04/24/2017
I'd like to look at take a look at intervention for inappropriate behaviors in the context of the NFL and the behaviors of these highly paid adult performers.
There is a lot of talk right now, as there is in every off-season, about making changes to the rules to imporve player safety and make the rules more understandable by players, officials, fans, etc. and mote enfroceemble and effective. This is similar to what happens in families and schools with regard to chiuldrens' behavior.
In the NFL, player behavior is governed during games by the standing rules of the League, by referees' behaviors during games, and by any additional League action taken in regard to infractions after the games.
The rules, if adminstered properly and clearly, serve as ANTECEDENT manipulations to make inappropriate behaviors less likely to occur. Antecedent manipulations, like family rules, occur in advance of any misbehavior. Such things as "Always close bethroom doors" and "We don't put feet on the coffee table" are examples in families. In the NFL, one recent example is structuring the result of a touchback to make it a statistically poor choice to run back a kickoff that ends up in the end zone, because of a lower likelihood to get to or beyond the 25-yard line by doing so. This rule was put in place to reduce collisions (and by extension) head injuries due to high speed collisons between massive people moving very rapidly. Making inappropriate behavior impossible (or significantly less likely to be beneficial) is a whole lot easier than figuring out what do do AFTER inappropriate behavior occurs, that will result in a positive change for the future. The rule behaviorally from reseach in resonding after misbehavioir occurs, is to make the consequences both significant and immediate.
Referees and penalities they invoke represent an attempt at CONSEQUENT manipulations to reduce inappropriate behaviors (ones that are outside the rules). There are three problems with this, as there are with most attempts to control behavior by reacting after the fact. First, invoking penalities does not account in assessing severity of consequence for situational variables where it may till be a benefit (reinforcement) to one team or another at times (or to a child in a family or student in a school) for an intentional violatatiion of a rule. For example, the consequent response (penalty) may be less powerful than what is gained by the behavior. (e.g., Incapacitating the rival quarterback by a "cheap shot" might be worth giving up an automatic first down, if the replacement quarterback is greatly inferior to the starter.
Secondly, from a behavioral persective, the imposition of the penalty does not fall on the player commiting the infraction, but on his eam, and this is behaviorally less likely to change a particular player's behavior. This is equivalent to expect your child's or student's behavior to change by denying a reinforcer toal lthe children in the family or to all students in a class. By contrast, in the NHL, remoiving an active player to the penalty box for an infraction and making his team play short-handed for a period imposes a direct effect on both the player and the team.
Third, in the NFL, immediacy is violated by the time between the infraction and the announcement of the violation and penalty. Rules are broken in the heat of combat between large aggressive individuals; The later results of the infraction may be dismissed by players as errors by the "zebras", may be justified as having been preciipated by the "victim's" previous behavior, or otherwise excused. Research shows clearly that for ideal learnig and behavior change, the time between inappropriate behavior and effective consequent intervention, or between appropriate behavior and positive reinforcement is measured in seconds and the effectiveness of learning tails off rapidly beyon that point.
Nededless to say, the imposition of penalties (fines or rarely, suspensions) by the NFL, on days after game infractions, would need to be incredibly massive to be effective, as they lack contiguity to the actual event.
The take-away of all this, for classrooms or families, is that
(1) making misbehavior less likely to occur by antecedent manipulation, works better than intervention after the fact;
(2) intervention after inappropriate behavior needs to be significant enough that it can compete with any reinforcement that might have been immediately received from the misbehavior;
(3) If imposing consequences for misbehavior is to be effective, itcannot wait "'til your father gets home" or "'til the disciplinarian gets my report about you", but need to be developed by adult caregivers or parents in advance and be clear, predictable and applied consistently.
In short, if you do not want your child or student to continue an inappripriate behavior, be sure that nothing you do inadvertently reinforces it.
