Swift—254–Busting Out All Over!
Chapter 8 of Gulliver's Travels.
Fun stuff–I’ll be teaching at Spin U! Come and have fun with me!
The back pain book is
and the running book is
The apps are Lose It, Map My Walk, and the Atlantic Monthly article is The Perfected Self.
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Ehren, I think you'll agree, rocks the Gulliver text.
Book talk begins at 11 or so, 254 audio
So I just have to put my two cents in here, very belatedly, about B.F. Skinner, to correct a mistake that a lot of people make!
You made a reference to “negative reinforcement.” Many folks confuse that concept with punishment. With punishment, you are trying to deter a bad behavior. As an example, your cat scratches the furniture, you spray them with water. With negative reinforcement, you are trying to reinforce a good behavior. As an example, in a lab setting, an unpleasant tone will play until a lab animal presses a lever. When the lever is pressed, the tone stops for a while. You aren’t punishing any bad behavior, but you are trying to get the animal to press the lever, and you reinforce that behavior. And positive reinforcement is when you reward good behavior.
The best combination for behavior modification are positive reinforcement and ignoring bad behavior. For example, if a child is interrupting during a group conversation, you ignore them. If they wait their turn or politely say, excuse me, you reward them with your attention (or whatever. Like you said, intrinsic rewards work better than extrinsic).
That was long-winded but that is a particular pet peeve of mine!
Ooh! I hope I corrected myself in a later podcast. I’m actually quite impressed with Skinner and what he found. Thank you for clarifying here, though. It’s important!
if you recently experienced difficulty trying to access the exclusive c4c audio, it should work now. there was a plugin conflict i needed to fix.
also–yes, wring washcloths well after use and hang them, do not let them crumble up in the sink. Mum used to hang them over the faucet.
Heather, the solution to stinky dish cloths is to wring them out really well every time you use them, and then hang them to dry. If they sit with lots of water in them they get stinky, but once I worked this out, and started really wringing them (usually twice in different directions) they became my favourite kitchen cloths. For ones that are already stinky, stick them in a pot with a cup of vinegar and lots of tap water, and boil them for a couple of minutes. Then run enough cold water over them to cool them down, wring them out, and hang to dry. If you continue to wring them out really well with each use, you won’t have a problem again.
Bless you and your secret solution! I didn’t see this for a year and a half but now you’ve given me hope!