'The Wrong Way To Get People To Do The Right Thing'

The Selfish Selfless

In the discussion as to what influences individuals to act in the specific manners they do, psychologists Edward Thorndike and B.F. Skinner―both known for their studies and experiments dealing with operant conditioning―share similar ideas to what Alfie Kohn puts forth in his article, “The Wrong Way to Get People to Do the Right Thing,” where the true motives behind the majority of society’s behaviors are put in the spotlight. Thorndike’s Law of Effect proposes that behaviors preceding pleasurable responses are more likely to be repeated than those followed by unpleasurable responses. Similarly, Skinner viewed human actions as dependent on the consequences of prior actions, following the same premise that the more favorable the consequence, the more likely a certain behavior will be repeated, and vise versa. In the article, Kohn uses superb evidence accompanied with

After reading the article, Kohn certainly persuaded me to share the more skeptic attitudes when analyzing others’ behaviors. It is undeniable that large corporations almost always act for their own personal gain or financial benefit, something I was already knowledgeable of and which my beliefs were only further confirmed upon reading Kohn’s article, but I was not previously aware of how often individuals act based off of their own selfishness. Perhaps my natural optimism clouded me from admitting that altruistic actions are far less common than I had originally believed. We may never know the true motives behind an individual's behavior, but regardless of whether or not a person is altruistic, it is indisputable that self-interest plays a role in every decision about how to