Psychology and International Relations: Operant Conditioning of North Korea
North Korea has been a popular topic in the news lately. We are seeing a gradual escalation in provocative behaviour. For example, North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear detonation shortly after a missile launch clearly sends out a message. What can account for this, I wonder. It is clear, however, that the actions taken to condemn North Korea — spearheaded by the United States, I may add — have, so far, not only proven to be ineffective in thwarting North Korea’s weapons program but have also been worsening the situation.
Let me borrow some concepts from introductory Psychology to examine the connections between this interesting interaction.
Operant Conditioning
The concept of Operant Conditioning is quite simple. Based on Thorndike’s Law of Effect, which states that a rewarded behaviour is likely to increase, Operant Conditioning uses reinforcement/punishment to increase/decrease a behaviour.
In a nutshell, when a reinforcement is applied, an organism’s behaviour is likely to increase:
- Boy throws ball.
- Puppies retrieves ball.
- Boy rewards puppy with food.
- Puppy associates behaviour (retrieval) with reinforcement (food).
- Puppy’s behaviour is positively reinforced and likely to increase.
Punishment is entirely different from reinforcement. Punishment reduces the likelihood of a behaviour by applying an adverse stimulus:
- Boy swears inside home.
- Mom hits boy.
- Boy associates behaviour (swearing) with punishment (hitting)
- Boy’s behaviour is punished and…
Here’s the catch. Not exactly a Catch-22, but a catch nonetheless. Psychologists have found that punishment is ineffective for the following reasons:
- Punished behaviour will be suppressed and will occur elsewhere
- Punished individual will be fearful of the punisher, and will not understand the message, despite the punisher’s good intentions
- Punished individual will learn that aggression is an acceptable way of problem-solving
- Punished individual will become more aggressive
- Punished individual will develop “learned helplessness”
Learned helplessness is when an organism over-generalises one situation to all situations. This is often the case for depression sufferers and the reason why so many domestic-violence victims do not try to break free from their abusive environments.
What would this look like on the boy who was punished by his mother for swearing at home?
- Boy will learn to discriminate behaviour: swearing inside home will be suppressed, while swearing outside occurs freely
- Boy will become fearful of his mother and not understand her message and intention
- Boy will learn that aggression is an acceptable way of dealing with problems in life
- Boy will become more aggressive
- Boy will develop learned helplessness
As you can see, positive reinforcement prevails over punishment. Different patterns of positive reinforcement will not only lead to faster rates of learning, but also longer periods of retention.
North Korea
So, what can introductory Psychology teach us about North Korea?
As opposed to having their behaviours reinforced, North Korea is being constantly punished.
You may object, though, and say that North Korea is not a six year-old boy. True, but, the policies of North Korea are determined by human beings. Operant Conditioning and learning by association not only applies to humans, but also to all animals — even including the simplest animals, flatworms. These are evolutionary adaptations that increase an organism’s likelihood to survive and reproduce.
I am not at all surprised that North Korea is reacting in such a manner. Let us apply the rules of Operant Conditioning and see what is going on:
- North Korea is impoverished and sees the world from a highly different perspective, to begin with
- North Korea tests missile
- UN applies strict economic sanctions on North Korea
- North Korea associates behaviour (missile-launching) with punishment (sanctions)
- North Korea’s behaviour is punished and…
After punishment comes the following:
- North Korea learns to discriminate behaviour and carries out tests in secret, deviant forms
- North Korea becomes even more fearful of “the West” — predominantly the United States — and does not understand the message (fear leads to increased hatred)
- North Korea learns that aggression is an acceptable way of dealing with problems
- As a result, North Korea becomes more aggressive, leading to increased verbal threats, arming and testing of weapons
- North Korea develops learned helplessness and generalises that all of “the West” are conspiring after it — further placing itself into a cycle of negativity
As the above introductory Psychology has shown, as opposed to punishing North Korea to discourage its behaviour, we must use reinforcement to encourage the likelihood of a desired behaviour. For example, we could either positively reinforce by providing incentives closely following a desired behaviour (increasing aid to reinforce the elimination of weapons) or negatively reinforce by withdrawing restrictions closely following a desired behaviour (removing sanctions or withdrawing troops from the South Korean border to reinforce weapon-elimination).
Sadly, the current practise does not provide a positive outlook:
“Actions must have consequences.” That was US President Barack Obama’s cry in the wake of North Korea’s second underground nuclear test at the end of last month.
Accordingly, the unanimous adoption of this resolution containing tougher sanctions against North Korea represents a significant rebuff for the Pyongyang government.
Our world works in fascinatingly absurd ways. Comments are welcome.
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7 Responses to “Psychology and International Relations: Operant Conditioning of North Korea”
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Tysune on June 13th, 2009
Interesting. Is this PSYC 100-based psychology? Or recreational reading?
Eastwood on June 13th, 2009
Psyc 101 — though a lot of my recreational reading goes hand-in-hand with classes
Jack on June 16th, 2009
Great article. Taught me about the effects of punishments, although keeping in mind that the extends of those effects are highly variable among individuals. I also wonder just how conclusive research in this area is.
Now diving into a juicy debate:
Your first contention (paraphrasing) is that “rewards is more effective than punishments”.
The reasons you state explicitly are that the former leads to faster and longer lasting learning. I do not know how the tests on these are done so I cannot contend on these particulars. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe experiments of this kind is primarily done on animals, or atleast small children. I think this type of experiments on adults (ethics aside) would not only be harder to conduct but also be subject to much greater variability. While you can reward a dog with a treat for doing a cool trick, asking a man to hop across the room on one foot with a cookie is a bit more complex. The effectiveness of a reward would then depend on whether the reward is desirable, how desirable the reward is, how many times it’s been used, how desirable the task is, etc. etc. etc… For example, it has been show that rewarding a child for doing an intrinsically rewarding task like drawing actually decreases the child’s motivation to do that task (you can ask me for clarification on this case study if you didn’t learn about it). While I’m sure the general principle that rewards reinforces behavior still stands most of the time, it is a lot harder to discern among humans, especially adults, whether rewards lead to faster and longer lasting learning.
You also list reasons why punishment is ineffective. By logic alone, this is not sufficient to prove that reward is better than punishment, since you make no mention of the advantages of punishments or the disadvantages of rewards and then show why collectively, one side outweighs the other. You provided an example about how the boy, after receiving punishment from his mother, will display the disadvantages of punishments. However, not all boys will display the same behavior after receiving punishment. Some will actually get the message, and correct his behavior entirely.
Factors such as the severity, frequency, and method of punishment also play a role. I think extreme cases of harsh punishment does lead to negative effects in teaching, but just as too much reward also ends up being ineffective. Ultimately it’s hard to say that reward is decisively better than punishment; it’s certainly difficult to imagine a world where only rewards or only punishments are applied.
The second issue is: how applicable is operant conditioning to what’s happening in North Korea.
To summarize your argument, because operant conditioning is applicable to a 6 year old boy, and because it’s applicable to animals including flatworms, and because human beings determine policies in North Korea, that therefore it is applicable to North Korea as a country. I don’t find that convincing. Something that is applicable to children may not be applicable to adults. Something applicable to an individual is not applicable to a government run by a group of people or to an entire culture of people. Theories around operant conditions at the moment are certainly not complex enough to account for the effects of social context. I also don’t see how the fact that operant condition is applicable to flatworms is very relevant in furthering your point.
To apply operant condition to North Korea is to say that their behavior is a result of the punishment. While I agree that punish North Korea is not proving to be effective so far, I wouldn’t go so far to say that North Korea is “becoming more agressive” and developing missles in response to punishments. Personally I think there are a number of internal reasons why North Korea might see that it’s beneficial to develop nuclear weapons such as national defense or respect on the world stage as a major power.
Furthermore, I don’t think positive reinforcements would be very effective in stopping North Korea’s research, unless substantial steps are taken, like “we’ll give you a trillion dollars a year if you stop developing nuclear weapons.” Even then it’s hard to say that North Korea’s behavior won’t be “suppressed and will occur elsewhere”, like continuing to develop nuclear weapons in secret.
Overall I think the article poses an interesting connection and raises many questions. While it speaks with a very definite tone, it is still much harder to find conclusive answers than to point out gaps in how much science knows about this subject right now.
Jack on June 16th, 2009
lol my comment is loooonnnngg….
Eastwood on June 16th, 2009
A very detailed and impressive response, Jack — thanks for sharing.
I agree with your points about the variable nature of conducting measurements for the relative effectiveness of reinforcements and punishments, especially taking into account the highly complex socio-political nature of this situation. The degree to which we can empirically assess the effectiveness of conditioning within such a context is, indeed, a debatable topic.
However, I disagree with the latter half of your argument. There is a major fallacy in your syllogism. Your interpretation (in paragraph 8 ) of my argument failed to mention one key point: humans are animals that can be taught by Operant Conditioning. This is how a correct syllogism would sound: since Operant Conditioning is applicable to all animals, and since human beings are animals, Operant Conditioning is applicable to human beings of the North Korean nationality. You would have found this argument more convincing had you examined it without the syllogistic fallacy.
Also, I must point out a further misinterpretation of my original argument. Your statement, “because operant conditioning is applicable to a 6 year old boy”, should not have been a part of your syllogism since this was a claim that I was arguing against. From my essay, I stated that some may falsely believe that Operant Condition is only applicable to a young child, perhaps under the influence of the “mother-hit-boy” example. I then went on to say that despite these misconceptions, Operant Condition teaches all animals. This clearly refutes your claim that “[s]omething that is applicable to children may not be applicable to adults” since Operant Condition shapes all animals, from the most simple to the most complex. Now, I hope you see how flatworms are very relevant in furthering my point.
Your comment was 790 words long — a new record! Thanks for pointing out my biases, though Myers 8th Ed. did not provide any “advantages of punishments” or “disadvantages of rewards”. Psychologists generally agree that reinforcement is a more superior form of conditioning than punishment. Nonetheless, I need to do more research to get a more definitive answer.
Personally, I do believe that friendly gestures (reinforcement) would lead to improved relationships, which may result in desired behaviour. After all, tension and dissonance rarely, if ever, resolves a conflict — “an eye for the eye makes the world blind”.
Rhetorical gymnastics!
Jack on June 19th, 2009
I agree that the trends in research could suggest that reinforcements may be more effective than punishments and I agree that operant conditioning could be applicable to human beings. However, the latter half of my argument (which is your primary focus of attack) is pointing out a broader issue: what is applicable to human beings as individuals may not be applicable to a social organization.
Just because North Korea, as a country, is made up of people, does not mean that as a country, it will behave the same way as a human being would. I think operant conditioning is a psychological phenomenon. But in the context of a government, with judicial laws and policies, a different perspective is necessary.
For example, while you can teach a child to be nice to his friends by giving him candy, a government may still choose to be mean to neighbouring countries if it logically decides that it is in the best interest of its people. If US attacks china, no matter how many encouragements china sends out, US will still continue its conquest. Perhaps the key difference is whether the source of reinforcement is from a greater authority. Right now in the world stage, each country is independent. But if we have a “UN” that is strong enough to have absolute power over the doings of all countries, then its use of reinforcements or punishments may be more effective.
Greenergy News on July 27th, 2009
North Korea needs to start helping their own people. They are too proud to let us know whats really going on. Its sad.