Made in Wisconsin

Something I posted last year as a Facebook note, during the Arab Spring:

Editor, Wisconsin State Journal:

I read that tear gas canisters used during the recent unrest in Cairo, Egypt, were labeled "Made in America". While unrest in the Land of the Pharohs is unforunate, and we all support the Egyptian people's orderly transition towards greater liberty, the good news here is: "Made in America"!

"Made in America" in this context speaks of opportunity. Unrest appears to be a regretable, yet unavoidable, aspect of human history; consequently, the need for assertive methods of civil stabilization continues to be a growth opportunity, on average, year over year. While we cannot be held accountable for the adverse effects of repression and unrest within other political systems; we should be held accountable for missing the economic opportunities of the moment, especially in these times of financial distress.

Indeed, Wisconsin should be "open for busines"! Our unused and underutilized spaces and places should be pressed into service as job creator zones. Let history guide Wisconsin forward. Specifically speaking, supply construction seed money and declare the abandoned Badger Ammunition facility grounds a tax-free job zone to release this brownfield from the bonds of bureaucratic underutilization so it may be a greenfield of opportunity once again. Tear gas canisters, small arms, riot shields, and countless necessary and value-added products across the world branded not only with "Made in America" but also with "Something Special from Wisconsin" will show the world the job creator in all Wisconsinites.

Bits assembled into 2 halves of different rants

Just a few comments:

When will the majority of folks wake up to the insults "job creator" and "trickle down economics" (otherwise known as "supply side")?

1. "Job creator" is generally recognized to mean folks with more money than almost everyone else who, it is presumed because they apparently have lots of money and thus naturally do these things because having lots of something always motivates one expend even more effort to get lots more of it (you know, like some sort of behavioral perpetual motion machine), then use their money to create jobs. Set aside the assortment of questionable assumptions therein in order to appreciate the consequent implication that those who are not "job creators" are then "job consumers". Personally, I more accurately describe myself with terms fitting my God-given dignity: I am a worker and a citizen. Why do we accept the indignity, implied but patently there, of the term "job creator"?
2. "Trickle down economics". Why should most people happen upon the fruits of the economy to which they contribute (in the US at ever increasing levels of record-breaking productivity) through a process resembling the flow of unconsumed or un-absorbed liquid down a hill, chin, or ditch? Why accept the implication that wealth growth for the majority depends on the construction of reservoirs of wealth from which economic gain flows to most via a leak, seepage, opening of a spill gate, or some other form of structural incontinence?

I caught a bit of some European pundits on the BBC discussing austerity measures tonight. (I love you, internet radio.)

1. The host was seeking responses to his assertion (perhaps as a devil's advocate) that economic downturns are good for the economy, what with the ensuing creative destruction and all. His metaphor (note: metaphors are rhetorical tools, and can be used just as easily to construct false equivalencies (or arbitrary intraverbal relations) as easily as they can be used to point out actual functional relations in the world) was that economic upswings are akin to having extra cash and spending that cash on food and drink, resulting in unhealthy weight gain. Then (the host disingenuously guides us on down the false path) the recession is like going to the doctor, being advised to lose weight, and joining a gym.
2. Poor metaphor. Joining a gym (or, more correctly, exercising regularly), while perhaps resulting in weight loss, is supposed to build capacity through changing fat into muscle, increasing aerobic capacity, and establishing a routine leading to continued exercise in the future. The austerity measures we are seeing in the current recession, especially in Europe and perhaps in US states, run the risk of being more akin to going on a starvation diet, in which weight is lost and no capacity is gained. At worst, capacity is lost as skilled workers and/or the firms which would put their skills to work creating wealth are lost, along with a loss of knowledge and capitol investment -- that is, the potential for future growth. I suppose one positive outcome of continued austerity measures (in light of the experience of implementing austerity measures at the onset of the Great Depression and again in the 30's before the Depression was finished) will be choice: the choice of using the little rope one has left to either tie up one's newly roomy pants or using it to hang oneself.

Please note the disclaimer at the top of this blog. One may also wish to look up the term "rant" and note that my comments are clearly labeled as being incomplete, even for ranting.

Reducing bullying through eliciting empathy

Evidence-based, broad-scope approach, in part based on eliciting desired behaviors which compete with bullying and aggression, rather than attempting to punish aggression.

Opinion

Fixes: Fighting Bullying With Babies
By By DAVID BORNSTEIN
Published: November 8, 2010
A group that brings infants into classrooms to teach empathy has produced sharp drops in bullying.

Increased spanking for children with disabilities

Education
Disabled Students Are Spanked More
By SAM DILLON
Published: August 11, 2009
More than 200,000 schoolchildren are subjected to physical punishment each year, and disabled students get a disproportionate share, according to a new study.

So, what could we be doing instead?

New research on hyperbaric treatment for autism

I'm a little behind on all the treatments used with children diagnosed with autism & there are a lot, including a many, many untested treatments. Hyperbaric treatment is one I've run across before, seen advertised in the local newspaper for treating other childhood disabilities, and have encountered supporters for in the past.

The big problem in evaluating the treatments is lack of clinical trials and outcome research -- arguing whether or not the treatments work based on what else works or what should work from a given theoretical perspective often devolves into different camps talking different perspectives. Hard data is, I think, the only way out of that dead-end.

Its heartening, then, to see that there is at least one clinical trial of hyperbaric treatment. On one hand, the data looks promising. On the other hand, some of the researchers do this treatment for a living.

By the way, the Translating Autism (an autism research blog) is well worth subscribing to in your favorite RSS reader.

Parenting Style and Delinquency

From a new parenting research blog -- in brief, a recent meta-analysis of parenting research studies from 1950 to 2007 indicates that authoritative parenting style is associated with less delinquency than authoritarian parenting style (nothing in the blog post about neglecting/rejecting):

Parenting Styles and Delinquency

"A review of: Hoeve, M., Dubas, J., Eichelsheim, V., Laan, P., Smeenk, W., & Gerris, J. (2009). The Relationship Between Parenting and Delinquency: A Meta-analysis Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology DOI: 10.1007/s10802-009-9310-8

How appropriate to begin the Child Psychology and Parenting Research blog with a review of probably the largest meta-analysis ever conducted on the association between parenting styles and delinquency. A meta-analysis consists of a statistical review of the previously published (and sometimes unpublished) literature on a particular topic. For example, hundreds of articles have examined the association between harsh discipline practices and negative outcomes, such as aggression and delinquency. Some studies have shown that harsh discipline practices are associated with worse outcomes when compared to non-harsh methods. Yet, other studies have failed to find such association, or argued that other factors are at play (culture, warmth, etc). So the question remains, when you look at all the results of all the previous studies combined, what what do you see?

This is one of the questions explored by Hoeve et al (in press) in a recently published meta-analysis of the relationship between parenting and delinquency. They analyzed data from 161 published manuscripts conducted between 1950 and 2007."

Rewards for students

NYTimes today runs an article on renewed interest in and investigation of rewards on student performance. Tellingly, from an behavioral standpoint, the title refers to "rewards for students" rather than rewarding behaviors by students:

HEALTH | March 03, 2009
Rewards for Students Under a Microscope
By LISA GUERNSEY
Are there benefits to paying students for good performance in school?

(In essence, then, those talking about rewards are talking about one thing while those talking about reinforcement are talking about another, i.e., "reward" does not equal "reinforcement". However, these concepts are so often confused that one can't talk to the issue from a behavioral standpoint without doing what I'm having to do here.)

And that, I think, is the faulty part of the extrinsic-intrinsic rewards debate: Whether or not "rewards" have a lasting effect on student performance is accounted for less by where the rewards (or potential reinforcers) fall on a (false) extrinsic-intrinsic rewards dichotomy and is accounted for more by (a) if the reward actually reinforces student behaviors leading to better performance over the long term, (b) if the increased performance brings the student into contact with more automatically occurring reinforcement for the behavior that would not be contacted adequately to sustain performance otherwise, or (c) if increased performance makes the behaviors fluent enough that the effort to perform is now outweighed by the payout of automatically occurring reinforcement.

As usual, with "rewards" you get the most bang for your buck when you choose the right behavior to reward and the reward increases the rate of the behavior over time -- that is, the reward actually reinforces the behavior.

One implication is that research into which academic behaviors lead to better long term performance (reading for pleasure being one example) may be more fruitful than research for arguing the intrinsic/extrinsic debate.