The Fallacy of Punishment: Why Behavioural Change Requires More.
Generally, in society, punishment is regarded as a necessary means to correct behaviour and wrongdoing. From schools to criminal justice systems, punitive measures have been employed for centuries. However, psychological research has been challenging the efficacy of punitive reactions and long-term results for a while now. I’m going to delve into the reasons why punishment regularly fails to produce lasting results and why we need to let go of the notion that a lack of punishment is what’s wrong with the world. Bare with me and I’ll give alternative approaches grounded in psychological understanding. It’s not as confrontational or as unrealistic as you think.
Punishment as a Deterrent: Traditionally the threat of punishment has been justified as a means of deterring individuals from engaging in undesirable behaviour. However, studies have shown that it is not as effective as commonly believed. When punishment is used as a primary strategy, individuals may refrain from undesirable behaviour in the presence of authority figures or immediate consequences, but how long for depends a lot on their level of development and a whole host of influencing factors that are nuanced, however, what is clear a large percentage of the time is that internalising the lesson is sparse. Eg. ‘You’re gonna lose your Xbox if you do that again, do you want to lose your Xbox?’. Focus = Xbox, Lesson = Dunno. The kid’s brain is saying some version of ‘avoid losing the Xbox, avoid losing the Xbox’ with very little focus, or link to what happened first, or what to do differently. Punishment suppresses behaviour temporarily but is unlikely to foster genuine positive behavioural change (Skinner, 1971).
Negative Emotional Impact: Involving the application of ‘aversive stimuli’, such as physical pain, verbal reprimands, or isolation. Read, smacking, yelling, and time out. These negative experiences can trigger fear, often fear enough to stop something pretty quickly, but they also induce anger, resentment, confusion, distrust, and more, leading to emotional distress. Arguments for these methods conclude that emotional distress is the point, eg. ‘They should feel bad, sad, worried’ in order to learn.
Reality is high emotions = low cognition, in the times that we experience high emotions, including distress we do not and cannot think clearly unless our brains are highly adapted to chronic stress (even then its arguable) and I’ve never met anyone who wants to be adapted to chronic stress anyway. Research indicates that excessive punishment can result in psychological harm, including heightened aggression, anxiety, and reduced self-esteem (Gershoff et al., 2018). These negative emotions interfere with the learning process and impede the development of positive behavioural patterns. We cannot (nor should we) try to avoid all stressful situations, what’s needed here though, to learn is emotional regulation skills, for kids, this means co-regulating with a parent they feel connected to, and can be with during hard times, not avoid. This has important flow-on effects as they get older and your relationship changes.
Lack of Guidance and Instruction: Punishment alone fails to provide individuals with guidance on desirable alternatives or strategies for appropriate behaviour. This is NOT to say that discipline isn’t needed, quite the contrary, discipline is not punishment. The word discipline means to teach, and this is mostly (IMO) what lacks most in today’s society. Instead of teaching individuals how to make better choices, punishment merely focuses on what not to do. Focussing on what not to do overlooks the importance of proactive intervention and fails to equip people with the necessary skills to navigate challenging situations (Gottfredson et al., 2005). Without guidance, people struggle to replace undesirable behaviors with more adaptive alternatives. I’ll give you an example:
I’ve had a big 2 years, good things, and lots of stress too, including my mum becoming unwell and shortly after, tragically dying. For more reasons than I can articulate here my mind has been, busy, processing, and just, busy. I moved house, to a completely new area, meaning different routes, longer commutes to kids’ school, my appointments, etc. Unfortunately, I’ve racked up a number of speeding fines, not on purpose, or trying to do the wrong thing, yet it happened and happened again. You would think that I would start paying closer attention to my own behaviour, to my speedo, to pressing the speed limiting buttons on my steering wheel. Well, I did do all of those things, ineffectively, because my thoughts kept going toward the negative feelings associated with the fines, the demerit points, the anxiety about paying them, about getting another one. I’m actually more distracted, I’m looking for cameras everywhere and my stress hormones are making it harder for me to be calm, and not rush. I’m not suggesting that we should be allowed to speed and get away with it, I’m pointing out what happens to our nervous system.
Shifting Focus from the Underlying Causes: Punishment focuses on the surface-level manifestations of behaviour rather than looking underneath toward the causes that drive it. Understanding the needs, emotions, and cognitive processes that are underlying behavior is crucial for effective responses and interventions. In my story, I was trying to be everywhere at once, feeling as though I needed to keep my shit together and be places on time. I was placing a lot of weight on ‘keeping it together’, especially as a professional who helps others, I felt I couldn’t miss a beat and I felt pressure not to focus on helping myself feel better and do better, but to avoid doing wrong. By solely relying on punishment, we miss valuable opportunities to explore the underlying factors contributing to behavior and to implement meaningful change (Bandura, 1977).
Alternative Approaches:
a. Positive Reinforcement: Rewarding desired behavior can be far more effective than punishment. It takes time, but so does everything worth doing. Positive reinforcement strengthens the desired behavior by providing intrinsic (internal positive feelings) rewards or incentives that motivate us to repeat the action (Skinner, 1953). It creates a supportive environment that encourages intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and SELF ESTEEM.
Self esteem is the difference between feeling like we are capable of making positive changes, or feeling like we are stuck, or lost, or, bad. It is these things that create long-term behavioral change. Note: positive reinforcement is not the same as offering rewards for positive behaviour, ie. dangling a carrot. This is external and is actually basically a reverse punishment. Focus = carrot, not regulation, self esteem, or behaviour. That one needs another blog post. In my speeding example, once upon a time, there used to be sign’s up letting us know there was a speed camera ahead, we would think ‘phew, thank goodness’ - behaviour = slow down, feelings = relief, appreciation, and gratitude. We would have a positive association with behaviour change.
So when someone gives me a cheeky ‘flash flash’ letting me know there’s a camera, I’m immensely grateful and able to adjust my behaviour quite quickly, without all of the unnecessary noise and stress that the threat of getting another fine imposes.
b. Restorative Practice: Restorative practice (or restorative justice, if you change the scenario) emphasises repairing harm, or wrongdoing and in the justice scope, reintegrating individuals into society rather than solely punishing them. There are obvious exceptions here and we need to recognise that sometimes this isn’t possible, but what is also important to recognise is that the inability to effectively reintegrate individuals is rarely due to a lack of punishment, there are other factors at play. Punishment doesn’t heal. Restorative practice recognises the importance of understanding the impact of actions, fostering empathy, and PROMOTING accountability, not reducing it. By involving all affected parties, restorative justice aims to heal relationships and prevent future offenses (Braithwaite, 2004).
Let’s put restorative practice into terms we can use with our kids… Teaching conversations + Natural consequences. Natural consequences most definitely need to still exist, the difference between this and punishment in some occasions might be nuanced, but it is important. For example, my partners’ son, together with a mate painted one of the school walls, when my partner was phoned by the school, who viewed this as quite a trespass, and wanted to enforce a punishment. Instead, my partner asked if he could come down and discuss it. They did and through that process, youngin was subject to discussions about what happened, and why it was a problem, and was then given the opportunity to fix his mistake. He was quite upset and was not happy about the idea that he would lose his afternoon having to clean walls with a scrubbing brush, but that is a natural consequence that no one was willing to save him from. He, supported by Dad began the boring and hard job of scrubbing paint off of bricks, and along with it, had the occasional conversation about why he is doing this and how to avoid these mistakes in the future. This is discipline, this is natural consequences, AND restorative justice, mixed in with co-regulation with a parent.
Some people do this well already, others do this and would also go home and add a punishment on top. I will argue that this is enough, there is too much risk that if a punishment is added, the lesson is lost, it becomes about something else.
Punishment, although deeply entrenched in our societal systems, falls short in achieving lasting behavior change. By focusing on the negative consequences of actions without addressing the underlying causes, punishment fails to foster genuine transformation.
Shani is a degree-qualified Counsellor and holds a Dip in Positive Psychology, specialising in Positive Parenting. Shani regularly works online and face-to-face in clinic with parents of all ages and has referral pathways with other services to support children and whole families. To book a session simply click the button below.
References:
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Braithwaite, J. (2004). Restorative justice and responsive regulation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Gershoff, E. T., Grogan-Kaylor, A., Lansford, J. E., Chang, L., Zelli, A., Deater-Deckard, K., ... & Akin, J. E. (2018). Parent discipline practices in an international sample: Associations with child behaviors and moderation by perceived normativeness. Child Development, 89(2), 719-733.
Gottfredson, D. C., Gottfredson, G. D., Payne, A. A., & Gottfredson, N. C. (2005). School climate predictors of school disorder: Results from a national study of delinquency prevention in schools. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 42(4), 412-444.
Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York, NY: Knopf.