement for the control of nuclear weapons.
Szilard's secrecy about the neutron chain-reaction made it hard for him to get anyone to help him work on making nuclear energy practical between 1934 and 1940. So, it arguably slowed down everyone, not just the Germans.
Source is the Szilard biography "Genius in the Shadows"