CAT | Humor
15
Game Theory
9 Comments · Posted by Editor in Business, Challenges, Family, Humor, Positive Attitude
In college-level psychology courses, one of the fun things you get to do is train mice. In addition to being easy, training mice helps you learn a lot about behavior generally and rewards and punishments specifically.
Someone should write a book on training mice for kids. It’s simple. An 8 year old that can learn it. 
For example, we can create a maze and put Miss Mouse at the entrance. Let’s say we want to teach her to always go right as the first move when entering a maze. We’ll reward her when she goes right. If she goes left, there is no reward, we pick her up and start over. Eventually we would expect Miss Mouse to always start out going to the right. That’s where the rewards are.
In the field of “Game Theory,” we can model learning without touching mice or spending money on cheese. In the example above, we divide the mouse’s behavior into two categories: Go Right and Go Left.
Now let’s say that a basic store-bought, untrained mouse is equally likely to go left or right. So the probability left = 50% and the probability right = 50%. Let’s also say that each reward will increase the probability of repeating the rewarded activate by 10%.
Here’s how the mouse learns: Chance of going right = 50%.
| Event 1: | Mouse goes left | No reward | Chance of
Going Right 50% |
| Event 2: | Mouse goes right | Eats cheese | 55% (50 X 110%) |
| Event 3: | Mouse goes right | Eats cheese | 60.5% (55 X 110%) |
| Event 4: | Mouse goes left | No reward | 60.5% (no change) |
| Event 5: | Mouse goes right | Eats cheese | 66.5% (60.5 X 110%) |
| Event 6: | Mouse goes left | No reward | 66.5% (no change) |
| Event 7: | Mouse goes left | No reward | 66.5% (no change) |
| Event 8: | Mouse goes right | Eats cheese | 73.2% (66.5 X 110%) |
| Event 9: | Mouse goes right | Eats cheese | 80.5% (73.2 X 110%) |
| Event 10: | Mouse goes right | Eats cheese | 88.6% (80.5 X 110%) |
| Event 11: | Mouse goes left | No reward | 88.6% (no change) |
| Event 12: | Mouse goes right | Eats cheese | 97.4% (88.6 X 110%) |
In this example we see that after 12 trips into the maze, the mouse is likely to go right 97% at the time! Notice also that the mouse went the wrong way five times and the right way seven times.
All you home psychologists should know that the reward must be given right away.
Notice that rewarding the behavior you want has a dramatic impact on future behavior.
Stop.
Highlight That.
Rewarding the behavior you want
has a dramatic impact on future behavior.
Reward and believe:
That was fun, but we’re spending too much money on cheese. We can’t give a reward every time. The next experiment would be to give a reward with every second correct move rather than every time.
The result is that learning is a bit slower, but still quite dramatic. After seven correct turns, the mouse is likely to go right almost 75% of the time.
So, we know that rewards work. What about punishment? Since we don’t want to physically harm our mouse, let’s say we stick to psychological damage. We’ll reward every second correct choice, but this time we’ll also have a mild punishment for incorrect choices. For punishment we’ll play ten seconds at Jethro Tull at very high volume. Again, the punishment must be administered right away to be effective.
Because this is a mild punishment, let’s say the effect is to decrease the chance at going left by 10%.
We start out with chance Right = 50% and chance Left = 50%
| Event 1: | goes left | Punish | Chance of
Going Left 45% |
Chance of
Going Right 55% |
| Event 2: | goes right | Reward | 39.5% | 60.5% |
| Event 3: | goes left | Punish | 35.5% | 64.5% |
| Event 4: | goes right | No Reward | 35.5% | 64.5% |
| Event 5: | goes right | Reward | 29.1% | 70.9% |
| Event 6: | goes left | Punish | 26.2% | 73.8% |
| Event 7: | goes right | No Reward | 26.2% | 73.8% |
| Event 8: | goes right | Reward | 18.8% | 81.2% |
| Event 9: | goes left | Punish | 16.9% | 83.1% |
| Event 10: | goes right | No Reward | 16.9% | 83.1% |
| Event 11: | goes right | Reward | 8.6% | 91.4% |
| Event 12: | goes left | Pushish | 7.7% | 92.3% |
As you can see, you don’t need to give a reward every time, but a combination of rewards and mild punishments is very effective. You can also summarize from the math that greater rewards and greater punishment would result in more dramatic changes and behavior.
Some Words of Caution
In our example we use a mild punishment. Strong punishments are generally to be avoided. In addition to electrocuting our mouse, we want to avoid instilling too much fear.
Punishment works by increasing fear. A punishment that is too strong can leave the subject (e.g. Miss Mouse) nervous about making a wrong move. This can result in slow, cautious, halting behavior. See the note on consistency below.
You must also be careful with rewards. Once a behavior is learned you can cut the rewards way back. Even sporadic rewards can maintain a well learned behavior.
We won’t go through the math necessary to demonstrate diminishing motivation, but you should know that the chances of correct behavior will decrease as the time between rewards increases. Dropping all rewards altogether will have no immediate effect. However, over time even well-learned behaviors will drift back to the probabilities we saw in the untrained mouse. One big reward all at once has almost no effect. If we give Miss Mouse a huge chunk of cheese the first time she goes right, but no rewards after that, she’ll think she just stumbled on some cheese. Smaller, regular rewards are much more effective.
The most important factor in using rewards and punishments is consistency. Close behind that is timeliness.
If you give a reward or punishment it must be administered immediately after the behavior. Think about training your dog: Doggie brings you the newspaper, goes outside for no apparent reason, comes back inside, gets a drink of water, then lies down to take a nap.
If you then praise the dog for bringing you the newspaper, he won’t connect the two. He will think he is being praised for lying down. It’s my personal theory that this is the reason dogs spend so much time lying down–they’re trying to make you happy.
Timeliness and consistency go hand in hand. You want to reward (or punish) behavior right away to have the greatest impact. Timeliness connects the reward (or punishment) to the behavior. Consistency provides reinforcement. If a mouse is rewarded sometimes for going left and sometimes for going right, she won’t see a connection between behavior and reward. Even worse, if she is punished sometimes for a left turn and sometimes for a right turn, she will avoid both behaviors.
Let’s go back to the lab for an illustration. The classic example of arbitrary rewards is the pigeon who gets fed a food pellet at random intervals. If the pigeon happens to be cleaning his wing when this happens, he might try cleaning his wing again to see if there’s another reward. And if there just happens to be a reward at the time he is cleaning his wing, he thinks he has learned a connection.
The same happens for scratching the floor, nodding his head, etc. With no connection between behavior and rewards, the pigeon will “learn” things that result in reward. So, after a few days we have a pigeon who spends all his time scratching and squawking and strutting around trying to “learn” a reward. Inconsistent, arbitrary rewards create and encourage a pattern of behavior, but not necessarily the behavior you want.
There is also the classic pigeon example of arbitrary punishment. When researchers randomly administer punishments, pigeons “learn” to avoid various behaviors. So, over time, we have a bird that doesn’t clean, doesn’t scratch, doesn’t walk in circles, doesn’t walk in a line. Eventually, the bird stands in one place afraid to take any action at all.
Inconsistent, arbitrary punishments lead to a fear of doing anything. You actually train the pigeon to do nothing.
In general, I believe rewards are a better teaching tool than punishments. Based on a worst case scenario of inconsistent, powerful rewards, you will have a subject who is constantly trying to do what it takes to get the reward. This subject is highly motivated and easily trained in the correct behavior: as you adopt a consistent reward procedure (even with small rewards), the subject will learn the new behavior quickly. And as rewards disappear for the old, arbitrary behavior, the old habits will fade away.
The worst-care scenario for inconsistent, powerful punishments is a subject who is paralyzed by fear. Adopting a consistent policy of rewards and punishments is very difficult in this case. First, you have to teach the subject that it’s okay to do something. There you have to coax it to overcome specific fears in order to try the behaviors that will now be rewarded.
As you can imagine, the quickest way to overcome fear and train new behavior in this case is with timely, frequent rewards; rewards powerful enough to overcome fear of punishment.
Does all of this really translate to human beings? Remember the mantra “Rewarding the behavior you want has a dramatic impact on future behavior.”
People absolutely respond to reward and punishment. If you don’t believe me, raise a child!
I am over-educated. I have used a few simple rules for raising my daughter.
1) No physical punishment.
2) She knows what the rules are.
3) She is consistently punished for incorrect behavior.
4) She is consistently rewarded for good behavior
I’m not perfect and my daughter is not perfect,* but my daughter knows she’s loved and she’s very well behaved. She never begs for toys or candy at the store. I never go through the routine of some parents who say “no-no-no-no-no” until they finally say “yes, but this is the last time.”
Children are extremely smart. They are all naturally lawyers. They want to pick apart your answer for clarity and consistency. They compare the current answer to all past similar behavior. They are willing to negotiate and compromise until they get something out of the deal. It is very difficult in change a policy without a good reason. If you show any weakness, they’ll take advantage of it.
Children are also delightful to work with because humans are intelligent enough that we can talk about punishments and rewards and create punishments and rewards through the use of speech.
For example, you can create rewards by agreeing that a hug is a reward, or staying up on extra five minutes, or helping to cook the soup, or putting a gold star on the calendar.
The same is true of punishments. Sitting on the floor for five minutes is a punishment. In fact, this may be the most consistently successful punishment we’ve ever used. My daughter was told that this is a punishment and it became one.
Okay, but what about adults?
Adults have one major disadvantage: they have experienced a wide variety of rewards and punishments that are outside your relationship with them. Thus, they’ve learned about a world of rewards and punishments that is completely unknown to you.
| Punishing Adults
Confused about punishment? See Ken Blanchard’s The One Minute Manger series. Full citations are in the left-hand column. |
Very often we adults are a jumbled mess of mixed-up, inconsistent motivations and fears. This is great for psychologists but makes team management difficult. Adults also have some advantages: they tend to be motivated to do well and they have excellent reasoning ability.
This reasoning ability gives us the power to lay out reward systems without a lot of “trial and error.” We can also agree before-hand on rewards and punishments. And, best of all, rewards do not have to consist of instant gratification.
So, rather than having to instantly reward people as we see the correct behavior, we can agree on incentive programs, weekly meetings, and quarterly reports.
Here are some guidelines . . . But, don’t forget what we’ve learned:
|
Why rewards and punishment, don’t work.
If this is all so simple, why does it seem to not work in your business? Well, as with so many simple truths, we humans don’t have enough faith and we don’t follow the formula. We sabotage over own efforts.
In the Big Picture, a motivational program should work like this:
1) Set goals – short, intermediate, long.
2) Establish rewards and punishments
3) Evaluate performance
4) Administer rewards and punishments (consistently, fairly, honestly)
Repeat:
1) Revise goals periodically
2) Revise Rewards and Punishments periodically
3) Continue to Evaluate
4) Continue to administer
A simple 4-step process, repeated continuously. So why does it fail? It fails because we don’t do one or more of the steps. And 99% of the time, it’s the bosses fault. His excuse is usually “I don’t have enough time.” Goals are not set.
As a result, there is no structure for success. The manager doesn’t have time to tell people what she wants. So they do what they think they should do, whether its what the boss wants or not. In fact, the boss doesn’t even set her own goals.
Stop. Be your own boss for ten minutes.
What are three things you want to accomplish today?
What are three things you want to accomplish this week?
This Month?
Why don’t you take ten minutes every day to decide what’s important today?
Be honest, you do have time.
We . . . the vast majority of bosses and workers . . . don’t set goals. We don’t have a clear idea at what we’re going to do today that will help us advance toward the bigger goals.
Goal-setting should not be a huge scary task that requires retreat time or offsite meetings or long arguments.
Make a habit every day of jotting down your goals. Look at them everyday, and adjust them as needed. This ten-minute habit will change your life. It will bring focus.
The second reason motivational plans fail is lack of integrity. Bosses promise rewards and fail to deliver. Or they are inconsistent with rewards and punishments.
People learn very quickly and they remember negative experiences for a long time.
I have the great good fortune of seeing how different businesses operate. As a result I see motivational plans come and go. I also see successful reward structures that last for a long time.
Overwhelmingly, the lasting techniques are those that are:
1) Clearly understood by everyone.
2) Consistently followed–both rewards and punishments.
3) Perceived as fair.
I berate bosses for being stingy with rewards. Some bosses are even stingy with small rewards. Bosses are rarely stingy with punishments. If you have a system of large rewards–such as $1000 bonuses or trips to Maui–you had better be prepared to pay up.
But don’t forget that small rewards can be even more powerful. Five weeks into the quarter, some people know they’re not going to win the trip. What’s their motivation?
With small rewards there is a flurry of activity around the rewards. People get regular feedback and compete to get their name in the “star performance” chart, or try to collect the most T-shirts, squeezy toys, pencils, or whatever.
Every day and every week they can see their success. And their success is visible to themselves and others. Finally, competitions evolve as people display these little rewards as measures of their success.
It is beyond my capacity to understand why a boss would be stingy in this process. Remember that, as humans, we create a reward by agreeing that something is a reward. When we say, for example, that a company T-shirt is a reward, then it has become more than a T-shirt.
If someone meets the criteria, give him the T-shirt! Stinginess with a ten dollar piece of clothing can destroy your motivational program.
First, you lack integrity. If you’re not fair on this little thing, how can your employees trust you on larger things?
Second, you turn a “performer” into a disgruntled employee.
Third, this kind of stinginess will become widely known in very short order.
So you see, bosses can sabotage their own motivational programs when they are stingy.
These discussions of the behavioral sciences are not meant to replace a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology. I encourage you to learn more about rewards and punishments in the workplace.
As a worker, consider what motivates you and talk to your boss about it. But don’t start with $1000 reward and trips to Hawaii. Start with an examination of your daily and weekly activates. What would be an appropriate, small reward for reaching the next performance level each week?
If you’re a boss, consider the two or three basic “building blocks” of your success. What are the measures of your success? These could be increasing sales, productivity, or timeliness; or reducing mistakes, injuries, or sick days.
Find measurable indicators of your success. Begin measuring them and consider what kind of small rewards you can dole out each work for improved performance.
Then have the integrity to present the rewards as promised.
There are lots of good books on reward systems and building motivation in your workplace. You (workers and bosses) need to find a system that works for your job.
As usual, I encourage you to read lots of ideas on this topic and then come up with your own plan.
*Note: My daughter is perfect.
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9
Open Your Wallet
Comments off · Posted by Editor in Beliefs, Challenges, Goals, Humor, Wealth
I have discovered two situations in which I’m willing to open my wallet and say “Here. Take whatever you want.”
The fist situation is Disneyland. Mickey Mouse can have all the money he wants. When we’re at Disneyland, I’m happy and relaxed. My daughter is totally wired, bouncing off the walls, and hyperventilating with fun. So, lunch is $29 for three people? No problem. $50 for a sweatshirt I’ll wear twice a year? Sounds like a bargain.
And all this is after paying for hotel, airfare, and admission to the park. Somehow, Disneyland sucks you in and makes you feel that everything is okay. You’re happy, relaxed, energetic. Your attitude is positive and troubles have a tough time getting your attention.
You might replace Disneyland with Maui or some other place. But the idea’s the same.
The other time when I open my wallet freely is during times of stress or emergency. Something bad has happened and I need to make the problem go away as soon as possible. As a consultant I see this all the time. When people have an urgent need, they are willing to pay more. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a client say “Is there any amount of money that will get this done faster?”
Perhaps the perfect example of this is shipping a package. You might pay a low price for “ground” shipping, but a much higher price for 2nd-day. Overnight is a lot more. Overnight by 10AM? Much much more. I once witnessed a man pay $50 to have a dozen donuts shipped overnight to his mother.
So, when do we open our wallets? At the extremes. We are willing to spend money when we’re happy and content or when we’re overwhelmed and frustrated. In both of these situations your spending habits will be less rational than normal: You won’t shop prices and you won’t make good decisions. And yet one of these situations is clearly preferable to the other.
We’d all rather open our wallets to Mickey Mouse than to the repairman. Why? Because we’re in control. At Disneyland, we are making all the choices. We’ve planned to be there. We’ve made decisions and set aside some money.
In an emergency or stressful situation, of course, we feel that we’re not in control. Even if we get to make all the decisions, we feel trapped–we feel like we don’t have “real” choices because we don’t have the choice of walking away and not dealing with the problem.
So, what can you do to improve your attitude, choices, and effectiveness during emergencies and times of stress?
First, spend more time in the happy and content state.
You’re first reaction is probably “Easier said than done.” True, but you control a great deal about your attitude and your reaction to situations. You can choose to avoid being overwhelmed and frustrated.
One of the great benefits of meditation is that you learn to take a few breaths and relax, calm yourself, and focus on what’s going on at this moment.
When I first started taking yoga classes, I had an instructor who finished the class with a relaxation exercise. We would all lie on the floor, eyes closed. And she would say “This place is always available to you. Come here when you need to center yourself and relax.” At first I thought she meant the yoga studio. (I’m pretty slow sometimes.)
By “this place” she meant the place of relaxation. But to have relaxation available to you on “short notice,” you have to practice. Being able to take three breaths and relax yourself takes practice. You need to do it every day when you’re not stressed out. Get to know how it feels. Be comfortable with that state. Then you can call on it as needed.
Second, when emergencies (or other stressful situations) happen, remember to stay calm. Stop and think about your resources. One of the great causes of stress is the belief that “I don’t know what to do.” In reality, we usually do know what to do but we’re too anxious to think straight right away. Again: Relax . . . Focus.
Third, don’t be too shy to ask for help. Most of the time we don’t need help and we get out of the habit of asking for it. When we do ask, we are pleasantly surprised at the great response we receive. How many times have you seen people “come out of the woodwork” to help? Friends, relatives, and even casual acquaintances are their for you to rely on. You’re not alone!
Fourth, communicate. In stressful situations, you need to divide people into two groups — those who are close to you and those who are not. Chances are very good that those close to you will also be affected by the stressful situation. Let them know what you’re thinking, engage them in solving the problem, and reassure them that you’ll get through it together. “Others” will be less directly affected. They may be more useful at accessing resources and giving a more balanced view of the problem.
As with anything else, you need to practice the skills of stress management before they are needed. Practice relaxing and focusing. Practice asking for help and communicating.
And spend more time at Disneyland!
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One day a little girl what visiting a cemetery with her mother.
She asked her mother “Do they ever buy two people in the same grave?”
“Of course not,” said the mother, “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” said the little girl, “back there I saw a grave stone that said ‘Here lies a politician and and honest man.’”
:-)
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Why was the glowworm unhappy?
Because her children were not very bright!
:-)
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Mo attends to a revival and listens to the sermon. After a while, the pastor asks anyone with needs to come forward and be prayed over. Mo gets in line and, when it’s his turn the pastor asks, “Mo, what do you want me to pray about?” Mo says, “Pastor, I need you to pray for my hearing.” So the pastor puts one finger in Mo’s ear and the other hand on top of his head and prays for a while. He removes his hands and says, “Mo how’s your hearing now?” Mo says, “I don’t know pastor, it’s not until next Monday.
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A newsboy was standing on the corner with a stack of papers, yelling, “Read all about it; Fifty people swindled!” Fifty people swindled!
Curious, a man walked over, bought a paper, and said, “Hey kid, this is an old paper, where’s the story about the big swindle?”
The newsboy ignored him and went on calling out, “Read all about it; Fifty-one people swindled!”
:-)
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Did you here about the man who got mad because his wife was using four letter words?
“Find Work!”
:-)
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Seems an elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years.
He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%. The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased you can hear again.”
To which the gentleman said, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will five times!”
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The menu clearly stated: “Breakfast served any time.”
So I ordered waffles in the Middle Ages.
:-)
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The young man entered the Ice Cream Palace and asked, “What kinds of ice cream do you have?”
“Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry,” the girl wheezed as she spoke, patted her chest, and seemed unable to continue.
“Do you have laryngitis?” the young man asked sympathetically.
“Nope,” she whispered, “just vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.”
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