Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It’s unreliable levers that are the problem. Small Gods So, another gamification project went over my desk. This time the project went full behaviorism. Just reinforcement. Personally, I’m not a fan of this approach. I think the cognitivist approach via autonomy, competence, and relatedness/meaning is much more … fulfilling. And if you go the operant conditioning route … I seriously doubt there are that many levers you can use to reinforce behavior, at least in adults. I mean, look at Skinner’s pigeons or rats. They were deprived of either food or water. That was what’s needed for reinforcement via food pellets or water to work. Also, these pigeons/rats weren’t able to just go to the refrigerator to get some. There were essentially in a prison that would be considered inhumane for … well, a human. So, yeah. If you have these conditions — a prison in which you can torture people by depriving them of food or water — go for them. But expecting an app to work because you get points (instead of food pellets), or positive messages by an app … not going to cut it. You’d [...]
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