> I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case. Actually, occasional and positive reinforcement has been shown to be the best w

> I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case. Actually, occasional and positive reinforcement has been shown to be the best way to change behavior. Slot machines (and the most successful games) are based on this principle.[0] > One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of years, with actual results. Singapore's a place that is well known for getting people to do the right thing, I'm not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back. Have you lived within any of these cultures enough to understand what motivates those within them? How do you know how much pride is a factor for them? I can imagine authoritarian rule, and brutal punishment, or a history of either, may change the behaviour of people. But that is very different to the passive mechanism of guilt. [0] Different reinforcement schedules and their efficacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Simple_schedules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Simple_schedules