B.F. Skinner and Cry-babies

Because of our parenting practices, long periods of crying are considered a normal part of infancy in Western cultures. When babies cry they are communicating that something feels bad: they may have pain; be frightened or lonely; feel uncomfortable; or be absolutely starving. In addition to the compassion that crying evokes, hearing a baby cry is simply unpleasant - we react to it physiologically and are motivated to do whatever it takes to stop it. We pick up our babies, inspect them, rock them, sing to them, offer them food, or grab a favorite toy to distract them...

In B.F. Skinner's theory of Operant Conditioning the reaction, or reinforcement, after a behavior happens is what encourages or discourages it from happening again. This meme is an example of two kinds of conditioning, or training, that encourage behaviors to continue:  negative and positive reinforcement. Without meaning to, both the child and the mother are training each other to keep doing these things.

The child is using negative reinforcement to to train his mother to continue giving him a teddy bear. In negative reinforcement there is something that is ongoing and unpleasant - in this case crying - and it is removed only when the trainee does what she is supposed to do - give a teddy bear. Negative reinforcement encourages a trained behavior to continue in the future, so the little boy is increasing the likeliness of getting his teddy bear in the future.

The mother is using positive reinforcement, or reward, to train her child to cry. In positive reinforcement once the trainee does what he is supposed to do - in this case crying - he gets something pleasant as a reward - the teddy bear. Positive reinforcement also encourages a trained behavior to continue in the future, so the mother is increasing the likeliness of having her son cry in the future.

Skinner, like the other Behaviorists, was not interested in thoughts or feelings because those are not observable actions. Instead he saw this type of training as reflexive: contrary to our meme, the boy and his mother are not planning these behaviors instead they are reacting to the situation. Even so, their reactions increase the likelihood of the situation occurring again.

Operant Conditioning is a very old theory, but it still can be applied to parenting today. For example, Thompson, Bruzek, and Cotnoir-Bichelman (2011) designed a small experiment to examine how infant cries may negatively reinforce caregivers and train them to perform comforting behaviors. The authors were also interested in what happens when that training has occurred but none of the comforting behaviors works to stop inconsolable crying.

Thompson et al. had a very small sample size: eight female and three male undergraduates were observed as they interacted with a baby doll under directions to, "...do what comes naturally" (p. 297). Eight of the participants were asked if they had prior experience with babies and all of them did; the other three were not asked. Even with this curiously missing information, we know that the majority of participants had real life experience "doing what comes naturally" with an infant.

Tested one at a time, all of the participants experienced several Negative Reinforcement conditions: a recording of an infant crying played until the participant engaged in the desired behavior with the doll. These behaviors ranged from rocking, bottle feeding, and offering a toy. All of the participants showed signs of training: they learned to do the desired behavior to stop the recorded crying.

Eventually the participants were each placed into an Extinction condition: this time no matter what comforting behavior they tried, the recorded crying would not stop. The participants all tried the behavior that had previously worked to stop the crying in the earlier conditions. When it did not work nine of these undergraduates showed extinction of that training: they gave up trying to get the crying to stop. Two of the participants did not show an extinction: they persisted with the trained comforting behavior for 30 minutes as the crying recording played the entire time. Perhaps these participants had real-life experience with their own colicky babies and their behavior in the Extinction condition mirrored what they did for their own children: persisted in giving care.

The results support the notion that negative reinforcement teaches parents which comforting behaviors work to stop their babies' crying and thus encourages these behaviors to continue in the future. The results may also demonstrate how some parents could give up and stop any attempt to comfort their babies when inconsolable crying occurs. In the worst case, these parents might engage in neglect or abuse of these infants. The authors did note that these findings and their implications would be stronger with a larger sample and a more realistic test situation.

In addition, I would caution that we should not interpret this to mean that babies consciously manipulate their caregivers. To manipulate another person is a very advanced cognitive ability. It implies that one person is going to fake a behavior to trick another person into doing something that he or she really does not want to do. Young infants do not possess the ability to do this: instead they simply cry when they feel bad. As well, most parents want to care for their babies and are motivated to reduce their babies' distress - they do not need to be tricked into these behaviors. In the ideal situation babies learn that if they cry a parent will help them feel better, and parents learn how to best calm their babies' distress - or even better, how to avoid that distress in the first place.

Further Reading:

A pdf of the Thompson et al. article, published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, can be accessed for free online.

Here are some good ideas for comforting a baby who is crying inconsolably from Ask Dr. Sears. Dr. Harvey Karp has a combination of five comforting behaviors that can help even colicky babies stop crying: here is a video of that technique on WebMD.

In addition to learning their babies' early cues of distress, parents can REDUCE crying by carrying their babies MORE often. An article by Hunziker and Barr (1986), published in Pediatrics, supports this idea.

Parenting with Poor Style: The Friend

In the film “Mary Poppins” Mr. Banks and his children sing about the characteristics of an ideal nanny.  Mr. Banks would like an Authoritarian caregiver, one who is Low in Warmth and very High in Control like a military sergeant, and the children would prefer somebody who is simply kind, fun, and makes few demands on your behavior…much like a friend. 

Jane and Michael Banks think that the ideal caregiver would be a person who is very High in Warmth yet very Low in Control.  Baumrind described this combination as the Indulgent or Permissive Parent.  Although this parenting style may sound good to most children, this style is not associated with the best outcomes.

Permissive parents get half of the equation right by being High in Warmth.  We know that children do best when parents frequently and overtly express love to them.  So these parents praise their kids when they do something well, they hug and kiss their children and say, “I love you,” and they keep things positive at home to buffer them from the stresses of adult life.  Their children know that they are loved.

 
















Permissive parents fall short when it comes to disciplining their children:  they are too Low in Control.  Part of Control involves setting rules and the ideal, as demonstrated by the Authoritative parent, is having age-appropriate rules that are clearly communicated to the child.  The Permissive parent, like Mrs. George (played by Amy Poehler) from "Mean Girls," may have no rules or very few rules; if there are rules they may be too lenient or inappropriate for the child’s age.  
 

Rules allow us to feel confident:  we don’t have to guess what is right and wrong all of the time and it is easy to know how to be successful.  Children raised with Low Control may feel unsafe or unsure because it is largely up to them to guess what are good or bad choices.  You might have a similar sort of feeling if your professor just said, “Write some sort of paper on a Child Development topic and turn it in.”  You would be nervous because you might guess correctly about the paper’s format, length, topic, and due date and do okay OR you might make mistakes due to lack of information and get a bad grade. It is not clear what you need to do to be successful.

Another aspect of Control has to do with punishments and the ideal that is demonstrated by the Authoritative parent, is having age-appropriate consequences that occur every single time that the rule is broken.  The Permissive parent may not have any consequences or such easy consequences that the child may not mind them.  It is also possible that the parent does not follow through to make sure that a consequence happens:  they are all bark and no bite.  A basic idea from Skinner’s Operant Conditioning is that punishing behaviors will stop them from occurring in the future; without unpleasant consequences children are likely to continue bad behaviors.

These parents may consciously want to avoid influencing their children’s behavior:  maybe they were raised by a very controlling, Authoritarian parent so they have the mistaken idea that any Control is bad.  It may also be that they do not have a good concept of Child Development or they do not spend quality time with their children so they do not know what behaviors they should expect from kids of that age.  You could also imagine that very young parents may still feel like kids themselves, so they literally view their children as their peers and try to be their kids’ friends.  It could also be that parents are too stressed from their adult lives and don’t want to get into an argument with their kids – think about divorced parents who only want to the kids to have fun during their time together. 

Regardless of the reason, the outcome is negative:  as you might imagine the children exhibit high amounts of bad behavior.  When they go to school they may struggle when they are asked to follow rules and deal with consequences.  The goal of discipline is not just to have children behave well while they are young, but it is to socialize children into society so they ultimately will grow up to be productive adults who follow the norms and laws of their culture.  A child raised with Low Control is not getting that socialization.

Another type of parent who is also Low in Control was added by Eleanor Maccoby to Baumrind’s original list of Permissive, Authoritarian, and Authoritative.  Next week we’ll look at this Indifferent-Uninvolved parent who is not only Low in Control, but also Low in Warmth.

Further Reading: 

At your local college library you can access a good historical review of parenting, including Baumrind's three styles: Maccoby, E. E. (1992) The role of parents in the socialization of children: An historical overview. Developmental Psychology, Vol 28(6), 1006-1017.

A Psychology Today blog post by Jay Belsky: "Parent to Child:  I am not your friend (nor should I be)."

Listen to a Speaking of Psychology podcast from the American Psychological Association featuring Alan Kazdin.  After the funky introductory music...a discussion of how to discipline children and teens.