The Power of Reinforcement: Rewards, Identity, and Labels

0:00Why do you do what you do? I do what I do because I'm rewarded for doing it. That's why I do it. >> If you stop being rewarded for it, >> Yeah. >> what would you what would you see yourself moving on to? >> I would change my behavior and find something else that rewards me. Reinforcement just means anything that makes a behavior happen more. [music] That's it. Anything that does that is a reinforcer. Um and so getting paid is a great reinforcer for doing something, but it's still all the other reinforcers in the job might have gone [music] away. And so your family might have expectations, which also rule following, for you as a global thing, because I have an identity as a good father or good provider, that I have a rule that if I were to not provide for my family, it would be against this rule I've made for myself.

0:36>> [music] >> And this identity, this label that I've scrapped for myself. And me just thinking about the fact that I'm a good provider gives me reward. It reinforces me. >> [music] >> And so what happens is when we shift behavior over time, we create a label. Like what you want if you want to change someone's behavior is you give them a label that they can live up to, and then you align the actions. You do this, you are this type of person. And then eventually they begin to do other things because they like the label, because the label itself is reinforcing.