The cycle of criticism

The following information is from Unit 9 of the book Teaching: A Course in Psychology by Wesley C. Becker, Siegfried Engelmann, and Don R. Thomas. 

Note: Science Research Associates published the book in 1971. I am unsure if the publishers reprinted the book or if it is available to buy. I found it through a university inter-library loan program. I suspect that Becker or Engelmann use the book or some form of it in their special education teaching classes at the University of Oregon.

• The criticism trap: reinforcing misbehavior through critical comments (attention)
• To avoid the trap, increase praise and decrease criticism

• Examples of the criticism trap
• Respond to “sit down”
• Three students at a time were observed in a classroom to be out of their seats every 10 seconds
• Teachers said “sit down” about 7 times in 20 minutes
• Behaviorists asked the teachers to say “sit down” 27.5 times every 20 minutes
• The students stood up more often
• When the teachers said “sit down” less often, the the students stood up less
• When the teachers said “sit down” more often again, the students stood up more often again
• Behaviorists asked the teachers to praise students who sat and worked
• Two students at a time stood up every 10 seconds (marked decrease)
• What happened:
• When the teachers said “sit down” more often, the students stood up more often
• When the teachers said “sit down” less often, the students stood up less often
• “Sit down” was a reinforcing stimulus for standing up and a stimulus for the student to stop standing up
• Praising sitting and working is incompatible with standing up and not working
• A good class turns bad
• The behaviorists told a teacher to stop praising the students and criticize off-task behavior
• The students’ off-task behavior increased dramatically based on how much the teacher criticized
• Attention to off-task behavior increased its occurr
• Scolding and criticizing appear to work temporarily
• It reinforces the teacher to do it again because it works temporarily
• In unit 2, Peter’s mother could not control his behavior
• She used reinforcement (her attention) for good behavior and punishment (time out from reinforcement) for bad behavior and his behavior improved
• When she used scolding his behavior did not improve

• How to a teacher can escape the criticism trap
• Provide signals or reminders to praise more
• The misbehavior of one child signals you to praise another child behaving well
• Take your attention off the misbehavior
• Prompts the misbehaving child to what he should do
• Given tokens to prompt praise
• If you know you need to give tokens with the praise you may be more likely to give both
• Put up signs to remind yourself to praise
• Practice how to praise
• Some adults have not learned how to praise children
• So practice how and when to do it
• Example: students come back from recess and some are not sitting or are talking
• Praise students who are in their seats and working
• Example: some students call out during class discussion
• Ignore blurters and pick on students who have their hands up
• Example: some students run down the hallway to the bathroom
• Praise students who walk and are quiet and ignore the runners
• But you may need a stronger reinforcer for this issue as well for the sake of safety
• Example: some students push to the front of the lunchroom line rather than wait
• Praise students who wait and then pick them to go into the lunchroom first
• Do not criticize the students pushing in line
• Example: a student copies work
• Ignore the copier and praise the students who do their own work
• When the copier starts doing his own work, praise him
• Reinforce yourself for praising more (example: class behavior improvement will reinforce you)
• Keep a record of behavior change to reinforce yourself there is improvement and to cue yourself on what to do next
• Count praise behavior individually
• Use something to record your praise comments like a golf counter or a tally chart
• Determine when you will observe your praise comments
• For example choose only one or two 20 minute to 30 minute periods
• Get a baseline by recording how often you already praise
• Rate per minute of praise is found by diving the number of comments by the number of minutes observed
• Graph your minutes per day
• Increase your rate of praise and record the improvement
• Count praise and criticizing behaviors by the help of an observer
• Pick a recording method
• The observer can use a clipboard and stopwatch for 10 second intervals
• The observer records your behavior in codes
• P = praise comments
• R = recognition (calling on a student who raised his hand--not if the teacher says the student’s name or says things to get his attention)
• N = nonverbal (smiling, nodding, thumbs up)
• C = criticisms (verbally calling attention to misbehavior)
• W = withdrawl of positive reinforcement (keep student in at recess, send him to the office, etc.)
• - = no codable response
• The rest of the steps follow the individual methods
• Determine observation period
• Get a baseline
• Graph the results daily
• Four possible graphs are rate of positive responses, rate of negative responses, rate of praise comments, and rate of critical comments
• Observers give specific suggestions on how to handle situations more positively