[Link] Can We Reverse The Stanford Prison Experiment?

daenerys

From the Harvard Business Review, an article entitled: "Can We Reverse The Stanford Prison Experiment?"

By: Greg McKeown
Posted: June 12, 2012

Summary:

Royal Canadian Mounted Police attempt a program where they hand out "Positive Tickets"

Their approach was to try to catch youth doing the right things and give them a Positive Ticket. The ticket granted the recipient free entry to the movies or to a local youth center. They gave out an average of 40,000 tickets per year. That is three times the number of negative tickets over the same period. As it turns out, and unbeknownst to Clapham, that ratio (2.9 positive affects to 1 negative affect, to be precise) is called the Losada Line. It is the minimum ratio of positive to negatives that has to exist for a team to flourish. On higher-performing teams (and marriages for that matter) the ratio jumps to 5:1. But does it hold true in policing?

According to Clapham, youth recidivism was reduced from 60% to 8%. Overall crime was reduced by 40%. Youth crime was cut in half. And it cost one-tenth of the traditional judicial system.

This idea can be applied to Real Life

The lesson here is to create a culture that immediately and sincerely celebrates victories. Here are three simple ways to begin:

1. Start your next staff meeting with five minutes on the question: "What has gone right since our last meeting?" Have each person acknowledge someone else's achievement in a concrete, sincere way. Done right, this very small question can begin to shift the conversation.

2. Take two minutes every day to try to catch someone doing the right thing. It is the fastest and most positive way for the people around you to learn when they are getting it right.

3. Create a virtual community board where employees, partners and even customers can share what they are grateful for daily. Sounds idealistic? Vishen Lakhiani, CEO of Mind Valley, a new generation media and publishing company, has done just that at Gratitude Log. (Watch him explain how it works here).

From the Harvard Business Review, an article entitled: "Can We Reverse The Stanford Prison Experiment?"

By: Greg McKeown
Posted: June 12, 2012

Clicky Link of Awesome! Wheee! Push me!

Summary:

Royal Canadian Mounted Police attempt a program where they hand out "Positive Tickets"

Their approach was to try to catch youth doing the right things and give them a Positive Ticket. The ticket granted the recipient free entry to the movies or to a local youth center. They gave out an average of 40,000 tickets per year. That is three times the number of negative tickets over the same period. As it turns out, and unbeknownst to Clapham, that ratio (2.9 positive affects to 1 negative affect, to be precise) is called the Losada Line. It is the minimum ratio of positive to negatives that has to exist for a team to flourish. On higher-performing teams (and marriages for that matter) the ratio jumps to 5:1. But does it hold true in policing?

According to Clapham, youth recidivism was reduced from 60% to 8%. Overall crime was reduced by 40%. Youth crime was cut in half. And it cost one-tenth of the traditional judicial system.

This idea can be applied to Real Life

The lesson here is to create a culture that immediately and sincerely celebrates victories. Here are three simple ways to begin:

1. Start your next staff meeting with five minutes on the question: "What has gone right since our last meeting?" Have each person acknowledge someone else's achievement in a concrete, sincere way. Done right, this very small question can begin to shift the conversation.

2. Take two minutes every day to try to catch someone doing the right thing. It is the fastest and most positive way for the people around you to learn when they are getting it right.

3. Create a virtual community board where employees, partners and even customers can share what they are grateful for daily. Sounds idealistic? Vishen Lakhiani, CEO of Mind Valley, a new generation media and publishing company, has done just that at Gratitude Log. (Watch him explain how it works here).

As long as we're arguing, I'd be curious to hear what you think of my article 6 Tips for Productive Arguments. (I've just reviewed my own recommendations...)

That doesn't correspond to what I am thinking. It would be more like me flashing a smile and saying thank you for you holding the door open while I am carrying a large package. I appreciate your effort, but no relative status message is given.

I suspect saying thank you is a way of assigning higher status to someone. Sure, you don't feel like you're assigning substantially higher status to a friend by saying thank you, but what if your friend repeatedly bailed you out of sticky situations without you ever reciprocating, and with you saying thank you more and more profusely each time? Who would have more power in this friendship?

What if your friend bailed you out of sticky situations repeatedly, but your thanks did not get more profuse? That would be incongruous, I suspect, and your friend might begin to resent you.

This may be why people who don't say thank you are considered "entitled". They fail to assign others high status in certain situations where it's generally considered appropriate to do so.

So far I assign high credence to the hypothesis that appreciation is about status, because every case of genuine appreciation I can think of involves assignment of higher status, and every case of less than genuine appreciation doesn't involve it (basically, tone/body language/etc. is incongruous with the assignment of higher status implied by the appreciative remark).

You're welcome to explore this hypothesis with me or come up with your own hypothesis.

your straw man scenario contains a deliberate omission of relevant information

I'd argue that the information of where the coffee came from is not inherently relevant. If I had gotten the coffee from Starbucks, it would not be especially odd for me to fail to mention this fact.

there are status-neutral positive messages

Let's think in terms of reinforcers. Humans are reinforced by tasty food, sex, accumulation of material goods, flow, laughter, love/empathy, status bumps. What category of reinforcer does social approval constitute? I suspect in most cases it constitutes a status-type reinforcer, especially between people who only have weak ties.

If I explained to my grandparents what I actually used their Christmas gift for (as opposed to thanking them for it), this reinforcer is probably more along the lines of love/empathy than status. Depending on how we define "appreciation", this would probably constitute appreciation. But it seems outside the sphere of concerns one worries about when one is worried about making one's appreciation sufficiently "genuine".

Humans are reinforced by tasty food, sex, accumulation of material goods, flow, laughter, love/empathy, status bumps

This is hardly an exhaustive list. We're also reinforced, for example, by people we like being happy, especially in relation to us. This is the type of reinforcement I'm talking about.

When my wife smiles because of something I did for her, the warm feeling I get does not resemble the feeling of status elevation. This is even more relevant in the case of, say, a stranger thanking me for holding the door -- I don't know them and don't rea... (read more)

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[Link] Can We Reverse The Stanford Prison Experiment?

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[Link] Can We Reverse The Stanford Prison Experiment?

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