Appropriate timing is absolutely critical to effective conditioning. If a coach yells, "Great", when the basketball team executes a perfect pick-and-roll, it has a lot more impact that if he waited until they debriefed later in the locker room. Why? Because we always want to link the sensations of reinforcement in the pattern that is occurring.
One of the problems with our judicial system is that when people commit criminal acts, they are sometimes not punished until years later. Intellectually they may know the reason for their punishment, but the pattern of behaviour that generated this problem in the first place is still intact - it has not been interrupted, nor does it have any pain linked to it...
This is the only ways to change our behaviours and emotions long term. We must train our brains to do the things that are effective, not intellectually but neurologically. The challenge, of course, is that most of us don't realise that we're all conditioning each other and shaping each other's behaviours constantly. Often, we're conditioning people negatively instead of positively.
While consulting with companies across the United States, it was found that most companies try to motivate their employees by using negative enforcement as their primary strategy, trying to use fear of punishment as it prime motivator. This will work in the short-term, but not in the long-term. Sooner or later, companies run into the same problems that eastern Europe has; people will live in fear only for so long before they revolt..............
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