I found it fascinating. The individual stories about child-psychopaths were alternately horrifying and heartbreaking. What I found most intriguing was the idea that these kids’ brains literally can’t respond to punishment – deterrence simply doesn’t work, and can’t work. Whatever part of normal and healthy brains that can associate punishment with the acts that lead to it don’t work for them.
But the rewards center works fine. By cutting out any sort of punishment for the children in their care, and only using rewards, one treatment center was able to get incredible statistical results (according to the article) – many, many fewer released patients got into criminal trouble than patients with the same diagnoses in other treatment centers.
If this is true, could we use it in a broader way to rehabilitate criminals – especially young criminals? If a large portion of criminals are born bad in the same way that a lot of the kids in the article are born that way, then perhaps rewards, instead of punishment, could lead to long-term changes in behavior.
Sometimes, when I’m very tired, I wonder if we could, instead, send these kids to an specially appointed island and let them deal with each other.
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Somewhat interesting but not surprising. Responding to rewards and ignoring punishment describes psychopathy. I suppose punishment just makes the situation worse. Teaching psychopaths how to achieve rewards without harming people is a good idea but what happens in the unfair real world where rewards are not always given where due?
The article mentioned determinism and the hereditary nature of the traits as well. Maybe the genes at some point could be tested for?
But with regards to punishment and rewards of those who are psychopaths? Rewards may help train them to some degree. But outside a clinic I don’t see that happening consistently with adults.
If it works at all … I expect you’d have to get them very young, when they’re still pups. But I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that some pups do best with a reward-centric approach.
It’s worth remembering though, that the man described as a “success” story was in jail for a “minor” domestic event by the end of the article, with a terrified wife, who wants a way out.
Carl goes on to say that he shouldn’t really have a SO but that he wants to keep his family together. He talks about going to therapeutic domestic anger management type classes.
I can’t help wondering if what Carl’s really learned is just how to talk in therapy and court so that they let him get away with shit (like slapping his wife around.)
It’s very possible he’s just learning how to deceive, but the article notes that even if it just turned a would-be-killer into a repeat-misdemeanor offender, that’s a pretty big victory for society.
We now have about two decades of strong, varied research supporting the idea that rewards are much more effective at changing behavior for all people, including kids, and especially including kids with defiance problems.
I dare say that is the mainstream view in child psychology for child behavior management generally.
Fascinating article shared by the OP. But how does it work when reward often is not there in real life? If a rehabilitated psychopath gets a typical 9-to-5 job, he/she can expect long hours of unpleasant work, maybe a bad boss, maybe bad customers, bad coworkers, less-than-ideal pay, etc. Paying bills, drudgery, tedium, etc. Everyday life doesn’t have much thrill or pleasure to offer on a regular basis. What keeps the psychopath from going deranged again, under those little-to-no reward circumstances?
Or, he is learning to game the system to avoid a lengthy prison sentence and now is more likely to kill on the outside. Of course, these personality types also kill other inmates as well.