Introduction
Operant conditioning is a learning system pioneered and popularized by Burrhus Frederic Skinner. According to it, the behavior of any living being is determined by the environment, more specifically, by the reinforcement and punishment after each behavior. According to Skinner, the systematic application of the reinforcement may be used to model the behavior. When implemented on a large scale, such an application can theoretically lead not only to changing certain behavioral patterns but to the creation of social structure, which, depending on the affiliation of the designer, may result in a new society, ranging from the extremely virtuous to totalitarian.
Analysis
To a certain degree, any society utilizes reinforcement and punishment to regulate the behavior of its members. However, it is possible to argue that the lack of ubiquity of this system creates disparities in the social structure. Thus, the first requirement for a society based totally on the Skinner’s principles of operant conditioning is the presence of the means for objectively evaluating the quality of any action.
As such evaluation is in reality resource- and time-consuming, we will substitute it with a highly sophisticated algorithm that will presumably control all the social activity of the population by collecting data from individual transmitters. For example, the daily output at the place of occupation, as well as the simple politeness exhibited in a conversation will be counted as a behavior that needs to be reinforced, while the opposite will naturally be discouraged by the lack of reinforcement.
The employment in such a society will be organized largely in the same way as in the contemporary world, with the exception of the currency. The money used by humanity today is largely comparable to the token economy proposed by Skinner (Kazdin, 2012).
The currency is basically the secondary reinforcer, as it has no value in itself, but can be exchanged for primary reinforcers, like food. However, the concept of money as a dominant reinforcer, while offering a lot of advantages, has one critical point: it allows accumulation leads to inequity. In the utopian society, the money can be substituted by several “currencies,” each correlating to a specific type of human activity.
For example, the social activity that is viewed as virtuous will be rewarded with one type of tokens, the productivity in creating quality goods and services – with the other, and so on. The “currencies” (working title – “mana”) will be neither interchangeable nor transferable between individuals, meaning that no one will be able to accumulate them or get leverage by exploiting the side he is particularly good at and ignoring the other, e.g. being nice to everyone and ignoring workplace responsibilities.
The purchase of goods and services will require the “mana” of different types, or “colors”. Additionally, the mana will determine social status. Its amount must be fully or partially public, which will allow assessment of the merits of every citizen. The romance and formation of a family in such a society may be determined by the required amount of mana of certain color, e.g. a more “desirable” person of romantic interest will require a minimum amount of 500 green and 500 yellow mana to form a relationship with.
Naturally, such society will require the regulatory system which will determine the “virtues” which need to be reinforced. Thus, there is a need for the ruling body, which will codify the incentive system and determine the rewards. The representatives of the government will also be selected based on the mana information, which will help to assess their eligibility for the governing position.
The concept of mana is positive reinforcement. Moreover, it needs to be delivered on a continuous schedule to assure the maximum response from the individuals (Skinner & Ferster, 2015). On the other hand, the undesirable activities, like criminal acts, must be treated by negative reinforcement. The punishment does not eliminate the adverse behavior, only suppresses it, which means the undesirable behavior returns once the stimulus that discourages it is gone (Lattal & Perone, 2013).
To address it, the “baseline” needs to be created, at which point the benefits of the society enjoyed by those who perform well are removed. Basically, mana can reach a negative value. While the exposure to the harsher conditions, both physical and psychological, can be deemed a punishment, the diversity of tokens (different colors of mana) secures the possibility of any individual to return the balance to a nominal value. In this sense, the exclusion of unfavorable conditions is a negative reinforcement of the desired behavior, not a punishment for the undesired one. This principle will remain in action up to the highest ranks of society, where the slightest disadvantage will create the urge to remove it.
Finally, the limited use of punishment in combination with proper balancing of the requirements for desired behavior (manipulating mana “prices” essentially dictates the desired outcomes) allows the shaping of complex behavior through successive approximation (Skinner, 2014).
Conclusion
The resulting society has one crucial advantage over the existing one: it allows for the high precision of regulating social processes. Virtually any pattern can be induced by positioning goals and rewarding performance in any field (given the availability of the technology that permits the assessment and reward). Besides, behavior shaping allows unprecedented control over the masses. Unfortunately, such a society also leans heavily towards the socialist structure and can become more authoritarian over time.
References
Kazdin, A. (2012). The token economy: A review and evaluation. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.
Lattal, K., & Perone, M. (2013). Handbook of research methods in human operant behavior. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.
Skinner, B. F. (2014). Contingencies of reinforcement: A theoretical analysis. Cambridge, MA: BF Skinner Foundation.
Skinner, B. F., & Ferster, C. B. (2015). Schedules of reinforcement. Cambridge, MA: BF Skinner Foundation.