No Consequence!

If someone isn’t doing something that you want, there’s no consequences.

You might be thinking, ‘yeah, that’s right, they’re breaking the rules because there’s no consequences’ – well, no, that’s not what I’m talking about.

And actually that’s an incorrect assumption, a fallacy. The belief that consequences are something that are bad. The belief that discipline will get you what you want.

But, there is a reason you aren’t getting what you want, and it is because of a lack of consequences or to be more precise, there is no reinforcing consequences.

A reinforcing consequence is just a label that the scientists have given to a certain type of feedback that a performing organism receives and leads to more behaviour. It is a form of stimulus that tells the organism whether their actions were correct (for them). It’s information, feedback.

There has to be a form of reinforcing consequence to support the continuation of a behaviour. No reinforcement, no behaviour.

Think of reinforcing consequences like fuel, the fuel comes in two types but always serves the person and drives them forwards.

There is a type of fuel that often makes the person feel good and leads to the person wanting more, so they do more to get more, even without being asked. This fuel is sweet.

There’s a type of fuel that is a little bitter, and leads to the person doing only just enough to get away from, avoid, or escape a possible unpleasant situation.

The sweet fuel is obviously preferred and will get you more, even when you are not there. The bitter fuel is sometimes ok, and sometimes anxiety inducing, but is sometimes required.

Basically though, there has to be something, some sort of motivation for the desired behaviour. There has to be something in it for the performer of the behaviour to make them want to do it more.