www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

Using psychological terms accurately

Updated: 2011-08-04 10:39

By Patrick Mattimore (chinadaily.com.cn)

  Comments() Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按鈕 0

Several years ago China Daily published an account of a father who forced his son to kneel in front of an Internet Cafe in order to teach his son to stay away from cyber cafes and focus on studying. The reporter wrote that onlookers believed that this negative reinforcement was not a good method of teaching. But this was not negative reinforcement.

A more recent China Daily editorial proposed that countries use relation therapy to heal "diplomatic schizophrenia". But this loose use of schizophrenia distorts its true definition.

Both these examples of specific psychological terms, "schizophrenia," and "negative reinforcement" have come into common parlance but they are often misused and confused by the public.

Take a look at the following two paragraphs. The first paragraph is from a recent edition of the Washington Post and the second was published as part of an editorial last month in The New York Times.

"Some tea party groups are targeting Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) for supporting the debt ceiling compromise put forward by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). But West, a conservative in a moderate district, isn't sweating it. 'One minute they're saying I'm their Tea Party hero, and three, four days later I'm a Tea Party defector; that kind of schizophrenia I'm not going to get involved in it,' he said on Laura Ingraham's show today."

"My son's intellectual growth is another matter. Pervasive negative reinforcement from teachers and a competitive atmosphere that demoralized underachievers chipped away at his self-confidence. A constant and towering amount of work pushed him to view all school tasks as daunting. I fear that instead of planting the seeds for a thirst for knowledge, the rigors of school may have discouraged the development of a probing mind."

In the first paragraph, Congressman West is using the term "schizophrenia" to refer to opposite characterizations of his political ideology by members of the Tea Party. That is a common misuse of the term. People frequently think of schizophrenia as meaning a split or divergent personality, too. In fact, there are different types of schizophrenia and a host of various characteristics but individuals with schizophrenia generally have impaired thinking, emotions, and behaviors. Their personalities are not split but disordered.

The problem with the term "schizophrenia" is that the root word “schizo” means split and "phrenic" translates as mind, hence the everyday usage of the phrase as referring to someone who acts erratically or the more generalized use of the term to refer to groups or people that act inconsistently.

In the paragraph from The Times, the writer complains that his son's self-confidence was undermined because of his teachers' "negative reinforcement." What the writer suggests is that the teachers did something which was bad ("negative") that produced ("reinforcement") a less confident condition in his son.

Negative reinforcement, however, is an action that strengthens a behavior by removing something bad. It is not the same as punishment which is used to decrease a behavior.

Think of it in math terms like addition by subtraction, so that we create a healthier person, for example, when we smoke less.

Here's a good example of negative reinforcement from the Maricopa Center for Learning & Instruction in Arizona. Driving in heavy traffic is a negative condition for most of us. You leave home earlier than usual one morning, and don't run into heavy traffic. You leave home earlier again the next morning and again you avoid heavy traffic. Your behavior of leaving home earlier is strengthened by the consequence of avoiding heavy traffic.

Insisting upon definitional accuracy may seem trivial, but in an age when communication between individuals and nations is frequently distorted and breaks down, it's not a bad idea to try and get us all on the same page, psychologically speaking.

The author formerly taught Advanced Placement Psychology.

主站蜘蛛池模板: 成年女人午夜免费视频 | 成人在线视频免费观看 | 亚洲小视频 | 亚洲国产精品a在线 | 国产成人午夜性视频影院 | 成人毛片一区二区三区 | 国产欧美日本亚洲精品五区 | 日韩欧美一区二区不卡看片 | 亚洲高清一区二区三区 | 天堂在线www网亚洲 天堂在线视频网站 | 自拍一区在线观看 | 99热久久精品免费精品 | 黄色视影 | 视频一区 在线 | 日韩高清不卡在线 | 国内精品久久久久影院网站 | 欧美日韩中文字幕在线观看 | 国产精品爱久久久久久久三级 | 美女黄色在线网站大全 | 国产高清免费视频 | 亚洲区精品久久一区二区三区 | 国产成人高清一区二区私人 | 免费欧美一级片 | 欧美私人网站 | 欧洲乱码伦视频免费 | 久久免费视频在线 | 我要看欧美精品一级毛片 | 最刺激黄a大片免费观看 | 成人免费观看视频久爱网 | 一区二区三区四区在线播放 | 精品色综合 | 国产精品亚洲高清一区二区 | 中文字幕乱码视频32 | 欧美一级毛片高清毛片 | 亚洲视频一 | 性做久久久久久久免费看 | 91久久亚洲精品国产一区二区 | 久久99精品九九九久久婷婷 | 大尺度福利视频在线观看网址 | 亚洲国产精品热久久2022 | 天码毛片一区二区三区入口 |