Is it some kind of behaviour modification, through repetitive negative reinforcement?
Humans eh, don't you just love em?
Winner winner chicken dinner!
Negative Reinforcement for Inappropriate Behavior = The induction of painful stimulus for inappropriate behavior with the goal of eliminating the target behavior.
Something Hopefully you have no understanding of Behavior Mod whatsoever if you think the lyrics in that song describe it. To say that wasn't doing it right is just plain wrong. It bordered on insulting that you thought I didn't now what I was doing, though I am not insulted. I'm very good at what I do.
Good guess, Art.
The answer is: I was helping both people in my example.
The first 4 years I worked in the Mental Health field was at a state institution during the mid to late 70's. I was young then and still in my formative years. The individuals served ranged from mildly retarded (using the old term) to Profoundly retarded. Mentally Ill people can be cured. Mentally Retarded people can only be improved. Then there are those who area combination of both and they are the most dangerous.
Each year whether client were in the facility of placed in a group home the State would hold an Individual Habilitation Plan, or IHP, for the client to see what areas needed to be worked on to improve their chances of functioning normally.
For those in the facility it could mean the difference between becoming Institutionalized permanently or moving into a less restrictive environment The client always attended so they could provide input whether or not they understood a word of it. Their guardian spoke for them and sometimes that was the state.
During the meeting we would discuss behavior problems the client was exhibiting and how best to address them. There was always the Goal of extinguishing a behavior and that goal was broken down into Objectives which when met would progress toward achieve the Goal. Little steps designed to make a big step possible. The Ultimate Goal was always for them to achieve independence to the best of their ability and to live in the least restrictive environment.
Problem areas addressed for the client could be anything from eating poo to drinking pee or anything in between. People who drank pee needed a glass so we watched them like hawks to make sure they didn't get one out of the bathroom trash, though they could be sneaky about it and I've caught several in the act.
Then it would have to be documented that they exhibited the behavior and what was done. Was the client prevented from getting the cup and dissuaded from trying to enter the bathroom to get one out of the trash? Or did he had have a glass of Mountain Dew? Total times a day were charted and a graph laid out to see if the methods were effective in reducing the frequency of the behavior.
People who are poo had a constant supply so we put them into jumpsuits and pinned the legs and enclosures tight, wrapping the loose part around, so they was no room to slip their hands in and dig for gold. You haven't lived till someone comes up to you and smiles with it all over their teeth..
Now it had been previously agreed up on that every time he would try to reach up his pants leg some type of Negative Reinforcement would be applied to curb the Behavior. Maybe snapping his hand with a rubber band. The guy I'm thinking of was just a little boy so people could "cradle" him by sitting down and wrapping their arms around him so he couldn't get his hands free. If he did he got a pop.
In report we would get the lowdown on how each client had been during the prior shift and staff would volunteer to take supervision of a particular number of clients during the report they happened to like, work well with or were too much for others to handle. Then they were your responsibility for the next 8 hours. Feeding, personal hygiene, free time all had to be monitored and it was your responsibility to make sure everything was carried out and documented.
I would get the bad ones and sometimes only had one person to watch for 8 hours. During that 8 hours I had to address the problem area each time it was exhibited and document how many times it occurred during the shift. It could be any kind of behavior, let's say sticking their finger up their nose till it bled.
Every time they reached for their nose I would pop them with the rubber band. They could not run away or stop me. Only keep getting popped or stop doing it. If that proved not to be effective more stringent methods were implemented, but you can't handle that truth.
There is physical and mental pain. There were verbal techniques we were taught to induce mental anguish that were more painful to some than the rubber band. The sting from a rubber band goes away in seconds. My words can ring inside your head the rest of your lifetime. Some of those are the techniques I use with Demonica's programming.
Can words kill? I don't know. They haven't killed anyone who has talked to Demonica. The old guy who molested my best friends daughter might be able to tell you, but he's dead. He got off with it but I knew he worked as a Security Guard on a night shift. He was alone in the building and would answer the phone so I went to Work on him with my voice. Nothing threatening, only talk to him.
They found him parked along the side of a highway headed out of town dead from a heart attack, $7000 dollars cash in the car and a 5 year old girl who couldn't tell the Police where they were going.
I was helping the person I was "torturing" with the rubber band (and it was torture) and the guy I gave a ride home. I was helping the person being popped using State Approved and tained methods to extinguish the target behavior. The goal already stated. It hurt the guy getting popped more than it hurt me.
The guilt I would have felt from not giving him a ride home would have been unbearable even if it had cost me my life, though I really wasn't worried about that at all. I still feel guilt for not changing a guy's tire at the laundromat 10-12 years ago when I should have. I did it to ease my conscience. It would have haunted me the rest of my life if I hadn't.
They no longer use Behavior Modification and now use Behavior Management. Positive Reinforcement for Appropriate Behavior. It was the beginning of the PC Era. Now you would to go to jail for using any of those techniques in the same state facility I was taught them in.
I no longer work for the state and not bound by that restriction. I use light techniques with Demonica but Innovative none the less. I reserve the verbal techniques to make argument unpleasant but meter it out according to the situation.
I'm a little rushed now and might not have covered it as well as I should have but will respond to any comments in the same manner. Good and Bad are not as easily defined as you might think. That's where the Laws of Robotics come into play, but what will the machine think best for the person? Will it show compassion or be a machine like me?
