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Friday, October 5, 2007

[vinnomot] Freedom of press in South Asia

SAN-Feature Service
SOUTH ASIAN NEWS-FEATURE SERVICE
October 6,2007
 
Freedom of press in South Asia
Ripan Kumar Biswas
 
Freedom of press is not an event; it's a continuous process that should be remaining as it is as because it is widely related with the general people to re-install confidence whenever they need.
 
SAN-Feature Service : To facilitate free movement within the region for professional tasks, South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) foreign ministers took a defining step on April 2, 2007 in New Delhi, India to promote greater connectivity in South Asia by deciding to grant special stickers to 50 journalists from each member country that will enable them to move freely across the region—a praiseworthy step.
 
Taking note of the many problems of media and media-persons in South Asia face in the pursuit of truth and in fulfilling the demands of the professional tasks, in particular as a result of legal, social and political constraints on, and a growing pattern of governments' intolerance of criticism, the freedom of press and the right to know continue their well-deserved reputation as one of most unsafe places in the world for journalists to work.
 
Governments continue the crack down on democratic rights and press freedom in the name of tackling situation. And corrupt officials, insurgents, fundamentalists of all religions and gangsters with their own violent methods of silencing truth tellers, continue with impunity.
 
This was his second attempt to curb the media in this year while Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PERMA) blocked the transmissions of all major private TV channels including GEO, AJ and ARYONE for several hours during violent protests against President Pervez Musharraf's bid for re-election on October 6, 2007. In addition due to same reason, the Pakistani police using teargas and batons clashed with lawyers and journalists on Saturday in where around 100 journalists were badly beaten up as they covered the agitation by the lawyers.
 
Although his government claims that it upholds the freedom of the press, President Musharraf imposed harsh curbs on private television channels earlier this year after the media criticized his attempts to sack the country's chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. According to Mr. Abbas, who recently found bullets in an envelope in his car and a recipient of this year's International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the kind of things that have happened to journalists under Musharraf is unprecedented. They have been killed, kidnapped and their lives in danger.
 
India is home to a vibrant press and the arrests, assaults, threats or killing of journalists outside of Kashmir and Assam are rare, but the recent verdict by the India's Delhi High Court against four journalists of the renowned Delhi based English-language afternoon tabloid Mid-Day newspaper as they tried to tarnish the image of the India's Supreme Court, has raised question about the freedom of press.
 
However, the convicted individuals have appealed to the Supreme Court of India, based on the premise that if the truth is told, they can't be held for contempt of court.
According to the report, the journalists uncovered how former chief justice Y. K. Sabharwal made rulings that appear to have helped his two sons, Y.K. Sabharwal Chetan and Nitin Sabharwal. The younger Sabharwals ran a development company in New Delhi that built shopping malls and their father made rulings that effectively shut down retail businesses that would have competed with the malls.
 
In an another verdict when Arundhati Roy, a Booker Award winner, was sentenced to one day in jail and a fine of $50 by the Supreme Court of India on March 6, 2002, was a clear attempt to suppress the free expression of views. She was accused of criticizing a verdict of the Supreme Court on the contentious Narmada dam. The dam flooded tens of thousands of acres and displaced thousands of rural Indians.
 
It becomes a significant symbol of the curb on the freedom of expression that the state of emergency is forcing on public views and opinions when the government asked private television channels to follow a set of guidelines in airing talk shows while the chief adviser of the present interim government of Bangladesh Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed claimed to the BBC in an interview that the media is operating freely in Bangladesh without any government intervention.
 
"We've given full freedom for last seven-eight months. There is no dearth of goodwill or sincerity in ensuring freedom of the media," said Dr. Ahmed, adding that the criticisms are very important but those must be objective and constructive and the government accepted and was benefited by criticisms made at the talk shows.
 
Discouraging  live talk shows, sms or phone-ins, the guidelines advised television stations not to air more than three to four talk shows a week and edit them before put them on the air, adding to focus on cultural, economic, social and educational issues in where businessmen, educationists and intellectuals should be considered as potential guests.
 
No one can afford to ignore the fact that the intimidating threat of the Islamist groups to attack Prothom Alo's offices again came after the daily's editor, who is  the recipient of the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for journalism, repeatedly admitted mistake, took punitive measures against the department concerned and the cartoonist Arifur Rahman, offered unqualified public apology more than once and appealed to the agitating Islamists for compassion.
 
Meanwhile, the arrest and ongoing detention of the cartoonist is without legal basis. It runs contrary to international norms of human rights as well as the public interest of the nation to inhibit the free exchange of opinions, even those that may cause offense to some.
 
This is clearly a hypocrisy while 9 years ago, a similar cartoon was published in Bangladesh in the November 1998 issue (laugh box section, 87 pages) of Kishore Kantha by Chattra Shibir, the Student wing of the Islamist party Jamaat-E-Islami. But then, there was no religious feeling and even no case was filed against the Islami Chattro Shibir or none of Islamists groups did utter a single word against that cartoon.
 
Saptahik2000, a popular magazine's Eid supplement was taken off shelves because of a memoir of exiled writer Daud Haider.
 
Barrister Mainul Hosein, law and information adviser to the present interim government, termed the cartoon as a conspiracy to destabilize the country after a delegation of Muslim clerics, led by chief of Islami Oikya Jote, a conglomerate of small Islamist parties, met with him.
 
Whereas the Islamists are simply using the Prothom Alo or Saptahik 2000 incidents as a pretext, and that too in such an organized way, particularly under emergency where all the democratic forces are barred to conduct overt political activities.
 
In an another action, Bangladesh's emergency government shut down the country's only 24-hour private news channel CSB after it was accused by the  military-backed government of airing provocative news, video footage, documentary programs and breaching emergency rules during last September's student unrest. However, according to the Bangladesh telecom regulatory commission, the channel has been accused of forgery by a government probe body. It faked the signature of a government official to get the frequency for telecasting.
 
During the last pro-democracy demonstrations across Nepal in April, 2006, police have beaten and arrested scores of journalists and even cut off cell phone lines so that the journalists couldn't pass any report. No need to mention the situation of journalist of the new member of SAARC Afghanistan. Killing, kidnapping or assaulting of journalists are common there.
 
Sri Lankan media continues to be a target of oppression and assault by the government, criminals and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Among the more than 60,000 people killed in the last two decades in Sri Lanka are a number of journalists, some of whom were partial to particular parties in the conflict. The pattern of attacks followed by little or no investigation has become common in Sri Lanka .
 
Freedom of press is not an event; it's a continuous process that should be remaining as it is as because it is widely related with the general people to re-install confidence whenever they need. Government must not restrict unnecessarily the freedom of movement of journalists or compromise the right of news media to gather, produce and disseminate information in secure and safe conditions. Only then, SAARC Media Year 2008 will be meaningful.—SAN-Feature Service
 
 
Ripan Kumar Biswas is a freelance writer .His e-mail : Ripan.Biswas@ yahoo.com
 


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[vinnomot] Comments and Analysis:Questioning history

SAN-Feature Sercice
SOUTH ASIAN NEWS-FEATURE SERVICE
October 6,2007
 
Comments & Analysis:Questioning history
Dr. Farish A Noor
 
 It would be farcical to claim that the European Enlightenment was merely an auto-generated case of isolated genius, for we all know that European civilisation developed by interaction with Muslim civilisation; as did Muslim civilisation develop in relation with and to the Chinese, Indian and Persian civilisations.
 
SAN-Feature Service : It is interesting to reflect on the asinine times we live in, particularly if like me, you are involved in that nebulous thing called 'inter-cultural dialogue'. Over the past four weeks, I have been engaged in numerous rounds of dialogues between Western Europeans and Muslim migrant communities in Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin; and in every single one of these encounters, I came across stereotypes of Muslims and Islam that were so shallow and puerile that I am almost embarrassed to recount them here. Worst still, these pedestrian musings on Islam and Muslims were not the offerings of everyday punters, but those who claimed to be well-known and admired scholars and historians.
 
In one of these exchanges, I was told the following: that "Islam is a fascist, woman-hating, Christian-killing, gay-bashing macho male ideology of hatred that was built on fourteen centuries of conquest and bloodshed, murder and rape. That is why there cannot be integration of Muslims into Europe, because the Muslims that we have here are the savages of the Arab world who are barbaric, violent and brutal. They do not believe in reason and the Enlightenment and Islamic civilisation has not produced anything scientific, rational or humane." Try substituting the word 'Muslim' for 'blacks' and one would see how far-fetched and racist such claims really are.
 
Now why is it that whenever we speak of Islam and Muslims today, some of us think they have the license to drop their IQ level by a hundred points or so? Is discussion on Islam a license to say anything dumb, offensive and provocative just for the sake of riling up the masses and grabbing a few headlines? A politician in Holland has even stated that there should be a ban on any reading of the Quran, on the grounds that it can be compared to Hitler's Mein Kampf. Others claim that all Muslims are determined primarily by their religion which happens to be irrational, unscientific and anti-Enlightenment.
 
I was struck by the wilful blindness of these so-called 'liberal' and 'rational' Europeans themselves, and their inability to put things in relative perspective and to interrogate their own presuppositions about themselves. In my own work as an academic-activist, I have tried to deconstruct the grand narratives of official history, be it on the level of the state or religion. I am also aware of the fact that the writing of history is a contested process, and that more often than not the writing of history is done by the victors and not the defeated marginalised voices of any community. Is it a surprise then that the history of the West has been only a history of white, male, middle-class voices? Where is the history of women and women's participation in politics, economics and nation-building? Only recently, with the advances made by feminist historiography and deconstructive history by the likes of Simon Schama, have we seen the writing of history that is inclusive, plural and popular.
 
Now the conscious historian will inform you that there were (and remain) counter-currents to such dominant grand narratives all along, both in the West and in the Muslim world (as there are liberal progressive counter-currents against orthodox conservative Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism.). Furthermore, all civilisations and cultures exist in relational terms and develop in relation with and to others: It would be farcical to claim that the European Enlightenment was merely an auto-generated case of isolated genius, for we all know that European civilisation developed by interaction with Muslim civilisation; as did Muslim civilisation develop in relation with and to the Chinese, Indian and Persian civilisations.
 
Of course today, Muslims the world over are hostage to a history that is determined either by ruling elites or their conservative lackeys such as the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. From the pens of these conservative sectarians, we get only a static account of Muslim history that is told from the point of view of kings, sultans and dictators — such as the history of Iraq that was written during the time of Saddam Hussein, or the skewered history of Arabia written by the pro-establishment Wahhabis. But here again, the question needs to be raised: how was this historical erasure made possible, and who were the agents behind such erasure? Unfortunately the finger of blame also points to the 'enlightened' West which regarded dictators like Saddam Hussein and the Saudi royal family as their strategic allies.
 
The rise of conservative, fundamentalist, sectarian and violent Islam was aided and abetted by Western states during the Cold War, leading to the rise of men like Saddam Hussein, the anti-Soviet Mujahideen and later the Taliban, who have done so much to destroy the plural legacy of the Muslim world. Yet today, Western liberals accuse Muslims of either having no history or a history of violence. Where is the enlightened spirit of auto-critique and self-awareness here? Surely liberals in the West should not be surprised to see the rise of fundamentalist Muslim regimes the world over when it has been their own Western governments that have supported those very anti-Christian, anti-women, anti-gay regimes in the first place; ostensibly for the sake of strategic alliances but fundamentally to safeguard the West's much-needed supply of oil?
 
I am by no means excusing fundamentalist conservative Muslims here, for there are indeed right-wing Muslims who can only be described as fascist in the real sense of the word. But in the same way that Muslims today need to get out of their shell and stare reality in the face, so do Europeans who claim to be ever so enlightened and liberal. Europe's Enlightenment project created not only its own discontents but also anomalies.
 
To suggest that every single European today is the product of this historical process would be so simplistic as to beggar belief, and borders on the ridiculous. For should that be the case, then perhaps we can ask how enlightened the Europeans were when they colonised Asia and Africa. Look at the world map and see how so many patches of the earth today — ranging from North America to Australia — are reminders of a colonial expansion that was motivated by irrational greed, irrational racism, irrational hatred for the Other, and not the values of reason or universal humanism. Tell me, was it Kant or Descartes who told the colonisers to invade and occupy Australia, and exterminate the aborigines of Tasmania and then hang their heads as trophies? Or skin the bodies of North American Indians to make boots and tobacco pouches? Where was the European Enlightenment then? Asleep?--SAN-Feature Service
 
Dr. Farish A Noor is a political scientist and historian at the Zentrum Moderner Orient and guest Professor at Sunan Kalijaga Islamic University, Jogjakarta. He is also one of the founders of the research site www.othermalaysia.org
 


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[vinnomot] Wake Up Nation {Article}

Please see the Attachment or read from my Blog.
 
 
 
Warm Regards,
 
Rashed
06.10.07
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[vinnomot] "Taking Bribe", "Giving Bribe" & "Giving Speed Money"

"Taking Bribe", "Giving Bribe" & "Giving Speed Money"

The CTG should focus on it's communication in differentiating these acts and articulate clearly to the populace that the scope of the proposed "Truth Commission" will be dealing with only those who are involved with "Giving Speed Money" - which we hope is the case.

 

It's problematic to talk about something new or do something new that would be somewhat different from what has been done in the country in last 36 years. You go outside the track of what has been traced, they will shout in their ugliest and loudest voice. It is a shame that leaders like Motia Choudhury has joined the chorus of the corrupts. We also think that the CTG is at fault too. They do not develop the idea fully before Mr. Law Adviser start talking about it.

Here is a simple suggestion - for God's sake - every time any of you give an opinion about anything, can you at least research the topic? There is a thing called Internet and there are many different search engines that you can use to research the ideas - to find out what has been done on the topic of good governance. We are not talking about a space project or some other hi-tech project - where no-body has done. All you guys have to do is find out what other nations have done about it. There is also a thing called Google Scholar ( http://scholar.google.ca/) which you can use to search more in-depth materials if you really understand a topic well.

Mr. Barrister Adviser opens his mouth and everybody starts giving their opinions. They professors, economists, political leaders (right, left and middle) - they are everywhere - and they do not think that truth commission is a good idea. Funniest of all is that they also think they government would violate the constitution!! Bah, what a visionary leaders. Ei shomoi mukh kharap korte ischcha kore, but korlam na.

 

Lets be objective and see what we are dealing with. There is a thing called Speed Money that businessman have to give while doing business. This is not actually a legal thing to do. But when it comes to Speed Money - giving it is much less criminal than taking it - at least from moral and ethical point of view. There are grounds for the policymakers to differentiate among the parties who are involved in speed money transaction - although all the parties can be said to have participated in corrupt practices.

 

So, what is speed money, after all?

"A particular type of corruption—one in which officials responsible for dispensing a legal service to legitimate recipients threaten to withhold or delay the service unless a bribe is paid. This institution is often referred to as "speed-money". Since even the humblest official has the power to slow down processes under his supervision, speed-money is ubiquitous and its presence has been widely noted"

Given this definition, if a truth commission wants to deal with this phenomenon - would that be a wrong thing to do? Not really. Taking bribe, Giving bribe and giving speed money is not same type of corruption. It would certainly within the moral jurisdiction of the government if it decides to setup a Truth Commission to deal with those who were involved in Speed Money transactions. Do not listen to the corrupt politicians - they are out to make failure for the CTG out of anything and everything. They shouted when it was pointed out that the most of the politicians of the country is corrupt and they were proven wrong. The people of Bangladesh know who was involved in what. A new breed of politicians will be grown out of the ashes of the old - off course, government have to facilitate that following what was done in Singapore decades back. Hope that will happen in time, too.

However, we have a request to make to the CTG. Please focus on the communication - the way things are communicated among the populace is seriously flawed. There is a need for education, training the journalists to tackle the matters that might be new to them. So, please have somebody who is professional do the job of communicating the government agenda. Best option would be to hire a couple of young news reporters in the government offices and also ask the news houses to attach one newsman to the prime minister's press corps so they can be specially dealt with with training and education. In the short term it would be a good start. Eventually more newsman and reporters have to be brought under this type of training program where they are taught how to deal with new items, concepts or ideas.

If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the members of the CTG, economists, policy makers and lawyers, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.

Thanks for your time,

Innovation Line

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Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article.

We have not seen the Liberation War, but we know if we can free the country from corruption first, we will eventually get to other dreams soon. Because of corruption, we could not even get into information highway for years, let alone other dreams!

This is the kind of article for which we started this column. Because of ongoing mess, a gift from our older generation, we often get diverted. Now that it seems some sanity is returning in Bangladesh, we would try to go back to our original plan.

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[vinnomot] Humanism and Psychology: (Comp 2): Some Details of Human Learning

 
 
 
Understanding Ourselves and Our Universe: How Psychology Can Turn the "Mysteries of Human Nature" into Useful Tools for Self Improvement and Success in Life
 
Part 2: More Detail about Human Learning - BeMod and Rfs
 
Again, by way of recapitulation, arguably the most important task our genes perform is to pre-program ("hardwire") our nervous systems to learn from environmental experience. Without learning, humans would not develop to levels much beyond that of reptiles (lower animals), and people whose brains are prevented from learning by genetic defect or severe trauma, or lack of learning enviornment rarely progress beyond what is called a "vegetative state" (meaning not being capable of "human" interactions or adaptations to their environments).
Some examples of the kinds of genetic defects and intrauterine trauma that could cause such a severe or profound degree of psychological dysfunction are microencephaly (where the skull case prematurely hardens, restricting the normal growth of the brain inside---though microcephally has been in caused by encasing the baby's head  in iron casing after birth as in Jhang Pakistan » Dauley-shah-kay-Choohay » ; by or strict narrow-minded religious extremist and fundamentalist learning can cause a virtual- microcephaly!) ; or anencephaly (where large parts of the brain simply never develop at all).
Great progress has been made in the past 50 years in the early diagnosis, treatment, and even prevention of many of the most severe psychopathologies (brain diseases), but without extraordinary care, such people have very short life expectancies. But for the sake of the remaining discussion in this discussion, let's assume that we're talking about our good "intact" (normal) human, with adequate genetic pre-programming and not too much trauma.
[WARNING! Because so many important psychological terms are lengthy and complicated, the next few discussions will make heavy use of acronyms (briefs like C « » for consequene, and « Cs » for  Consequences). Of course, for participants new to this material, that means you must not only learn the terms and concepts, but also which acronym stands for which term. In order to prevent "acronym shock" (routinely forgetting what each acronym stands for), we will use the full term and the acronym the first time it is used in each paragraph. We will also provide a ready reference glossary of acronyms, just to make learning the acronyms even easier.]
As we saw in the Basic Module, learning means relatively permanent changes in behaviors (where behaviors also include cognitions and emotions) caused by reinforcing or nonreinforcing consequences (Cs). Reinforcing behaviors (Bs: behaviors, cognitions, and emotions.) increases the probability of recurrence, -- (and nonreinforcing Bs decreases the probability), -- that those same Bs will occur in similar situations in the future.
Situational stimuli are called antecedents (As), and encourage or discourage particular Bs, based on prior learning experiences in similar situations. Adaptive psychological development is mostly a matter of learning which As predict as to which Bs will be reinforced (based on similar past consequential experiences) -- and thus trying to do those Bs as much as possible ... and which Bs will be nonreinforced (based on similar past consequential experiences) -- and trying not to do those (Bs : behaviors, cognitions, and emotions.)  as much as possible.
Our trusty brains keep track of all our associated A -> B -> C sequences, and normal brains do a good job of motivating us toward reinforced Bs and away from nonreinforced Bs most of the time (and supernormal brains do a great job, and subnormal brains do a poor job of this) throughout our lives. We'll address the causes and effects of supernormal and subnormal brains later in the study, but first let's cover the critical terms and concepts that explain how and why Cs and As influence human learning and development so powerfully.
First, lets consider the details and critical features of antecedents (As) and consequences (Cs) that give them their power to develop, change, and eliminate any and all aspects of one's psychological repertoire. We'll start with consequences, for reasons that will quickly become clear. (NOTE: As a reminder, we'll still use the shorthand C or Cs for consequences, A or As for antecedents, and B  or Bs for behaviors, cognitions, and emotions.) Consequences is the generic term we'll use for all possible results of any possible behavior (B).
As we've noted, all possible Cs can be divided into positive or negative, and it is this positive or negative impact that naturally controls whether that B (behaviour) increases or decreases in the future. (An important theorem about consequences is that we can virtually ignore the possibility of a "neutral" C! While it is theoretically possible that such a totally neutral consequence could occur -- or that multiple positive and negative consequences could perfectly cancel themselves out, producing perfect neutrality -- in practice this almost never occurs because every stimulus is to at least some slight degree positive or negative to the person experiencing it, and even the slightest degree of affective value is not responded to by the human brain as "neutral". We'll address this point again later under "extinction".)
All possible consequences can be divided into five types, and we'll now review their definitions, critical features, and effects, and give examples of each one.
All good/desirable/pleasant consequences -- as defined by the person or subject (S) receiving the consequence (C) -- are called reinforcements (Rfs). Reinforcements can occur in two general ways: one can receive something rewarding as a consequence of their behavior (B) -- which is called positive reinforcement (+Rf); or one can lose/avoid/escape something punishing as a consequence of their B -- which is called negative reinforcement (-Rf). (NOTE: the term negative reinforcement is routinely misused by many people as a synonym for "punishment", which is the exact opposite of its true meaning. Just remember that the term reinforcement always means "good/desirable/pleasant consequences;" we use nonreinforcement (NRf) for all bad consequences. See below.)
Positive" in this context means getting something good -- and "negative" means losing something bad -- as a consequence of the behavior (B). Both positive reinforcement (+Rf) and negative reinforcement (-RF) are "good consequences" and leave the person better/happier for having done that B in that antecedent (A) situation.
The Natural Law of Reinforcement is that when an A -> B is followed by any Rf (positive reinforcement), the probability of that B occurring again in the same or similar situations in the future increases -- always, for every person, for every A, every B, and every Rf, every time, with no exceptions! (There aren't many of these "always and forever" natural laws in psychology, so let's enjoy the few we have!)
The impact of Rfs on future A -> Bs is proportionate; i.e., small Rfs produce small probability increases, moderate Rfs produce moderate increases, and large Rfs produce large increases. We can thus designate four different levels of +Rf as small (+rf), moderate (+Rf), big (+Rf!), and huge (+Rf!!), and use the same designations for -Rfs; i.e., -rf, -Rf, -Rf!, and -Rf!!.
As was noted in the initial definition, whether or not a reinforcement (Rf) is actually reinforcing (good, pleasant, desirable, positive) -- which totally determines the effects of the consequence (C) -- is evaluated solely by the subject; i.e., the person receiving the C. While there are classes of Cs that almost everyone finds Rfing (called generalized Rfs) -- such as food when we're hungry, water when we're thirsty, money almost any time, positive regard (smiles, compliments, kind words) from people we care about, being allowed to do something we enjoy, etc. -- many Rfs are idiosyncratic. That simply means that something that one person finds Rfing, another person may not (or not at that time, or not in that situation, or not from that person, or not that much, or not that little, etc.).
PSH100-3 Acronyms
A
antecedent
ABC or A'B'C
ABC (antecedent'behavior'consequence) model of learning
B
behavior (which includes action, cognition, and emotion)
BeMod
Behavior modification or behavior management (or behavior therapy)
C
consequence
CNS
central nervous system
EC
empirical construct
Ext
extinction
Inh
inhibition
long-term memory store
NEC
non-empirical construct
NRf
nonreinforcement
PAB Theorem
Psychology-As-Biochemistry Theorem
PPGG
postponement of greater gratification
Pn
punishment
Rf
reinforcement
S
subject
S+
discriminative stimulus for a reinforcement
S-
discriminative stimulus for a nonreinforcement
S?
 
SciPsy
scientific psychology
short-term memory store
S-R Psychology
Stimulus-Response Psychology
 
 
The point here is that, outside a sophisticated laboratory i.e. on the street or in the home where all the stimulus variables can not be strictly controlled, we can never be absolutely certain that another person has been Rfed until we observe its effect on future behaviors. Thus, most of the times when Rf appears to "fail" -- though Rf can never really fail - it is due to assumptions that the subject has been Rfed when they really haven't been Rfed at all. Let's consider some examples illustrating these key principles of Rf.
You approach a colleague who is angrily yelling at others and say, "Please hold it down. The boss may hear you." Then they quiet down and the boss comes by and smiles. We actually have two A -> B -> C sequences here :
n the first case, for you, your colleague's yelling behavior (A) produces your asking politely to quiet down (B) which is negatively reinforced (C) by stopping the aversive noise (-Rf). Because your "politely asking" behavior in this situation pleased you by removing an aversive stimulus, you will be more likely to handle similar situations in a similar way in the future.
But let's also diagram this situation from your angry colleague's viewpoint. Your asking politely to quiet down and warning about the boss (A) led to him stopping his yelling (B) which resulted in the boss smiling when she came by (C), which is another example of +Rf.
But in both these cases, Rfs for behaviors (one by taking something bad away = the aversive yelling, and one by presenting something good = the boss's smile) will increase those Bs in similar situations in the future. Such serial ABC sequences naturally occur very often, and are very useful in BeMod.
Or, perhaps you ask shy little Angie to play the piano (A) for your overly demonstrative Aunt Harriet, and Angie plays (B), and Harriet "reinforces" her with a big hug and a wet, sloppy kiss (C). What would you predict Angie will do the next time you ask her to play for loud, gregarious brother George? This is supposed to be an example of where Aunt Harriet intends to Rf Angie, but doesn't. Since no positive consequence follows the "playing the piano" B, it should not increase -- but decrease -- the next time a similar situation (e.g., playing for another obnoxious relative) presents itself. (And that is called "transfer," or generalization of learning among similar situations, and it's something human beings as learners are very good at!)
(If you didn't already know these Natural Laws of Reinforcement, observing other people's behaviors during your dinners with the family or friends, future trips to the supermarket or mall, family reunions, and many other everyday observation opportunities for human interactions are going to be a lot more fun ... and a lot more insightful!!)
Some other basic theorems of the principles of reinforcement (for later) are:
1.  To stress an earlier relevant point, only the subject (S) decides what is reinforcing for him or her, and what is not (It may be a natural way, or they have been programmed or trained this way by their cultures or families). Thus, the better you know your S - and their likes and dislikes -- the better BeMod you can work with them.
2.  Rfs often don't work when the S believes someone is trying to intentionally manipulate them using consequences. This is called reactance or counter control, it is very common, and it apparently makes the Rf much less Rfing to the S.
3.  Being Rfed by someone -- or in some situation, or at some time -- that is not pleasant can significantly reduce the effectiveness of a C. The old saying "timing is everything" applies especially well to learning! (Being told you're good by a guard in prison is much less Rfing than being told the same thing by a near relative or family of your wife.
4.  Being inconsistent with Rfs -- i.e., Rfing a B some times, but not Rfing the same exact B at others -- often produces inconsistent and even negative results.
5.  No matter how consistent one is in Rfing a particular B, if that B occurs in other situations or is subject to other Cs -- as is almost always the case -- the B will follow the sum of the total Cs, not just those being administered by that one person. So apparently Rfed Bs won't increase if they're mostly not Rfed overall.
6.  Another major factor in reinforcement principle is intrinsically reinforcing behaviors. For some subjects, at some times, just doing the an act, a behavior itself is reinforcing, regardless of what external Cs may follow. Such behaviors are extremely difficult to change.
As was noted, these are general theorems of BeMod (Behavior modification or behavior management or behavior therapy) and apply equally to all forms of reinforcement and nonreinforcement (see the next section), for most people, in most situations, most times.  
 


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